A Trick of the Light

His somber manner seemed to impress itself on her and Suzanne’s smile dimmed. Her eyes, however, remained alert.

Watchful, Beauvoir realized. What he’d first taken to be the shine of an idiot was in fact something far different. This woman paid attention. Behind the laughter and bright shine, a brain was at work. Furiously.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I wonder if we could talk privately?”

Thierry left them and joined Bob and Jim and four other men across the coffee shop.

“Would you like a coffee?” Suzanne asked as they found a quiet table near the toilets.

“Non, merci,” said Gamache. “Bob very kindly got me one, though it was only half full.”

Suzanne laughed. She seemed, to Beauvoir, to laugh a lot. He wondered what that hid. No one, in his experience, was ever that amused.

“The DTs?” she asked and when Gamache nodded she looked over at Bob with great affection. “He lives at the Salvation Army, you know. Goes to seven meetings a week. He assumes everyone he meets is an alcoholic.”

“There’re worse assumptions,” said Gamache.

“How can I help you?”

“I’m with the Sûreté du Québec,” said Gamache. “Homicide.”

“You’re Chief Inspector Gamache?” she asked.

“I am.”

“What can I do for you?”

Beauvoir was happy to see she was a lot less buoyant and more guarded.

“It’s about Lillian Dyson.”

Suzanne’s eyes opened wide and she whispered, “Lillian?”

Gamache nodded. “I’m afraid she was murdered last night.”

“Oh, my God.” Suzanne brought a hand to her mouth. “Was it a robbery? Did someone break into her apartment?”

“No. It didn’t seem to be random. It was at a party. She was found dead in the garden. Her neck was broken.”

Suzanne exhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just shocked. We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

“What about?”

“Oh, it was just a check in. She calls me every few days. Nothing important.”

“Did she mention the party?”

“No, she said nothing about it.”

“You must know her well, though,” said Gamache.

“I do.” Suzanne looked out the window, at the men and women walking by. Lost in their own thoughts, in their own world. But Suzanne’s world had just changed. It was a world where murder existed. And Lillian Dyson did not.

“Have you ever had a mentor, Chief Inspector?”

“I have. Still do.”

“Then you know how intimate that relationship can be.” She looked at Beauvoir for a moment, her eyes softening, and she smiled a little.

“I do,” said the Chief.

“And I can see you’re married.” Suzanne indicated her own barren ring finger.

“True,” said Gamache. He was watching her with thoughtful eyes.

“Imagine now those relationships combined and deepened. There’s nothing on earth like what happens between a sponsor and sponsee.”

Both men stared at her.

“How so?” Gamache finally asked.

“It’s intimate without being sexual, it’s trusting without being a friendship. I want nothing from my sponsees. Nothing. Except honesty. All I want for them is that they get sober. I’m not their husband or wife, not their best friend or boss. They don’t answer to me for anything. I just guide them, and listen.”

“And what do you get out of it?” asked Beauvoir.

“My own sobriety. One drunk helping another. We can bullshit a lot of people, Inspector, and often do. But not each other. We know each other. We’re quite insane, you know,” Suzanne said with a small laugh.

This wasn’t news to Beauvoir.

“Was Lillian insane when you first met her?” Gamache asked.

“Oh, yes. But only in the sense that her perception of the world was all screwy. She’d made so many bad choices she no longer knew how to make good ones.”

“I understand that as part of this relationship Lillian told you her secrets,” said the Chief.

“She did.”

“And what were Lillian Dyson’s secrets?”

“I don’t know.”

Gamache stared at this fireplug. “Don’t know, madame? Or won’t say?”

FOURTEEN

Peter lay in bed, clutching the edge of their double mattress. The bed was too small for them, really. But a double had been all they could afford when they were first married and Peter and Clara had grown used to having each other close.

So close they touched. Even on the hottest, stickiest July nights. They’d lie naked in bed, the sheets kicked off, their bodies wet and slick from sweat. And still they’d touch. Not much. Just a hand to her back. A toe to his leg.

Contact.

But tonight he clung to his side of the bed, and she clung to hers, as though to dual cliff faces. Afraid to fall. But fearing they were about to.

They’d gone to bed early so the silence might feel natural.

It didn’t.

“Clara?” he whispered.

The silence stretched on. He knew the sound of Clara sleeping, and this wasn’t it. Clara asleep was almost as exuberant as Clara awake. She didn’t toss and turn, but she snorted and grunted. Sometimes she’d say something ridiculous. Once she mumbled, “But Kevin Spacey’s stuck on the moon.”

She hadn’t believed it when he’d told her the next morning, but he’d heard it clearly.