TEN

At the Chief Inspector’s request Marc and Dominique Gilbert were giving him a tour of their home, and now they stood in front of a room Gamache knew well. It had been the master bedroom of the old Hadley house, Timmer Hadley’s room.

Two murders had happened there.

Now he looked at the closed door, with its fresh coat of gleaming white paint, and wondered what lay beyond. Dominique swung the door open and sunlight poured out. Gamache couldn’t hide his surprise.

“Quite a change,” said Marc Gilbert, clearly pleased with his reaction.

The room was, quite simply, stunning. They’d removed all the fretwork and googahs added over the generations. The ornate moldings, the dark mantel, the velvet drapes that kept the light at bay with their weight of dust and dread and Victorian reproach. All gone. The heavy, foreboding four-poster bed was gone.

They’d taken the room back to its basic structure, clean lines that showed off its gracious proportions. The curtains had wide stripes of of sage and gray and let the light stream through. Along the top of each of the large windows was a lintel of stained glass. Original. More than a century old. It spilled playful colors into the room. The floors, newly stained, glowed. The king-size bed had an upholstered headboard and simple, fresh, white bed linen. A fire was laid in the hearth, ready for the first guest.

“Let me show you the en suite,” said Dominique.

She was tall and willowy. Mid-forties, Gamache thought, she wore jeans, a simple white shirt and her blonde hair loose. She had an air of quiet confidence and well-being. Her hands were flecked with white paint and her nails cut short.

Beside her Marc Gilbert smiled, happy to be showing off their creation. And Gamache, of all people, knew this resurrection of the old Hadley house was an act of creation.

Marc was also tall, over six feet. Slightly taller than Gamache, and about twenty pounds lighter. His hair was short, almost shaved, and it looked as though if he grew it in he’d be balding. His eyes were a piercing, buoyant blue and his manner welcoming and energetic. But while his wife was relaxed there was something edgy about Marc Gilbert. Not nervous so much as needy.

He wants my approval, thought Gamache. Not unusual really when showing off a project this important to them. Dominique pointed out the features of the bathroom, with its aqua mosaic-glass tiles, spa bath and separate walk-in shower. She was proud of their work, but she didn’t seem to need him to exclaim over it.

Marc did.

It was easy to give him what he wanted. Gamache was genuinely impressed.

“And we just put this door in last week,” said Marc. Opening a door from the bathroom they stepped onto a balcony. It looked out over the back of the house, across the gardens and a field beyond.

Four chairs were drawn around a table.

“I thought you could use these,” a voice said from behind them and Marc hurried to take the tray from his mother. On it were four glasses of iced tea and some scones.

“Shall we?” Dominique indicated the table and Gamache held a chair for Carole.

“Merci,” the older woman said, and sat.

“To second chances,” said the Chief Inspector. He lifted his iced tea and as they toasted he watched them. The three people who’d been drawn to this sad, violated, derelict house. Who’d given it new life.

And the house had returned the favor.

“Well, there’s more to do,” said Marc. “But we’re getting there.”

“We’re hoping to have our first guests by Thanksgiving,” said Dominique. “If Carole would just get off her derrière and do some work. But so far she’s refused to dig the fence posts or pour concrete.”

“Perhaps this afternoon,” said Carole Gilbert with a laugh.

“I noticed some antiques. Did you bring them from your home?” Gamache asked her.

Carole nodded. “We combined our belongings, but there was still a lot to buy.”

“From Olivier?”

“Some.” It was the most curt answer he’d received so far. He waited for more.

“We got a lovely rug from him,” said Dominique. “The one in the front hall, I think.”

“No, it’s in the basement,” said Marc, his voice sharp. He tried to soften it with a smile, but it didn’t quite work.

“And a few chairs, I think,” said Carole, quickly.

That would account for about one one-hundredth of the furnishings in the rambling old place. Gamache sipped his tea, looking at the three of them.

“We picked up the rest in Montreal,” said Marc. “On rue Notre Dame. Do you know it?”

Gamache nodded and then listened as Marc described their treks up and down the famed street, which was packed with antique shops. Some were not much more than junk shops but some contained real finds, near priceless antiques.

