A Trick of the Light

Gamache regarded Beauvoir for a moment. “I know how horrible this is for you. You’re a private man, a good man. A strong man. Why else would I have chosen you, of the hundreds of agents? You’re my second in command because I trust you. I know how smart and brave you are. And you need to be brave now, Jean Guy. For me, for the department. For yourself. You need to get help to get better. Please.”

Beauvoir closed his eyes. And then he did remember. Last night. Seeing the video over and over, as though for the first time. Seeing himself hit.

And Gamache leaving. Turning his back. Leaving him to die alone.

He opened his eyes and saw the Chief looking at him, with much the same expression as in the factory.

“I’ll do it,” said Beauvoir.

Gamache nodded. “Bon.”

And he left. As he had that dreadful day. As he always would, Beauvoir knew.

Gamache would always leave him.

Jean Guy Beauvoir reached under his pillow and removing the tiny bottle, he shook a pill into the palm of his hand. By the time he was shaved and dressed and downstairs he was feeling just fine.

*   *   *

“What did you find?” asked Chief Inspector Gamache.

They were having breakfast at the bistro, since they needed to talk and didn’t want to share the B and B dining room, or their information, with the other guests.

The waiter had brought them frothy bowls of café au lait.

“I found this.” Agent Lacoste placed the photocopies of the article on the wooden table and stared out the window while Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir read.

The drizzle had turned into a Scotch mist and clung to the hills surrounding the village so that Three Pines felt particularly intimate. As though the rest of the world didn’t exist. Only here. Quiet and peaceful.

A log fire crackled in the grate. Just enough to take the chill off.

Agent Lacoste was exhausted. She wished she could take her bowl of café au lait and a croissant, and curl up on the large sofa by the fireplace. And read one of the well-worn paperbacks from Myrna’s shop. An old Maigret. Read and nap. Read and nap. In front of the fireplace. While the outside world and worries receded into the mist.

But the worries were in here, she knew. Trapped in the village with them.

Inspector Beauvoir was the first to look up, meeting her eyes.

“Well done,” he said, tapping the article with his fingers. “Must have taken all night.”

“Just about,” she admitted.

They looked over to the Chief, who seemed to be taking an unusually long time to read what was a short, sharp review.

Finally he lowered the page and took off his reading glasses just as the waiter arrived with their food. Toast and home-made confiture for Beauvoir. Pear and spiced blueberry crêpes for Lacoste. She’d kept herself awake on the drive down from Montréal by imagining what breakfast she’d have. This won. A bowl of porridge with raisins, cream and brown sugar was placed in front of the Chief.

He poured the brown sugar and cream on top then picked up the photocopy again.

Lacoste, seeing this, also laid her knife and fork down. “Is that it, do you think, Chief? Why Lillian Dyson was murdered?”

He took a deep breath. “I do. We need to confirm, to backfill some of the dates and information, but I think we have a motive. And we know there was opportunity.”

When they’d finished breakfast Beauvoir and Lacoste went back to the Incident Room. But Gamache had something he still needed to do in the bistro.

Pushing open the swinging door to the kitchen he found Olivier standing by the counter, chopping strawberries and cantaloupe.

“Olivier?”

Olivier startled and dropped the knife. “For God’s sake, don’t you know enough not to do that to someone with a sharp knife?”

“I came in to talk to you.”

The Chief Inspector closed the door behind him.

“I’m busy.”

“So am I, Olivier. But we still need to talk.”

The knife sliced through the strawberries, leaving thin wafers of fruit and a small stain of red juice on the chopping block.

“I know you’re angry at me, and I know you have every right to be. What happened was unforgivable, and my only defense is that it wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t done to harm you—”

“But it did.” Olivier slammed the knife down. “Do you think prison is less horrible because you didn’t do it maliciously? Do you think, when those men surrounded me in the yard that I thought, Oh, well, this’ll be OK because that nice Chief Inspector Gamache didn’t wish me harm?”

Olivier’s hands shook so badly he had to grip the edges of the counter.

“You have no idea what it feels like to know the truth will come out. To trust the lawyers, the judges. You. That I’ll be let go. And then to hear the verdict. Guilty.”

For a moment Olivier’s rage disappeared, to be replaced by wonder, shock. That single word, that judgment. “I was guilty, of course, of many things. I know that. I’ve tried to make it up to people. But—”