“Merci. They found that you were exactly as you claimed. Modest upbringing in Notre-Dame-de-Grace in Montreal. An accountant. Worked here and there after the war but jobs were scarce, so many men suddenly looking. Your old friend Charles hired you and you stayed on. Very loyal.”
“It was a good job with a good friend.”
“But you told me you’d never been a prisoner.”
“And I haven’t.”
“But you have, monsieur. Your war record states you were in Burma when the Japanese invaded. You were captured.”
He was speaking to a survivor of the Burma campaign, of the brutal fighting and atrocious, inhumane captivity. Almost none survived. But this man had. He’d lived to be almost ninety, as though he was taking all the years stolen from the rest. He’d lived to marry, to have stepchildren and to stand peacefully on a dock on a summer’s morning, discussing murder.
“You’re so close, Chief Inspector. I wonder if you know how close you are. But you still have some things to figure out.”
And with that Bert Finney turned and walked onto the grass, heading off slowly to wherever men like him go.
Armand Gamache watched, still feeling the touch of the withered old hand on his arm. Then he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky, his right hand just lifting a little to take a larger hand.
“Oh, I have slipped,” he murmured to the lake, “the surly bonds of earth.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Gamache had a light breakfast of homemade granola and watched Jean Guy Beauvoir eat almost an entire hive of honey.
“Did you know honey bees actually flap their wings over the honeycomb and that evaporates water?” said Beauvoir, chewing on a mouthful of honeycomb and trying to look as though it didn’t taste like wax. “That’s why honey is so sweet and thick.”
Isabelle Lacoste dabbed fresh raspberry jam on a buttery croissant and looked at Beauvoir as though he was a bear of very little brain.
“My daughter did a project on honey for her grade one class,” she said. “Did you know bees eat honey and then throw it up again? Over and over. That’s how honey’s made. Bees’ barf she called it.”
The spoon with a bit of honeycomb and dripping golden liquid paused. But adoration won out and it went into Beauvoir’s mouth. Anything Chef Véronique touched was fine with him. Even bees’ barf. Eating the thick, almost amber liquid gave him comfort. He felt cared for and safe near the large, ungainly woman. He wondered if that was love. And he wondered why he didn’t feel this way with his wife, Enid. But he retreated from the thought before it could take hold.
“I’ll be back mid-afternoon,” Gamache said at the door a few minutes later. “Don’t burn down the house.”
“Give our best to Madame Gamache,” said Lacoste.
“Happy anniversary,” said Beauvoir, holding out his hand to shake the chief’s. Gamache took it and held it a moment longer than necessary. A tiny fleck of wax was hanging from Beauvoir’s lip.
Gamache dropped the sticky hand.
“Come with me, please,” he said and the two men walked over the hard dirt drive to the car. Gamache turned and spoke to his second in command.
“Be careful.”
“What do you mean?” Beauvoir felt his defenses swiftly rise.
“You know what I mean. This is a difficult enough job, a dangerous enough job, without being blinded.”
“I’m not.”
“You are, you know. You’ve become obsessed with Véronique Langlois. What is it about her, Jean Guy?”
“I am not obsessed. I admire her, that’s all.” The words held an edge, a warning.
Gamache didn’t budge. Instead he continued to stare at the younger man, so neat, so perfectly turned out, and in such turmoil. It was that turmoil that made him such a gifted investigator, Gamache knew. Yes, he collected facts and assembled them brilliantly, but it was Beauvoir’s discomfort that allowed him to recognize it in others.
“What about Enid?”
“What about my wife? What’re you suggesting?”
“Don’t lie to me,” warned Gamache. From suspects, yes, it was expected, but from the team it was never tolerated. Beauvoir knew this and hesitated.
“I felt something for Chef Véronique early on, but it was ridiculous. I mean, look at her. Twice my age, almost. No, she fascinates me, nothing more.”
In a few words he’d betrayed his feelings and lied to his chief.
Gamache took a deep breath and continued to stare at the young man. Then he reached out and touched his arm.