“Old Mundin’s repairing a few items we picked up in garage sales. Don’t tell the guests,” said Dominique with a laugh.

“Why didn’t you get more from Olivier?”

The women concentrated on their scones and Marc poked at the ice in his drink.

“We found his prices a little high, Chief Inspector,” said Dominique at last. “We’d have preferred to buy from him, but . . .”

It was left hanging, and still Gamache waited. Eventually Marc spoke.

“We were going to buy tables and beds from him. Made all the arrangements, then discovered he’d charged us almost double what he’d originally asked for them.”

“Now, Marc, we don’t know that for sure,” said his mother.

“Near enough. Anyway, we canceled the order. You can imagine how that went down.”

Dominique had been silent for most of this exchange. Now she spoke.

“I still think we should have paid it, or spoken to him quietly about it. He is our neighbor, after all.”

“I don’t like being screwed,” said Marc.

“No one does,” said Dominique, “but there are ways of handling it. Maybe we should have just paid. Now look what’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” asked Gamache.

“Well, Olivier’s one of the forces in Three Pines,” said Dominique. “Piss him off and you pay a price. We don’t really feel comfortable going into the village, and we sure don’t feel welcome in the bistro.”

“I hear you approached some of Olivier’s staff,” said Gamache.

Marc colored. “Who told you that? Did Olivier?” he snapped.

“Is it true?”

“What if it is? He pays them practically slave wages.”

“Did any agree to come?”

Marc hesitated then admitted they hadn’t. “But only because he increased their pay. We at least did that for them.”

Dominique had been watching this, uncomfortable, and now she took her husband’s hand. “I’m sure they were also loyal to Olivier. They seem to like him.”

Marc snorted and clamped down on his anger. A man, Gamache realized, ill-equipped for not getting his own way. His wife, at least, appreciated how all this might look and had tried to appear reasonable.

“Now he’s bad-mouthed us to the whole village,” said Marc, not letting it go.

“They’ll come around,” said Carole, looking at her son with concern. “That artist couple have been nice.”

“Peter and Clara Morrow,” said Dominique. “Yes. I like them. She says she’d like to ride, once the horses arrive.”

“And when will that be?” asked Gamache.

“Later today.”

“Vraiment? That must be fun for you. How many?”

“Four,” said Marc. “Thoroughbreds.”

“Actually, I believe you’ve changed that slightly, haven’t you?” Carole turned to her daughter-in-law.

“Really? I thought you wanted thoroughbreds,” said Marc to Dominique.

“I did, but then I saw some hunters and thought since we lived in the country that seemed appropriate.” She looked at Gamache once again. “Not that I plan to hunt. It’s a breed of horse.”

“Used for jumping,” he said.

“You ride?”

“Not at that level, but I enjoyed it. Haven’t been on a horse in years now.”

“You’ll have to come,” said Carole, though they all knew he almost certainly wasn’t going to squeeze himself into a pair of jodhpurs and climb onto a hunter. But he did smile as he imagined what Gabri would make of that invitation.

“What’re their names?” asked Marc.

Dominique hesitated and her mother-in-law jumped in. “It’s so hard to remember, isn’t it? But wasn’t one called Thunder?”

“Yes, that’s right. Thunder, Trooper, Trojan and what was the other one?” She turned back to Carole.

“Lightning.”

“Really? Thunder and Lightning?” asked Marc.

“Brothers,” said Dominique.

Their iced teas finished and the scones only crumbs they got to their feet and walked back into the house.

“Why did you move here?” Gamache asked, as they walked down to the main floor.

“Pardon?” asked Dominique.

“Why did you move to the country and to Three Pines in particular? It’s not exactly easy to find.”

“We like that.”

“You don’t want to be found?” asked Gamache. His voice held humor, but his eyes were sharp.

“We wanted peace and quiet,” said Carole.

“We wanted a challenge,” said her son.

“We wanted a change. Remember?” Dominique turned to her husband then back to Gamache. “We both had fairly high-powered jobs in Montreal, but were tired. Burned out.”

“That’s not really true,” protested Marc.

“Well, pretty close. We couldn’t go on. Didn’t want to go on.”

