TWENTY-EIGHT
Gamache had a light breakfast of home-made granola and watched Jean Guy Beauvoir eat almost an entire hive of honey.
‘Did you know honey bees actually flap their wings over the honeycomb and that evaporates water?’ said Beauvoir, chewing on a mouthful of honeycomb and trying to look as though it didn’t taste like wax. ‘That’s why honey is so sweet and thick.’
Isabelle Lacoste dabbed fresh raspberry jam on a buttery croissant and looked at Beauvoir as though he was a bear of very little brain.
‘My daughter did a project on honey for her grade one class,’ she said. ‘Did you know bees eat honey and then throw it up again? Over and over. That’s how honey’s made. Bees’ barf she called it.’
The spoon with a bit of honeycomb and dripping golden liquid paused. But adoration won out and it went into Beauvoir’s mouth. Anything Chef Veronique touched was fine with him. Even bees’ barf. Eating the thick, almost amber liquid gave him comfort. He felt cared for and safe near the large, ungainly woman. He wondered if that was love. And he wondered why he didn’t feel this way with his wife, Enid. But he retreated from the thought before it could take hold.
‘I’ll be back mid-afternoon,’ Gamache said at the door a few minutes later. ‘Don’t burn down the house.’
‘Give our best to Madame Gamache,’ said Lacoste.
‘Happy anniversary,’ said Beauvoir, holding out his hand to shake the chief’s. Gamache took it and held it a moment longer than necessary. A tiny fleck of wax was hanging from Beauvoir’s lip.
Gamache dropped the sticky hand.
‘Come with me, please,’ he said and the two men walked over the hard dirt drive to the car. Gamache turned and spoke to his second in command.
‘Be careful.’
‘What do you mean?’ Beauvoir felt his defences swiftly rise.
‘You know what I mean. This is a difficult enough job, a dangerous enough job, without being blinded.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are, you know. You’ve become obsessed with Veronique Langlois. What is it about her, Jean Guy?’
‘I am not obsessed. I admire her, that’s all.’ The words held an edge, a warning.
Gamache didn’t budge. Instead he continued to stare at the younger man, so neat, so perfectly turned out, and in such turmoil. It was that turmoil that made him such a gifted investigator, Gamache knew. Yes, he collected facts and assembled them brilliantly, but it was Beauvoir’s discomfort that allowed him to recognize it in others.
‘What about Enid?’
‘What about my wife? What’re you suggesting?’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ warned Gamache. From suspects, yes, it was expected, but from the team it was never tolerated. Beauvoir knew this and hesitated.
‘I felt something for Chef Veronique early on, but it was ridiculous. I mean, look at her. Twice my age, almost. No, she fascinates me, nothing more.’
In a few words he’d betrayed his feelings and lied to his chief.
Gamache took a deep breath and continued to stare at the young man. Then he reached out and touched his arm.
‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of, but there is a lot to be aware of. Be careful. Veronique Langlois’s a suspect, and I’m afraid your feelings for her are blinding you.’
Gamache dropped his hand and in that instant Beauvoir longed to fall into his arms, like a child. He was deeply surprised and ashamed of the nearly overwhelming urge. It was as though a hand was shoving him firmly from behind, towards this powerful, commanding man.
‘I feel nothing for her,’ he said, his voice hard.
‘Lying to me is one thing, Jean Guy, but I hope you’re not lying to yourself.’ Gamache stared at him for a moment.
‘Hello,’ a cheerful voice called from down the drive.
The men turned and saw Clara and Peter walking towards them. Clara hesitated when she saw their faces.
‘Are we interrupting?’
‘Not at all. I was just leaving.’ Beauvoir turned his back on the chief and walked swiftly away.
‘Are you sure we didn’t interrupt?’ Clara asked as they drove away in Gamache’s Volvo, towards Three Pines.
‘No, we’d finished talking, merci. Looking forward to getting home?’
For the rest of the pleasant drive they talked about the weather and the countryside and the villagers. Anything but the case, and the Morrows they were leaving behind. Finally the car crested the hill and spread below them was Three Pines, its village green in the centre with small roads radiating off it, like a compass, or beams from the sun.
They drove slowly and carefully down the hill, as villagers streamed from their homes and sun-browned children in bathing suits ran unguarded across the road and onto the green, chased by bounding dogs. A small stage had been erected off to one side and already the barbecue pit was smouldering.
