A Trick of the Light

She looked up then, directly into Chief Inspector Gamache’s eyes. And noted, again, the deep scar by his temple. And the steady, thoughtful gaze.

“It seemed a small sacrifice. Then came the student show. I had a few works in it, but Lillian didn’t. Instead she decided to write a piece for credit in the art criticism course she was taking. She wrote a review for the campus paper. In it she praised a few of the student pieces but savaged my works. Said they were vacuous, empty of all feeling. Safe.”

Clara could still feel the quaking, the rumbling, volcanic fury.

Their friendship had been blown to smithereens. No piece large enough to even examine. Impossible to mend.

But what did rise from the rubble was a deep, deep enmity. A hatred. Mutual, it seemed.

Clara came to a stop, trembling even now. Peter reached out and unfastening her hand from its tight grip, he held it and smoothed it.

The sun continued to beat down and Gamache got up, indicating they should move the chairs into the shade. Clara rose, and flashing a quick smile at Peter she took her hand back. They each picked up their chair and walked to the edge of the river where it was cooler and shady.

“I think we should take a little break,” said Gamache. “Would you like something to drink?”

Clara nodded, unable to speak just yet.

“Bon,” said Gamache, looking across to his forensics team. “I’m sure they’d like something too. If you can arrange for sandwiches from the bistro,” he said to Beauvoir, “Peter and I will make some drinks.”

Peter led the Chief toward the kitchen door while Beauvoir walked to the bistro and Clara wandered along the riverbank, alone with her thoughts.

“Did you know Lillian?” Gamache asked, once he and Peter were in the kitchen.

“I did.” Peter got out a couple of large pitchers and some glasses while Gamache took the bright pink lemonade from the freezer and slid the frozen concentrate into the pitchers. “We all met at art college.”

“What did you think of her?”

Peter pursed his lips in concentration. “She was very attractive, vivacious I think is the word. A strong personality.”

“Were you attracted to her?”

The two men were side-by-side at the kitchen counter, staring out the window. To the right they could see the homicide team scouring the scene and straight ahead they could see Clara skipping stones into the Rivière Bella Bella.

“There’s something Clara doesn’t know,” said Peter, turning away from looking at his wife, and meeting Gamache’s eyes.

The Chief waited. He could see the struggle in Peter and Gamache let the silence stretch on. Better to wait a few minutes for the full truth than push him and risk getting only half.

Eventually Peter dropped his gaze to the sink and started filling the lemonade containers with water. He mumbled into the running water.

“I beg your pardon?” said Gamache, his voice calm and reasonable.

“I was the one who told Lillian that Clara’s works were silly,” said Peter, raising his head and his voice. Angry now, at himself for doing it and Gamache for making him admit it. “I said Clara’s work was banal, superficial. Lillian’s review was my fault.”

Gamache was surprised. Stunned in fact. When Peter had said there was something Clara didn’t know, the Chief Inspector had assumed an affair. A short-lived student indiscretion between Peter and Lillian.

He hadn’t expected this.

“I’d been to the student exhibit and seen Clara’s works,” said Peter. “I was standing beside Lillian and a bunch of others and they were snickering. Then they saw me and asked what I thought. Clara and I had begun dating and I think I could see even then that she was the real deal. Not pretending to be an artist, but a genuine one. She had a creative soul. Still does.”

Peter stopped. He didn’t often speak of souls. But when he thought of Clara that was what came to mind. A soul.

“I don’t know what came over me. It’s like sometimes when it’s very quiet I feel like screaming. And sometimes when I’m holding something delicate I feel like dropping it. I don’t know why.”

He looked at the large, quiet man beside him. But Gamache continued to be silent. Listening.

Peter took a few short breaths. “I think too I wanted to impress them, and it’s easier to be clever when you criticize. So I said some not very nice things about Clara’s show and they ended up in Lillian’s review.”

“Clara knows none of this?”

Peter shook his head. “She and Lillian barely spoke after that and she and I grew closer and closer. I even managed to forget that it happened, or that it mattered. In fact, I convinced myself I’d done Clara a favor. In breaking up with Lillian it freed Clara to do her own art. Try all the things she wanted. Really experiment. And look where it got her. A solo show at the Musée.”

“Are you taking credit for that?”

“I supported her all these years,” said Peter, a defensive note creeping into his voice. “Where would she be without that?”

“Without you?” asked Gamache, turning now to look the angry man straight in the face. “I have no idea. Have you?”