The Brutal Telling (26 page)

“As a matter of fact,” said Gamache, “I do.”

A
fter a call to Morin, Marc Gilbert was released and showed up at his home minutes later, out of breath from running. He’d been told his wife and mother were safe but was relieved to see it for himself. He kissed and hugged them both then turned to Gamache.

“Where is he? I want to see him.”

Clearly “see” was a euphemism.

“Inspector Beauvoir’s with him in the barn.”

“Good,” said Marc and headed toward the door.

“Marc, wait.” His mother ran after him. “Maybe we should just leave this to the police.” Carole Gilbert looked frightened still. And with good reason, thought Gamache as he thought of the man in the barn.

“Are you kidding? This man’s been spying on us, maybe more.”

“What do you mean, ‘maybe more’?”

Gilbert hesitated.

“What aren’t you telling us?” his wife asked.

He shot a look at Gamache. “I think he might have killed that man and left his body in our house. As a threat. Or maybe he meant to kill one of us. Thought the stranger was one of us. I don’t know. But first the body shows up, then this guy tries to break in. Someone’s trying to hurt us. And I want to find out why.”

“Wait. Wait a minute.” Dominique had her hands up to stop her husband.
“What are you saying? That body really was here?” She looked toward the vestibule. “In our home?” She looked at Gamache. “It’s true?” She looked back at her husband. “Marc?”

He opened and shut his mouth. Then took a deep breath. “He was here. The police were right. I found him when I got up in the middle of the night. I got scared and did something stupid.”

“You took the body to the bistro?” Dominique looked as though she’d been slapped by someone she loved, so great was her shock. His mother was staring at him as though he’d peed in the Château Frontenac dining room. He knew that look from when he was a boy and peed in the Château Frontenac dining room.

Gilbert’s lightning mind zipped all over the place, searching dark corners for someone else to blame. Surely it wasn’t his fault. Surely there were factors his wife didn’t appreciate. Surely this couldn’t be the act of complete idiocy her face accused him of.

But he knew it was.

Dominique turned to Gamache. “You have my permission to shoot him.”

“
Merci, madame
, but I’d need more than that to shoot him. A gun for instance.”

“Pity,” she said, and looked at her husband. “What were you thinking?”

He told them, as he had the cops, the reasoning that had appeared so obvious, so dazzling, at three in the morning.

“You did it for the business?” said Dominique when he’d finished. “Something’s very wrong when dumping bodies is part of our business plan.”

“Well, it wasn’t exactly planned,” he tried to defend himself. “And yes, I made a terrible mistake, but isn’t there a bigger question?” He’d finally found something curled up in one of those dark corners. Something that would take the heat off him. “Yes, I moved the body. But who put it here in the first place?”

They’d obviously been so stunned by his admission they hadn’t even thought of that. But Gamache had. Because he’d noticed something else about the Varathaned floor. The shine, the mar. And the complete lack of blood. So had Beauvoir. Even if Marc Gilbert had scrubbed and scrubbed he’d never have gotten all the blood up. There’d be traces.

But there was nothing. Just some fluff from the dead man’s cardigan.

No, Gilbert might have killed the man, but he didn’t do it at his own front door. The man had already been dead when he’d been placed there.

Gilbert stood up. “That’s one of the reasons I want to see the man who tried to break in. I think he had something to do with it.”

His mother stood up and touched her son’s arm. “I really think you should leave this to the police. The man’s probably unwell.”

She looked to Gamache, but the Chief Inspector had no intention of stopping Marc Gilbert from confronting the intruder. Just the opposite. He wanted to see what happened.

“Come with me,” he said to Marc, then turned to the women. “You’re welcome to join us, if you like.”

“Well, I’m going,” said Dominique. “Maybe you should stay here,” she said to her mother-in-law.

“I’m coming too.”

As they approached the barn the horses looked up from the field. Beauvoir, who hadn’t seen them before, almost stopped in his tracks. He hadn’t seen that many horses in real life. On film, yes. And these didn’t look like any film horses. But then, most men didn’t look like Sean Connery and most women didn’t look like Julia Roberts. But even allowing for natural selection, these horses seemed, well, odd. One didn’t even look like a horse. They began to mosey over, one walking sideways.

Paul Morin, who had seen a lot of horses, said, “Nice cows.”

Dominique Gilbert ignored him. But she felt drawn to the horses. As their own lives so suddenly unraveled the horses’ calm attracted her. As did, she thought, their suffering. No, not their suffering, but their forbearance. If they could endure a lifetime of abuse and pain she could take whatever blow that barn had in store. As the others moved past her Dominique stopped and walked back to the paddock, where she stood on a bucket and leaned over the fence. The other horses, still shy, held back. But Buttercup, big, awkward, ugly and scarred, came forward. Buttercup’s broad, flat forehead pushed softly into Dominique’s chest, as though it fit there. As though it was the key. And as she walked away to join the others and confront whatever that shadow was they could see standing in the barn, she smelled horse on her hands. And felt the reassuring pressure between her breasts.

