“We all hung out,” said Lea. “Edouard was one of the crowd.”
“A little more than that, wouldn’t you say?” said Matheo.
Even in the candlelight they could see her color rise.
“I had a small crush on him,” said Lea. “We all did. Even you, I think.”
Matheo laughed and grinned. “He was very attractive.”
“What happened to him?” asked Myrna.
“Can’t you guess?” said Matheo.
There was a lull in the conversation.
“He must’ve been young,” said Clara, at last.
“Not even twenty,” said Lea. “He jumped off the roof of the residence. Fifteen stories up. Down. Stoned. It was a long time ago.”
“Not so long,” said Matheo. “We were all very proud that the first thing Lea did when elected was propose La loi Edouard.”
Edouard’s Law.
“It failed,” said Lea.
“But at least you tried,” said Gamache. “And now you’ve learned so much more about the process. Have you considered reentering your bill? Perhaps we can work together to craft an effective bill.”
“I look forward to that,” said Lea.
Gamache waited, then sat back in his chair. Considering.
Lea Roux had been polite, but did not seem all that interested in working with the head of the S?reté to stop drug trafficking.
And why would that be, he asked himself. And why would she have apparently forgotten that her very first bill, her priority, was Edouard’s Law?
Appearances, again. Like the thing on the village green. They cloaked what was underneath.
CHAPTER 11
In the morning it was gone.
Armand stood on the verandah, in his coat and cap and gloves. Henri and little Gracie on leashes. Though from their perspective, Armand was the one on the leash.
All three stared at the empty village green, shrouded in early morning mist.
He looked around. At the homes, the gardens, down the quiet dirt roads that ran into and out of Three Pines like compass points, marking the cardinal directions.
Nothing stirred. Though there was birdsong now, and a few blue jays rested on the back of the bench on the green.
“Off you go,” he said, unclipping the dogs.
Henri and Gracie took off, down the steps, along the path, over the quiet road and onto the green, where they chased each other round and round the three tall pines.
Gracie ran a little like a hare, loping at speed.
She couldn’t be…? Armand wondered, as he watched.
Her back feet were larger than her front, it was true. And her ears were growing longer and longer.
It was still far from clear what Gracie was. But one thing wasn’t in question.
Whatever she was, she was theirs.
A slight movement off to his left caught his attention and he looked over. There, in an upper window, a large robed figure looked down on him.
Armand stared at it, his eyes sharp, his focus absolute. His body tense.
But when the figure took a step back and light fell on it, he saw that it was Myrna.
She waved and a minute later emerged wearing a wool coat, bright pink tuque with pompom, and carrying the largest mug of coffee he’d ever seen. Really, more a pail.
“Our friend has gone,” she said, her feet making a thucking sound as she yanked her rubber boots out of the mud with every step.
“Oui.”
“I guess Paul Marchand scared him off after all.”
“I guess so.”
He was relieved. But he was also curious, and as they walked slowly around the village green, he wondered if they’d ever know why the cobrador had appeared. And why it had disappeared.
The entire village seemed lighter, leavened. The sun was even trying to break through the chilly mist.
They’d grown almost used to the presence on the green, as one grew used to the smell of manure spread on fields. It was necessary. It might even be good. But that didn’t make it pleasant.
And now the cobrador, the Conscience, was gone. The great accusation in the center of their lives had left. And they had their little village back.
Beside him, Myrna took a long, deep breath, and exhaled. A warm puff in the fresh morning air.
Armand smiled. He felt the same way. Relaxed for the first time in days.
“Do you think he got what he came for?” asked Myrna.
“He must have, otherwise why leave? If he was willing to risk a beating from Monsieur Marchand, I can’t imagine what would make him suddenly give up.”
“I wonder what success for the cobrador would look like,” she said.
“I was wondering the same thing,” said Armand. “The modern one, the one with the top hat, knows when the debt has been paid. It’s a financial transaction. This debt is far different.”
Myrna nodded. “Okay, what I really want to know is who he came for, and what that person did. There, I admit it.”
“Well now, that’s not natural at all,” he said with a smile.
“You too?”
“Maybe just a little curiosity.”
They walked quietly for a moment.
“Not just curiosity, Armand. There’s something else. The Conscience is gone.”
“And that leaves someone here without one. Maybe.”
Neither seemed willing to go further. They both wanted to enjoy this moment. This especially fresh November morning, with the woodsmoke from fireplaces in the air. With the soft sun and cool mist infused with the scent of the musky, muddy earth and sweet pine.
“The children in the apple tree,” said Myrna, watching Henri and Gracie play among the pines. “Heard, half-heard, in the stillness.”
“Hmmm,” hummed Armand. Her thucking steps beside him, far from being annoying, were rhythmic. Like a calming metronome. “T. S. Eliot.”
More and more birds were returning to the village green, and now Henri had Gracie on the wet grass, rolling her over as her tail wagged furiously and her little legs pretended to push him away.
“‘Little Gidding,’” said Myrna.
For a moment he thought she said “giddy.” That Gracie was a little giddy, which she was. But then he realized Myrna was talking about the poem she’d just quoted.
“I’ve been there, you know,” he said.
“To Little Gidding?” asked Myrna. “It’s a real place? I thought T. S. Eliot made it up.”
“Non. It’s not far from Cambridge. Huh,” he said, smiling.
“What is it?”
“The population of Little Gidding is about twenty-five. It reminds me a bit of here.”
They took a few more steps through the soft world.
“And all shall be well,” he quoted the poem. “And all manner of thing shall be well.”
“Do you believe it?” asked Myrna.
The poem, she knew, was about finding peace and simplicity.
“I do,” said Armand.
“Julian of Norwich said it first, you know,” said Myrna. “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Her rubber boots kept the soothing rhythm, so that the words and the world fused.
“I believe it too,” she said. “Hard not to on a day like this.”
“The trick is to believe it in the middle of the storm,” said Armand.
And Myrna remembered that while the poem was about finding peace, it came only after a conflagration. A dreadful cleansing.