The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

Lovely and lasting, thanks to people like Old Mundin.

“What brought you to Three Pines? Why not a larger city? There’d be more work, surely, in Montreal or even Sherbrooke.”

“I was born in Quebec City, and you’d think there’d be lots of work there for an antique restorer, but it’s hard for a young guy starting out. I moved to Montreal, to an antique shop on Notre Dame, but I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for the big city. So I decided to go to Sherbrooke. Got in the car, headed south, and got lost. I drove into Three Pines to ask directions at the bistro, ordered café au lait, sat down and the chair collapsed.” He laughed, as did Gamache. “I offered to repair it and that was that.”

“You said you’d been here for eleven years. You must’ve been young when you left Quebec City.”

“Sixteen. I left after my father died. Spent three years in Montreal, then down here. Met The Wife, had Charles. Started a small business.”

This young man had done a lot with his eleven years, thought Gamache. “How did Olivier seem on Saturday night?”

“As usual. Labor Day’s always busy but he seemed relaxed. As relaxed as he ever gets, I suppose.” Mundin smiled. It was clear there was affection there. “Did I hear you say the man wasn’t murdered at the bistro after all?”

Gamache nodded. “We’re trying to find out where he was killed. In fact, while you were at the fair I had my people searching the whole area, including your place.”

“Really?” They were at the barn door and Mundin turned to stare into the gloom. “They’re either very good, or they didn’t actually do anything. You can’t tell.”

“That’s the point.” But the Chief noticed that, unlike Peter, Old Mundin didn’t seem at all concerned.

“Now, why would you kill someone one place, then move them to another?” asked Mundin, almost to himself. “I can see wanting to get rid of a body, especially if you killed him in your own home, but why take him to Olivier’s? Seems a strange thing to do, but I guess the bistro’s a fairly central location. Maybe it was just convenient.”

Gamache let that statement be. They both knew it wasn’t true. Indeed, the bistro was a very inconvenient place to drop a body. And it worried Gamache. The murder wasn’t an accident, and the placement of the body wasn’t either.

There was someone very dangerous walking among them. Someone who looked happy, thoughtful, gentle even. But it was a deceit. A mask. Gamache knew that when he found the murderer and ripped the mask off, the skin would come too. The mask had become the man. The deceit was total.

THIRTEEN

“We had a great time at the fair. I got you this.” Gabri shut the door and turned on the lights in the bistro. He offered the stuffed lion to Olivier, who took it and held it softly in his lap.

“Merci.”

“And did you hear the news? Gamache says the dead man wasn’t killed here. And we’ll be getting our pokers back. I’d like to get my poker back, wouldn’t you?” he asked, archly. But Olivier didn’t even respond.

Gabri moved through the gloomy room, turning on lamps, then lit a fire in one of the stone hearths. Olivier continued to sit in the armchair, staring out the window. Gabri sighed, poured them each a beer and joined him. Together they sipped, ate cashews and looked out at the village, quiet now in the last of the day, and the end of the summer.

“What do you see?” asked Gabri at last.

“What d’you mean? I see what you see.”

“Can’t be. What I see makes me happy. And you’re not happy.”

Gabri was used to his partner’s moods. Olivier was the quiet one, the contained one. Gabri might appear the more sensitive, but they both knew Olivier was. He felt things deeply, and kept them there. Gabri was covered in the flesh wounds of life, but Olivier’s wounds were in the marrow, deep and hidden and perhaps even mortal.

But he was also the kindest man Gabri had met, and he’d met, it must be said, quite a few. Before Olivier. That had all changed as soon as he’d clapped eyes on the slim, blond, shy man.

Gabri had lost his quite considerable heart.

“What is it?” Gabri leaned forward and took Olivier’s slender hands. “Tell me.”

“It’s just no fun anymore,” said Olivier at last. “I mean, why even bother? No one’s going to want to come back here. Who wants to eat in a restaurant where there’s been a body?”

“As Ruth says, we’re all just bodies anyway.”