It took a moment or two for their eyes to adjust as they stepped into the dim barn. Then the shadow became solid, firm. Human. Before them appeared a tall, slender, graceful older man.

“You’ve kept me waiting,” the darkness said.

Marc, whose vision wasn’t quite as good as he pretended, could only just see the outline of the man. But the words, the voice, told him more than enough. He felt light-headed and reached out. His mother, standing next to him, took his hand and held him steady.

“Mother?” he whispered.

“It’s all right, Marc,” the man said.

But Marc knew it wasn’t all right. He’d heard the rumors about the old Hadley house, the ghouls that lived there. He’d loved the stories because it meant no one else had wanted the house, and they could get it dirt cheap.

Dirt to dirt. Something filthy had indeed risen. The old Hadley house had produced one more ghost.

“Dad?”

“Dad?”

Marc stared from the shadow, darker than the shade, to his mother. The voice was unmistakable, indelible. The deep, calm voice that carried censure with a slight smile, so that the child, the boy, the man, had never really known where he stood. But he’d suspected.

“Hello, Marc.”

The voice held a hint of humor, as though this was in any way close to funny. As though Marc’s staggering shock was reason for mirth.

Dr. Vincent Gilbert walked out of the shed and out of the dead, into the light.

“Mom?” Marc turned to the woman beside him.

“I’m sorry, Marc. Come with me.” She tugged her only child out into the sun and sat him on a bale of hay. He felt it pricking into his bottom, uncomfortable.

“Can you get him something to drink?” Carole asked her daughter-in-law, but Dominique, hand to her face, seemed almost as stunned as her husband.

“Marc?” Dominique said.

Beauvoir looked at Gamache. This was going to be a long day if all they said was each other’s names.

Dominique recovered and walked quickly, breaking into a run, back to the house.

“I’m sorry, have I surprised you?”

“Of course you surprised him, Vincent,” snapped Carole. “How did you think he’d feel?”

“I thought he’d be happier than this.”

“You never think.”

Marc stared at his father, then he turned to his mother. “You told me he was dead.”

“I might have exaggerated.”

“Dead? You told him I was dead?”

She turned on her husband again. “We agreed that’s what I’d say. Are you senile?”

“Me? Me? Do you have any idea what I’ve done with my life while you played bridge?”

“Yes, you abandoned your family—”

“Enough,” said Gamache, and raised a hand. With an effort the two broke off and looked at him. “Let me be absolutely clear about this,” said Gamache. “Is he your father?”

Marc finally took a long hard look at the man standing beside his mother. He was older, thinner. It’d been almost twenty years, after all. Since he’d gone missing in India. Or at least that’s what his mother had told him. A few years later she said she’d had him declared dead, and did Marc think they should hold a memorial for him?

Marc had given it absolutely no thought. No. He had better things to do than help plan a memorial for a man missing all his life.

And so that had ended that. The Great Man, for that was what Marc’s father was, was forgotten. Marc never spoke of him, never thought of him. When he’d met Dominique and she’d asked if his father had been “that” Vincent Gilbert he’d agreed that, yes, he had. But he was dead. Fallen into some dark hole in Calcutta or Bombay or Madras.

“Isn’t he a saint?” Dominique had asked.

“That’s right. St. Vincent. Who raised the dead and buried the living.”

She hadn’t asked any more.

“Here.” Dominique had returned with a tray of glasses and bottles, not sure what the occasion called for. Never, in all the board meetings she’d chaired, all the client dinners she’d hosted, all the arbitrations she’d attended, had anything quite like this arisen. A father. Risen. But obviously not revered.

She put the drinks tray on a log and brought her hands to her face, softly inhaling the musky scent of horse, and felt herself relax. She dropped her hands, though not her guard. She had an instinct for trouble, and this was it.

“Yes, he’s my father,” said Marc, then turned to his mother again. “He isn’t dead?”

It was, thought Gamache, an interesting question. Not,
He’s alive?
but rather,
He isn’t dead?
There seemed a difference.

“I’m afraid not.”

“I’m standing right here, you know,” said Dr. Gilbert. “I can hear.”

But he didn’t seem put off by any of this, just amused. Gamache knew Dr. Vincent Gilbert would be a formidable opponent. And he hoped this Great Man, for that was what Gamache knew him to be, wasn’t also a wicked man.

Carole handed Marc a glass of water and took one herself, sitting on the hay beside him. “Your father and I agreed our marriage was over a long time ago. He went off to India as you know.”

“Why did you say he was dead?” Marc asked. If he hadn’t Beauvoir would have. He’d always thought his own family more than a little odd. Never a whisper, never a calm conversation. Everything was charged, kinetic. Voices raised, shouting, yelling. Always in each other’s faces, in each other’s lives. It was a mess. He’d yearned for calm, for peace, and had found it in Enid. Their lives were relaxed, soothing, never going too far, or getting too close.

He really should call her.