NINE
Gamache woke a few hours later to a rending, ripping sound as though something huge was tearing towards them. Then a sudden crash.
Thunder. Not quite on top of them, but close.
Drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled and soaking around his feet, he got up and quietly splashed cold water across his neck and on his face, tasting salt and feeling the stubble under his fingers and momentary relief from the sullen heat.
‘Can’t sleep either?’
‘Just woke up,’ he said, returning to bed. He turned his sodden pillow over and laid his head on the cool pillowcase. But within moments it too was hot, and damp with perspiration. Any moment now, he felt, the air must surely turn to liquid.
‘Oh,’ said Reine-Marie.
‘What?’
‘The clock just went out.’ She stretched out and he heard a click, though nothing happened. ‘The light’s gone as well. Storm’s knocked out the electricity.’
Gamache tried to fall back to sleep, but an image kept intruding. Of Charles Morrow, alone in the garden, illuminated by the flashes of lightning. Then in darkness again.
He’d expected the statue to be imperious, commanding. But as the canvas hood had slipped from the sculpture there’d been the most astonishing sight.
The statue was a deep undulating grey, and instead of holding his head high and proud he was bowed slightly. He looked off balance, as though about to step forward. But this Charles Morrow was not full of purpose and plans. This stooped, grey man hesitated on his pedestal.
There’d been silence when the canvas had collapsed to the ground and the Morrows looked once again upon their father.
Mrs Finney had walked up to the statue. One by one the children followed, circling it like nuts around a bolt, then Mrs Finney turned to the others.
‘I think it’s time for a drink.’
And that was that.
Once they’d gone inside Gamache and Reine-Marie had approached and looked up into that handsome face. Straight noble nose. Forehead high. Lips full and slightly pursed. Not in judgement, nor, Gamache thought, in sour reflection, but with something to say. But his eyes were the most striking. They looked ahead and what they saw had turned this man to stone.
What did Charles Morrow see? And why would the sculptor put that there? And how had the Morrows really felt? Gamache suspected that last question was the most difficult of all.
Light flashed for an instant into their bedroom. Instinctively he started counting. One one thousand, two one thousand.
Another rumble and another crash.
‘Angels bowling,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘Mother told me.’
‘Better than my answer. I actually thought it might be a storm.’
‘Ignorant man. What kind of storm? Deciduous or coniferous?’
‘Aren’t those trees?’
‘I believe you’re thinking of the cumulous tree.’
‘I have an idea,’ he said, getting off the damp bed.
Minutes later, in their light summer dressing gowns, they’d snuck downstairs, through the living room and onto the screen porch. Sitting in the wicker rocking chairs they watched as the storm moved towards them down the lake. Reine-Marie picked plump purple cherries from a fruit bowl and Gamache ate a juicy peach. They were ready for whatever was coming. Or so they thought.
The silence was suddenly shattered as the wind picked up, keening through the trees and sending the leaves into wild, simpering applause for what was coming. Gamache could hear the lake too. Waves crashed against the dock and the shore, whitecaps breaking as the storm marched towards them. Gamache and Reine-Marie watched as the lightning bolted and approached, spearing its way down the bay.
It was a big one. The wind hit the porch, bowing the screens inward as though grabbing for them.
The lake and mountains flashed visible for an instant. Beside him Gamache could feel Reine-Marie tense as another huge fork of lightening shot into the forest across the lake.
‘One one thousand, two—’
A huge explosion of thunder drowned their counting. The storm was less than two miles off, and heading straight for them. Gamache wondered if the Manoir had a lightning rod. It must, he thought, otherwise it would have been struck and burned years ago. Another lightning bolt lanced into the forest across the bay and they heard a huge rending crack, as an old-growth tree was destroyed.
‘Perhaps we should go inside,’ said Reine-Marie, but just as they rose a massive gust of wind hit the screen porch and with it a wash of rain. They stumbled inside, drenched and a little shaken.
‘God, you scared me,’ a small, quivering voice said.
‘Madame Dubois, desolee,’ said Reine-Marie. Any more conversation was drowned out by another blast of lightning and thunder. But in that flash the Gamaches saw figures running across the Great Room, like spectres, as though the storm had pushed the Manoir into the netherworld.
Then small spots of light began appearing in the room. Torrential rain pounded against the windows and doors could be heard banging furiously in the wind.
The spots of light began converging on them and they saw in an instant that Pierre, Elliot, Colleen the gardener and a few others had found flashlights. Within moments they’d swarmed away, closing storm shutters and locking doors and windows. There was no space for counting now between lightning and thunder. The storm was caught between the mountains, unable to escape. It hurled itself against the Manoir, over and over. Gamache and Reine-Marie helped and before long they were sealed into the log lodge.
‘Do you have a lightning rod?’ Gamache asked Madame Dubois.
‘We do,’ she said, but in the wavering light she looked uncertain.
Peter and Clara joined them and after a few minutes Thomas and Sandra appeared. The rest of the guests and staff were either sleeping through it, or too frightened to move.
For an hour or more the massive logs shuddered, the windows rattled, the copper roof pounded. But it held.
The storm moved on, to terrorize other creatures deeper in the forest. And the Gamaches returned to bed, throwing open their windows for the cool breeze the storm had left as an apology.
In the morning the power was restored, though the sun wasn’t. It was overcast and drizzly. The Gamaches rose late to the seductive aromas of Canadian back bacon, coffee and mud. The smell of the Quebec countryside after a heavy rain. They joined the others in the dining room, nodding hellos.