Hitting the roof he scrambled for purchase as they started skidding down the slick steep side. His left hand shot up and gripped the very top of the roof, where skilled hands had battered and connected the now tarnished copper hundreds of years earlier. And had placed a ridge along the peak of the roof. For no reason.
Now he was hanging down the side of the metal roof, clinging on to the copper ridge with one hand, and Bean with the other. They looked into each other’s eyes and Gamache could feel his grip firm on the child, but slipping on the roof. He could see, in his peripheral vision, frantic activity below, with shouts and calls and screams that seemed another world away. He could see people running with ladders, but he knew it would be too late. His fingers were tearing away from the roof and he knew in another instant they would both slide over the edge. And he knew if they fell he’d land on top of the child, as Charles Morrow had done. Crushing what lay beneath. The thought was too much.
He felt his fingers finally lose contact with the ridge, and for a blessed and surprising moment nothing happened, then the two of them started over.
Gamache twisted in one final effort, to heave the child away from him and towards the open arms below. Just then a hand gripped his from above. He didn’t dare look, in case it wasn’t real. But after a moment he looked up. Rain fell into his eyes and blinded him, but he still knew whose hand held his in a grip from long ago, and long ago lost.
Ladders were quickly raised and Beauvoir scrambled up, taking Bean and handing the child down, then crawling up onto the roof and supporting the Chief Inspector with his own young body.
‘You can let go now,’ said Beauvoir to Pierre Patenaude, who was clinging to Gamache’s hand. Patenaude hesitated a moment, as though he didn’t yet want to release this man, but he did and Gamache slid gently into the younger man’s arms.
‘All right?’ Beauvoir whispered.
‘Merci,’ Gamache whispered back. His first words in his new life, in a territory he hadn’t expected to see, but one that stretched, unbelievably, before him. ‘Thank you,’ he repeated.
He allowed himself to be helped down, his legs shaking and his arms like rubber. Once on the ladder he turned and looked up, into the face of the person who’d saved him.
Pierre Patenaude looked back, standing upright on the roof as though he belonged there, as though the coureurs du bois and the Abinaki had left him there when they’d departed.
‘Pierre,’ a small but firm voice said in a conversational tone. ‘It’s time to come in.’
Madame Dubois’s head poked out of the skylight. Patenaude looked at her and stood straighter. He put his arms out and tilted his head back.
‘Non, Pierre,’ said Madame Dubois. ‘You are not to do that. Chef Veronique has made a pot of tea and we’ve lit a fire so you won’t get a chill. Come down with me now.’
She held out her hand and he looked at it. Then, taking it, he disappeared into the Manoir Bellechasse.
Five of them sat in the kitchen of the Manoir. Patenaude and Gamache had changed into dry clothes and were wrapped in warm blankets by the fire while Chef Veronique and Madame Dubois poured tea. Beauvoir sat beside Patenaude, in case he made a run for it, though no one expected him to any more.
‘Here.’ Chef Veronique hesitated a moment, a mug of tea in her large grip. It hovered between Gamache and Patenaude, then it drifted over to the maitre d’. She handed the next one to Gamache with a small, apologetic smile.
‘Merci,’ he said, taking the tea in one hand. His left he kept under the table, flexing it, trying to get the feeling back. He was chilled, more from shock he knew than from the rain. Beside him Beauvoir put two heaping spoons of honey into Gamache’s tea and stirred.
‘I’ll be mother today,’ Beauvoir said quietly, and the thought stirred something inside the younger man. Something to do with this kitchen. Beauvoir put the teaspoon down and watched Chef Veronique take the seat on Patenaude’s other side.
Beauvoir waited for the sting, the anger. But he felt only giddy amazement they were together in this warm kitchen, and he wasn’t kneeling in the mud, trying to force life back into a broken and beloved body. He looked over at Gamache, again. Just to make sure. Then he looked back at Chef Veronique and felt something. He felt sadness for her.
Whatever he’d felt for her before was nothing compared to what she felt for this man, this murderer.
Veronique took Patenaude’s trembling hand in her own. No reason to pretend any more. No reason to hide her feelings. ‘Ca va?‘ she asked.
It might have been a ridiculous question, given what had just happened. Of course he wasn’t all right. But Patenaude looked at her with a little surprise, and nodded.
Madame Dubois brought Beauvoir a cup of hot, strong tea and poured one for herself. But instead of joining them the elderly woman stepped back from the table. She tried to block out the other two and see only Veronique and Pierre. The two who’d kept her company in the wilderness. Who’d grown up and grown old here. One had fallen in love, the other had simply fallen.
Clementine Dubois had known Pierre Patenaude was full of rage when he’d arrived as a young man, more than twenty years earlier. He’d been so contained, his movements so precise, his manners so perfect. He hid it so well. But ironically it had been his decision to stay that had confirmed her suspicion. No one chose to live this deep in the woods for so long without reason. She knew Veronique’s. She knew her own. And now, finally, she knew his.
This was the first time Veronique and Pierre had held hands, she knew. And probably the last. Certainly the last time they’d all gather round this old pine table. And discuss their days.
She knew she should feel horrible about what Pierre had done, and she knew she would, in a few minutes. But for the moment she only felt anger. Not at Pierre, but at the Morrows and their reunion and at Julia Martin, for coming. And getting murdered. And ruining their small but perfect life by the lake.
Madame Dubois knew that was unreasonable and unkind, and certainly very selfish. But for just a moment she indulged herself, and her sorrow.
‘Why did you kill Julia Martin?’ Gamache asked. He could hear people moving about outside the swinging doors into the dining room. A Surete agent was stationed at the door, not to stop anyone from leaving the kitchen but to stop anyone from entering. He wanted a few quiet minutes with Patenaude and the others.
‘I think you know why,’ said Patenaude, not meeting his eye. Since looking into Chef Veronique’s eyes a minute earlier he’d been unable to raise his own. They’d been cast down, staggered by what he’d met in her gaze.
Tenderness.
And now she held his hand. How long had it been since someone had held his hand? He’d held other people’s hands, at celebrations when they sang ‘Gens Du Pays’. He’d comforted kids homesick and afraid. Or hurt. Like Colleen. He’d held her hand to comfort her when she’d found the body. A body he’d made.
But when was the last time someone had held his hand?
He cast his mind back until it hit the wall beyond which he could never look. Somewhere on the other side was his answer.
But now Veronique held his cold hand in her warm one. And slowly his trembling stopped.
‘But I don’t know why, Pierre,’ said Veronique. ‘Can you tell me?’
Clementine Dubois sat down opposite him then and the three again, and for the last time, entered their own world.
Pierre Patenaude opened and closed his mouth, dredging the words up from deep down.
‘I was eighteen when my father died. A heart attack, but I know it wasn’t that. My mother and I had watched him work himself to death. We’d had money once, you know. He was the head of his own company. Big home, big cars. Private schools. But he’d made one mistake. He’d invested in a young man, a former employee. Someone he’d fired. I was there the day he’d fired the man. I was just a kid. My father had told me that everyone deserved a second chance. But not a third. He’d given this man a second chance, then fired him. But Dad liked this young man. Had kept in touch. Had even had him over for dinner after firing him. Perhaps he felt guilty, I don’t know.’