mom and dad were happy to have him plugged in and removed. He'd eaten greedily, as though this slop was the best food he'd ever been given. Suzanne had even felt resentment about that. Every night she worked hard to give them good, home-made dinners. Tonight all she could manage was to open two cans, from their emergency supply, and warm them up. And tonight Philippe wolfed it down as though it was gourmet food. She looked at her son and wondered if he did it on purpose, to insult her.
Matthew leaned closer to his plate and fine tuned the ravioli road. Each tiny ridge on the outside of the squares needed to fit into the opposing indentations. Or else? Or else the universe would explode in fire and their flesh would bubble and sear off, and he would see his whole family die in front of him, milliseconds before his own horrible death. There was a lot riding on Chef Boyardee.
He looked up and caught his wife watching him. Mesmerised by the precision of his movements. Stuck on the stutter of a decimal point. The line suddenly came to him. He'd always liked it, from the moment he'd read it at Miss Neal's. It was from Auden's Christmas Oratorio. She'd pushed it on him. She was a lifelong admirer of Auden. Even this cumbersome, somewhat strange work, she seemed to love. And understand. For himself, he'd struggled through it, out of respect for Miss Neal. But he hadn't liked it at all. Except for that one line. He didn't know what made it stand out from the gazillion other lines in the epic work. He didn't even know what it meant. Until now. He, too, was stuck on the stutter of a decimal point. His world had come down to this. To look up was to face disaster. And he wasn't ready for that.
He knew what tomorrow brought. He knew what he'd seen coming from so far off. Inexorably. Without hope of escape he waited for it to arrive. And it was almost there, on their doorstep. He looked over at his son, his little boy, who had changed so much in the last few months. They'd thought it was drugs, at first. His anger, his slipping grades, his dismissal of everything he had previously loved, like soccer, and movie night, and 'NSYNC'. And his parents. Himself in particular, Matthew felt. For some reason Philippe's rage was directed at him. Matthew wondered what was going on behind that euphoric face. Could Philippe possibly know what was coming, and be happy about it?
Matthew adjusted the ravioli, just in time, before his world exploded.
Each time the phone rang in the Incident Room activity stopped. And it rang often. Various officers checking in. Shopkeepers, neighbors, bureaucrats returning phone calls.
The old Canadian National rail station had proven perfect for their needs. A team had worked with the volunteer fire department and cleared a space in the center of what must have been the waiting room. Glowing varnished wood went a quarter of the way up the walls and the walls themselves had held posters with fire tips and past winners of the Governor-General's Literary Awards, a hint as to who the fire chief might be. The Surete officers had removed those, neatly rolling them up, and replaced them with flow charts and maps and lists of suspects. It now looked like any other incident room, in an old and atmospheric train station. It was a space that seemed used to waiting. All those hundreds, thousands, of people who'd sat in this room, waiting. For trains. To take them away, or to bring their loved ones home. And now men and women again sat in the space, waiting. This time for a report from the Surete lab in Montreal. The report that would send them home. The report that would destroy the Crofts. Gamache got up, pretended to stretch, and started to walk. The chief always paced, his hands clasped behind his back, his head down looking at his feet, when he got impatient. Now, as the others pretended to work the phones and gather information, Chief Inspector Gamache circled them, slowly, with a measured pace. Unhurried, unperturbed, unstoppable.
Gamache had risen before the sun that morning. His little travel alarm said 5.55. He was always delighted when a digital clock had all the same numbers. Half an hour later, dressed in his warmest clothes, he was tiptoeing down the stairs toward the front door of the B. & B. when he heard a noise in the kitchen.
Gamache could have kissed him.
'And', Gabri whipped a small paper bag out from behind his back, 'a couple of croissants.'
Gamache could have married him.
Minutes later Armand Gamache sat on the frosted wooden bench on the green. For half an hour he sat there in the still, peaceful, dark morning, and watched the sky change. Black became royal blue and then a hint of gold. The forecasters had finally gotten it right. The day dawned brilliant, crisp, clear and cold. And the village awoke. One by one lights appeared in the windows. It was a tranquil few minutes, and Gamache appreciated every calm moment, pouring rich, full bodied
Gamache sipped and chewed. But mostly he watched.
At ten to seven a light went on over at Ben Hadley's place. A few minutes later Daisy could be seen limping around the yard, her tail wagging. Gamache knew from experience the last earthly acts of most dogs was to lick their master and wag their tail. Through the window Gamache could just make out movement in Ben's home as he prepared breakfast.
Gamache waited.
The village stirred and by seven-thirty most homes had come to life. Lucy had been let out of the Morrow home and was wandering around, sniffing. She put her nose in the air, then slowly turned and walked then trotted and finally ran to the trail through the woods that would take her home. Back to her mother. Gamache watched the golden-feathered tail disappear into the maple and cherry forest, and felt his heart break. A few minutes later Clara came out and called Lucy. A single forlorn bark was heard and Gamache watched as Clara went into the woods and returned a moment later, followed slowly by Lucy, her head down and her tail still.
Clara had slept fitfully the night before, waking up every few hours with that sinking feeling that was becoming a companion. Loss. It wasn't the shriek it had been, more a moan in her marrow. She and Peter had spoken again over the dishes while the others sat in the living room, mulling over the possibility Jane had been murdered.
'I'm sorry,' Clara said, a dish towel in her hand, taking the warm, wet plates from Peter's hand. 'I should have told you about my conversation with Gamache.'
'Why didn't you?'
'I don't know.'
'That's not good enough, Clara. Can it be that you don't trust me?'
He searched her face, his icy-blue eyes keen and cold. She knew she should hold him, should tell him how much she loved him and trusted him and needed him. But something held her back. There it was again. A silence between them. Something else unsaid. Is this how it starts? Clara wondered. Those chasms between couples, filled not with comfort and familiarity, but with too much unsaid, and too much said.
