NINETEEN
After dropping his bombshell Bert Finney had simply departed, jerking past the two men without another word.
‘What did he mean by that?’ Peter asked. ‘He knew your father?’
‘They’d be of an age,’ said Gamache, his mind hurrying. He’d picked it, and his heart, up from the dock and shoved them back into his body.
‘Has your father ever mentioned him? Bert Finney?’ As though Gamache didn’t know who’d spoken.
‘My father died when I was a child.’
‘Murdered?’ Peter asked.
Gamache turned to him. ‘Murdered? Why would you say that?’
Peter, who’d bunched up into Gamache’s personal space in an effort to hide, took a step back. ‘Well, you’re in homicide, I thought maybe …’ Peter’s voice tailed off. There was silence then, except the gentle lap of the water. ‘He must have been young,’ Peter finally said.
‘He was thirty-eight.’ And five months, and fourteen days.
Peter nodded, and though he longed to leave he stayed with Gamache while the large man stared out into the lake.
And seven hours. And twenty-three minutes.
And once all the light had gone, the two men walked back to the Manoir, in silence.
Gamache’s alarm went off at five thirty the next morning and after a refreshing shower he dressed, picked up his notebook and left. The summer sun was just up and wandering in the lace-curtained windows. Nothing stirred, except a loon calling across the lake.
As he descended the wide stairs he heard a noise in the kitchen. Poking his head in he saw a young woman and the waiter Elliot going about their work. The young man was arranging plates and she was putting bread in the oven. There was a smell of strong coffee.
‘Bonjour, monsieur l’inspecteur,’ said the girl in French with a thick English accent. She must have been fairly new, Gamache thought. ‘You’re up early.’
‘And so are you. Hard at work already. I wonder if I might have some coffee?’ he said slowly and clearly in French.
‘Avec plaisir.’ The girl poured him an orange juice and he took it.
‘Merci,’ he said, and left.
‘Monsieur Gamache,’ he heard behind him as he walked out of the swinging screen door and into the new day. ‘I believe you wanted this.’
Gamache stopped and Elliot walked up to him, a bodum of coffee with cream and rock sugar on a tray with a couple of cups. He’d also placed some warm croissants in a basket with preserves.
‘She’s from Saskatchewan. Just arrived. Very nice, but you know.’ Elliot, a man of the world, shrugged. He seemed to have recovered his equanimity, or at least his charm, and had resigned himself to continue working despite his flare-up with the maitre d’. Gamache wondered, though, how much was genuine acceptance and how much was an act.
A hummingbird zoomed past and stopped at a foxglove. ‘Merci.‘ The Chief Inspector smiled and reached out for the tray.
‘S’il vous plait,’ said Elliot, ‘I’ll carry it. Where would you like to sit?’ He looked around the deserted terrasse.
‘Well, actually, I was going to the dock.’
The two walked across the lawn, their feet making a path through the light morning dew. The world was waking up, hungry. Chipmunks raced and yipped under the trees, birds hopped and called and insects buzzed quietly in the background. Elliot placed the tray on the arm of the second Adirondack chair, poured a delicate bone china cup of coffee and turned to leave.
‘There is one thing I’ve wanted to ask you.’
Did the lithe back tighten in the trim white jacket? Elliot paused for a moment then turned back, an expectant smile on his handsome face.
‘What did you think of Madame Martin?’
‘Think? All I do here is wait tables and clean up. I don’t think.’
Still the smile, but Gamache had the answer to his earlier question. Anger seethed under the charming exterior.
‘Stop playing the fool with me, son.’ Gamache’s voice was steady but full of warning.
‘She was a guest, I’m an employee. She was polite.’
‘You talked?’
Now Elliot really did hesitate and colour slightly. With time, Gamache knew, his blush would disappear. He’d be confident instead of cocky. He’d be beyond embarrassment. And he’d be far less attractive.
‘She was polite,’ he repeated, then seemed to hear how lame he sounded. ‘She wanted to know if I liked working here, what I planned to do after the summer. That sort of thing. Most guests don’t see the staff, and we’re taught to be discreet. But Madame Martin noticed.’
Was there an invisible world, Gamache wondered. A place where diminished people met, where they recognized each other? Because if he knew one thing about Julia Martin it was that she too was invisible. The sort others cut off in conversation, cut in front of in grocery lines, overlook for jobs though their hand might be raised and waving.
Julia Martin might be all that, but this young man was anything but invisible. No, if they had something in common it wasn’t that. Then he remembered.
‘You and Madame Martin had something in common,’ he said.
Elliot stood on the dock, silent.
‘You’re both from British Columbia.’
‘Is that right? We didn’t talk about that.’
He was lying. He did it well, a skill that came with practice. But his eyes instead of shifting met Gamache’s and held them, too long, too hard.
‘Thank you for the coffee,’ said Gamache, breaking the moment. Elliot was perplexed, then smiled and left. Gamache watched his retreat and thought of what Elliot had said. Madame Martin noticed. And he thought that was probably true.