How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (18 page)

“Did Constance tell you anything about her upbringing?”

“Almost nothing. She’d taken a big step in admitting who she was, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the details.”

“How did you even find out she was one of the Ouellet Quints?” asked Gamache.

“Wish I could say it was my remarkable insight, but I think that ship has sailed.”

“And sunk, I’m afraid,” said Gamache.

Myrna laughed. “Too true. Looking back, I realize she was a great one for hints. She dropped them all over the place, for a year. She said she had four sisters. But I never thought she meant all the same age. She said her parents were obsessed with Brother André, but that she and her sisters were told not to talk about him. That it would get them into trouble. She said people were always trying to find out about their lives. But I thought she just had snoopy neighbors, or was paranoid. Never occurred to me she meant all of North America, including newsreels, and that it was the truth. She must have been pretty exasperated with me. I’m embarrassed to admit I might never have twigged if she hadn’t finally just told me.”

“I’d like to have been there for that conversation.”

“I’ll never forget it, that’s for sure. I thought we were going to talk about intimacy issues again. I sat there with my notebook on my knee, pen in hand”—Myrna aped it for him now—“and then she said, ‘My mother’s name was Pineault. My father’s name was Ouellet. Isidore Ouellet.’ She was looking at me as though this was supposed to mean something. And the funny thing was, it did. There was a sort of vague stirring. Then when I didn’t respond she said, ‘I go by the name Constance Pineault. I actually think of myself as that now, but most people know me as Constance Ouellet. My four sisters and I share a birthday.’ I’m ashamed to say even then it took me a moment or two to understand.”

“I’m not sure I’d have believed it either,” said Gamache.

She shook her head, still in some disbelief. “The Ouellet Quintuplets were almost fictional. Certainly mythical. It was as though the woman I knew as Constance Pineault announced she was a Greek goddess, Hera come to life. Or a unicorn.”

“It seemed unlikely?”

“It seemed impossible, delusional even. But she was so composed, so relaxed. Almost relieved. A more sane person would be hard to find. I think she could see I was struggling to believe her, and I think she found it amusing.”

“Was she also suffering from depression? Is that why she came to you?”

Myrna shook her head. “No. She had moments of depression, but everyone does.”

“Then why did she come to you?”

“It took us a long time to figure that out,” admitted Myrna.

“You make it sound as though Constance herself didn’t know.”

“She didn’t. She was there because she was unhappy. She wanted me to help her figure out what was wrong. She said she felt like someone who suddenly realizes they’re color-blind, and everyone else lives in a more vibrant world.”

“Color-blindness can’t be cured,” said Gamache. “Could Constance?”

“Well, first we had to get at the problem. Not the brass band banging away on the surface, but the barb beneath.”

“And did you get at the barb?”

“I think so. I think it was simple. Most problems are. Constance was lonely.”

Chief Inspector Gamache thought about that. A woman never alone. Sharing a womb, sharing a home. Sharing parents, sharing a table, sharing clothing, sharing everything. Living in a constant crowd. People around all the time, inside the house, and outside. Gawking.

“I’d have thought what she’d crave was privacy,” he said.

“Oh, yes, they all craved that. Oddly enough, I think that’s what made Constance so lonely. As soon as they could, the girls retreated from the attention, but they retreated too far. Became too private. Too isolated. What started as a survival mechanism turned against them. They were safe in their little home, in their private world, but they were alone. They were lonely children who grew into lonely adults. But they knew no other life.”

“Color-blind,” said Gamache.

“But Constance could see there was something else out there. She was safe, but she wasn’t happy. And she wanted to be.” Myrna shook her head. “I wouldn’t wish celebrity on my worst enemy. And parents who do it to their children should be tied up by their nuts.”

“You think the Quints’ parents were to blame?”

Myrna considered that. “I think Constance thought so.”

Gamache nodded to the pictures on the coffee table between them. “You asked if I found those in Constance’s home. I didn’t. There were no personal photos there at all. None in frames, none in albums. I found those in the national archives. Except”—he picked up the one of the four young women—“this one. Constance had packed it, to bring down.”

