Beauvoir tracked down Superintendent Michel Brébeuf at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, where he volunteered one Sunday a month in the information booth. The people gathered around waiting to ask where the Japanese garden was were left to wonder just how wide a mandate these volunteers had.
‘I agree, it sounds like murder,’ said Brébeuf over the phone, nodding and smiling to the suddenly guarded tourists waiting in front of him. ‘I’m giving you the authority to treat this as a homicide.’
‘Actually, sir, I was hoping it’d be Chief Inspector Gamache’s investigation. He was right, Matthew Croft didn’t kill Miss Neal.’
‘Do you really think that’s what this was about, Inspector? Armand Gamache was suspended not because we disagreed over who did it, but because he refused to carry out a direct order. And that’s still true. Besides, as I recall, left to himself he would’ve arrested a fourteen-year-old boy.’
A tourist reached out and took the hand of his teenage son, who was so shocked he actually allowed his father to hold it, for about a nanosecond.
‘Well, not arrested, exactly,’ said Beauvoir.
‘You’re not helping your case here, Inspector.’
‘Yes, sir. The Chief Inspector knows this case and these people. It’s been a week already, and we’ve let the trail go cold by being forced to treat this as a probable accident. He’s the logical person to lead this investigation. You know it, and I know it.’
‘And he knows it.’
‘At a guess I’d have to agree. Voyons, is this about punishment, or getting the best results?’
‘All right. And tell him he’s lucky to have an advocate like you. I wish I did.’
‘You do.’
When Brébeuf hung up he turned his attention to the tourists at his booth and found he was alone.
‘Thank you, Jean Guy,’ Gamache took his warrant card, badge and gun. He’d thought about why it had stung so much to give them up. Years ago, when he’d first been issued with the card and gun, he’d felt accepted, a success in the eyes of society and, more important, in the eyes of his parents. Then, when he’d had to give up the card and gun he’d suddenly felt afraid. He’d been stripped of a weapon, but more than that, he’d been stripped of approval. The feeling had passed, it was no more than an echo, a ghost of the insecure young man he’d once been.
On the way home after being suspended, Gamache had remembered an analogy someone told him years ago. Living our lives was like living in a long house. We entered as babies at one end, and we exited when our time came. And in between we moved through this one, great, long room. Everyone we ever met, and every thought and action lived in that room with us. Until we made peace with the less agreeable parts of our past they’d continue to heckle us from way down the long house. And sometimes the really loud, obnoxious ones told us what to do, directing our actions even years later.
Gamache wasn’t sure he agreed with that analogy, until the moment he’d had to place his gun into Jean Guy’s palm. Then that insecure young man lived again, and whispered, You’re nothing without it. What will people think? Realising how inappropriate the reaction was didn’t banish the fearful young man from Gamache’s long house, it just meant he wasn’t in charge.
‘Where to now? Jane Neal’s home?’ Now they could officially treat the case as a murder investigation, Beauvoir was dying to get in, as was Gamache .
‘Soon, We have a stop to make first.’
‘Oui, all??’ a cheery voice answered the phone followed by a baby’s shriek.
‘Solange?’ asked Clara.
‘All?? All??’
‘Solange’ called Clara.
‘Bonjour? Hello?’ a wail filled Solange’s home and Clara’s head.
‘Solange,’ Clara shrieked.
‘C’est moi-même,’ cried Solange.
‘It’s Clara Morrow,’ yelled Clara.
‘No, I can’t tomorrow,’
‘Clara Morrow.’
‘Wednesday?’
Oh, dear, God, thought Clara, thank you for sparing me children.
‘Clara!’ she wailed.
‘Clara? Clara who?’ asked Solange, in a perfectly normal voice, the spawn from Hell having been silenced, probably bv a breast.
‘Clara Morrow, Solange. We met in exercise class. Congratulations on the child,’ she tried to sound sincere.
‘Yes, I remember. How are you?’
‘Just fine. But I called with a question. I’m sorry to disturb you on your leave, but this has something to do with your notary practice.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. The office calls every day. What can I help you with?’
‘Did you know that Jane Neal had died?’
‘No, no, I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry.’
‘It was an accident. In the woods.’
‘Oh, I did hear about that when I got back. I was visiting my parents in Montreal for Thanksgiving, so I missed it. You mean, that was Jane Neal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Weren’t the police involved?’
‘Yes. They seem to think Norman Stickley, in Williamsburg, was her notary. But I thought she’d come to you.’
‘Could you come to my office tomorrow morning?’
‘What time’s good for you?’
‘Say eleven? Clara, could you invite the police? I think they’ll be interested.’