The Murder Stone

by Louise Penny

  ‘Here it is.’ She dangled an old brass key from a long keychain. ‘The Forest Room. It’s at the back, I’m afraid.’

  Reine-Marie smiled. ‘We know where it is, merci.’

  One day rolled gently into the next as the Gamaches swam in Lac Massawippi and went for leisurely walks through the fragrant woods. They read and chatted amicably with the other guests and slowly got to know them.

  Up until a few days ago they’d never met the Finneys, but now they were cordial companions at the isolated lodge. Like experienced travellers on a cruise, the guests were neither too remote nor too familiar. They didn’t even know what the others did for a living, which was fine with Armand Gamache.

  It was mid-afternoon and Gamache was watching a bee scramble around a particularly blowsy pink rose when a movement caught his attention. He turned in his chaise longue and watched as the son, Thomas, and his wife Sandra walked from the lodge into the startling sunshine. Sandra brought a slim hand up and placed huge black sunglasses on her face, so that she looked a little like a fly. She seemed an alien in this place, certainly not someone in her natural habitat. Gamache supposed her to be in her late fifties, early sixties, though she was clearly trying to pass for considerably less. Funny, he thought, how dyed hair, heavy make-up and young clothes actually made a person look older.

  They walked on to the lawn, Sandra’s heels aerating the grass, and paused, as though expecting applause. But the only sound Gamache could hear came from the bee, whose wings were making a muffled raspberry sound in the rose.

  Thomas stood on the brow of the slight hill rolling down to the lake, an admiral on the bridge. His piercing blue eyes surveyed the water, like Nelson at Trafalgar. Gamache realized that every time he saw Thomas he thought of a man preparing for battle. Thomas Finney was in his early sixties and certainly handsome. Tall and distinguished with grey hair and noble features. But in the few days they’d shared the lodge Gamache had also noted a hint of irony in the man, a quiet sense of humour. He was arrogant and entitled, but he seemed to know it and be able to laugh at himself. It was very becoming and Gamache found himself warming to him. Though on this hot day he was warming to everything, especially the old Life magazine whose ink was coming off on his sweaty hands. Looking down he saw, tattooed to his palm, Life. Backwards.

  Thomas and Sandra had walked straight past his elderly parents who were lounging on the shaded porch. Gamache marvelled yet again at the ability of this family to make each other invisible. As Gamache watched over his half-moon glasses Thomas and Sandra surveyed the people dotted around the garden and along the shore of the lake. Julia Martin, the older sister and a few years younger than Thomas, was sitting alone on the dock in an Adirondack chair, reading. She wore a simple white one-piece bathing suit. In her late fifties she was slim and gleamed like a trophy as though she’d slathered herself in cooking oil. She seemed to sizzle in the sun, and with a wince Gamache could imagine her skin beginning to crackle. Every now and then Julia would lower her book and gaze across the calm lake. Thinking. Gamache knew enough about Julia Martin to know she had a great deal to think about.

  On the lawn leading down to the lake were the rest of the family, the younger sister Mariana and her child, Bean. Where Thomas and Julia were slim and attractive, Mariana was short and plump and unmistakably ugly. It was as though she was the negative to their positive. Her clothes seemed to have a grudge against her and either slipped off or scrunched around awkwardly so that she was constantly rearranging herself, pulling and tugging and wriggling.

  And yet the child, Bean, was extremely attractive, with long blond hair, bleached almost white in the sun, thick dark lashes and brilliant blue eyes. At that moment Mariana appeared to be doing t’ai chi, though with movements of her own making.

  ‘Look, darling, a crane. Mommy’s a crane.’

  The plump woman stood on one leg, arms reaching for the sky and neck stretched to its limits.

  Ten-year-old Bean ignored Mommy and continued to read. Gamache wondered how bored the child must be.

  ‘It’s the most difficult position,’ Mariana said more loudly than necessary, almost throttling herself with one of her scarves. Gamache had noticed that Mariana’s t’ai chi and yoga and meditations and military callisthenics only happened when Thomas appeared.

  Was she trying to impress her older brother, Gamache wondered, or embarrass him? Thomas took a quick glance at the pudgy, collapsing crane and steered Sandra in the other direction. They found two chairs in the shade, alone.

