The Long Way Home (16 page)

“When you looked at the paintings on Bean’s wall,” he asked his companions, “what did you feel?”

Clara smiled broadly, remembering. “Honestly? I thought they were awful.”

“You thought that,” Gamache persisted, “but what did you feel?”

“Amusement,” said Myrna.

“Were you laughing at them?” he asked, and Myrna considered.

“No,” she said slowly. “I think they made me happy.”

“Me too,” said Clara. “They were weird and fun and unexpected. I felt sorta buoyed up, you know?”

Myrna nodded.

“And this?” Gamache gestured toward the easel.

All three looked again at the bleached, tasteful canvas. It would go perfectly in someone’s penthouse, in the dining room. No danger of ruining the appetite.

Both women shook their heads. Nothing. It was like looking into a void.

“So Bean is the better painter after all,” said Gamache. “If only Bean had painted them.”

And that was the giant piece of the puzzle they’d all found at the same time.

Bean hadn’t painted those silly pictures. Peter had.

They were a mess, because they were the beginning. Peter’s first chaotic steps toward brilliance.

*   *   *

“You need to describe the paintings for me, in more detail,” said Gamache.

They’d moved with their coffees into Clara’s garden, feeling the need for fresh air and color after the tasteful oppression of Peter’s studio.

Rain was still threatening but hadn’t yet arrived.

“What struck me first were the purples and pinks and oranges all squashed in together in that one over Bean’s desk,” said Myrna.

“And the one by the window?” asked Clara. “It was like someone had thrown buckets of paint at a wall, and the drips had somehow taken shape.”

“And those mountains in the one behind the door,” said Myrna. “The smiles.”

Clara smiled. “Amazing.”

Taking a
pain au chocolat
, she ripped a section off so that the gooey dark chocolate core was exposed and flakes of pastry fell to the table.

“I don’t want you to think they were great,” Clara said to Gamache, who’d put strawberry jam on a croissant and was reaching for the marmalade. “It’s not like we’re turning them into masterpieces in our minds now that we know a kid hadn’t painted them.”

“They’re still crap,” agreed Myrna. “But happy
merde
.”

“Peter did them.” Clara shook her head. It was unbelievable. But true.

She’d called Peter’s sister, Marianna, and caught Bean in. She asked Bean who’d painted the pictures and Bean’s answer came immediately, and with surprise. Surely Aunt Clara knew.

“Uncle Peter.”

“He gave them to you?”

“Yes. And some he mailed. We got a pipe thing with more a few months ago.”

It was at that point Clara spoke to Marianna again and arranged for all the paintings to be couriered to her in Three Pines.

“I’ll get them out this morning. I’m sorry, I thought you knew he’d painted them. Not very good, are they?” Marianna said with barely disguised pleasure. “He showed some to me when he came over. Seemed to want me to say something about them. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.”

Poor Peter, Clara thought as she sat in the garden. So used to applause for everything he did. So used to getting it right the first time. How strange it must be to suddenly not be very good at something he was once celebrated for. Like a great golfer changing his swing, to become greater. But making it worse in the short term.

Sometimes the only way up is down. Sometimes the only way forward is to back up. It seemed that was what Peter had done. Thrown out all he knew and started again. In his mid-fifties.

A brave man, thought Clara.

“I received a message from the Sûreté in Paris this morning,” said Gamache. “They visited LaPorte and spoke with their Chef des bénévoles. He confirmed that Peter had volunteered there last year, but had left after a couple of months.”

“Why go all the way to Paris, to volunteer at LaPorte, then leave so soon?” asked Clara.

“Peter went to LaPorte because it had worked for Vincent Gilbert,” said Myrna. “Vincent arrived at LaPorte a selfish, callow, vile asshole. And he emerged an asshole saint.”

“Progress,” said Gamache. “Of a kind. I think it was like Oz and Peter was the Tin Man, looking for a heart. He thought he could find it there, doing a good deed for the less fortunate. And that would in turn make him a better painter.”

