And in that instant the body of the poem surfaced. The rest of it was revealed.
* * *
From far off Armand Gamache could hear the sound of children playing. He knew where it was coming from. The park across the way, though he couldn’t see the children through the maple trees in late spring leaf. He sometimes liked to sit there and pretend the shouts and laughter came from his young grandchildren, Florence and Zora. He imagined his son Daniel and Roslyn were in the park, watching their children. And that soon they’d walk hand in hand across the quiet street in the very center of the great city, for dinner. Or he and Reine-Marie would join them. And play catch, or conkers.
He liked to pretend they weren’t thousands of kilometers away in Paris.
But mostly he just listened to the shouts and shrieks and laughter of neighborhood children. And smiled. And relaxed.
Gamache reached for his beer and lowered the
“What’re you thinking about?” he asked.
“My mind was just wandering.”
He was silent for a moment, watching her. Her hair was quite gray now, but then, so was his. She’d dyed it auburn for many years but just recently had stopped doing that. He was glad. Like him, she was in her mid-fifties. And this was what a couple of that age looked like. If they were lucky.
Not like models. No one would mistake them for that. Armand Gamache wasn’t heavy, but solidly built. If a stranger visited this home he might think Monsieur Gamache a quiet academic, a professor of history or literature perhaps at the Universite de Montreal.
But that too would be a mistake.
Books were everywhere in their large apartment. Histories, biographies, novels, studies on Quebec antiques, poetry. Placed in orderly bookcases. Just about every table had at least one book on it, and often several magazines. And the weekend newspapers were scattered on the coffee table in the living room, in front of the fireplace. If a visitor was the observant type, and made it further into the apartment to Gamache’s study, he might see the story the books in there told.
And he’d soon realize this was not the home of some retiring professor of French literature. The shelves were packed with case histories, with books on medicine and forensics, with tomes on Napoleonic and common law, fingerprinting, genetic coding, wounds and weapons.
Murder. Armand Gamache’s study was filled with it.
But still, even among the death, space was made for books on philosophy and poetry.
Watching Reine-Marie as they sat on the balcony, Gamache was once again struck by the certainty he’d married above himself. Not socially. Not academically. But he could never shake the suspicion he had gotten very, very lucky.
Armand Gamache knew he’d had a great deal of luck in his life, but none more than having loved the same woman for thirty-five years. Unless it was the extraordinary stroke of luck that she should also love him.
Now she turned her blue eyes on him. “Actually, I was thinking about Clara’s
“Oh?”
“We should be going soon.”
“True.” He looked at his watch. It was five past five. The party to launch Clara Morrow’s solo show started at the Musee at five and would end at seven. “As soon as David arrives.”
Their son-in-law was half an hour late and Gamache glanced inside their apartment. He could just barely make out his daughter Annie sitting in the living room reading, and across from her was his second in command, Jean Guy Beauvoir. Kneading Henri’s remarkable ears. The Gamaches’ German shepherd could stay like that all day, a goofy grin on his young face.
Jean Guy and Annie were ignoring each other. Gamache smiled slightly. At least they weren’t hurling insults, or worse, across the room.
“Would you like to leave?” Armand offered. “We could call David on his cell and ask him to just meet us there.”
“Why don’t we give him another couple of minutes.”
Gamache nodded and picked up the magazine, then he lowered it slowly.
“Is there something else?”
Reine-Marie hesitated then smiled. “I was just wondering how you’re feeling about going to the
Armand raised his brow in surprise.