Myrna stared at the small picture in his hand. “I wonder why.”

*   *   *

Jérôme Brunel closed his book.

The curtains were drawn and the eiderdown comforter lay on top of them in the large bed. Thérèse had fallen asleep reading. He watched her for a few moments, breathing deeply, evenly. Her chin on her chest, her active mind at rest. At peace. At last.

He put his book on the nightstand and, reaching over, took off her glasses and lifted the book from her hand. Then he kissed her forehead and smelled her night cream. Soft and subtle. When she went away on business trips he would spread some on his hands and go to sleep with them to his face.

“Jérôme?” Thérèse roused. “Is everything all right?”

“Perfect,” he whispered. “I was just going to turn off the lights.”

“Is Armand back?”

“Not yet, but I left the porch lights on and some lamps in the living room.”

She kissed him and rolled over.

Jérôme turned off the bedside lamp, and pulled the duvet up around them. The window was open, letting in cold, fresh air, and making the warm bed all the more welcome.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered into his wife’s ear. “Armand has a plan.”

“I hope it doesn’t involve spaceships or time travel,” she mumbled, half asleep again.

“He has another plan,” said Jérôme, and heard her chuckle before the room fell back into silence, except for the little cracks and groans as the home settled around them.

*   *   *

Armand Gamache stood at the window of Myrna’s bookstore and saw the light go out in the upstairs bedroom at Emilie’s home.

He’d followed Myrna downstairs into her shop, and now she was standing, baffled, in the middle of an aisle of her bookstore.

“I’m sure it was here.”

“What was?” He turned around, but Myrna had disappeared into the rows of bookshelves.

“The book Dr. Bernard wrote, about the Quints. I had it here, but I can’t find it.”

“I didn’t know he’d written a book,” said Gamache, walking down another aisle, scanning the shelves. “Is it any good?”

“I haven’t read it,” she mumbled, distracted by looking at the spines. “But I can’t believe it was, given what we now know.”

“Well, we know he didn’t deliver them,” said Gamache, “but he still devoted most of his life to them. Probably knew them better than anyone.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I think they barely knew themselves. At best the book might give you an insight into the routine of their days, but not into the girls themselves.”

“Then why’re you looking for it?”

“I thought even that might help.”

“It might,” he agreed. “Why didn’t you read it?”

“Dr. Bernard took what should’ve been private and made it public. He betrayed them at every turn, as did their parents. I wanted no part of that.”

She rested her large hand on a shelf, perplexed.

“Could someone have taken it out?” Gamache suggested, from the next aisle over.

“This isn’t a lending library. They’d have had to buy it from me.” There was silence before Myrna spoke again. “Fucking Ruth.”

It struck Gamache that maybe that was Ruth’s real name. It was certainly her given name. He considered the christening.

“What do you name this child?” the minister asked.

“Fucking Ruth,” her godparents replied. It would have been a prescient choice.

Myrna interrupted his reverie. “She’s the only one who seems to think this’s a library. She takes out books, then returns them and takes out others.”

“At least she returns them,” said Gamache, and got a rude look from Myrna. “You think Ruth took Bernard’s book on the Quints?”

“Who else would have?”

It was a good question.

“I’ll ask her about it tomorrow,” he said, putting on his coat. “You know that poem of Ruth’s you quoted?”

“
Who hurt you once?
That one?” asked Myrna.

“Do you have it?”

Myrna found the slim volume and Gamache paid for it.

“Why did Constance stop coming to you as a client?” he asked.

“We hit an impasse.”

“How so?”

“It became clear that if Constance really wanted to have close friends, she’d have to drop her guard, and let someone in. Our lives are like a house. Some people are allowed on the lawn, some onto the porch, some get into the vestibule or kitchen. The better friends are invited deeper into our home, into our living room.”

“And some are let into the bedroom,” said Gamache.

“The really intimate relationships, yes,” said Myrna.

“And Constance?”

“Her home was beautiful to look at. Lovely, perfect. But locked. No one got inside,” said Myrna.

