A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #7)

A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #7) Page 142

He glared at the semi-circle of faces. They looked as though he was something fetid, something fecal.

The lights flickered, then dimmed. A brown-out. They could feel the strain as the light fought to stay on.

And then it left.

And they were left with the wavering candle-light.

No one spoke. Instead they waited, to see if something else would happen. Something worse. They could hear the furious lashing of the wind in the trees, and the rain against the windows and the roof.

Gamache, though, never took his eyes off Denis Fortin.

“If you hated me that much, why’d you come to my vernissage at the Musée?” Clara asked.

Fortin turned back to Gamache. “Can you guess?”

“To apologize,” said Gamache.

Fortin smiled. “Once Lillian left and the howl in my head settled down, I got to thinking.”

“How to kill twice,” said Gamache.

“A coup de grâce,” said Fortin.

“Grace had nothing to do with it,” said Gamache. “It was a plan filled with hatred.”

“If it was, it was put there by Lillian,” said Fortin. “She made the monster. She shouldn’t have been surprised when it turned on her. And yet, you know, she was.”

“How did you know Lillian even knew me?” asked Clara.

“She told me. Told me what she was doing. Going around and apologizing to people. She said she’d tried to find you in the Montréal phone book, but you weren’t there. She wondered if I’d ever heard of you.”

“And what did you tell her?”

He smiled then. Slowly.

“At first I said no, but after she left I got to thinking. I called and told her about your show. Her reaction to the news was almost payback enough. She wasn’t altogether happy to hear it.”

His vile smile spread to his eyes.

“The Québec art world is a small place, and I’d heard about the after-party down here, though I hadn’t, of course, been invited. I told Lillian and suggested it would be a good place for her to talk to you. Took her a few days, but she called back. Wanted the details.”

“But you had a problem,” said the Chief Inspector. “You’d been to Three Pines before, so giving Lillian directions was no problem. And you knew she was happy to crash the party. But you needed to be here too. And for that you needed a legitimate invitation. But you and Clara weren’t exactly on good terms.”

“True, but Lillian had given me an idea.” Fortin looked at Clara. “I knew if I apologized you’d accept. Which is why you’ll never make it in the art world. No guts. No backbone. I knew if I asked to come to the party here, begged, you’d agree. But I didn’t have to. You invited me.”

Fortin shook his head. “I mean, honestly. I treat you like crap and you not only forgive me, but invite me down to your home? You’ve got to have more sense than that, Clara. People’ll take advantage of you, if you’re not careful.”

Clara glared at him, but kept her mouth shut.

Another great blast of thunder shook the home, as the storm bounced and magnified, trapped in the valley.

The living room felt intimate. Ancient. As an old sin was revealed. The light from the candles faltered, catching people and furniture. Turning them into something grotesque on the walls, as though there was another range of dark listeners behind them.

“How did you know I killed Lillian?” Fortin asked Gamache.

“It was, finally, quite simple,” said Gamache. “It had to be someone who’d been to the village before. Knew not only how to find Three Pines but which home was Clara’s. It seemed too much of a coincidence that Lillian would be killed just by chance in Clara’s garden. No, it must have been planned. And if it was planned, then what was the purpose? Killing Lillian in the garden hurt two people. Lillian, of course. But also Clara. And the party gave you a village filled with suspects. Other people who have known Lillian. Might have wanted her dead. That also explained the timing. The murderer had to be someone in the artistic community, who knew Clara and Lillian, and Three Pines.”

The Chief Inspector held Fortin’s gleaming eyes.

“You.”

“If you’re expecting remorse you won’t find it. She was a hateful, vindictive bitch.”

Gamache nodded. “I know. But she was trying to get better. She might not have said it as you’d have liked, but I think she really was sorry for what she’d done.”

“You try forgiving someone who ruined your life, you smug bastard, then come and lecture me about forgiveness.”