The Long Way Home(51)

Then Gamache threw, and both the ball and the dog sailed into the meadow.

Peter had left his home, physically, emotionally, and creatively. He was turning his back on everything familiar, everything safe.

Where once Peter used muted colors, now he used bright, clashing colors.

Where once Peter’s images were tightly controlled, now they were chaotic, unruly. Slapdash.

Where once his paintings were almost painfully self-satisfied and even pretentious, now they were silly, playful.

Where once Peter stuck to the rules, now he broke them. His first act of destruction. Experimenting with color, perspective, with distance and space. He wasn’t very good, yet. But if Peter kept trying, he’d get to where he wanted to be.

This new Peter was willing to try. Willing to fail.

Gamache stepped forward, approaching the answer. Seeing it just ahead of him. Henri had lost the ball in the thick growth and was rooting around, his bottom high and his nose down.

Every now and then he looked over at Gamache, for guidance, but Armand had his own search.

Where once Peter’s paintings were abstract, now … now.

Henri lifted his head in triumph. The ball in his mouth, along with a good chunk of wildflowers and grass.

Henri stared at Gamache. And Gamache stared at him. Both had what they were looking for.

“Well done,” Armand said to Henri. He took the slobbery tennis ball and clipped the shepherd on to the leash. “Well done.”

They hurried back to Three Pines, Gamache’s thoughts racing ahead.

Though he’d lived in the countryside, Peter had kept nature at arm’s length, eschewing it as the territory of amateurs. Still lifes, landscapes. All too figurative, too obvious. Unworthy of a great artist. Like himself. Who saw the world as more complex. As abstract.

Gamache had assumed the splashes of paint on Peter’s latest works were exercises but still abstracts. They were the first attempts of a tidy mind to be messy.

But if Peter had left everything else behind, why not his style as well?

Suppose they weren’t abstract?

Suppose Peter was painting what he saw?

Gamache knocked on Clara’s door, then opened it.

“Clara?”

There was no answer.

He scanned the village green, then looked over to the bistro.

“To hell with it,” he said, and walked into Clara’s home. He and Henri found the paintings where they’d been left, nailed to the kitchen wall.

He stared at them, then walked over to the pictures still on the kitchen table, their corners kept from curling by salt and pepper shakers and chipped coffee mugs.

Pulling out his device, he took photos, then left.

He drove to Cowansville, where he could connect to high speed and email the photos. He looked at his watch.

Four thirty-five. Nine thirty-five in the evening in Scotland. Late, too late to expect a response. But still, for twenty minutes Gamache sat in his car and stared at his device. Willing an answer to appear.

It did not.

As he drove back to Three Pines, he thought about the Robert Frost quote. He’d come across it years ago and remembered it because, while a poem might begin as a lump in the throat, so did a murder investigation.

So did a murder.





NINETEEN

“Anything?” Reine-Marie asked when her husband crawled back into bed.

“Nothing,” he whispered.

It was just after 3 a.m. and he’d gotten up to check his emails. Henri had lifted his head, but even the dog was too tired to take this seriously.

Gamache had connected to the dial-up, wincing as the beeping and screaming filled the quiet night. Finally the messages downloaded.

Russian brides.

Lottery winnings.

Some emails from a prince in Nigeria, but nothing from Scotland.

It was 8 a.m. there. He’d hoped Constable Stuart might have an early shift. He also hoped Constable Stuart would care enough about the message to act on it.

This was, truth be told, the third time that night Gamache had gotten up to check his emails. The first two without real hope, but this time there’d been a chance.

He returned to bed and fell back into a restless sleep.

An hour later he got up again. As he crept down the stairs he saw a rectangle of light coming from the study. He didn’t think he’d left a lamp on and smiled as he stood in the door frame.

“Anything?”

“Tabarnac!” Beauvoir started. “You scared the shit out of me. Sir.”

“I hope not.” Gamache went in and looked over Jean-Guy’s shoulder. “Porn?”

“Not unless waiting ages for the damned dial-up to connect turns you on.”

“I remember when—” Gamache started and was rewarded with a surly look from Jean-Guy.

Finally the emails started downloading.

“Rien,” said Beauvoir, pushing away from the desk. “Nothing.”

The two men walked into the living room.

“You think that constable will recognize something from the paintings?” Beauvoir asked, sitting on the arm of the sofa. Gamache dropped into an armchair, crossed his legs and adjusted his dressing gown.

“Frankly, I’m hoping he doesn’t just delete my messages.”

“You really think those paintings are landscapes?” Beauvoir seemed less than convinced.