He listened but didn’t tell Myrna that the home analogy was perfect. Constance had barricaded herself in emotionally, but no one got past the threshold of her bricks and mortar home either.

“Did you tell her this?” he asked, and Myrna nodded.

“She understood and she tried, she really struggled with it, but the walls were just too high and thick. So the therapy had to end. There was nothing more I could do for her. But we stayed in touch. Acquaintances.” Myrna smiled. “Even this visit, I thought maybe she’d finally open up. I’d hoped now that her last sister was dead she wouldn’t feel she was betraying family secrets.”

“But she didn’t say anything?”

“No.”

“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked.

Myrna nodded.

“I think when she first came down it was for a pleasant visit. When she decided to return it was for another reason altogether.”

Myrna held his eyes. “What reason?”

He brought the pictures out of his pocket and selected the one of the four women.

“I think she was bringing this to you. Her most prized, most personal possession. I think she wanted to open the doors, the windows of her home, and let you in.”

Myrna let out a long breath, then took the photograph from him.

“Thank you for that,” she said quietly, and looked at the picture. “Virginie, Hélène, Josephine, Marguerite, and now Constance. All gone. Passed into legend. What is it?”

Gamache had picked up the very first picture ever taken of the Ouellet Quintuplets, when they were newborns, lined up like loaves of bread on the hacked harvest table. Their stunned father standing behind them.

Gamache turned the photograph over and looked at the words almost certainly written by their mother or father. Neatly, carefully. In a hand not used to making note of anything. In a life not very noteworthy, this was worth the effort. They’d written the names of their girls in the order in which they’d been placed on the table.

Marie-Virginie.

Marie-Hélène.

Marie-Josephine.

Marie-Marguerite.

Marie-Constance.

Almost certainly the order in which they were born, but also, he realized, the order in which they died.

SEVENTEEN

Armand Gamache woke to screams and shouts and a short, sharp explosion of sound.

Sitting bolt upright in bed, he went from deep sleep to complete awareness in a split second. His hand shot out and hovered over the nightstand where his gun sat in the drawer.

His eyes were sharp, his focus complete. He was motionless, his body tense.

He could see daylight through the curtains. Then he heard it again. An urgent shout. A cry for help. A command given. Another bang.

There was no mistaking that sound.

He put on his dressing gown and slippers, pulled back the curtain, and saw a pickup hockey game on the frozen pond, in the middle of the village green.

Henri was beside him, alert as well, nudging his nose out the window. Sniffing.

“This place’s going to kill me,” said the Chief Inspector to Henri. But he smiled as he watched the kids, skating furiously after the puck. Shouting instructions to each other. Howling in triumph, and screaming with pain, when a slap shot went in the net.

He stood, mesmerized for a moment, looking out the frosted pane of glass.

It was a brilliant day. A Saturday, he realized. The sun was just up, but the kids looked like they’d been at it for hours and could go on all day, with only short breaks for hot chocolate.

He lowered the window and opened the curtains all the way, then turned around. The house was quiet. It had taken him a moment to remember he wasn’t in Gabri’s bed and breakfast, but in Emilie Longpré’s home.

This room was larger than the one he had at the B and B. There was a fireplace on one wall, the floors were wide-plank pine, and the walls were covered in floral paper that was anything but fashionable. There were windows on two sides, making it bright and cheerful.

He looked at the bedside clock and was shocked to see it was almost eight. He’d overslept. Hadn’t bothered to set the alarm, sure he’d wake up on his own at six in the morning, as he normally did. Or that Henri would nudge him awake.

But both had fallen into a deep sleep and would still be in bed if it weren’t for a sudden breakaway goal in the game below.

After a quick shower, Gamache took Henri downstairs, fed him, put the coffee on to perk, then clipped the leash on Henri for a walk around the village green. As they strolled they watched the hockey game, Henri straining, anxious to join the other kids.

“I’m glad you keep the dumb beast on a leash. He’s a menace.”

Gamache turned to see Ruth and Rosa closing in on them over the frozen road. Rosa wore little knitted boots and seemed to walk with a slight limp, like Ruth. And Ruth appeared to have developed a waddle, like Rosa.