The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

“But I did find something after you left.” Lacoste put a bag onto the table and opened it. “It was way under the bed, against the wall. I missed it the first time I looked,” she explained. “I fingerprinted it and took samples. They’re on the way to the lab.”

On the table was a carved piece of wood, stained with what looked like blood.

Someone had whittled a word in the wood.

Woe.

TWENTY

Agent Morin wandered round inside the cabin, humming. In one hand he gripped the satellite phone, in the other he gripped a piece of firewood. Not for the woodstove, which was lit and throwing good heat. Nor the fireplace, also lit and light. But in case anything came at him out of the shadows, out of the corners.

He’d lit all the oil lamps and all the candles. The dead man seemed to have made them himself, from paraffin left over after the preserves had been sealed.

Morin missed his television. His cell phone. His girlfriend. His mother. He brought the phone up to his mouth again, then lowered it for what felt like the hundredth time.

You can’t call the Chief Inspector. What’ll you say? You’re scared? To be alone in a cabin in the woods? Where a man was murdered?

And he sure couldn’t call his mother. She’d find a way to reach the cabin, and the team would find him next morning, with his mother. Ironing his shirts and frying bacon and eggs.

No, he’d rather die.

He wandered around some more, poking things here and there, but being very, very careful. Elmer Fudd–like he crept round, picking up glass and peering at odds and ends. A pane of amber at the kitchen window, an engraved silver candlestick. Eventually he took a sandwich from the brown paper bag and unfolded the waxed paper. Ham and Brie on baguette. Not bad. He took the Coca-Cola, snapped it open, then he sat by the fire. The chair was exceptionally comfortable. As he ate he relaxed and by the time he got to the pastry he was feeling himself again. He reached for the fiddle by his side, but thought better of it. Instead he took a book at random from the shelves and opened it.

It was by an author he’d never heard of. Some guy named Currer Bell. He started to read about a girl named Jane growing up in England. After a while his eyes, strained from reading by the weak light, grew tired. He thought it was probably time for bed. It must be after midnight.

He looked at his watch. Eight thirty.

Reaching over, he hesitated, then picked up the violin. Its wood was deep and seemed warm to the touch. He smoothed his young hand over it, softly, caressing and turning it round in practiced hands. He put it down quickly. He shouldn’t be touching it. He went back to the book, but after a minute or so he found the fiddle in his hands again. Knowing he shouldn’t, begging himself not to, he reached for the horse-hair bow. Knowing there was no going back now, he stood up.

Agent Morin tucked the violin under his chin and drew the bow across the strings. The sound was deep and rich and seductive. It was more than the young agent could resist. Soon the comforting strains of “Colm Quigley” filled the cabin. Almost to the corners.

Their main courses had arrived. A fruit-stuffed Rock Cornish game hen, done on the spit, for Gamache; melted Brie, fresh tomato and basil fettuccine for Lacoste; and a lamb and prune tagine for Beauvoir. A platter of freshly harvested grilled vegetables was also brought to the table.

Gamache’s chicken was tender and tasty, delicately flavored with Pommery-style mustard and vermouth.

“What does that piece of wood mean?” Gamache asked his team as they ate.

“Well, it was just about the only thing in the cabin that wasn’t an antique,” said Lacoste. “And what with the whittling tools I’m guessing he made it himself.”

Gamache nodded. It was his guess as well. “But why woe?”

“Could that be his name?” Beauvoir asked, but without enthusiasm.

“Monsieur Woe?” asked Lacoste. “That might also explain why he lived alone in a cabin.”

“Why would someone carve that for himself?” Gamache put down his knife and fork. “And you found nothing else in the cabin that looked as though it had been whittled?”

“Nothing,” said Beauvoir. “We found axes and hammers and saws. All well used. I think he must have made that cabin himself. But he sure didn’t whittle it.”

Woe, thought Gamache, picking up his knife and fork again. Was the Hermit that sad?

“Did you notice our photographs of the stream, sir?” Lacoste asked.

“I did. At least now we know how the dead man kept his groceries cool.”

Agent Lacoste, on investigating the stream, had found a bag anchored there. And in it were jars of perishable foods. Dangling in the cold water.