Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

Within an hour Peter and Clara had spread tarpaulins and moved the furniture. Before leaving, Gamache gave his approval for them to remove the wallpaper and as much of the covering paint as possible. Clara called Ben and he readily volunteered. She was delighted. She would have called Myrna, who would definitely have been a far harder worker than Ben, but this was a job that called for delicacy and the touch of an artist, and Ben had that.

'Any idea how long this'll take?' asked Gamache.

'Honestly? Including the ceiling and the floors? Probably a year.'

Gamache frowned.

'It's important, isn't it?' said Clara, reading his expression.

'Could be. I don't know, but I think it is.'

'We'll go as fast as we dare. Don't want to ruin the images underneath. But I think we can get a lot of the stuff off, enough to see what's underneath.'

Fortunately Yolande, proving slapdash to the end, hadn't prepped the wall, so the paper was peeling off already. Nor had she used primer under the painted bits, to Peter and Clara's great relief. They started after lunch and continued with only a break for beer and chips mid-afternoon. In the evening Peter rigged up some floodlights and they continued, except Ben who felt maybe his elbow was acting up.

At about seven a tired and bedraggled Peter and Clara decided to break for food and joined Ben by the fireplace. He'd at least managed to lay it and light it, and now they found him, his feet on the hassock, sipping red wine and reading Jane's latest copy of The Guardian Weekly. Gabri arrived with Szechwan take-out. He'd heard rumors of the activity and wanted desperately to see for himself. He'd even rehearsed.

The huge man, made even more enormous by his coat and scarves, swept into the room. Stopping dead in the center, and making sure he held his audience, he looked around and declared, 'Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.'

His appreciative audience roared their approval, took the food and kicked him out feeling that Jane and Oscar Wilde made one dead person too many in the room.

They worked into the night, and finally gave it up around midnight, too tired to trust themselves anymore and both slightly nauseous from inhaling paint remover. Ben had long since gone home.

The next morning, in the light of day, they saw they'd done about four square feet upstairs and a quarter of one wall downstairs. It looked as though Gamache had been right. Jane had covered every inch of her home. And Yolande had covered that. By midday a little more had been uncovered. Clara stood back to admire the few feet of wallpaper she'd stripped and Jane's work underneath. Enough was emerging now to make it quite exciting. There seemed to be a pattern and purpose to Jane's work. But what that purpose might be wasn't clear, yet.

'For God's sake, Ben, is that all you've done?' A disheartened Clara couldn't help herself. Upstairs Peter had managed to get a couple of feet done, but Ben had hardly done anything, though, granted, what he had done was brilliant. Crystal clear and beautiful. But not enough. If they were going to solve the murder they needed to uncover all the walls. Quickly. Clara could feel her anxiety rising and knew she was becoming obsessed.

'I'm sorry,' they both said at once then Ben stood up and looked down at her, hang-dog. 'I'm sorry, Clara. I'm slow, I know, but I'll get better. Practice.'

'Never mind.' She put her arm around his slim waist. 'It's Miller time. We can get back to work soon enough.' Ben perked up and put his arm around her shoulder. The two of them walked by Peter, leaving him to watch their retreating backs and walk down the stairs alone.

By that night a fair amount of the living-room walls had been exposed. They called Gamache, who brought beer and pizza and Beauvoir.

'The answer's here,' said Gamache, simply, reaching for another beer. They ate in front of the fireplace in the living room, the aroma of three extra large 'All Dressed' from Pizza Pizza just masking the mineral spirits they'd used to remove the paint. 'In this room, with this art. The answer's here, I can feel it. It's too much of a coincidence that Jane would invite you all here on the same night her art's being shown, then be murdered within hours of telling everyone this.'

'We have something to show you,' said Clara, brushing off her jeans and standing up. 'We've uncovered more of the walls. Shall we start upstairs?'

Grabbing pieces of pizza they trooped upstairs. In Peter's room the lighting was too dark to really appreciate what Jane had done, but Ben's work was different. Though tiny, the area he'd uncovered was astonishing. Brilliant, bold strokes leapt from the walls as people and animals came alive. And, in some cases, people as animals.

'Is that Nellie and Wayne?' Gamache was looking at a patch of wall. There, clear as day, was a stick-figure woman leading a cow. It was a very thick stick, and a skinny, happy cow, with a beard.

'Wonderful,' Gamache murmured.