There was an ease about him. He was an adult, she realized. Not a child in adult’s clothing, like so many people she knew. This man was mature. It was relaxing to be around him.
He ran his Manoir in much the same way Chief Inspector Gamache ran homicide. There was order, calm, warmth about the Manoir Bellechasse, radiating from the three adults who ran it, and impressing the young adults who worked there. They learned more than another language from these people, Lacoste knew. Just as she learned more than homicide investigation from Chief Inspector Gamache.
‘How long ago did you come here?’ she asked again.
‘Twenty-four years.’ The number surprised him.
‘About the same time the chef arrived.’
‘Was it?’
‘Did you know each other before coming here?’ she asked the maitre d’.
‘Who? Madame Dubois?’
‘No, Chef Veronique.’
‘Chef Veronique?’ He seemed puzzled and suddenly Agent Lacoste understood. She stole a look at the chef, large, powerful, cubing meat with fast, practised hands.
Her heart constricted as she felt for this woman. How long had the chef felt this way? Had she lived almost a quarter-century in this log lodge on the edge of Lac Massawippi with a man who didn’t return her feelings? What did that do to a person? And what happened to a love that was spread over time and in such isolation? Did it turn into something else?
Something capable of murder?
‘How’re you doing?’
Clara put her arms around her husband. He bent down and kissed her. They were dressing for dinner and it was their first chance to talk.
‘It seems incredible,’ Peter said, flopping into a chair, exhausted. Beauvoir had dropped off the suitcase from Gabri filled with underwear, socks, Scotch and potato chips. No real clothes.
‘We might as well have asked W. C. Fields to pack,’ Peter said, as they sat eating chips and drinking Scotch in their clean underwear. But, actually, it felt good.
Clara had found a Caramilk bar Gabri had thrown into their case and now ate it, discovering that chocolate really went quite well with Scotch.
‘Peter, what do you think Julia was getting at last night when she said she’d figured out your father’s secret?’
‘She was ranting. Trying to cause an upset. It meant nothing.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Honestly, Clara, let it go.’ Peter got up and rummaged through their own carrying case. He pulled out the shirt and slacks he’d worn the night before. Unfortunately they’d scrunched up their clothes and shoved them into the overnight case, expecting not to need them again.
‘Thank God Armand Gamache is here,’ said Clara, eyeing her powder-blue linen dress, her good one. It looked like seersucker.
‘Yeah, what luck.’
‘What’s the matter?’
He turned to her, his hair mussed, his clothing dishevelled. ‘Someone killed Julia. And Gamache will find out who.’
‘Let’s hope.’
They stared at each other, not with strain or animosity, but each waiting for the other to explain.
‘Oh, I understand,’ said Clara. And she did. Armand Gamache would find out who killed Peter’s sister. How had she not thought of this earlier? She’d been caught on the barbed hook of Julia’s murder, thrashing over that shocking event. She hadn’t looked beyond why. To who.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Her normally composed, immaculate husband was falling apart. His stuffing seemed to be coming out. She looked at Peter, trying to find his necktie in the bottom of their case.
‘Found it.’ He held it up. It looked like a noose.
A few doors away Mariana Morrow gazed at her reflection. Yesterday she’d seen a free spirit, a creative, dashing, age-defying woman. Amelia Earhart and Isadora Duncan bound together, before they crashed to earth, of course. Mariana flung her scarf once more round her throat and gave it a little tug. Just to see how being throttled might feel.
Now she saw someone else wrapped and trapped in there. Someone tired. Someone worn. Someone old. Not as old as Julia, but then Julia had stopped ageing. Fuck her. Always ahead of her time. The one who’d married well, the one who was rich and thin. The one who got away. And now the one who’d never get old.
Fuck Julia.
Someone else was indeed bound up in there, with Amelia and Isadora. Someone just peeping out from the layers of too flimsy material.
Mariana tied a scarf to her head and imagined the huge iron chandelier in the dining room crashing down on top of all of them. Except Bean, of course.
‘Must you wear that?’ Thomas asked his wife.
She looked perfectly fine, but that wasn’t the point. Was never the point.
‘Why not?’ she asked, looking at herself in the mirror. ‘It’s sombre but tasteful.’
‘It’s just not right.’
He managed to convey the sense it wasn’t the dress that was wrong. Nor was it necessarily Sandra. But her upbringing. Not her fault. Really. Darling.
It was in the pauses. Never the words, but the hesitations. Sandra had spent the first few years ignoring it, agreeing with Thomas that she was just too sensitive. Then she’d spent a few years trying to change, to be slim enough, sophisticated enough, elegant enough.
Then she’d entered therapy and spent a few years fighting back.
Then she’d surrendered. And started taking it out on others.
Thomas went back to struggling with his cufflink. His large fingers fumbled at the tiny silver clasp which seemed to have shrunk. He could feel his tension rising, the stress starting at his toes spreading up his legs and through his loins and exploding in his chest.
Why wouldn’t this cufflink go in? What was wrong?
He needed them tonight. They were his crucifix, his talisman, his rabbit’s foot, his stake and hammer and garlic.
They protected him, and reminded the others who he was.
The eldest son, the favourite son.
He finally got the post through and secured the cufflink, noticing it gleaming next to the frayed cuff. Then they made their way down the hall, Thomas in a snit and Sandra brightening up, remembering the cookies plastered to the dining room ceiling, like stars.
‘I don’t think you need do that, my dear,’ said Bert Finney, hovering behind his wife. ‘Not tonight. Everyone will understand.’
She was dressed in a loose-fitting frock, her earrings in, her pearl necklace on. Only one thing missing.
Her face.
‘Really.’ He reached out and almost touched her wrist, but stopped just in time. They locked eyes in the harsh bathroom mirror. His bulbous nose pocked and veined, his hair thinning and unkempt, his mouth full of teeth as though he’d chewed them but hadn’t yet swallowed. But for once his eyes, liquid almost, were steady. And trained on her.
‘I must,’ she said. ‘For Julia.’
She dipped the soft round pad into the foundation. Bringing her hand up she hesitated for a moment, looking at her reflection, then began applying her mask.
Irene Finney finally knew what she believed. She believed Julia to be the kindest, most loving, most generous of her children. She believed Julia loved her too, and came back just to be with her. She believed had Julia not died they’d have shared their lives. Loving mother and loving daughter.
Finally, a child who wouldn’t disappoint and disappear.
With each savage stroke of her make-up, Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved.
Bean Morrow sat alone at the table. Waiting. But not alone or lonely. Bean had brought Hercules, Ulysses, Zeus and Hera. And Pegasus.
Alone in the dining room of the Manoir Bellechasse, feet planted on the ground, Bean climbed aboard the rearing, mighty stallion. Together they galloped down the grass of the Bellechasse and just as lawn turned into lake Pegasus took off. Together they circled the lodge then headed out across the lake, over the mountains. Bean wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence.