The Long Way Home(112)

“You will,” said Gamache. “But we need to find Norman first. The fisherman says he’s up there.”

Gamache pointed. Toward a rise, a hill. Where there were no dwellings, no buildings at all. It was just rock and scrub.

“There’s a diner.” Beauvoir waved at a weathered clapboard building. “You can wait for us there.”

Clara had forgotten that they’d been here before.

“I should go with you,” said Chartrand.

“You should stay here,” said Gamache. Then he turned to Clara. “You’ve brought us this far. Now you need to wait here. If we find Peter we’ll bring him to you. I promise.”

He gave a brief nod of thanks to the elderly man, who’d turned away and was again staring out at the harbor, and the river beyond.

And in that instant Gamache had the sense the elderly man hadn’t so much been watching for the ship, as waiting.

A mariner on dry land. But always a boatman. Perhaps even a voyageur.

Clara stopped at the door to the diner and watched as Armand and Jean-Guy walked out of town. And on the top of the hill, they paused.

Two figures, a few feet apart, against the morning sky.

Clara tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. Then she felt her heart squeeze. They looked like the ears of a hare. Like in Peter’s painting.

In the diner she unrolled one of his canvases. Marcel Chartrand brought over a plate of lemon meringue pie and put it on one of the corners, to keep it from curling up.

Then Clara sat down and stared into the painting, the closest she could come, for now, to being in Peter’s company.

* * *

Ahead of them, in the distance, Gamache and Beauvoir could see the village of Agneau-de-Dieu. And at their backs was Tabaquen.

And in between was a stretch of terrain. Desolate. Empty.

No Man’s land.

Except for one neat little house.

No Man’s home.

As they watched, a figure slowly unfolded from a chair. Lanky, gangly, like a puppet or scarecrow. He stood, framed in the dark rectangle of the door. Then he took a step toward them. Then another.

And then he stopped. Paralyzed.

* * *

The man stood up when he saw them on the hill. He stood, and he stared. And then he reached out to grasp the weather-beaten post holding up the porch. He gripped it tight, clinging to it, and to his reason. Knowing what he saw could not possibly be real.

It was a mirage, a jest, a trick. Conjured from exhaustion and shock.

He leaned against the rough post and stared at the men.

It could not be.

* * *

Gamache and Beauvoir stared at the man on the porch.

And then they broke into a rapid walk that verged on a run.

The man on the porch saw this and backed up. He looked behind him, into the cave of the small house.

Then he looked at the specters, making their way toward him. Swarming toward him, down the hill. From Tabaquen.

“Peter?” Jean-Guy called.

Peter Morrow, frozen in place, stared.

“My God, it is you,” he said.

Peter was disheveled, his hair unruly, unkempt. The normally well-groomed man had two days’ stubble on his face, and purple under his eyes.

He hugged the post and looked like he’d buckle to the ground if he let go. When Gamache was within reach, Peter let go of the post and gripped Armand.

“You came,” Peter whispered, afraid to blink in case they disappeared. “Armand, thank God. It’s you.”

He squeezed Gamache’s arms to make sure this wasn’t some illusion.

Armand Gamache stared into Peter Morrow’s blue, bloodshot eyes. And saw exhaustion and desperation. And perhaps, just there, the tiniest glint of hope.

He took Peter by the shoulders and sat him in a chair on the porch.

“Is he inside?” Gamache asked, and Peter nodded.

“Stay here,” said Beauvoir, though it was clear that Peter Morrow had absolutely no intention of going anywhere.

* * *

Inside the one-room cabin, Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir stared down at the bed.

A pillow lay over the head of the body. And from underneath it the blood had poured, flooding out, turning the white sheets a brilliant red.

But that had stopped hours ago, the investigators could tell. When the heart had stopped. Hours ago.

Gamache felt for the man’s pulse. There was none. He was cold as marble.

“Did you put the pillow over his face?” Gamache called out the door.

“God, no,” came the reply.

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances. Then, steeling himself, Armand Gamache lifted the pillow, as Jean-Guy recorded the events.

And then Gamache sighed. A long, long, slow exhale.

“When did Professor Massey arrive?” the Chief asked, staring down at the bed. The dead man’s mouth was slightly open, as though a thought had occurred to him in the instant before he died.

What would he have said? Don’t do it? Please, please, for God’s sake. Would he have begged for his life? Would he have screamed recriminations? Empty threats?

Gamache doubted it. Rarely had he seen a man so apparently at peace with being murdered. With being driven to Samarra and dumped in front of Death.

But perhaps, Gamache thought as he looked at those calm eyes, this appointment was fated.

Two men whose lives had crossed decades before, walking to this terrible moment in this desolate place.