  ‘You’re not spying on them, are you?’ Reine-Marie asked, lowering her own book to look at her husband.

  ‘Spying is far too harsh. I’m observing.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to stop that?’ Then after a moment she added, ‘Anything interesting?’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Still,’ said Reine-Marie, looking around at the scattered Finneys. ‘Odd family that comes all this way for a reunion then ignores each other.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ he said. ‘They could be killing each other.’

  Reine-Marie laughed. ‘They’d never get close enough to manage it.’

  Gamache grunted his agreement and realized happily that he didn’t care. It was their problem, not his. Besides, after a few days together he’d become fond of the Finneys in a funny sort of way.

  ‘Votre thé glacé, madame.’ The young man spoke French with a delightful English Canadian accent.

  ‘Merci, Elliot.’ Reine-Marie shaded her eyes from the afternoon sun and smiled at the waiter.

  ‘Un plaisir.’ He beamed and handed a tall glass of iced tea to Reine-Marie and a perspiring glass of misty lemonade to Gamache, then went off to deliver the rest of his drinks.

  ‘I remember when I was that young,’ said Gamache wistfully.

  ‘You might have been that young but you were never that—’ She nodded towards Elliot as he walked athletically across the manicured lawn in his tailored black slacks and small white jacket snugly fitting his lithe body.

  ‘Oh, God, am I going to have to beat up another suitor?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You know I would.’ He took her hand.

  ‘I know you wouldn’t. You’d listen him to death.’

  ‘Well, it’s a strategy. Crush him with my massive intellect.’

  ‘I can imagine his terror.’

  Gamache sipped his lemonade and suddenly puckered, tears springing to his eyes.

  ‘Ah, and what woman could resist that?’ She looked at his fluttering, watering eyes and face screwed into a wince.

  ‘Sugar. Needs sugar,’ he gasped.

  ‘Here, I’ll ask the waiter.’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll do it.’ He coughed, gave her a mockingly stern gaze and rocked out of the deep and comfortable seat.

  Taking his lemonade he wandered up the path from the fragrant gardens and onto the wide veranda, already cooler and shaded from the brunt of the afternoon sun. Bert Finney lowered his book and gazed at Gamache, then smiled and nodded politely.

  ‘Bonjour,’ he said. ‘Warm day.’

  ‘But cooler here, I notice,’ said Gamache, smiling at the elderly couple sitting quietly side by side. Finney was clearly older than his wife. Gamache thought she was probably in her mid-eighties while he must be nearing ninety and had that translucent quality people sometimes got, near the end.

  ‘I’m going inside. May I get you anything?’ he asked, thinking yet again that Bert Finney was both courtly and one of the least attractive people he’d ever met. Admonishing himself for being so superficial, it was all he could do not to stare. Monsieur Finney was so repulsive he was almost attractive, as though aesthetics were circular and this man had circumnavigated that rude world.

  His skin was pocked and ruddy, his nose large and misshapen, red and veined as though he’d snorted, and retained, Burgundy. His teeth protruded, yellowed and confused, heading this way and that in his mouth. His eyes were small and slightly crossed. A lazy eye, th
ought Gamache. What used to be known as an evil eye, in darker times when men like this found themselves at best cast out of polite society and at worst tied to a stake.

  Irene Finney sat next to her husband and wore a floral sundress. She was plump with soft white hair in a loose bun on her head, and while she didn’t glance up he could see her complexion was tender and white. She looked like a soft, inviting, faded pillow, propped next to a cliff face.

  ‘We’re fine, but merci.’

  Gamache had noticed that Finney, alone among his family, always tried to speak a little French to him.

  Within the Manoir the temperature dropped again. It was almost cool inside, a relief from the heat of the day. It took a moment for Gamache’s eyes to adjust.

  The dark maple door to the dining room was closed and Gamache knocked tentatively, then opening it he stepped into the panelled room. Places were being set for dinner, with crisp white linen, sterling silver, fine bone china and a small arrangement of fresh flowers on each table. It smelled of roses and wood, of polish and herbs, of beauty and order. Sun was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, which looked onto the garden. The windows were closed, to keep the heat out and the cool in. The Manoir Bellechasse wasn’t air conditioned, but the massive logs acted as natural insulation, keeping the heat in during the bitterest of Quebec winters, and the heat out on the most sizzling of summer days. This wasn’t the hottest. Low 80s, Gamache figured. But he was still grateful for the workmanship of the coureurs du bois who raised this place by hand and chose each log with such precision that nothing not invited could ever come in.

