The Long Way Home

Gamache could see him through the windows in the living room. Pacing.

The phone in Gamache’s hand rang.

“Reine-Marie?”

“Oui, Armand. I have news. The registrar at the art college called back.”

“So late?”

“Well, she was having difficulty finding Professor Norman’s file. I think she’d normally have given up and just gone on vacation, but the fact it was missing was bothering her.”

“Did she find it?”

“No.”

“I might not hold the presses after all,” he said, and heard her laugh.

“There’s more. She didn’t find it but she did call the temp they had working for them at the end of the semester. She admitted digging out the file for someone else.”

“Peter?”

“Peter. And I think I know why he hung around Toronto so long,” said Reine-Marie. “He’d asked for the file in the winter, but it took a long time to find it.”

“Months?”

“Well, not that long, but all the old files had been put in boxes when repair work was done years ago. What took so long was that she had to make sure the files weren’t contaminated with asbestos dust, from the renovations. That fits with the timing that Professor Massey told us about. By the time the temp got the okay that the files were fine, a few weeks had gone by, and it was spring.”

“If the temp found the file, why can’t the registrar?” Armand asked.

“The temp destroyed it. Before you jump to conclusions”—Reine-Marie had heard his grunt—“you need to know that the temp’s job was to enter data, contemporary data, on the students, but since she had Professor Norman’s file out for Peter, she simply scanned everything in. And then she destroyed the original. That’s why the registrar couldn’t find it.”

“But that means an electronic version exists,” he said.

“Exactly. The registrar is emailing it to me. We will, of course, be long dead by the time it downloads. So I asked her to give me some of the highlights.”

“And?”

“Sébastien Norman taught at the art college only one year. As I told you before, it was Massey who recommended him for the job. But what was in the files that was so valuable was a note from Norman asking that his last check be sent to Baie-Saint-Paul. Peter must’ve seen that and gone there to find him.”

“But by then Norman had long since disappeared,” said Gamache. “We might have another lead. Norman had a gallery where he sent his works. They might still represent him. Professor Massey met Norman in Toronto when he was starting his career. Maybe the gallery was in Toronto.”

“And they’d have his current address,” said Reine-Marie. “But there’re a lot of galleries in Toronto.”

“True, but Professor Massey might know,” said Armand.

“Do you want me to call him?”

“It’ll be too late to call him,” said Armand. “He’d have gone home by now.”

“Not necessarily. I think Professor Massey lives at the college, in his studio.”

“Really? How strange.”

“I suppose he has everything he needs there,” said Reine-Marie. “I’ll try.”

One professor was expelled, thought Gamache as he hung up. One professor never left.

Reine-Marie called back a few minutes later.

“No answer. Maybe he doesn’t live there. I’ll try him again in the morning.”

“Did the registrar say where Professor Norman was from? What part of Québec?”

“I didn’t ask, but it might be in the file.”

“Can you forward it to me as soon as you get it, s’il te pla?t?”

They talked for a few more minutes, quiet, private conversation, then Gamache returned to the kitchen to find that Beauvoir had just arrived back as well.

“Anything?” the others asked in unison.

“Patron?” Beauvoir gestured for Gamache to go first.

“Reine-Marie’s expecting an email from the college with Professor Norman’s file. Did you know that it was Professor Massey who put Norman forward for the job?”

Judging by Clara’s face, she didn’t.

“What would possess him to do that?”

“He admitted to Reine-Marie that he didn’t know Norman well. They’d met at a few art shows, and Massey felt Norman needed a bit of help. He didn’t know many people and was clearly hard up. So Massey recommended Norman for a part-time job teaching art theory.”

“Massey must’ve felt pretty bad when Norman screwed up,” said Beauvoir.

“What did you think of him?” Gamache asked Myrna.

“Massey? I liked him. And I can see why the students adored him. He’s magnetic, even now. And he seemed to genuinely care about the students. He reminded me a bit of you, Armand,” said Myrna.

“It’s true,” said Clara. “I knew there was something about the man. His calm, I think, and his desire to help.”