The Brutal Telling

TWENTY-FOUR

Chief Inspector Gamache and Superintendent Brunel walked back to the cabin, each lost in thought.

“I told you what I found,” said the Superintendent, once back on the porch. “Now it’s your turn. What were you and Inspector Beauvoir whispering about in the corner, like naughty schoolboys?”

Not many people would consider calling Chief Inspector Gamache a naughty schoolboy. He smiled. Then he remembered the thing that had gleamed and mocked and clung to the corner of the cabin.

“Would you like to see?”

“No, I think I’ll go back to the garden and pick turnips. Of course I’d like to see,” she laughed and he took her over to the corner of the room, her eyes darting here and there, stealing glances at the masterpieces she was passing. Until they stopped in the darkest corner.

“I don’t see anything.”

Beauvoir joined them and switched on his flashlight. She followed it. Up the wall to the rafters.

“I still don’t see.”

“But you do,” said Gamache. As they waited Beauvoir thought about other words, left up to be found. Tacked to the door of his bedroom at the B and B that morning.

He’d asked Gabri if he knew anything about the piece of paper stuck into the wood with a thumbtack, but Gabri had looked perplexed and shaken his head.

Beauvoir had stuffed it into his pocket and only after the first café au lait of the day did he have the guts to read.

What upset Beauvoir most wasn’t the thought that the mad old poet had invaded the B and B and put that on his door. Nor was it that he didn’t understand a word of it. What upset him the most was the comma.

It meant there was more.

“I’m sorry, I really don’t see anything.” Superintendent Brunel’s voice brought Beauvoir back to the cabin.

“Do you see a spider’s web?” Gamache asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you see it. Look more closely.”

It took a moment but finally her face changed. Her eyes widened and her brows lifted. She tilted her head slightly as though she wasn’t seeing quite straight.

“But there’s a word up there, written in the web. What does it say? Woe? How is that possible? What kind of spider does that?” she asked, clearly not expecting an answer, and not getting one.

Just then the satellite phone rang and after answering it Agent Morin handed it to the Chief Inspector. “Agent Lacoste for you, sir.”

“Oui, allô?” he said, and listened for a few moments. “Really?” He listened some more, glancing around the room then up again at the web. “D’accord. Merci.”

Gamache hung up, thought a moment, then reached for the nearby stepladder.

“Would you like me . . .” Beauvoir gestured to it.

“Ce n’est pas necessaire.” Taking a breath Gamache started up the Annapurna ladder. Two steps up he put out an unsteady hand and Beauvoir moved forward until the large trembling fingers found his shoulder. Steadied, Gamache reached up and poked the web with a pen. Slowly, unseen by the people craning their necks below, he moved a single strand of the web.

“C’est ça,” he murmured.

Backing down the ladder and onto terra firma he nodded toward the corner. Beauvoir’s light shone on the web.

“How did you do that?” asked Beauvoir.

The web had changed its message. It no longer said Woe. Now it said Woo.

“A strand had come loose.”

“But how did you know it had?” Beauvoir persisted. They’d all taken a close look at the web. Clearly a spider hadn’t spun it. It appeared to be made from thread, perhaps nylon fishing line, made to look like a spider’s web. They’d take it down soon and have it properly analyzed. It had a great deal to tell them, though changing the word from Woe to Woo didn’t seem a move toward clarity.

“More results are coming into the Incident Room. Fingerprint results, which I’ll tell you about in a minute, but remember that piece of wood that was found under the bed?”

“The one that also said Woe?” asked Morin, who had joined them.

Gamache nodded. “It had blood on it. The victim’s blood, according to the lab. But when they removed it they discovered something else. The block of wood wasn’t carved to say Woe. The smear of blood made a mess of the lettering. When the blood was lifted it said—”

“Woo,” said Beauvoir. “So you thought if one said it maybe the other did too.”

“Worth a try.”

“I think I prefer Woe.” Beauvoir looked at the web again. “At least it’s a word. What does Woo mean?”

They thought. Had someone been wandering by the cabin and chanced to look in they would have seen a group of adults standing quite still, staring into space and muttering “Woo” every now and then.

“Woo,” Brunel said. “Don’t people pitch woo?”

“Woohoo? No, that’s boo,” said Beauvoir. “Boohoo, not woo.”

“Isn’t it what they call kangaroos?” asked Morin.

“Kangawoos? That’s roo,” snapped Beauvoir.

“Chalice,” swore Brunel.

“Woo, woo,” said Morin under his breath, begging himself to come up with something that didn’t sound like a choo-choo train. But the more he said it the more it sounded like nonsense. “Woo,” he whispered.

Only Gamache said nothing. He listened to them but his mind kept going to the other piece of news. His face grew stern as he thought about what else had been revealed when the bloody fingerprints were lifted from the carving.

He can’t stay here.”

Marc swished his arms under the tap at the kitchen sink.

“I don’t want him here either, but at least here we can watch him,” his mother said.

All three looked out the kitchen window to the old man sitting cross-legged on the grass, meditating.

“What do you mean, ‘watch him’?” asked Dominique. She was fascinated by her father-in-law. He had a sort of broken-down magnetism about him. She could see he once had had a powerful personality, and a powerful hold over people. And he behaved as though that was still true. There was a shabby dignity about him, but also a cunning.

Marc grabbed the bar of soap and rubbed it over his forearms, looking like a surgeon scrubbing up. In fact, he was scrubbing away dust and plaster after dry-walling.

It was hard work, and work he was almost certainly doing for someone else. The next owner of the inn and spa. Which was just as well, since he was doing it very badly.

“I mean that things happen around Vincent,” said Carole. “Always have. He’s sailed through life, this glorious ship of state. Oblivious of the wreckage in his wake.”

It might not have sounded like it, but she was being charitable. For the sake of Marc. The truth was, she wasn’t at all convinced Vincent had been oblivious of the damage he caused. She’d come to believe he actually deliberately sailed right over people. Destroyed them. Gone out of his way to do it.

She’d been his nurse, his assistant, his dogsbody. His witness and, finally, his conscience. Which was probably why he’d grown to hate her. And her him.

Once again they looked at the cross-legged man, sitting calmly in their garden.

“I can’t cope with him right now,” said Marc, drying his hands.

“We have to let him stay,” said Dominique. “He’s your father.”

Marc looked at her with a mixture of amusement and sadness. “He’s done it to you, now, hasn’t he? Charmed you.”

“I’m not some naïve schoolgirl, you know.”

And this brought Marc up short. He realized she’d faced down some of the wealthiest, most manipulative bullies in Canadian finance. But Dr. Vincent Gilbert was different. There was something bewitching about him. “I’m sorry. So much is happening.”

He’d thought moving to the country would be a breeze compared to the greed and fear and manipulation of the financial district. But so far here he’d found a dead body, moved it, ruined their reputation in the village, and been accused of murder; now he was about to kick a saint out of their home, and had almost certainly messed up the dry-walling.

And the leaves hadn’t even changed yet.

But by then they’d be gone. To find another home somewhere else and hope they did better. He longed for the relative ease of the business world, where cut-throats lurked in every cubicle. Here everything looked so pleasant and peaceful, but wasn’t.

He looked out the window again. In the foreground was his father, sitting cross-legged in the garden, and behind him in the field two broken-down old horses, what might or might not be a moose, and in the distance a muck-encrusted horse that by all rights should have been dog food by now. This wasn’t what he had in mind when he’d moved to the country.

“Marc’s right, you know,” said Carole to her daughter-in-law. “Vincent either bullies, charms, or guilts his way in. But he always gets what he wants.”

“And what does he want?” Dominique asked. It seemed a sensible question. Then why was it so difficult to answer?

The doorbell rang. They looked at each other. They’d come, in the last twenty-four hours, to dread that sound.

“I’ll get it,” said Dominique and walked briskly out of the kitchen, reappearing a minute later followed by a little boy and Old Mundin.

“I think you know my son,” said Old, after greeting everyone with a smile. “Now, Charlie, what did The Mother tell you to say to these nice people?”

They waited while Charlie considered, then he gave them the finger.

“He learned that from Ruth, actually,” Old explained.

“Quite a role model. Would he like a Scotch?” asked Carole. Old Mundin’s handsome tanned face broke into a smile.

“No, Ruth just gave him a martini and we’re trying not to mix drinks.” Now the young man looked uncomfortable and putting his hands down on his son’s shoulders he hugged Charlie to him. “I’ve heard he’s here. Would you mind?”

Marc, Dominique, and Carole looked confused.

“Mind?” Dominique asked.

“Dr. Gilbert. I’d seen him in the forest, you know. I knew who he was but didn’t know he was your father.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Dominique asked.

“It wasn’t my business. He didn’t seem to want to be seen.”

And Marc thought maybe it was simpler here after all, and he was the one who complicated things. The business world had somehow made him think everything was his business, when it wasn’t.

“I don’t want to disturb him,” Mundin continued, “but I just wondered if maybe we could see him. Maybe introduce Charlie to him.” The dignified young father looked as though this effort was hurting him. “I’ve read and reread his book, Being. Your father’s a great man. I envy you.”

And Marc envied him. His touching his son, holding him. Protecting him and loving him. Being willing to humble himself, for his son.

“He’s in the garden,” said Marc.

