Still Life (34 page)

‘Then whose is it?’ she said evenly, trying to control her gag response.

Bernard gave her a malevolent leer. ‘Are you kidding? I’m not going to tell.’

‘Hey, are you all right?’ A woman and her dog were walking quickly toward them from the direction of the bridge.

Bernard swung around and saw them. He yanked up his bike and rode away, swerving so that he headed toward the dog, but just missed it.

‘Are you all right?’ the woman repeated, and reached out and touched Isabelle’s arm. Lacoste recognised the woman as Hanna Parra. ‘Was that young Malenfant?’

‘Yes. We had a few words. I’m fine, but thanks for checking.’ And she meant it. This wouldn’t have happened in Montreal.

‘Anytime.’ They walked over the Bella Bella into Three Pines, separating at the Bistro and waving goodbye.

The first thing Lacoste did upon reaching the cheerful lights and warmth of the Bistro was head to the washroom, to scrub her face with the fragrant soap and fresh water. Once clean she ordered a Martini and Rossi and caught the chief’s eye. He nodded toward a small, secluded table. The Martini and Rossi, a bowl of nuts and her chief in front of her, Lacoste relaxed. She then told him about her search of Bernard’s room, handing him the item she’d taken as she spoke.

‘Phew,’ said Gamache, examining the item. ‘Get this fingerprinted. Bernard denies it’s his? Did he say whose it was?’

Lacoste shook her head.

‘Did you believe it’s not his?’

‘I don’t know. I think I don’t want to believe him, but some instinct tells me he’s telling the truth.’

Only with Gamache could she talk about feelings, intuition and instinct without feeling defensive. He nodded and offered her dinner before she headed back to Montreal, but
she declined. She wanted to see her family before they went to bed

Gamache awoke to a pounding on his door. His bedside clock said 2.47. Putting on his dressing gown he opened the door. Yvette Nichol stood there in an impossibly fluffy pink and white number.

She’d been lying awake, tossing and turning, and finally just curling on her side, staring at the wall. How had it come to this? She was in trouble. Something had gone wrong. Something always went wrong, it seemed. But how? She’d tried so hard.

Now, in the tiny new day the familiar old voice spoke to her, It’s because you’re Uncle Saul, after all. Stupid Uncle Saul. They were counting on you, your family, and you’ve fucked up again. Shame on you.

Nichol felt the lump in her chest harden and she turned over. Looking out the window she saw a light go on across the village green. She leapt out of bed, threw on a dressing gown, and ran up the stairs to Gamache’s room.

‘There’s a light on,’ she said without preamble.

‘Where?’

‘Across the way, at Jane Neal’s home. It went on a few minutes ago.’

‘Get Inspector Beauvoir. Have him meet me downstairs.’

‘Yes, sir.’ And she left. Five minutes later he met a disheveled Beauvoir on the stairs. As they were leaving they heard a noise and saw Nichol descending.

‘Stay here,’ commanded Gamache.

‘No, sir. It’s my light.’ She might have said, ‘purple door candlestick’, for all the sense that made to Gamache or Beauvoir.

‘Stay here. That’s an order. If you hear shots, call for help.’

As the two men walked briskly across the green toward
Jane Neal’s home, Gamache thought to ask, ‘Did you bring your gun?’

‘No. Did you?’

‘No. But you’ve got to know Nichol had her’s. Oh, well.’

They could see two lights in the home, one upstairs and another in the living room. Gamache and Beauvoir had done this hundreds of times before, they knew their routine. Gamache was always the first through, Beauvoir on his heels, ready to throw the chief out of any line of fire.

Gamache entered the dark mudroom silently and crept up the two steps into the kitchen. He tiptoed to the living-room door and listened. He could hear voices. A man’s and a woman’s. Unrecognisable, and unintelligible. He signaled to Beauvoir, took a breath, and shoved the door open.

Ben and Clara stood stunned in the middle of the room. Gamache felt as though he’d stumbled into a Noel Coward drawing-room comedy, all Ben needed was an ascot tied around his neck and a Martini glass. Clara, though, belonged more in a circus. She was wearing a bright red single-piece flannel outfit, complete with feet, and probably a hatch at the back.

‘We surrender,’ said Clara.

‘So do we,’ said Beauvoir, looking at her outfit, amazed. You’d never find a francophone woman in that.

‘What’re you doing here?’ Gamache went right to the point. It was 3 a.m. and he’d just geared himself up for some unpleasantness. He wanted to go back to bed.

‘That’s what I was asking Ben. I haven’t been sleeping so well since Jane died, so I got up to use the bathroom and saw the light. I came over to see.’

‘By yourself?’

‘Well, I didn’t want to disturb Peter, and besides, this is Jane’s home,’ she said, as though that explained it. Gamache thought he understood. Clara considered it a safe place. He’d have to have a talk with her.

‘Mr Hadley, what are you doing here?’

Ben was looking very embarrassed by now. ‘I set my alarm to come here. I wanted to, well, sort of go upstairs, you know.’

This was so deeply uninformative and uninteresting Beauvoir thought he might actually fall asleep on his feet.

‘Go on,’ said Gamache.

‘Well, to do more work. On the walls. You’d said yesterday how important it was to see everything, and well. Then there’s Clara, of course.’

‘Go on,’ said Gamache. In his peripheral vision he could see Beauvoir swaying.

‘You tried to hide it, but I could tell you were getting impatient with me,’ Ben said to Clara. ‘I’m not a very fast worker. I’m not a very fast person, I guess. Anyway, I wanted to surprise you by doing some work tonight. It was probably a dumb idea.’

