‘Yes, teacher, I believe I have.’
‘Then that’s all you can ask of yourself, Grasshopper. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll forgive myself if you forgive yourself.’
‘Deal,’ said Gamache, and wished it was that easy.
Ten minutes later Armand Gamache was sitting at the table by the Bistro window looking out on to Three Pines. He’d bought just one book from Myrna, and it wasn’t Being or Loss. She’d seemed slightly surprised when he put the book next to her till. He now sat and read, a Cinzano and some pretzels in front of him, and every now and then he’d lower the book to stare through the window and through the village and into the woods beyond. The clouds were breaking up, leaving patches of early evening sunshine on the small mountains that surrounded Three Pines. Once or twice he flipped through the book, looking for illustrations. Finding what he was looking for he ear-marked them and continued reading. It was a very pleasant way to pass the time.
A manila file hitting the table brought him back to the Bistro.
‘The autopsy report.’ The coroner, Sharon Harris, sat down and ordered a drink.
He lowered his book and picked up the dossier. After a few minutes he had a question. ‘If the arrow hadn’t hit her heart, would it still have killed her?’
‘If it had come close to the heart, yes. But’, Dr Harris leaned forward and bent the autopsy report down so she could see it, upside down, ‘she was hit straight through the heart. You see? Whoever did it must have been a great shot. That wasn’t a fluke.’
‘And yet I suspect that’s exactly the conclusion we’re going to reach, that it was a fluke. A hunting accident. Not the first in Quebec history.’
‘You’re right, lots of hunting accidents every season with rifles. But arrows? You’d have to be a good hunter to get her through the heart and good hunters don’t often make mistakes like that. Not archers. They aren’t the usual yahoos.’
‘What are you saying, doctor?’
‘I’m saying if the death of Miss Neal was an accident the killer had very bad Karma. Of all the accidental hunting deaths I’ve investigated as medical examiner none has involved a good bow hunter.’
‘You mean if a good hunter did this it was on purpose?’