Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1)

‘What does he do?’

‘Ben Hadley? I don’t know. I always had the impression he did nothing, sort of emasculated by Mom. Very sad.’

‘Tragic.’ Gamache was remembering the tall, ambling, likeable professor type, slightly befuddled all the time. Sharon Harris picked up the book he’d been reading and read the back cover.

‘Good idea.’ She placed it back on the table, impressed. Seems she’d been lecturing Gamache on things he already knew. It probably wasn’t the first time. After she left Gamache went back to his book, flipping to the dog-eared page and staring at the illustration. It was possible. Just possible. He paid for his drink, shrugged into his field coat and left the warmth of the room to head into the cold and damp and approaching dark.

Clara stared at the box in front of her and willed it to speak. Something had told her to start work on a big wooden box. So she had. And now she sat in her studio and stared, trying to remember why building a big box had seemed such a good idea. More than that. Why had it seemed an artistic idea? In fact, what the hell was the idea anyway?

She waited for the box to speak to her. To say something. Anything. Even nonsense. Though why Clara thought the box, should it choose to speak, would say anything other than nonsense was another mystery. Who listens to boxes anyway?

Clara’s art was intuitive, which wasn’t to say it wasn’t skilled and trained. She’d been to the best art college in Canada, even taught there for a while, until its narrow definition of ‘art’ had driven her away. From downtown Toronto to downtown Three Pines. That had been decades ago and so far she’d failed to set the art world on fire. Though waiting for messages from boxes could be a reason. Clara cleared her mind and opened it to inspiration. A croissant floated through it, then her garden, which needed cutting down, then she had a tiny argument with Myrna about the prices Myrna would no doubt offer for some of Clara’s used books. The box, on the other hand, remained mute.

The studio was growing cold and Clara wondered whether Peter, sitting across the hall in his own studio was also cold. He would almost certainly, she thought with a twang of envy, be working too hard to notice. He never seemed to suffer from the uncertainty that could freeze her, leave her stuck and frozen in place. He just kept putting one foot in front of the other, producing his excruciatingly detailed works that sold for thousands in Montreal. It took him months to do each piece, he was so painfully precise and methodical. She’d given him a roller for his birthday one year and told him to paint faster. He didn’t seem to appreciate the joke. Perhaps because it wasn’t entirely a joke. They were constantly broke. Even now, with the autumn chill seeping in through the cracks around the windows, Clara was loath to turn on the furnace. Instead she’d put on another sweater, and even that was probably worn and pilled. She longed for crisp new bed linens and one can in their kitchen with a name brand and enough firewood to see them through the winter without worry. Worry. It wears you down, she thought as she put on another sweater and sat down again in front of the big silent box.

Again Clara cleared her mind, opened it wide. And lo and behold, an idea appeared. Fully formed. Whole and perfect and disturbing. Within moments she was out the front door and chugging up rue du Moulin. As she approached Timmer’s home she instinctively crossed to the other side and averted her eyes. Once beyond it she re-crossed the road and made her way past the old schoolhouse, still bedecked in yellow police tape. Then she plunged into the woods, wondering for a moment at the folly of her actions. It was getting on dusk. The time when death waits in the woods. Not in the form of a ghost, Clara hoped, but in an even more sinister guise. A man with a weapon designed to make ghosts. Hunters crept into the woods at dusk. One had killed Jane. Clara slowed down. This was perhaps not the brightest idea she’d had. Actually, it was the box’s idea, so she could blame it if she was killed. Clara heard a movement ahead. She froze.

The woods were darker than Gamache had expected. He’d entered by a route he was unfamiliar with and spent a moment looking around, getting his bearings. He had his cell phone with him in case he got lost, but he knew the cellular grid was unreliable at best in the mountains. Still, it was some comfort. He turned full circle, slowly, and spotted a small flash of yellow. The police tape circling the spot where Jane had died. He made for it, the woods still soaked from the day’s downpour, and drenching his legs and feet as he went. Just outside the cordon he stopped again and listened. He knew it was the hunting hour, he’d just have to trust that it wasn’t his time. Trust, and be very, very careful. Gamache spent ten minutes searching before he found it. He smiled as he made his way to the tree. How often had his mother chastised him as a child for staring down at his feet, instead of looking up? Well, she’d been right again. When they’d first searched the site he’d been looking on the ground when what he wanted wasn’t down there. It was up in the trees.