‘Just drop us here,’ said Clara, as Gamache drove up to Gabri and Olivier’s bed and breakfast overlooking the village green. ‘We’ll walk over.’
She pointed, unnecessarily, to their place, a small red brick cottage across the green. Gamache knew it well. The low stone wall in front had rose bushes arching over it and the apple trees that lined their walk were in full leaf. On the side of the house he could see a trellis thick with sweet peas. Before he could get out of the car he saw Reine-Marie come out of the B&B. She waved at Peter and Clara then hurried down the stairs and into his arms.
They were home. He always felt a bit like a snail, but instead of carrying his home on his back, he carried it in his arms.
‘Happy anniversary,’ she said.
‘Joyeux anniversaire,’ he said, and pressed a card into her hand. She led him to the swing on the wide open porch. She sat but he looked at it, then up at the hook in the clapboard ceiling, anchoring it in place.
‘Gabri and Olivier sit here all the time, watching the village. How do you think they know so much?’ She patted the seat beside her. ‘It’ll hold.’
If it held the expansive and expressive innkeeper, thought Gamache, it’ll hold me. And it did.
Reine-Marie pressed the thick hand-made paper between her hands, then she opened it.
I love you, it read. And beside it was a happy face.
‘Did you draw this yourself?’ she asked.
‘I did.’ He didn’t tell her he’d worked on it most of the night. Writing verse after verse and rejecting them all. Until he’d distilled his feelings to those three words. And that silly drawing.
It was the very best he could do.
‘Thank you, Armand.’ And she kissed him. She slipped the card into her pocket and when she got home it would join the other thirty-four cards, all saying exactly the same thing. Her treasure.
Before long they were walking hand in hand on the village green, waving to the people tending the glowing embers around the stuffed lamb au jus wrapped in herbs and foil and buried before dawn. The meshoui, the traditional Quebecois celebratory meal. For Canada Day.
‘Bonjour, Patron.‘ Gabri clapped Gamache on the shoulder and gave him a kiss on each cheek. ‘I hear this is a double celebration, Canada Day and your anniversary.’
Olivier, Gabri’s partner and the owner of the local bistro, joined them.
‘Felicitations,’ smiled Olivier. Where Gabri was large, effusive, unkempt, Olivier was immaculate and restrained. Both in their mid-thirties, they’d moved to Three Pines to lead a less stressful life.
‘Oh, for Chrissake,’ an old and piercing voice shot through the celebrations. ‘It’s not Clouseau.’
‘At your serveess, madame,’ Gamache bowed to Ruth and spoke in his thickest Parisian accent. ‘Do you have a leesence for zat minky?’ He pointed to the duck waddling behind the elderly poet.
Ruth glared at him, but a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth betrayed her.
‘Come along, Rosa,’ she said to the quacking duck. ‘He drinks, you know.’
‘Good to be back?’ Olivier passed Gamache and Reine-Marie an iced tea.
Gamache smiled. ‘Always.’
They wandered the village, finally stopping at the cafe tables on the sidewalk outside the bistro to watch the children’s races.
Peter and Clara joined them for a drink. Already Peter looked more composed.
‘Happy anniversary,’ said Clara, raising her glass of ginger beer. They all clinked.
‘I have something I’ve been dying to ask,’ said Reine-Marie, leaning over the table and laying a warm hand on Clara’s. ‘Is it possible to see your latest work? The one of Ruth?’
‘I’d love to show it to you. When?’
‘Why not right now, ma belle?’
The two women emptied their glasses and went off, Peter and Gamache watching them walk through the gate and up the winding path to the cottage.
‘I have a question for you, Peter. Shall we walk?’
Peter nodded, suddenly feeling as though he’d been called into the principal’s office. Together the two men walked across the village green, then by unspoken consent they climbed rue du Moulin and wandered along the quiet dirt road, a canopy of green leaves overhead.
‘Do you know which stall that graffiti about your sister was written on?’
The question should have come out of the blue, but Peter had been expecting it. Waiting for it. For years. He knew eventually someone would ask.
He walked in silence for a few paces until the laughter from the village all but disappeared behind them.
‘I believe it was the second stall,’ said Peter at last, watching his feet in their sandals.
Gamache was silent for a moment, then spoke.
‘Who wrote that graffiti?’