‘I didn’t know the Mahatma was so chatty, but I agree with him. Very powerful. It starts with our beliefs, and our beliefs come from our parents, and if we have a sick parent we have sick beliefs and it infects everything we think and do.’
Gamache wondered who CC’s mother was and what beliefs she’d filled her daughter with. He sipped his toddy, his chilled body finally warming up, and looked around.
The store felt like an old library in a country house. The walls were lined with warm wooden shelves, and they in turn were lined with books. Hooked rugs were scattered here and there and a Vermont Castings woodstove sat in the middle of the store with a sofa facing it and a rocking chair on either side. Gamache, who loved bookstores, thought this was just the most attractive one he’d ever met.
He’d arrived a few minutes before five, passing Ruth. The elderly poet again stopped halfway across the village green and plunked down on the icy bench. He looked out Myrna’s window now and saw her there still, rigidly and frigidly outlined in the cheerful lights of the Christmas tree.
‘Well, all children are sad,’ quoted Gamache, ‘but some get over it.’
Myrna followed his gaze.
‘Beer walk,’ she said.
‘Beer walk,’ repeated Robert Lemieux. He was in the Morrow home, having wandered away from the television set. Clara and Inspector Beauvoir were still there, eyes like satellite dishes, staring at the screen. The only sign of life Lemieux had seen in Beauvoir since The Lion in Winter had begun was the occasional gasp. Lemieux had tried to get into it, but found himself drifting off to sleep. He had visions of his head slipping onto Beauvoir’s shoulder, mouth open, drooling. Best to get up and walk around.
Now he stared out the window and Peter Morrow joined him.
‘What’s she doing?’ Lemieux pointed to the old woman sitting on the bench while the rest of the village huddled indoors or scurried through the night that felt as though the air itself would freeze solid.
‘Oh, that’s her beer walk.’
Lemieux shook his head. Pathetic old drunk.
When Myrna finished explaining Gamache walked to his coat, feeling inside each pocket until he came to what he was looking for. The copy of Ruth’s book found on Elle’s body.
He returned to his seat and opened it, reading at random.
‘She’s a remarkable poet,’ said Myrna. ‘Too bad she’s such a mess as a person. May I?’ She reached out for the book and opened it at the beginning. ‘Did Clara lend you this?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Well, it’s inscribed to her.’ Myrna showed him. ‘You stink, love Ruth.’
‘Clara’s “You stink”?’
‘Well, she did that day. Isn’t that funny? She said she lost it. I guess she found it again, though you say you didn’t get it from her?’
‘No, it’s part of an investigation.’
‘A homicide investigation?’
‘You said she lost it after the signing? Where?’ Gamache was leaning forward now, his bright eyes focused on Myrna.
‘At Ogilvy’s. She’d bought the book at Ruth’s launch, had it signed and then we had to leave.’ Myrna could feel his energy and felt herself getting excited, though she didn’t know why.
‘Did you come straight back?’
‘I got the car and picked her up outside. We didn’t stop anywhere.’
‘Did she go anywhere else before you picked her up?’
Myrna thought about it and shook her head. Gamache stood up. He had to get over to the Morrow place.
‘Well, there was one thing she told me the next day. She bought some food for this old beggar outside. She—’ Myrna stopped herself.
‘Go on.’ Gamache turned at the door.
‘Nothing.’
Gamache just stared.
‘I can’t tell you. It’s for Clara to say.’
‘The beggar’s dead. Murdered.’ He held up Ruth’s book and said softly, ‘You need to tell me.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
Peter ushered Gamache into their home and took his coat. There was a definite smell of popcorn and the sounds of a Gothic choir in the background.
‘They’re just finishing the movie,’ said Peter.
‘It’s over,’ said Clara, popping into the kitchen to greet Gamache. ‘Even better the second time, I think. And we found something.’
They walked through to the living room to find Jean Guy Beauvoir staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as the credits rolled.
‘Mon Dieu, no wonder you English won on the Plains of Abraham,’ he said. ‘You’re all nuts.’
‘It does help, in war,’ agreed Peter. ‘But we’re not all like Eleanor of Aquitaine or Henry.’ He was tempted to point out that Eleanor and Henry were actually both French, but decided that would be rude.
‘You think not?’ Beauvoir asked. He’d seen enough of the Anglos in Quebec to make him wonder. It was their secrecy that always scared him. He couldn’t figure out what they were thinking. And if he couldn’t figure that out, he couldn’t begin to know what they’d do. He felt exposed and endangered around the English. And he didn’t like it. Frankly, he didn’t like them, and this film had done nothing to change his mind.
Terrifying.
‘Here.’ Clara pressed the rewind and the tape whizzed. ‘It’s at about minute seventeen. The tape goes strange.’
Gamache had finally figured out Clara’s garbled message. Video tapes stretch when someone stops them at the same spot often enough. And when they stretch, the picture goes wonky. Clara’s message had been that if Peter stopped his videos at an important point and the tape stretched, then maybe CC had done the same thing.
‘There is a spot where the tape goes strange,’ said Lemieux. ‘But we watched it over and over and nothing’s happening there.’
‘I think you’ll find,’ Gamache turned to the young officer, ‘that there’s a reason for every frame of this film. And there’s a reason CC stopped it there.’
Lemieux blushed. It was the same lesson all over again. There’s a reason for everything. Gamache had spoken matter-of-factly, but they both knew this was the second time he’d had to tell Lemieux that.
‘OK, here we go.’ Clara sat down and hit the play button.
A barge was approaching the dreary shore. Katharine Hepburn, as an aging Eleanor, was wrapped in shawls, splendid and brittle. There was no dialogue, just a long, pastoral shot of the boat, the oarsmen and the queen arriving.
The barge was almost at the shore, and the tape went strange. Just for a moment. It squirmed.
‘There.’ Clara hit pause. ‘Here, let me show you again.’
Twice more she rewound and hit play and twice more Eleanor arrived for her devastating Christmas with her family.
Clara paused the picture at the very moment it went squiggly. The prow of the barge almost filled the screen. No faces were visible. No actors at all. Just leafless, lifeless trees, a near dead landscape, gray water and the bow of the boat. Nothing. Lemieux might be right, thought Gamache.
He leaned back on the sofa and stared. Eventually the pause released itself and Clara had to rewind, play and pause again.
The minutes went by.
‘What do you see?’ he asked everyone in the room.
‘The boat,’ said Clara.
‘Trees,’ said Peter.
‘Some water,’ said Beauvoir, anxious to say something before everything was taken.
Lemieux could have kicked himself. There was nothing left to say. He caught Gamache looking at him with amusement, and something else. Approval. Better to say nothing than say something just for the sake of speaking. Lemieux smiled back and relaxed.
Gamache turned back to the screen. Boat, trees, water. Was it just a coincidence CC had stopped the movie here? Was he trying to read way too much into this? Had she stopped just to get a drink or go to the washroom? But the tape wouldn’t stretch from just one pause; she’d have to have stopped it here many times to cause the damage.