He slapped at his arm.
A rose bush planted beside a headstone looked in need of watering, its leaves droopy and yellowing. Pelletier followed Gamache’s gaze.
‘Thought that might happen soon. Tried to warn the family when they planted it.’
‘Roses don’t grow well here?’ Gamache asked.
‘Not now. Nothing’ll grow now. It’s twenty-five years, you know.’
Beauvoir wondered whether decades of snorting cement dust hadn’t done something to this man’s brain.
‘What is?’ asked Gamache.
‘This tree. It’s a black walnut.’ The sculptor dragged his hammer hand over the furrowed bark. ‘It’s twenty-five years old.’
‘So?’ asked Beauvoir, hoping to get to the point.
‘Well, nothing grows around a black walnut once it gets that old.’
Gamache reached out and touched the tree too. ‘Why not?’
‘Dunno. Something poisonous drops from its leaves or bark or something. But it’s fine until it’s twenty-five. Only kills things after that.’
Gamache removed his hand from the greyish trunk and returned his gaze to the cemetery, the sun dappling through the leaves of the killer tree.
‘You carved a bird into the shoulder of the statue.’
‘I did.’
‘Pourquoi?‘
‘Didn’t you like it?’
‘It was charming, and very discreet. Almost as though it wasn’t meant to be found.’
‘Why would I do that, Chief Inspector?’
‘I can’t imagine, Monsieur Pelletier, unless someone asked you to.’
The two men stared at each other, the air suddenly crackling between them like a tiny summer storm.
‘No one asked me,’ the sculptor finally said. ‘I’d gone through that,’ he pointed to the rumpled dossier in Beauvoir’s hands, ‘and found a drawing of the bird. It was very simple, very beautiful. I etched it into Morrow, discreet as you say, as a little gift.’
He looked down at his hands, one picking at the other.
‘I’d grown quite fond of Charles Morrow. I wanted him to have something to keep him company, so he’d be less alone. Something he’d kept close to him in life.’
‘The footless bird?’ said Beauvoir.
‘The drawing’s in there.’ Again he pointed to the manila folder.
Beauvoir handed the folder to Gamache but said as he did, ‘I didn’t see anything like that in there.’
Gamache closed the folder. He believed him.
Like anything else in life, it’s the things we can’t have we most want, and suddenly Chief Inspector Gamache wanted that drawing of the bird very much indeed.
Beauvoir glanced at his watch. Almost noon. He had to be back for the call from David Martin. And lunch.
He touched his face gingerly and hoped she’d forgive him for swearing. She’d looked so shocked. Surely people swear in kitchens? His wife did.
‘Looking at your sculpture of Charles Morrow I thought of Rodin,’ said Gamache. ‘Can you guess which one?’
‘Not Victor Hugo, that’s for sure. The Gates of Hell, perhaps?’
But the sculptor was clearly not serious. Then he thought about it and after a moment spoke quietly. ‘The Burghers?’
Gamache nodded.
‘Merci, Patron.’ The strappy little man gave Gamache a small bow. ‘But if he was by Rodin, the rest of the family would be by Giacometti.’
Gamache knew the Swiss artist with the long, lean, almost stringy figures, but he couldn’t make out what Pelletier meant.
‘Giacometti always began with a huge piece of stone,’ Pelletier explained. ‘Then he’d work and work. Refining and smoothing and chipping away anything offensive, anything that wasn’t just right. Sometimes he did so much refining there wasn’t anything left. The sculpture disappeared completely. All he had left was dust.’
Gamache smiled, understanding it now.
On the outside the Morrows were healthy, attractive even. But you can’t diminish so many people without diminishing yourself. And the Morrows, inside, had all but disappeared. Empty.
But he wasn’t convinced the sculptor was right. He thought there might be quite a bit of the Burghers in all of them. He saw all the Morrows, trudging along, chained together, weighed down by expectation, disapproval, secrets. Need. Greed. And hate. After years of investigating murders Chief Inspector Gamache knew one thing about hate. It bound you for ever to the person you hated. Murder wasn’t committed out of hate, it was done as a terrible act of freedom. To finally rid yourself of the burden.
The Morrows were burdened.
And one had tried to break free. By killing.
But how had the murderer managed it?
‘How can a statue come off its pedestal?’ he asked Pelletier.
‘I was wondering when you’d ask. Here, come with me.’
They walked further into the cemetery to a sculpture of a child.
‘I did that ten years ago. Antoinette Gagnon. Killed by a car.’
They looked at the gleaming, playing child. Always young, perpetually happy. Gamache wondered whether her parents ever came, and whether their hearts stopped each time they turned the corner and saw this.
‘Try to knock her over,’ Pelletier said to Beauvoir.
The Inspector hesitated. The thought of knocking over a cemetery monument disgusted him. And especially a child.
‘Go on,’ said the sculptor. Still Beauvoir hung back.
‘I’ll try.’ Gamache stepped forward and leaned against the small statue, expecting to feel the child scrape forward, or topple over.
She didn’t budge.
He leaned harder then turned his back and shoved, feeling sweat break out on his body. Still nothing. Eventually he stopped and wiping his brow with his handkerchief he turned back to Pelletier.
‘Is it fixed in place? A rod down the centre into the pedestal?’
‘No. It’s just heavy. Far heavier than it looks. Marble is. And petrified wood is heavier still.’
Gamache stared at the statue, about a quarter the size and weight of Charles Morrow.
‘If one person didn’t move the statue of Charles Morrow, could several?’
‘At a guess I’d say you’d need twenty football players.’
The Morrows weren’t that.
‘There’s one other thing,’ said Gamache as they walked back to the car. ‘The marble pedestal wasn’t marked.’
Pelletier stopped. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I mean there were no marks on it,’ said Gamache, watching the man’s face. He looked genuinely upset for the first time. ‘It was perfect, polished even.’
‘The sides, you mean.’
‘No, I mean the top. Where Charles Morrow stood.’
‘But that’s not possible. Just placing the statue on top of the marble would mark it.’ He was about to suggest Gamache hadn’t looked closely enough, but decided this commanding, quiet man would have. Instead he shook his head.
‘So how could the statue fall?’ Beauvoir repeated.
Pelletier tilted his palms towards the blue sky.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ asked Beauvoir, suddenly annoyed. ‘God murdered Julia Martin?’
‘He is a serial killer,’ said Pelletier, without humour. After a moment’s thought he spoke again. ‘When I heard about what happened I asked myself the same question. The only way I know to get a statue that size off its pedestal is with ropes and a winch. Even in the time of Rodin that’s how they did it. Are you sure that wasn’t used to bring him down?’
He looked at Gamache who shook his head. Pelletier nodded.
‘That leaves us with God.’
As they got in the car Beauvoir whispered to Gamache, ‘You make the arrest.’
Pelletier walked back to the barn and Beauvoir put the car in gear.