Still Life

‘Please accept my condolences,’ Clara continued, feeling stiff and artificial.

Yolande bowed her head and brought a dry paper napkin to her dry eye.

‘At least we can re-use the napkin,’ said Olivier, who was also looking over Gamache’s shoulder. ‘What a pathetic piece of work. This is really awful to watch. Pastry?’

Olivier was holding a tray of mille feuilles, meringues, slices of pies and little custard tarts with glazed fruit on top. He chose one covered in tiny wild blueberries.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m the official caterer for the disaster that’s about to happen. I can’t imagine why Clara is doing this, she knows what Yolande has been saying behind her back for years. Hideous woman.’

Gamache, Olivier and the server stared at the scene unfolding in the silent bistro.

‘My aunt and I were extremely close, as you know,’ Yolande said straight into Clara’s face, appearing to believe every word she said. ‘I know you won’t be upset if I mention that we all think you took her away from her real family. All the people I talk to agree with me. Still, you probably didn’t realise what you were doing.’ Yolande smiled indulgently.

‘Oh my God,’ Ruth whispered to Gabri, ‘here it comes.’

Peter was gripping the arms of his chair, wanting with all his being to leap up and scream at Yolande. But he knew Clara had to do that herself, had to finally stand up for herself. He waited for Clara’s response. The whole room waited.

Clara took a deep breath and said nothing.

‘I’ll be organising my aunt’s funeral,’ Yolande plowed on. ‘Probably have it in the Catholic church in St Rémy. That’s André’s church.’ Yolande reached out a hand to take her husband’s, but both his hands were taken up clutching a huge sandwich, gushing mayo and meat. Her son Bernard yawned, revealing a mouth full of half-chewed sandwich and strings of mayo glopping down from the roof of his mouth.

‘I’ll probably put a notice in the paper which I’m sure you’ll see. But maybe you can think of something for her headstone. But nothing weird, my aunt wouldn’t have liked that. Anyway, think about it and let me know.’

‘Again, I’m so sorry about Jane.’

When she’d gone over to speak with Yolande, Clara had known this would happen. Known that Yolande, for some unfathomable reason, could always get to her. Could hurt her where most others couldn’t reach. It was one of life’s little mysteries that this woman she had absolutely no respect for, could lay her flat. She thought she’d been ready for it. She’d even dared to harbour a hope that maybe this time would be different. But of course it wasn’t.

For many years Clara would remember how it felt standing there. Feeling again like the ugly little girl in the schoolyard. The unloved and unlovable child. Flatfooted and maladroit, slow and mocked. The one who laughed in the wrong places and believed tall stories, and was desperate for someone, anyone, to like her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The polite attention and the balled up fist under the school desk. She wanted to run to Jane, who’d make it better. Take her in those full, kindly arms and say the magic words, ‘There, there.’

Ruth Zardo would also remember this moment and turn it into poetry. It would be published in her next volume called, ‘I’m FINE’:

You were a moth brushing against my cheek in the dark.

I killed you, not knowing you were only a moth, with no sting.

But more than anything, Clara would remember André’s toxic laugh ringing in her ears as she silently made her way back to her table, so far away. A laugh such as a maladjusted child might make on seeing a creature hurt and suffering. It was a familiar sound.

‘Who was on the phone?’ Beauvoir asked when Gamache slipped back into his seat. Beauvoir was unaware the boss had gone anywhere other than the washroom.

‘Dr Harris. I didn’t know she lives close to here, in a village called Cleghorn Halt. She said she’d bring her report by on her way home, at about five.’

‘I’ve assigned a team to set up the Incident Room and I’ve sent a team back to the woods to do another search. I figure the arrow is in one of three places, stuck into the ground in the woods, picked up by the killer and probably destroyed by now, or, with any luck, it’s among the arrows Lacoste found in the clubhouse.’

‘Agreed.’

Beauvoir handed out the assignments, and sent a couple of agents to interview Gus Hennessey and Claude LaPierre about the manure incident. He would interview Philippe Croft himself. Then he joined Gamache outside and the two strolled around the village green, head to head under their umbrellas.