A Trick of the Light

Gamache sat silently, his forehead furrowed. Thinking. Beauvoir had seen that look many times. He knew Chief Inspector Gamache was following a lead in his head. A thought, that led to another, that led to another. Into the darkness, not so much an alley as a shaft. Trying to find the thing most deeply hidden. The secret. The truth.

“You said the raid on the factory was what finally made you decide to separate from Enid.”

Beauvoir nodded. That much was the truth.

“I wonder if it had the same effect on Annie.”

“How so?”

“It was a shattering experience, for everyone,” said the Chief. “Not just us. But our families too. Maybe, like you, it made Annie reexamine her life.”

“Then why wouldn’t she tell you that?”

“Maybe she didn’t want me to feel responsible. Maybe she doesn’t even realize it herself, not consciously.”

Then Beauvoir remembered his conversation with Annie, before the vernissage. How she’d asked him about his separation. And made a vague allusion to the raid, and the fall-out.

She’d been right of course. It was the final push he’d needed.

He’d shut her down, refused to discuss it out of fear he’d say too much. But had she really been wanting to talk about her own turmoil?

“How would you feel if that’s what happened?” Beauvoir asked his Chief.

Chief Inspector Gamache sat back, his face slightly troubled.

“It might be a good thing,” suggested Beauvoir, quietly. “It would be good, wouldn’t it, if something positive came out of what happened? Maybe Annie can find real love now.”

Gamache looked at Jean Guy. Drawn, tired, too thin. He nodded.

“Oui. It would be good if something positive came out of what happened. But I’m not sure the end of my daughter’s marriage could be considered a good thing.”

But Jean Guy Beauvoir disagreed.

“Would you like me to stay?” he asked.

Gamache roused himself from his reverie. “I’d like you to actually do some work.”

“Well, I do have to look up ‘schnaugendender.’”

“Look up what?”

“That word you used.”

“‘Schadenfreude,’” smiled Gamache. “Don’t bother. It means being happy for the misfortunes of others.”

Beauvoir paused at the table. “I think that describes the victim pretty well. But Lillian Dyson took it the next step. She actually created the misfortune. She must’ve been a very happy person.”

But Gamache thought differently. Happy people didn’t drink themselves to sleep every night.

Beauvoir left and the Chief Inspector sipped his coffee and read from the AA book, noting passages underlined and comments in the margins, losing himself in the archaic but beautiful language of this book that so gently described the descent into hell and the long climb back out. Eventually he closed the book over his finger and stared into space.

“May I join you?”

Gamache was startled. He got to his feet, bowing slightly, and pulled out a chair. “Please do.”

Myrna Landers sat, putting her éclair and café au lait on the bistro table. “You looked lost in thought.”

Gamache nodded. “I was thinking about Humpty Dumpty.”

“So the case is almost solved.”

The Chief smiled. “We’re getting closer.” He looked at her for a moment. “May I ask you a question?”

“Always.”

“Do you think people change?”

Myrna, the éclair on its way to her mouth, paused. Lowering the pastry she looked at the Chief Inspector with clear, searching eyes.

“Where did that come from?”

“There’s some debate over whether the dead woman had changed, whether she was the same person everyone knew twenty years ago, or if she was different.”

“What makes you think she’d changed?” Myrna asked, then took a bite.

“That coin you found in the garden? You were right, it’s from AA and it belonged to the dead woman. She’d stopped drinking for eight months now,” said the Chief. “People who knew her in AA describe a completely different person than Clara does. Not just slightly different, but completely. One is kind and generous, the other is cruel and manipulative.”

Myrna frowned and thought, taking a sip of her café au lait.

“We all change. Only psychotics remain the same.”

“But isn’t that more growth than change? Like harmonics, but the note remains the same.”

“Just a variation on a theme?” asked Myrna, interested. “Not really change?” She considered. “I think that’s often the case. Most people grow but they don’t become totally different people.”

“Most. But some do?”

“Some, Chief Inspector.” She watched him closely. Saw the familiar face, clean-shaven. The graying hair curling slightly around his ears. And the deep scar by his temple. Below that scar his eyes were kindly. She’d been afraid they might have changed. That when she next looked into them they’d have hardened.

They hadn’t. Nor had he.

But she didn’t kid herself. He might not look it, but he’d changed. Anyone who came out of that factory alive came out different.

“People change when they have no choice. It’s change or die. You mentioned AA. Alcoholics only stop drinking when they hit bottom.”

“What happens then?”