‘Are we still talking about the Coke can?’ asked Peter. ‘Or the sugar bowl?’
‘We’re talking about the statue of your father. Pierre Patenaude worked one summer in a cemetery and he saw them placing statues. Some of the older workers still used this technique back then.’
Gamache took the sugar bowl and pushed it across the table again. This time it didn’t stop at the edge, but fell off the side. Beauvoir caught it just as it fell.
‘Voila,’ said Gamache. ‘Murder. According to the Musee Rodin, when they placed the Burghers of Calais on top of the pedestal, they put a cushion of sugar on it first, so they could adjust the statue an inch here or there, turn it slightly. Just before the statue of your father arrived Pierre Patenaude did the same thing. He poured a layer of sugar over the base.’
‘That must’ve taken a lot of sugar,’ said Clara.
‘It did. He’d been hoarding it for days. That was why the Manoir unexpectedly ran out. He’d been stealing it. Remember how white the pedestal is?’
They nodded.
‘The maitre d’ guessed a layer of white sugar wouldn’t be noticed, especially since he’d shooed everyone away, leaving just Madame Dubois and the crane operator, both of whom would be busy concentrating on other things.’
They could see it all. Charles Morrow hoisted off the flatbed truck, tied tight and strung up, all eyes staring, breaths held and prayers said that he wouldn’t fall. And then, slowly, slowly, he was lowered to his pedestal.
‘Even at the unveiling we didn’t notice,’ said Clara. ‘What we did see were wasps.’
‘Attracted by the sugar,’ said Gamache. ‘Wasps, honey bees, ants. Colleen the young gardener has nightmares about the ants and I assumed she meant she’d seen ants crawling over the body. But she didn’t. In fact, the coroner even told us the heavy rain meant there were no ants. Colleen saw the ants before the statue fell, on the pedestal and feet.’ He looked at Colleen, who nodded. ‘The cushion of sugar had attracted every insect for miles around. When I saw the wasps and ants at the spilled Coke I realized they were attracted to something sweet.’
‘A honey bee,’ said Peter, shaking his head. ‘I wonder if Patenaude realized how damning that was?’
‘Such a small thing, a bee. Imagine that giving away a murderer,’ said Clara.
‘The real brilliance of this old sugar technique is that it’s time sensitive,’ said Gamache. ‘One good rain, the sugar dissolves and the statue subsides onto its pedestal, to stay there forever.’
‘But suppose it hadn’t rained,’ asked Peter. ‘What then?’
‘Hose it off, simple. Colleen might have noticed, but probably not with the shock of the discovery.’
‘But still, it didn’t have to be Pierre,’ said Madame Dubois. ‘Any one of us could have hoarded that sugar.’
‘It’s true. He was the most likely, but I needed more. And I got it from Gabri, when he told us about his name. Short for Gabriel, of course. You told him about our own children’s names that also work in both French and English.’
‘I remember,’ said Reine-Marie.
‘That was a clue. That and the turn of phrase “everyone comes back for this week”. You only “come back” if you’re from here to begin with. David Martin told Inspector Beauvoir that he’d come back to Montreal a few times. Come back. I’d presumed he was English, from British Columbia, but suppose he was a Montrealer and his name was Da-veed Mar-tan?’ Gamache gave it the French pronunciation. ‘When I returned to the Manoir one of the calls I made was to Martin. He confirmed he was from Montreal, and that a Francois Patenaude had been involved in an early, disastrous investment.’
He told them then what the maitre d’ had told them in the kitchen.
As he spoke Beauvoir looked over and saw Chef Veronique standing at the kitchen door, listening. And he suddenly knew who she was, and why he’d cared for her.
THIRTY-TWO
The rain had stopped, but the grass underfoot was sodden.
Sun shot through the clouds and beamed onto the lake, the lawn, the vast metal roof. Their feet squelched as the two couples and Beauvoir walked across the Manoir lawn towards the circle of chairs newly dried by the young staff.
‘What do you think will happen to the Bellechasse?’ Reine-Marie asked, holding her husband’s hand but talking to Clara.
Clara paused and glanced back at the grand and solid lodge. ‘This was built to last,’ she said finally, her eyes catching a gleam on the old roof. ‘And I think it will.’
‘I agree,’ said Gamache.
Elliot Byrne was standing on the terrasse, setting out tables for dinner and directing some of the younger staff. He seemed a natural.
‘How are you doing?’ Reine-Marie asked Beauvoir, on her other side, as he batted away at the cloud of biting blackflies that had descended upon him.
‘Did you know who she was?’ he asked.
‘Chef Veronique? As soon as I saw her,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘Though I knew her by another name, she’s unmistakable, even after all these years. I used to watch her. Our kids were raised on her recipes.’
‘So was I,’ said Beauvoir, and he coughed up a bug. ‘Sorry.’ He smiled ruefully at Madame Gamache.
The swarming flies and buzzing receded, and he could again smell the Vicks VapoRub, could taste the flat ginger ale and the crackers. He could feel the lumpy sofa and the soft blanket as he lay feverish, a sick day off school. Beside him sat his mother, gently rubbing his cold feet, as together they watched her favourite show on Radio Canada.
‘Bonjour, mes enfants,’ said the beefy young woman in the wimple. ‘Bless you for joining me. Let’s just hope I don’t burn the kitchen down today. Mother Superior is still angry about that frying pan I forgot on the gas last week.’
And she’d laugh. She had a laugh like a French horn and a voice like a root vegetable.
Soeur Marie Angele and her famous cooking show. Midi Avec Ma Soeur.
It had become required viewing for young mothers across Quebec. Some to laugh at the old-fashioned, drab woman, no older than themselves really, who taught them how to make a perfect blancmange or rouille or poire Helene. She seemed like something from another era. But below the laughter was admiration. Soeur Marie Angele was a gifted cook who loved what she did, and did it with humour and excitement. There was a simplicity and certainty about her in a Quebec changing so rapidly.
Beauvoir could again hear his mother’s laughter as Ma Soeur made even the most complicated recipes seem easy and clear.
Enrolment in nunneries spiked, as did sales of her popular cookbooks, with the plain, happy woman in a habit with crossed baguettes on the cover.
How could he not have seen?
But there was a troubling edge to his memories. And then he remembered. The scandal when Soeur Marie Angele suddenly left. In headlines and talk shows, in the streets and kitchens of Quebec, there was one topic. Why would Soeur Marie Angele suddenly quit? And not just the show, but the order?
She’d never answered that. She’d simply taken her frying pans and vanished.
Into the wilderness, and here, Beauvoir knew, she’d finally found peace. And love. And a garden to tend and honey to harvest and people she cared for to cook for.
It was a small and perfect life. Away from the glare, away from scrutiny.
All the troubling little mysteries became clear. Why this wonderful chef was content to stay at the Manoir Bellechasse when she could work in the finest restaurant in Quebec. Why the Manoir employed only English kids, from other provinces.
So that her secret would be safe. Her peace unviolated. No one would recognize Chef Veronique as the infamous Ma Soeur who’d left the order like a thief in the night. And come here, to be taken in and protected by the fierce Madame Dubois. Her new Mother Superior.