Dead Cold (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)(62)

‘Here.’ A woman’s voice, quite pleasant, came to him.

Somehow the wastepaper basket had levitated and was right under his mouth. He heaved into it, though there was nothing much left in his stomach to bring up.

Falling back into the damp sheets he had the oddest sensation that a cool cloth had been laid on his forehead and his face and mouth had been wiped clean.

Jean Guy Beauvoir fell back into a fitful sleep.





‘I brought dessert.’ Gabri pointed to a cardboard box on the counter. ‘Chocolate fudge cake.’

‘Do you know, I think I’m beginning to like you,’ said Ruth.

‘What a difference a gay makes.’ He smiled and started unwrapping it.

‘I’ll make coffee,’ said Myrna.

Gamache cleared the plates and ran warm water in the sink to do the washing up. As he scrubbed the dishes and handed them to Clara to dry, he looked out the frosted window at the lights of Three Pines and thought about the film. The Lion in Winter. He went over the characters, the plot, some of the devastating repartee between Eleanor and Henry. It was a film about power and love warped and twisted and squandered.

But why was it so important to CC? And was it important to the case?

‘Coffee’ll take a couple of minutes yet,’ said Clara, hanging the damp towel on the back of a chair. The room was already filled with the dark smells of fresh brewing coffee and rich chocolate.

‘Could you show me your studio?’ Gamache asked Clara, hoping to get far enough away from the cake to overcome the temptation to put his finger in it. ‘I realize I’ve never seen your art.’

The two drifted across the kitchen toward the door to Clara’s studio, wide open. Next to hers, Peter’s studio was closed.

‘In case the muse should try to escape,’ explained Clara, and Gamache nodded sagely. Now he walked to the center of Clara’s large, crowded studio and stood still.

The studio had tarpaulins spread everywhere and the comforting smell of oils and acrylics and canvas. An old, worn armchair stood in one corner, with stacks of art magazines creating a table on which stood a dirty coffee mug. He turned leisurely, stopping to stare at one wall that held three images.

He moved closer to them.

‘That’s Kaye Thompson,’ he said.

‘Well done.’ Clara came up beside him. ‘And that’s Mother.’ She indicated the next work. ‘I sold émilie to Dr Harris a while ago but look over here.’ She pointed to the end wall where a huge canvas stood. ‘All three.’

Gamache stood in front of an image of three elderly women, arms entwined, cradling each other. It was an amazingly complex work, with layers of photographs and paintings and even some writing. Em, the woman in the middle, was leaning back precipitously, laughing with abandon, and the other two were supporting her and also laughing. It ached of intimacy, of a private moment caught in women’s lives. It captured their friendship and their dependence on each other. It sang of love and a caring that went beyond pleasant lunches and the remembrance of birthdays. Gamache felt as though he was looking into each of their souls, and the combination of the three was almost too much to bear.

‘I call it The Three Graces,’ said Clara.

‘Perfect,’ Gamache whispered.

‘Mother is Faith, Em is Hope and Kaye is Charity. I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.’

‘Is it finished? It looks as though there’s space for another.’

‘That’s very perceptive of you. It is finished, but in each of my works I try to leave a little space, a kind of crack.’

‘Why?’

‘Can you make out the writing on the wall behind them?’ She nodded toward her painting.

Gamache leaned in and put on his reading glasses.



‘Ring the bells that still can ring,



Forget your perfect offering,



There’s a crack in everything,



That’s how the light gets in.’





He read it out loud. ‘Beautiful. Madame Zardo?’ he asked.

‘No, Leonard Cohen. All my works have vessels of some sort. Containers. Sometimes it’s in the negative space, sometimes it’s more obvious. In The Three Graces it’s more obvious.’

It wasn’t obvious to Gamache. He stepped back from the work, then he saw what she meant. The vessel, like a vase, was formed by their bodies, and the space he’d noticed was the crack, to let the light in.

‘I do it for Peter,’ she said quietly. At first Gamache thought he might have misheard, but she continued as though speaking to herself. ‘He’s like a dog, like Lucy. He’s very loyal. He puts everything he has into one thing. One interest, one hobby, one friend, one love. I’m his love and it scares the shit out of me.’ She turned now to look into Gamache’s thoughtful brown eyes. ‘He’s poured all his love into me. I’m his vessel. But suppose I crack? Suppose I break? Suppose I die? What would he do?’

‘So all your art is exploring that theme?’

‘Mostly it’s about imperfection and impermanence. There’s a crack in everything.’

‘That’s how the light gets in,’ said Gamache. He thought of CC who’d written so much about light and enlightenment and illumination, and thought it came from perfection. But she couldn’t hold a candle to this bright woman beside him.