“No heart, no art,” said Myrna. “He must’ve thought that if it worked for such a ridiculous creature as Vincent Gilbert, surely it would work for him. But Peter’s reasons were selfish, and more than a little condescending. That might’ve changed, had he toughed it out, but he took off. Looking for another quick fix.”

“Sometimes the magic works,” said Clara, and looked at them expectantly. “You don’t know where that comes from?”

Gamache and Myrna shook their heads.

“It’s from my favorite scene in a movie,” she said. “
Little Big Man
. Chief Dan George is old and frail and he decides his time has come. He and Dustin Hoffman build a bed on stilts and Chief Dan George climbs up, lies down, and folds his arms over his chest.”

Clara mimicked the action, closing her eyes and turning her face to the cloudy skies.

“Dustin Hoffman is devastated,” she said. “He loves the Chief. He keeps vigil all night and in the morning, just as the sun rises, he goes over to the deathbed and Chief Dan George’s face is still and quiet. He’s at peace.”

Clara opened her eyes and looked at her audience, still and quiet.

“And then Chief Dan George opens his eyes and sits up. He looks at Dustin Hoffman and says, ‘Sometimes the magic works. Sometimes it doesn’t.’”

After a stunned silence, Myrna and Armand started laughing.

“That’s what Peter’s travels remind me of,” said Clara.

“Keeps coming up, doesn’t it? This idea of magic,” said Myrna. “We wondered last night if Peter might’ve gone back to the college hoping to recapture the magic of his youth. And now we’re talking about it again, at LaPorte.”

“I think we’re talking about it because we believe in it, not because Peter does.”

“And yet something happened to him,” said Gamache, getting up. “Judging by your description of his new paintings. Something changed him. Not in Paris perhaps, but somewhere, something happened to change his painting so completely.”

“Where’re you going?”

“To call Scotland.”

He left them in the back garden and walked slowly home, thinking about Peter and Paris. And Peter’s flight across Europe. Because that’s how it appeared to Gamache. After pursuing many people over many decades, he recognized the difference between fleeing and seeking.

This seemed like flight to Gamache. Paris to Florence to Venice to Scotland.

That was a lot of travel for a stationary man.

Why did people flee? Gamache asked himself as he nodded to neighbors and raised his hand to return a wave. They fled because they were in danger.

Had Peter left LaPorte so quickly for reasons that had more to do with saving his body than his soul?

As he walked home across the village green, Gamache worried that Peter hadn’t run fast enough or far enough. Or maybe he’d run smack into Samarra.

SIXTEEN

“Eh?”

“I asked if there were any artist colonies in your area, sir.”

“Wur yur, colonnades air?”

“Eh?”

Gamache stood in his study, phone gripped to his ear, as though pressing it harder to his head might make the conversation easier to understand.

It did not.

He’d bypassed the Chief Constable of Police Scotland. He’d bypassed the assistants and the directors. He knew from experience that as well informed and well meaning as those senior officers might be, the people who really knew the community were the ones who protected it every day.

So he’d called through to the Dumfries detachment directly and introduced himself. That had taken a few minutes, until the person at the other end was satisfied he was neither a victim of crime, nor a criminal.

It seemed when speaking English, his accent, combined with the Scottish ear, was producing a sort of white noise of nonsense.

In Dumfries, Constable Stuart tried to be patient. He looked out the window of the police station, at the whitewashed buildings. At the gray stone buildings. At the redbrick Victorian buildings. At the tall clock tower at the far end of the market square. At the people rushing by, the cold rain driving them toward the pubs and shops.

And he tried to be patient.

He tried to figure out what this man was going on about. A colonnade? Why call the police to ask about that? Then he thought he heard something about artists, but that was equally ridiculous. Again, why call the police to discuss art?

He wondered if this man might be off his head, but he sounded calm and rational and even a bit exasperated himself.

Constable Stuart became more alert when he made out the word “homicide,” but when he asked if this man was calling to report one, he got the only clear answer so far.

No.

“Then what, may I ask, are you wanting?”

He heard a long, long sigh down the phone line.

“
Mon dieu
,” he also heard.

“Did you say ‘
Mon dieu’
?” he asked. “Do you speak French?”

“
Oui
,” said Gamache. “Do you?” He asked that in French and was rewarded with a laugh.