She left it at that. She could understand Marc’s not wanting to admit what’d happened. The insomnia, the panic attacks. Having to pull the car over on the Ville Marie Expressway to catch his breath. Having to pry his hands off the steering wheel. He was losing his grip.

Day after day he’d gone into work like that. Weeks, months. A year. Until he’d finally admitted to Dominique how he felt. They’d gone away for a weekend, their first in years, and talked.

While she wasn’t having panic attacks, she was feeling something else. A growing emptiness. A sense of futility. Each morning she woke up and had to convince herself that what she did mattered. Advertising.

It was a harder and harder sell.

Then Dominique had remembered something long buried and forgotten. A dream since childhood. To live in the country and have horses.

She’d wanted to run an inn. To welcome people, to mother them. They had no children of their own, and she had a powerful need to nurture. So they’d left Montreal, left the demands of jobs too stressful, of lives too callow. They’d come to Three Pines, with their bags of money, to heal first themselves. Then others.

They’d certainly healed this wound of a house.

“We saw an ad for this place in the Gazette one Saturday, drove down and bought it,” said Dominique.

“You make it sound simple,” said Gamache.

“It was, really, once we decided what we wanted.”

And looking at her, Gamache could believe it. She knew something powerful, something most people never learned. That people made their own fortune.

It made her formidable.

“And you, madame?” Gamache turned to Carole Gilbert.

“Oh, I’ve been retired for a while.”

“In Quebec City, I understand.”

“That’s correct. I quit work and moved there after my husband died.”

“Désolé.”

“No need to be. It was many years ago. But when Marc and Dominique invited me here I thought it sounded like fun.”

“You were a nurse? That will come in handy in a spa.”

“I hope not,” she laughed. “Not planning on hurting people, are you?” she asked Dominique. “God help anyone who asks for my help.”

They strolled once more into the living room and the Chief Inspector stopped by the floor-to-ceiling windows, then turned into the room.

“Thank you for the tour. And the tea. But I do have some questions for you.”

“About the murder in the bistro,” said Marc, and stepped slightly closer to his wife. “It seems so out of character for this village, to have a murder.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Gamache, and wondered if anyone had told them the history of their own home. Probably wasn’t in the real estate agent’s description.

“Well, to begin with, have you seen any strangers around?”

“Everyone’s a stranger,” said Carole. “We know most of the villagers by now, at least to nod to, but this weekend the place is filled with people we’ve never seen.”

“This man would be hard to miss; he’d have looked like a tramp, a vagrant.”

“No, I haven’t seen anyone like that,” said Marc. “Mama, have you?”

“Nobody.”

“Where were you all on Saturday night and early Sunday morning?”

“Marc, I think you went to bed first. He usually does. Dominique and I watched the Téléjournal on Radio-Canada then went up.”

“About eleven, wouldn’t you think?” Dominique asked.

“Did any of you get up in the night?”

“I did,” said Carole. “Briefly. To use the washroom.”

“Why’re you asking us this?” Dominique asked. “The murder happened down in the bistro. It has nothing to do with us.”

Gamache turned around and pointed out the window. “That’s why I’m asking.”

They looked. Down in the village a few cars were being packed up. People were hugging, reluctant children were being called off the village green. A young woman was walking briskly up rue du Moulin, in their direction.

“You’re the only place in Three Pines with a view over the whole village, and the only place with a direct view into the bistro. If the murderer turned on the lights, you’d have seen.”

“Our bedrooms are at the back,” Dominique pointed out. Gamache had already noted this in the tour.

“True. But I was hoping one of you might suffer from insomnia.”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector. We sleep like the dead here.”

Gamache didn’t mention that the dead in the old Hadley house had never rested well.

The doorbell rang just then and the Gilberts started slightly, not expecting anyone. But Gamache was. He’d noted Agent Lacoste’s progress round the village green and up rue du Moulin.

Something had happened.

“May I see you in private?” Isabelle Lacoste asked the Chief after she’d been introduced. The Gilberts took the cue. After watching them disappear Agent Lacoste turned to Gamache.

“The coroner called. The victim wasn’t killed in the bistro.”