“Thanks.” At the door Old Mundin stopped. “I have tools. Maybe I can come back tomorrow and help. A man can always use help.”

You’ll be a man, my son. Why hadn’t his own father told him a man could always use help?

Marc nodded, not unaware of the significance of what had just happened. Old Mundin was offering to help the Gilberts build their home, not leave it. Because his father was Vincent Gilbert. His fucking father had saved them.

Mundin turned to Dominique. “The Wife says hello, by the way.”

“Please say hello back,” said Dominique, then hesitated a breath. “To The Wife.”

“I will.” He and Charlie went into the garden leaving the other three to watch.

Dr. Vincent Gilbert, late of the forest, had somehow become the center of attention.

As the young man and his son approached, Vincent Gilbert opened one eye and through the slit in his long lashes he watched. Not the two walking quietly toward him, but the three in the window.

Help others, he’d been told. And he intended to. But first he had to help himself.

It was quiet in the bistro. A few villagers sat at tables outside in the sunshine, relishing their café and Camparis and calm. Inside Olivier stood at the window.

“Good God, man, you’d think you’d never seen the village before,” Gabri said from behind the bar where he was polishing the wood and replenishing the candy jars, most of which he’d helped empty.

For the last few days, every time Gabri looked for Olivier he’d find him standing in the same spot, in the bay window, looking out.

“Pipe?” Gabri walked over to his partner and offered him a licorice pipe, but Olivier seemed under a spell. Gabri bit into the licorice himself, eating the candied end first, as per the rules.

“What’s bothering you?” Gabri followed the other man’s gaze and saw only what he’d expect to see. Certainly nothing riveting. Just the customers on the terrasse, then the village green with Ruth and Rosa. The duck was now wearing a knitted sweater.

Olivier’s eyes narrowed as he too focused on the duck. Then he turned to Gabri.

“Does that sweater look familiar to you?”

“Which?”

“The duck’s, of course.” Olivier studied Gabri closely. The large man never could lie. Now he ate the rest of the pipe and put on his most perplexed face.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s my sweater, isn’t it?”

“Come off it, Olivier. Do you really think you and the duck wear the same size?”

“Not now, but when I was a kid. Where’re my baby clothes?”

Now Gabri was silent, damning Ruth for parading Rosa in her new wardrobe. Well, maybe not so new.

“I thought it was time to get rid of them,” said Gabri. “Ruth needed sweaters and things for Rosa to keep her warm in the fall and winter and I thought of your baby clothes. What were you saving them for anyway? They were just taking up space in the basement.”

“How much space could they take up?” Olivier demanded, feeling himself breaking apart inside, his reserve crumbling. “How could you?” he snarled at Gabri, who leaned away, shocked.

“But you’d talked about getting rid of them yourself.”

“Me, me. Me getting rid of them. Not you. You had no right.”

“I’m sorry, I had no idea they meant that much to you.”

“Well they do. Now what am I going to do?”

Olivier watched as Rosa waddled behind Ruth, who muttered away to the duck, saying God knew what. And Olivier felt tears sting his eyes, and a swell of emotion erupt from his throat. He couldn’t very well take the clothes back. Not now. They were gone. Gone forever.

“Do you want me to get them back?” asked Gabri, taking Olivier’s hand.

Olivier shook his head. Not even sure why he felt so strongly. He had so much else to worry about. And it was true, he’d thought about getting rid of the box of old baby clothes. The only reasons he hadn’t were laziness, and not being sure who to give them to.

Why not Rosa? A distant honking was heard in the sky and both Rosa and Ruth lifted their heads. Overhead a formation of ducks headed south.

Sadness washed over Olivier. Gone. It was all gone. Everything.

For weeks and weeks the villagers journeyed through the forests. At first the young man hurried them along looking behind him now and then. He regretted telling his family and friends to leave with him. He could have been much farther away without the old men and women, and the children. But as the weeks went by and peaceful day followed peaceful day, he began to worry less and was even grateful for the company.

He’d almost forgotten to look over his shoulder when the first sign appeared.

It was twilight, only the twilight never died. Night never fell completely. He wasn’t sure if any of the others noticed. It was, after all, just a small glow in the distance. At the horizon. The next day the sun rose, but not completely. There was a darkness to the sky. But again, just at the horizon. As though a shadow had spilled over from the other side.

The young man knew then.

He clutched his parcel tighter and hurried everyone along, rushing forward. Driving them onward. They were willing to hurry. After all, immortality, youth, happiness awaited. They were almost giddy with joy. And in that joy he hid.

At night the light grew in the sky. And during the day the shadow stretched toward them.

“Is that it?” his elderly aunt asked eagerly, as they crested a hill. “Are we there?”

In front of them was water. Nothing but water.

And behind them the shadow lengthened.