Dead Cold (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)(97)

‘I didn’t think it was a deliberate space. I thought that was where the C went,’ Gamache admitted.

‘The C?’

‘Open the box.’

Em did and stared for a very long time. She reached into the box and brought out a tiny letter. Balancing it on her finger she showed it to Gamache. A C.

‘She put her daughter into the box too,’ said Em. ‘This is what love looks like.’

‘What happened?’

Em cast her mind back again, to the days when the world was new. ‘El was a pilgrim soul. While the rest of us settled down, El grew more restless. She seemed frail, fragile. Sensitive. We kept pleading with her to be calm.’

‘You even called your curling team Be Calm,’ said Gamache. ‘That was another clue. You only ever spoke of three members of the original team, but a curling team has four. Someone was missing. When I saw Clara Morrow’s picture of the three of you as the Graces there seemed to be someone missing. There was a hole in the composition.’

‘But Clara never met El,’ said émilie. ‘Never even heard of her as far as I know.’

‘That’s true, but as you said, Clara sees things others don’t. She created the work with the three of you forming a sort of vase, a vessel she called it. Only there’s a piece missing, a crack. Where El would be.



Ring the bells that still can ring,



Forget your perfect offering,



There’s a crack in everything,



That’s how the light gets in.’





‘What an extraordinary poem. Ruth Zardo?’

‘Leonard Cohen. Clara used it in her piece. She wrote it on the wall behind the three of you, like graffiti.’

‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in,’ said émilie.

‘What happened to El?’ He remembered the autopsy photographs. A filthy, emaciated, pathetic old drunk on the slab. A world away from the shining young woman Em had described.

‘She wanted to go to India. She thought maybe there her mind would still and she’d find peace. The rest of us drew straws and it was decided Mother would go with her. It’s ironic that El didn’t much like India but Mother found the answers to questions she didn’t even know she had.’

‘Mother,’ said Gamache. ‘Beatrice Mayer. Very clever as well. I asked Clara why everyone calls Bea Mother and she suggested I figure it out for myself.’

‘And you did.’

‘Took me a long while. It wasn’t until I was watching The Lion in Winter that I got it.’

‘How so?’

‘It was made by MGM. Metro, Goldwyn, Mayer. Mayer. It’s pronounced the same way as mère. French for mother. Beatrice Mayer became Mother Bea. I knew then I was in the company of people who loved not only books, but words. Spoken, written, the power of words.’

‘When Kaye asked why her father and the other boys would have screamed “Fuck the Pope” as they ran to their deaths you said maybe it was because they knew that words could kill. Kaye dismissed it, but I think you were right. I know words can kill. I saw it on Christmas Eve. You might consider it melodramatic, Chief Inspector, but I saw CC murder her daughter with words.’

‘What happened to El?’ he asked again.





Beauvoir brought the car to a halt and sat for a moment. The heater was on and the car seats had warmed. On the stereo Beau Dommage was singing ‘La complainte du phoque en Alaska’. He’d necked to that at school dances. It was always the last song and always brought the girls to tears.

He didn’t want to leave. Not just because the car was so comfortable, filled with warm and sticky memories, but because of what awaited him. The meditation center sat bathed in sharp morning sun.

‘Bonjour, Inspecteur.’ Mother smiled, opening the door before he knocked. But the smile didn’t extend to her eyes. It barely left her lips, which were tight and white. He could sense her tension and felt himself relax. He had the advantage now and knew it.

‘May I come in?’ He was damned if he was going to ask, ‘Mother, may I?’ He was also damned if he was going to ask why everyone called her Mother, though he was dying to know.

‘I was under the impression this wasn’t your favorite place,’ she said, regaining some ground on him. Beauvoir didn’t know what it was with this woman. She was squat and unattractive. She wobbled instead of walked and her hair stuck out in all directions. And she wore sheets, or perhaps curtains, or maybe they were slipcovers. By all standards she was ludicrous. And yet there was something about her.

‘I came down with the flu when I was last here. I’m sorry if I behaved badly.’ Although it caught in his throat to apologize Gamache had pointed out that it actually gave him an advantage. And he’d noticed, over the years, that it was true. People felt a certain superiority if they thought they had something on you. But as soon as you apologized they had nothing. Pissed them off.

Now Beauvoir felt equal to Madame Mayer.

‘Namaste,’ she said, putting her hands together in prayer and bowing.

Damn her. He felt off balance again. He knew he was meant to ask, but didn’t. Taking his boots off he strode through to the large meditation room with its soothing aqua walls and warm green-carpeted floor.