‘I think it’s a beautiful idea,’ said Clara, going over and giving Ben a hug. ‘But you’ll just exhaust yourself, you know, and be slow again tomorrow.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Ben. ‘Do you mind, though, if I just put in a couple of hours?’

‘That’s fine with me,’ said Gamache. ‘But next time, please tell us.’

‘Should I stay and help?’ Clara offered. Ben hesitated and seemed on the verge of saying something, but simply shook his head. As he left Gamache looked back at Ben standing alone in the living room. He looked like a little lost boy.

THIRTEEN

It was Thursday evening and Arts Williamsburg was enjoying a record turnout for a
vernissage.
The tail of Hurricane Kyla was forecast to hit later that night and the expectation added a frisson to the event, as though going to the opening meant taking your life in your hands and reflected both character and courage. Which wasn’t, actually, all that far off the mark for most Arts Williamsburg shows.

At past openings only the artists themselves and a few scraggly friends would show up, fortifying themselves with wine from boxes and cheese produced by a board member’s goat. This night a gnarly knot of people surrounded Jane’s work, which was sitting cloaked on an easel in the center of the room. Around the white walls the other artists’ works were ranged, as were the artists themselves. They’d had the misfortune to be chosen for an exhibition in which their work was clearly upstaged by that of a murdered woman. A few might have agreed their misfortune was eclipsed by that of the person actually dead, but even then
she’d bested them, even in misfortune. Life as an artist was indeed unfair.

Gamache was waiting for
Fair Day
to be unveiled. The board of Arts Williamsburg had decided to make it an ‘event’, so they’d invited the press, which meant the Williamsburg County News and now the chairperson of the jury was waiting for
He moment juste’.
Gamache glanced enviously at Jean Guy, sprawled on one of the comfortable chairs, refusing to give it up to an elderly man. He was exhausted. Bad art did this to him. Actually, he had to admit, any art did this to him. Bad wine, stinky cheese and pretty smelly art took the will to live right out of him. He looked around and came to the sad but inevitable conclusion that the building wouldn’t collapse when Kyla finally blew into town later that night.

‘As you know, a tragic event has robbed us of a fine woman and as it turns out, a gifted artist,’ Elise Jacob, the jury chair, was saying.

Clara sidled up between Ben and Peter. Elise was going on, and on, and on about the virtues of Jane. She practically had her sainted. Then, finally, just as Clara’s eyes began to bulge she said, ‘Here, without further ado’ – Clara, who knew and loved Jane, figured there’d been plenty of doodoo already – ‘is
Fair Day
by Jane Neal.’

The veil was whisked off and
Fair Day
was finally revealed, to gasps. Then a silence which was even more eloquent. The faces staring slack-jawed at
Fair Day
were variously amused, repulsed and stunned. Gamache wasn’t looking at the easel, he was staring at the crowd, at their reactions. But the only reaction that was even close to odd was Peter’s. His anxious smile faded as
Fair Day
was revealed, and after a moment’s contemplation he cocked his head to one side and furrowed his brow. Gamache, who’d been watching these people for almost two weeks, knew that for Peter Morrow this was the equivalent of a scream.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing.’ Peter turned his back on Gamache and walked away. Gamache followed.

‘Mr Morrow, my question wasn’t about aesthetics, but about murder. Please answer it.’

Peter was brought up short, as were most people who thought Gamache was incapable of forceful speech. ‘The painting disturbs me. I can’t tell you why because I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to be the same work we judged two weeks ago, and yet, I know it is.’

Gamache stared at
Fair Day.
He’d never liked it so he wasn’t a good judge, but unlike the work on Jane Neal’s walls, this piece moved him not at all.

‘So what’s changed?’

‘Nothing. Maybe me. Is that possible? Like that card trick of Jane’s with the Queen of Hearts. Does art change too? I know at the end of a day I’ll look at my work and think it’s great, then next morning look at it and think it’s crap. The work didn’t change, but I did. Maybe Jane’s death changed me so much that whatever I saw in this painting isn’t there anymore.’

‘Do you believe that?’

Damn the man, thought Peter. ‘No.’

The two men stared at
Fair Day,
then slowly, lowly, a noise was heard unlike any anyone there had heard before. It grew and magnified until it reverberated around the circle of spectators. Clara could feel the blood race from her face and hands. Was it the storm? Was this what the tail end of a disaster sounded like? Had Kyla joined them after all? But the rumbling seemed to be coming from inside the building. Inside the room. In fact, right beside Clara. She turned and found the source. Ruth.

‘That’s me!’ Ruth jabbed a finger at the dancing goat in
Fair Day.
Then the rumbling burst into a geyser of laughter. Ruth roared. She laughed until she had to steady herself on
Gabri. Her laughter infected the entire room until even the sour-faced and forgotten artists were laughing. Much of the rest of the evening was taken with people recognising themselves or others in Jane’s work. Ruth also found Timmer’s parents and her brother and sister, both now dead. There was the first-grade teacher and Timmer’s husband, and the exercise class they all belonged to. They were the chicks. Over the course of the hour or so just about every figure had been identified. Still, Peter stared, not joining in the laughter.

Something was wrong.

‘I’ve got it!’ Clara pointed at the painting. ‘This was painted at the closing parade, right? The day your mother died. In fact, isn’t that your mother?’ Clara showed Ben the cloud with trotters. The flying lamb.

‘You’re right,’ laughed Myrna. ‘It’s Timmer.’

‘Do you see? This was Jane’s tribute to your mother. Everyone in this picture was meaningful to her. From her grandparents to her dogs, to everyone in between.’ Now Clara turned to Peter. ‘Remember that last dinner we all had together?’