A Trick of the Light

“There’s one of me?”

“—there’s a clear contrast. The dark hues, the trees in the background. Her face partly in shadow. Her expression thunderous. Except for one tiny dot. The smallest hint of light, in her eyes.”

“Hope,” said Myrna.

“Hope. Or maybe not.” Gamache turned to Francois Marois. “You said something curious, when we were standing in front of that portrait. Do you remember?”

The art dealer looked perplexed. “I said something useful?”

“You don’t remember?”

Marois was quiet for a moment, one of those rare people who could keep others waiting without distress. Finally he smiled.

“I asked if you thought it was real,” said Marois.

“You did,” nodded the Chief Inspector. “Was it real, or just a trick of the light? Hope offered, then denied. A particular cruelty.”

He looked around the gathering. “That’s what this crime, this murder was about. The question of just how genuine the light actually was. Was the person really happy, or just pretending to be?”

“Not waving but drowning,” said Clara. She noticed again Gamache’s kindly eyes beneath the deep scar.

“Nobody heard him,” Clara quoted, “the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.”

But this time, as Clara recited the poem, Peter didn’t come to mind. This time Clara thought of someone else.

Herself. Pretending, for a lifetime. Looking on the bright side, but not always feeling it. But no more. Things were going to change.

The room fell silent, except for the gentle tip-tapping of the rain.

“C’est ca,” said Gamache. “How often have we mistaken the one for the other? Too afraid, or in too much of a hurry to see what was really happening? To see someone sinking?”

“But drowning men are sometimes saved.”

They swung their eyes from Gamache to the man who’d spoken. The young man. Brian.

Gamache regarded him for a few moments in silence, taking in the tattoos, the piercing, the studs on the clothing, and through the skin. Slowly the Chief Inspector nodded, then shifted his glance to the others.

“The question that we struggled with was whether Lillian Dyson was saved. Had she changed? Or was it just a false hope? She was an alcoholic. A cruel, bitter, self-absorbed woman. She hurt everyone who ever knew her.”

“But she wasn’t always like that,” said Clara. “She was nice once. A good friend, once.”

“Most people are,” said Suzanne, “at first. Most people aren’t born in prison or under a bridge or in a crack house. They become like that.”

“People can change for the worse,” said Gamache. “But how often do people really change for the better?”

“I believe we do,” said Suzanne.

“Had Lillian changed?” Gamache asked her.

“I think so. At least, she was trying.”

“Have you?” he asked.

“Have I what?” asked Suzanne, though she must have known what he meant.

“Changed.”

There was a long pause. “I hope so,” said Suzanne.

Gamache lowered his voice so that they had to strain to hear. “But is it real hope? Or just a trick of the light?”

TWENTY-SEVEN

“You lied to us at every turn, then dismissed it as simply habit.” Gamache continued to stare at Suzanne. “That doesn’t sound like real change to me. It sounds like situational ethics. Change, as long as it’s convenient. And a lot about what’s happened in the last few days has been extremely inconvenient. But some was very convenient. For instance, your sponsee coming to Clara’s party.”

“I didn’t know Lillian was even here,” said Suzanne. “I told you that.”

“True. But then you told us a lot of things. For instance, that you didn’t know who the famous line He’s a natural, producing art like it’s a bodily function was about. It was you.”

“You?” said Clara, turning to the lively woman beside her.

“That review was the last shove,” said Gamache. “After that you went into free-fall. And landed in AA, where