ELEVEN
‘Peter,’ Clara whispered.
She’d watched as he’d taken the Manoir notepaper and a pencil and then, grey head bowed, become lost as the pencil drew lines within ordered lines. It was mesmerizing and comforting, in the way the third martini was comforting. It felt good, but only because it numbed. Even Clara felt drawn in. Anything to escape the room filled with silent and solemn sorrow.
Across the Great Room Thomas’s grey head was also bowed. Over the piano. The notes had been slow, tentative, but after a few moments Clara recognized them. Not Bach, for once. But Beethoven. ‘Fur Elise’. It was a spry and chipper tune. And relatively easy to play. She’d even managed to peck out the first few notes herself.
But Thomas Morrow played it as a dirge. Each note hunted for as though the tune was hiding. It filled the grieving room with an ache that finally brought tears to Clara’s eyes. They burned with the effort of concealment, but the tears were out and obvious.
Sandra cried shortbread, scarfing the cookies one after another while Mariana sat beside Bean, a shawled arm round the child’s shoulder as Bean read. They were silent now, though a few minutes earlier Thomas, Sandra and Mariana had been huddled together, whispering. Clara had approached, to offer her condolences, but they’d fallen silent and eyed her suspiciously. So she’d left.
Not everyone makes the boat, she thought. But HMCS Morrow was sinking. Even Clara could see that. It was a steamboat in the age of jets. They were old money in a meritocracy. The alarms were sounding. But even Peter, her lovely and thoughtful husband, clung to the wreckage.
Clara knew something the Morrows didn’t. Not yet. They’d lost more than a sister and a daughter that morning. The police were at the door and the Morrows were about to lose whatever delusions had kept them afloat. And then they’d be like everyone else.
Peter’s mother was sitting erect on the sofa, motionless. Staring.
Should she say something, Clara wondered. Do something? She racked her brains. Surely there was some way to offer comfort to this elderly woman who’d just lost her daughter.
What? What?
The door opened and Armand Gamache appeared. The music stopped and even Peter looked up. Behind Gamache came Inspector Beauvoir, Agent Lacoste and the young Surete officer.
‘You bastard,’ said Thomas, standing so abruptly the piano bench fell over.
He started towards Gamache.
‘Thomas,’ his mother commanded. He stopped. Mrs Finney rose and walked a few paces into the centre of the room. ‘Have you arrested this man?’ She spoke to Beauvoir and nodded towards Gamache.
‘I’d like to introduce Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide for the Surete du Quebec,’ said Beauvoir.
The Morrows, except Peter and Clara, stared at the open door, expecting the great man to appear. Slowly, excruciatingly, their gaze fell back. To the large man in front of them. To the shopkeeper.
‘Him?’ said Mariana.
‘Is this a joke?’ With each word Sandra expelled shortbread crumbs onto the carpet.
‘Bonjour.‘ He bowed solemnly. ‘I’m afraid he does mean me.’
‘You’re a cop?’ asked Thomas, trying to grasp that the chief suspect had become the Chief Inspector. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
‘I didn’t think it mattered. We were guests together, nothing more. Until this morning.’ He turned to Mrs Finney. ‘Would you still like to see your daughter? I couldn’t allow it before because we had to secure the site. But I must warn you—’
‘No need for warning, Chief Inspector. I know it won’t be pleasant. Take me to Julia.’
She walked determinedly past him and Clara was impressed by her ability, even in grief, to change course. To accept Gamache as the Chief Inspector when Thomas and Mariana still stared, open mouthed and suspicious. And she, first among them, seemed to have accepted that Julia was indeed dead. But was it too quick, Clara wondered.
Gamache watched Mrs Finney move towards the door. But he wasn’t fooled any more. Earlier that morning, in the instant before he’d told her about Julia, he’d seen her avian glance, her flight around the room to see who was there, and who was gone. Which child was loved, now lost. He’d seen what she kept hidden.
‘I’m going to have to ask the rest of you to stay here,’ said Gamache, though no one else had made any move. Except Bert Finney.
He stopped a foot away from Gamache, his eyes focusing on a lamp and a bookcase. ‘I’m afraid I have to insist,’ the old man said.
Gamache hesitated. The face was craven, ashen, almost inhuman. But the action was noble. He nodded.
They left the young officer behind and Gamache wondered who’d got the more gruesome assignment.
As they approached the yellow circle of ribbon they were again joined by the notes of ‘Fur Elise’. The rain had all but stopped and a mist tugged at the mountains. Everything was shades of grey-green and between the notes they could hear rain dripping from the leaves.
Gamache had ordered the crime scene team to withdraw until after Mrs Finney had seen her daughter. Now they stood in a semicircle on the verge of the forest watching as the elderly woman, so tiny and pink, walked towards the hole in the ground.
As Mrs Finney approached she saw only the gaily fluttering police ribbon. Yellow. Julia’s favourite colour. She’d been the feminine one, the daughter who’d loved dressing up, loved make-believe and make-up, loved the shoes and the hats. Loved the attention.
She saw then the semicircle of men and women in the forest, watching. And above them the bruised and swollen sky.
Poor Julia.
Irene Finney slowed as she approached. She wasn’t a woman who understood the void, who’d given it any thought. But she knew, too late, she should have. She knew then that the void wasn’t empty at all. Even now, steps away, she could hear the whisper. The void wanted to know something.
What do you believe?
That’s what filled the void. The question and the answer.
Irene Finney stopped, not ready yet to face what she must. She waited for Bert. Not looking but sensing him there she took another step. One more and she’d see.
She hesitated then took it.
What she saw skipped her eyes completely and lodged right in her chest. In an instant she was pitched forward, beyond grief, into a wilderness where no anguish, no loss, no passion existed.
She heaved a breath up out of herself. Then another.
She used that breath to whisper the only prayer she could remember.
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
She saw Julia’s hands outstretched. She saw the fingers, pudgy and wet, grasping her thumb in the bath in the old kitchen sink, in their very first apartment. Her and Charles. Charles, what have you done?
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
She offered the vesper to the void, but it was too late. It had taken Julia and now it took her. She looked up into the faces of the semicircle, but they’d changed. They were flat, like a reproduction. Not real at all. The forest, the grass, the Chief Inspector beside her, even Bert. All gone. Not real any more.
What do you believe?
Nothing.