  ‘Monsieur Gamache.’ Pierre Patenaude came forward smiling and wiping his hands on a cloth. He was a few years younger than Gamache and slimmer. All that running from table to table, thought Gamache. But the maître d’ never seemed to run. He gave everyone his time, as though they were the only ones in the auberge, without seeming to ignore or miss any of the other guests. It was a particular gift of the very best maître d’s, and the Manoir Bellechasse was famous for having only the best.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  Gamache, slightly bashfully, extended his glass. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I need some sugar.’

  ‘Oh, dear. I was afraid of that. Seems we’ve run out. I’ve sent one of the garçons to the village to pick up some more. Désolé. But if you wait here, I think I know where the chef hides her emergency supply. Really, this is most unusual.’

  What was most unusual, thought Gamache, was seeing the unflappable maître d’ flapped.

  ‘I don’t want to put you out,’ Gamache called to Patenaude’s disappearing back.

  A moment later the maître d’ returned, a small bone china vessel in his hands.

  ‘Voilà! Success. Of course I had to wrestle Chef Véronique for it.’

  ‘I heard the screams. Merci.’

  ‘Pour vous, monsieur, c’est un plaisir.’ Patenaude picked up his rag and a silver rose bowl and continued his polishing while Gamache stirred the precious sugar into his lemonade. Both men stared in companionable silence out of the bank of windows to the garden and the gleaming lake beyond. A canoe drifted lazily by in the still afternoon.

  ‘I checked my instruments a few minutes ago,’ said the maître d’. ‘A storm’s on the way.’

  ‘Vraiment?’

  The day was clear and calm, but like every other guest at the gracious old lodge he’d come to believe the maître d’s daily weather reports, gleaned from his home-made weather stations dotted around the property. It was a hobby, the maître d’ had once explained, passed from father to son.

  ‘Some fathers teach their sons to hunt or fish. Mine would bring me into the woods and teach me about the weather,’ he’d explained one day while showing Gamache and Reine-Marie the barometric device and the old glass bell jar, with water up the spout. ‘Now I’m teaching them.’ Pierre Patenaude had waved in the direction of the young staff. Gamache hoped they were paying attention.

  There was no television at the Bellechasse and even the radio was patchy, so Environment Canada forecasts weren’t available. Just Patenaude and his near mythical ability to foretell the weather. Each morning when they arrived for breakfast the forecast would be tacked outside the dining-room door. For a nation addicted to the weather, he gave them their fix.

  Now Patenaude looked out into the calm day. Not a leaf stirred.

  ‘Oui. Heat wave coming, then storm. Looks like a big one.’

  ‘Merci.’ Gamache raised his lemonade to the maître d’ and returned outside.

  He loved summer storms, especially at the Bellechasse. Unlike Montreal, where storms seemed to suddenly break overhead, here he could see them coming. Dark clouds would collect above the mountains at the far end of the lake, then a grey curtain of rain would fall in the distance. It would seem to gather itself, take a breath, and then march like a line of infantry clearly marked on the water. The wind would pick up, catching and furiously shaking the tall trees. Then it would strike. Boom. And as it howled and blew and threw itself at them, he’d be tucked up in the Manoir with Reine-Marie, safe.

  As he stepped outside the heat bumped him, not so much a wall as a whack.

  ‘Find some sugar?’ asked Reine-Marie, stretching out her hand to touch his face as he leaned down to kiss her before settling back into his chair.

  ‘Absolument.’

  She went back to reading and Gamache reached for Le Devoir, but his large hand hesitated, hovering over the newspaper headlines. Another Sovereignty Referendum Possible. A Biker Gang War. A Catastrophic Earthquake.

  His hand moved to his lemonade instead. All year his mouth watered for the home-made Manoir Bellechasse lemonade. It tasted fresh and clean, sweet and tart. It tasted of sunshine and summer.

  Gamache felt his shoulders sag. His guard was coming down. It felt good. He took off his floppy sun hat and wiped his brow. The humidity was rising.