“Oh, aye.
Je parle français
.”

And finally the two men could communicate. In French. Thanks to Constable Stuart’s affair with a Frenchwoman who was now his wife. She’d eventually learned English and he’d learned French.

Gamache explained that he was the former Chief Inspector of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, in Canada, and he needed Constable Stuart’s help. But not with a murder case. This was a private enquiry. Trying to find a missing friend. An artist. He’d been traced to the Dumfries area in the early winter. Gamache gave Constable Stuart the dates when Peter was there. But Gamache didn’t know where he went, what he did, or why Peter was even there. He wondered if there was an artist colony, or something that might draw a painter to the area.

“Well, now, this is a very beautiful part of the world, you know.”

Gamache envied Constable Stuart his accent. In French it became soft and charming, the rolling Scottish burr melding perfectly with the French language.

Who knew?

“So there are famous artists?”

“Not exactly famous.” There was a pause. “No, I cannot say they’re famous. But very good. And any artist would be inspired by the setting.” Constable Stuart looked out the window at the cold, gray day. At the sheets of rain pouring down.

It was beautiful.

“Now, we do have a number of very pretty gardens. Some remarkable, apparently. Would a gardener do?”

“I’m afraid not. I think it needs to be an artist. No idea why my friend might have gone to Dumfries?”

“Beyond the fact I think everyone should? No, sir.”

Gamache looked out the sitting room window. A heavy mist had descended and he could barely see the three pines on the village green. The bistro was just a ghostly outline with a slight glow of light in the window.

It was beautiful.

“We know by his bank withdrawals that he was in your area, but there’s no record of where he stayed.”

“Now, that’s not unusual. There’re a lot of B and Bs in the town and surrounding area. They prefer cash.”

“I’d like to send you a photograph and description of my friend.”

“Perfect. I’ll circulate it.”

He sounded cheerful, helpful. Hopeful. But the charming accent could not disguise the fact there was little to be hopeful about. The chances of Constable Stuart finding any trace of Peter Morrow’s activity from months ago were tiny. Still, he was willing to try and Gamache was grateful.

Peter had gone all the way to Dumfries for a reason. But that reason remained obscure. What they did know was that Peter wasn’t there now. He’d eventually left and popped up in Toronto.

The two men said their good-byes and Gamache sat in the easy chair. The window was open and he could hear the rain pelting down. Striking the leaves, hitting the porch and drumming against the window. The weather, and the Chief, had settled in for the day.

He leaned back, wove his fingers together and stared into space, considering. Thinking about Peter, and Dumfries, and his conversation with Constable Stuart. The Scots and the Québécois had a lot in common. They’d both been conquered by the English. Both had managed to keep their language and culture alive, against great odds. Both had nationalistic aspirations.

But Gamache knew Peter Morrow hadn’t gone to Scotland to study self-determination. Not on a national level anyway. His was a more personal quest for self.

Somewhere along the line something had happened and Peter Morrow had painted those extraordinary pictures.

Gamache was anxious to see them for himself.

*   *   *

They arrived at Clara’s home first thing the next morning. The cheerful UPS driver, in his brown truck and brown shorts, handed Clara what looked like the love child of a baseball bat and a baguette.

Clara signed for the long brown tube and waved it toward Gamache and Reine-Marie, who were breakfasting on the terrace of the bistro with Jean-Guy and Ruth.

The rain had stopped in the night and the day had dawned clear and warm, the sun gleaming off the moisture beaded on the leaves and flower petals, the roofs and grass. As it evaporated, vaporized by the sun, it filled the air with the scent of rose and lavender and asphalt shingles.

By noon the village would be sizzling, but for now it was gleaming and fragrant. But all that was lost on Clara. She only had eyes for the UPS tube. Taking it inside, she called Myrna.

Then she waited. Clutching the tube. Staring at the tube. Picking at the brown paper wrapping. Fortunately, she didn’t have long to wait. Within minutes everyone had arrived and Clara tore the wrapping off.

“Let’s see, let’s see,” said Ruth.

“You know that’s not a giant joint, right?” said Jean-Guy.