Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'Because as far as I know Three Pines is made up of good people. But that deer trail suggests one of us is festering. Whoever shot Jane knew they were aiming at a person and wanted it to look like a hunting accident, like someone was waiting for a deer to come down the trail and shot Jane by accident. But the problem is that with a bow and arrow you have to be too close. Close enough to see what you're aiming at.'

Gamache nodded. She had understood after all. Ironic, really, that from a blind they should suddenly see so clearly.

Back in the Bistro, Gamache ordered a hot cider and went to wash up, pouring the warm water over his frozen hands and picking bits of bark from the scratches. He joined Clara in the armchairs by the fireplace. She was sipping her beer and flipping through The Boys' Big Book of Hunting. She put the book back on the table and slid it towards him.

'Very clever of you. I'd completely forgotten about blinds and trails and things like that.'

Gamache cupped his hands around the mug holding his hot, fragrant cider and waited. He felt she needed to talk. After a comfortable minute of silence she nodded into the body of the Bistro. 'Peter's over there with Ben. I'm not sure he even knows I left.'

Gamache looked over. Peter was talking to a waitress and Ben was looking over at them. But not at them. He was looking at Clara. When he caught Gamache's eye he quickly looked away, back to Peter.

'I need to tell you something,' said Clara.

'I hope it's not a weather forecast.' Gamache grinned. Clara looked confused. 'Go on,' he encouraged. 'Something to do with the blind or the deer trail?'

'No, I'll have to think about that some more. That was pretty disturbing and I don't even have vertigo.' She smiled at him warmly and he hoped he wasn't blushing. He'd really thought he'd gotten away with that one. Well, one less person who thought he was perfect. 'What did you want to say?'

'It's about Andre Malenfant. You know, Yolande's husband. At lunch I went up to speak with Yolande, and I heard him laugh at me. It was an unusual sound. Sort of hollow and penetrating. Rancid. Jane described a laugh like that from one of the boys who threw manure.' Gamache absorbed this information, staring into the fire and sipping his cider, feeling the warm sweet liquid move through his chest and spread into his stomach.

'You're thinking his son Bernard was one of those boys.'

'That's it. One of those boys wasn't there. But Bernard was.'

'We interviewed Gus and Claude. Both deny being there at all, not surprisingly.'

'Philippe apologised for throwing the manure, but that might not mean anything. Every kid's afraid of Bernie. I think Philippe would have confessed to murder if it would save him a thrashing from that boy. He has them all terrified.'

'Is it possible Philippe wasn't even there?'

'Possible, not probable. But I do know absolutely that Bernard Malenfant was throwing manure at Olivier and Gabri, and enjoying it.'

'Bernard Malenfant was Jane Neal's grand-nephew,' said Gamache slowly, working through the connections.

'Yes,' agreed Clara, taking a handful of beer nuts. 'But they weren't close, as you know. Don't know the last time she saw Yolande socially. There was a rift.'

'What happened?'

'I don't know the specifics,' said Clara, hesitantly. 'I only know it had something to do with the house. Jane's home. It'd belonged to her parents, and there was some sort of dispute. Jane said she and Yolande had been close once. Yolande used to visit her as a kid. They'd play rummy and cribbage. There was another game too with the Queen of Hearts. Every night she'd put the card on the kitchen table and tell Yolande to memorise it because in the morning it would have changed.'

'And did it?'

'That's just it. It did. Every morning Yolande would come down and was sure the card was different. Still the Queen of Hearts, but the pattern would be changed.'

'But was the card actually different? I mean, did Jane change it herself?'

'No. But Jane knew that a child couldn't possibly memorise every detail. And, more than that, she knew every child longs to believe in magic. So sad.'

'What?' asked Gamache.

'Yolande. I wonder what she believes in today.'

Gamache remembered his talk with Myrna and wondered whether Jane could possibly have been sending another message to young Yolande. Change happens and it's nothing to be afraid of.

'When would Jane have seen Bernard? Would she have known him?'

'She may actually have seen him quite often in the last year or so, but from a distance,' said Clara. 'Bernard and the other kids from the area now catch the school bus from Three Pines.'

'Where?'

'Up by the old schoolhouse, so the bus doesn't have to go through the village. Some parents drop the kids off really early when it suits them and the kids have to wait. So they sometimes wander down the hill into the village.'

'What happens when it's cold or there's a storm?'

'Most parents stay with the kids in their car, keeping them warm, until the bus arrives. But then it was discovered that some parents just dropped the kids off anyway. Timmer Hadley would take them in until the bus showed up.'

'That was nice,' said Gamache. Clara looked slightly taken aback. 'Was it? I guess it was, now that I think of it. But I suspect there was some other reason for it. She was afraid of being sued if a kid died of exposure or something. Frankly, I'd rather freeze to death than go into that house.'

'Why?'

'Timmer Hadley was a hateful woman. Look at poor Ben.' Clara tossed her head in Ben's direction and Gamache looked just in time to catch Ben staring at them again. 'Crippled by her. Needy, manipulative woman. Even Peter was terrified of her. He used to spend school holidays at Ben's. To keep Ben company and try to protect him from that woman in that monstrosity of a house. Do you wonder I love him?' For an instant he wasn't sure if Clara meant Peter or Ben. 'Peter's the most wonderful man in the world and if even he hated and feared Timmer there was something really wrong.'

'How did he and Ben meet?'

'At Abbot's, the private boys' school near Lennoxville. Ben was sent there when he was seven. Peter was also seven. The two youngest kids there.'

'What did Timmer do that was so bad?' Gamache's brow knitted, imagining the two frightened boys.

'For one, she sent a scared little boy away from home to boarding school. Poor Ben was totally unprepared for what awaited him. Have you ever been to boarding school, Inspector?'

'No. Never.'

'You're lucky. It's Darwinism at its most refined. You adapt or die. You learn that the skills that allow you to survive are cunning, cheating, bullying, lying. Either that or just plain hiding. But even that didn't last for long.'

Peter had painted for Clara a pretty clear picture of life at Abbot's. Now she saw the doorknob turning slowly, slowly. And the door to the boys' unlockable dorm room opening slowly, slowly. And the tiptoes of upper classmen sneaking in to do more damage. Peter had learned the monster wasn't under the bed after all. It broke Clara's heart every time she thought of those little boys. She looked over at their table and saw two grown men, graying, craggy heads leaning so close they almost touched. And she wanted to rush over there and keep all bad things away from them.

'Matthew ten, thirty-six.'

Clara brought herself back to Gamache, who was looking at her with such tenderness she felt both exposed and protected at the same time. The dorm door closed.

'Pardon?'

'A biblical quote. My first chief, Inspector Comeau, used to quote it. Matthew Chapter Ten, verse Thirty-six.'

'I could never forgive Timmer Hadley for doing that to Ben,' said Clara quietly.

'But Peter was there too,' Gamache said, also quietly. 'His parents sent him.'