‘That’s certainly one way to handle it.’ Gamache smiled.
Beauvoir was impressed and looking forward to another fantasy.
‘I didn’t send it.’ Lacoste looked wistfully at the message. ‘Instead I placed a call to the homicide squad in Paris,’ she said. ‘If I don’t hear from them in a few minutes I’ll call again. I don’t understand their answer. Have you had dealings with them, sir?’
‘A few. I’ve never had a reply like that.’ He looked again at the terse message from Paris. It was yet another thing about this case that seemed to make no sense.
Why would they think this was a hoax?
Gamache sat at his desk and began to go through the stack of papers and messages waiting for him. He came across Lemieux’s list of the contents of CC de Poitiers’s garbage. It was a routine check and rarely helpful since murderers were almost never stupid enough to just throw evidence in their own trash. But Richard Lyon had struck Gamache as, if not stupid, at least close kin to it.
He got himself a coffee, sat down and began reading.
Assorted foods
Milk and pizza cartons
Old, broken bracelet
Two wine bottles, cheap variety
Newspapers
Empty cereal box, fruit loops
A video cassette – The Lion in Winter
Plastic juice containers
Candy wrappers – Mars bars
Gift wrapping
Box from Inuit shop in Montreal
These people certainly didn’t believe in recycling, thought Gamache. He presumed the video was broken and that the box from the Inuit shop had contained the boots. There was no material for wiring up a heat lamp. There was no empty container of windshield washer fluid.
Too much to ask, really.
Saul Petrov paced the living room of his rented chalet. Outside the snow was beginning to let up. Should he tell the cops about what CC had said? She’d been looking for something in Three Pines, she’d made that clear enough. Money, he was sure. Had she found it?
He’d visited her husband that morning after talking to the Sûreté, just to try to get a feel for the place, and maybe snoop around. Richard Lyon had been cool; unwelcoming even. In fact, his response had surprised Petrov. He hadn’t thought the man capable of standing up for himself. Lyon had always seemed so weak, so bumbling. But he’d managed to make it clear that Saul wasn’t welcome.
Lyon had reason to dislike him, Saul knew. And soon he’d have even more reason.
Now Petrov paced from one end of the overstuffed living room to the other, kicking the day’s newspapers out of his way and toward the fireplace. He was losing patience. What should he tell the cops? What should he keep for himself? Maybe he’d wait until the pictures were developed. He’d told the cops the truth. He had sent them off to his lab. But not all. He’d kept one roll back. One roll that might make him enough money to finally retire and maybe buy this place, and get to know the people of Three Pines. And maybe even find that fantastic artist whose portfolio CC had trashed.
He smiled to himself. CC might not have found her treasure in Three Pines, but he had. He picked up the small roll of film and looked at it, black and hard in his palm. He was an ethical man, though his ethics were situational and this was a very promising situation indeed.
‘Vous avez dit “l’Aquitaine”? J’ai besoin de parler à quelqu’un là-bas? Mais pourquoi?’ Isabelle Lacoste was struggling to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She knew the person she was most annoyed at was herself. She felt stupid. It was not something she felt often, but here was a quite patient and apparently intelligent agent with the Sûreté in Paris telling her to call the Aquitaine. She didn’t even know what the Aquitaine was.
‘What is the Aquitaine?’ she had to ask. Not to would have been even stupider.
‘It’s a region in France,’ he said, his voice in his nose. Still, it was a nice voice and he wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, just trying to give her information.
‘Why would I want to call there?’ This was turning into a game.
‘Because of the names you gave me, of course. Eleanor de Poitiers. Eleanor of Aquitaine. Here’s the number of the local gendarmerie there.’
He’d given her the number and the officer there had also laughed and said no, she couldn’t speak to Eleanor de Poitiers, ‘unless you’re planning to die in the next moment’.
‘What do you mean?’ She was getting tired of hearing laughter, and getting tired of asking the same question. Still, working with Armand Gamache she’d watched his near endless supply of patience and knew that was what was called for here.
‘She’s dead,’ the constable said.
‘Dead? Murdered?’
More laughter.
‘If you have something to tell me, please do.’ She’d practice patience tomorrow.
‘Think about it. Eleanor de Poitiers.’ He said it very slowly and loudly as though that would help. ‘I must go. My shift ends at ten o’clock.’
He hung up. Lacoste automatically checked her watch. Quarter past four. In Quebec. Quarter past ten in France. The man had at least given her extra time.
But to what end?
She looked around. Gamache and Beauvoir had left. So had Agent Nichol.
Turning back to her computer Agent Lacoste went to Google and typed in ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine’.
NINETEEN
The walls of the meditation room were a soothing aqua. The floor was carpeted in a deep, warm green. The ceiling was cathedral and a fan moved lazily around. Some pillows were piled in the corners, awaiting bottoms, Gamache guessed.
He and Beauvoir had driven into St-Rémy to visit Mother Bea at her meditation center. He turned around, taking in the floor to ceiling windows looking into the darkness. All he could see was his own reflection, and Beauvoir behind him standing as though he’d entered the Gates of Hell.
‘You expecting some spirit to attack?’
‘You never know.’
‘I thought you were an atheist.’
‘I don’t believe in God, but there might be ghosts. Do you smell something?’
‘It’s incense.’
‘I think it’s making me sick.’
Gamache turned to the back wall. Written in fine calligraphy across the top was Be Calm. The name of Madame Mayer’s center was Be Calm. Coincidentally, it was also what CC had called her business and her book.
Be Calm.
Ironically, neither woman, from what he could tell, was gifted with calm.
Below the words there was more writing on the wall. The sun had set and the room was lit discreetly. He couldn’t make out the writing from where he was so he moved closer but as he approached Mother arrived, her purple caftan billowing behind her and her hair sticking out like a firestorm.
‘Hello, welcome. Have you come for the five o’clock class?’
‘No, madame.’ Gamache smiled. ‘We came to visit you, to ask for your help.’
Mother stood in front of him, warily. She seemed a woman used to traps, or at least to imagining them.
‘It’s obvious to me you’re a woman of sensitivities. You see and feel things others don’t. I hope I’m not being presumptuous.’
‘I don’t think I’m any more intuitive than anyone else,’ she said. ‘If anything I’ve been blessed to have been able to work on myself. Probably because I needed it more than most.’ She smiled at Gamache and ignored Beauvoir.
‘The enlightened are always the last to say it,’ said Gamache. ‘We wanted to speak to you in private, madame, to get your help. We need your insights on Madame de Poitiers.’
‘I didn’t know her well.’
‘But you wouldn’t have to, would you? You’re a teacher; you see so many people from all walks. You probably know them better than they know themselves.’