  Sitting in the peaceful afternoon Gamache found it hard to believe a storm was on its way. But he felt a trickle down his spine, a lone, tickling stream of perspiration. The pressure was building, he could feel it, and the parting words of the maître d’ came back to him.

  ‘Tomorrow’s going to be a killer.’

  TWO

  After a refreshing swim and gin and tonics on the dock the Gamaches showered then joined the other guests in the dining room for dinner. Candles glowed inside hurricane lamps and each table was adorned with simple bouquets of old English roses. More exuberant arrangements stood on the mantelpiece, great exclamations of peony and lilac, of baby blue delphinium and bleeding hearts, arching and aching.

  The Finneys were seated together, the men in dinner jackets, the women in cool summer dresses for the warm evening. Bean wore white shorts and a crisp green shirt.

  The guests watched the sun set behind the rolling hills of Lake Massawippi and enjoyed course after course, beginning with the chef’s amuse-bouche of local caribou. Reine-Marie had the escargots à l’ail, followed by seared duck breast with confit of wild ginger, mandarin and kumquat. Gamache started with fresh roquette from the garden and shaved parmesan then ordered the organic salmon with sorrel yogurt.

  ‘And for dessert?’ Pierre lifted a bottle from its bucket and poured the last of the wine into their glasses.

  ‘What do you recommend?’ Reine-Marie barely believed she was asking.

  ‘For Madame, we have fresh mint ice cream on an éclair filled with creamy dark organic chocolate, and for Monsieur a pudding du chômeur à l’érable avec crème chantilly.’

  ‘Oh, dear God,’ whispered Reine-Marie, turning to her husband. ‘What was it Oscar Wilde said?’

  ‘I can resist everything except temptation.’

  They ordered dessert.

  Finally, when they could eat no more, the cheese cart arrived burdened with a selection of local cheeses made by the monks in the nearby Benedictine abbey of Saint-Benoit-du-Lac. The brothers led a contemplative life, raising animals, making chees
e and singing Gregorian chants of such beauty that they had, ironically for men who’d deliberately retreated from the world, become world-famous.

  Enjoying the fromage bleu Armand Gamache looked across the lake in the slowly fading glow, as though a day of such beauty was reluctant to end. A single light could be seen. A cottage. Instead of being invasive, breaking the unspoiled wilderness, it was welcoming. Gamache imagined a family sitting on the dock watching for shooting stars, or in their rustic living room, playing gin rummy, or Scrabble, or cribbage, by propane lamps. Of course they’d have electricity, but it was his fantasy, and in it people in the deep woods of Quebec lived by gas lamp.

  ‘I called Paris and spoke to Roslyn today.’ Reine-Marie leaned back in her chair, hearing it creak comfortably.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Gamache searched his wife’s face, though he knew if there was a problem she’d have told him sooner.

  ‘Never better. Two months to go. It’ll be a September baby. Her mother will be going to Paris to take care of Florence when the new one arrives, but Roslyn asked if we’d like to go as well.’

  He smiled. They’d talked about it, of course. They were desperate to go, to see their granddaughter Florence, to see their son and daughter-in-law. To see the baby. Each time he thought about it Gamache trembled with delight. The very idea of his child having a child struck him as nearly unbelievable.

  ‘They’ve chosen names,’ she said casually. But Gamache knew his wife, her face, her hands, her body, her voice. And her voice had just changed.

  ‘Tell me.’ He put his cheese down and folded his large, expressive hands on the white linen tablecloth.

  Reine-Marie looked at her husband. For a man so substantial he could be so calm and contained, though that only seemed to add to the impression of strength.

  ‘If it’s a girl they think they’ll call her Geneviève Marie Gamache.’

  Gamache repeated the name. Geneviève Marie Gamache. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  Is this the name they’d write on birthday and Christmas cards? Geneviève Marie Gamache. Would she come running up the stairs to their apartment in Outremont, little feet thumping, shouting, ‘Grandpapa, Grandpapa’? And would he call out her name, ‘Geneviève!’ then scoop her up in his strong arms and hold her safe and warm in that pocket of his shoulder reserved for people he loved? Would he one day take her and her sister Florence on walks through Parc Mont Royal and teach them his favourite poems?