A Fatal Grace

‘I’ve always loved your art, Clara.’



‘She said that?’ Gamache asked.



Clara nodded.



‘Did you know her?’



‘Never saw her before.’



‘But you must have,’ said Agent Lemieux, speaking for the first time in an interrogation, the words jumping unbidden from his mouth. He clamped his mouth shut and looked at Gamache, waiting for the reprimand. Instead Gamache was looking at him with interest. Then he turned back.



Relieved, Lemieux listened, but wanted to squirm in his seat. He found this whole exchange deeply unsettling.



‘How do you explain it?’ Gamache asked, watching Clara closely.



‘I can’t.’



‘Yes you can,’ Gamache encouraged her, exploring, probing, asking her to let him in. ‘Tell me.’



‘I think she was God. Thought she was God.’ Clara struggled to compose herself, clamping her throat against the tears.



Gamache sat quietly, waiting. He looked away, giving her the semblance of privacy. Staring at the television he saw in his mind’s eye the frozen image of the barge. No. Not the barge, just the prow. With a design. A sea serpent. A snake. No. A bird.



An eagle.



A shrieking eagle.



And Gamache knew then why CC had stopped the tape just there. He had to get to the Incident Room before Lacoste left. The clock on the mantel said just after six. It might already be too late. Gesturing to Lemieux he whispered in the young man’s ear. Lemieux left the room quickly and quietly. A moment later Gamache saw him hurrying along the front path and out the gate.



Gamache cursed himself for forgetting to give the video to Lemieux to put back in the evidence box. He had a sneaking suspicion he’d leave without it himself. Peter arrived with the tea and Clara roused herself.



‘I need to ask you this again, Clara. Are you sure you’d never seen Elle before?’



‘Elle? Was that her name?’



‘That’s what the police report called her. We don’t know her real name.’



‘I’ve thought about it a great deal since that night. Myrna also asked. I didn’t know her. Believe me.’



Gamache did.



‘How did she die?’ asked Clara. ‘Was it the cold?’



‘She was murdered, shortly after she spoke to you.’



TWENTY-NINE



Armand Gamache actually remembered to take The Lion in Winter back to the Incident Room. He placed it on his desk and went over to Lacoste’s computer where the others were huddled. He noticed Agent Nichol sitting at her own desk and waved her over.



‘Lemieux told me what you wanted,’ said Lacoste, glancing at him quickly. ‘Look at this.’ Her computer screen was split in two, with near identical images on either side. The head of an eagle, stylized and screaming.



‘This one,’ Lacoste pointed to the one on the left, ‘is the emblem of Eleanor of Aquitaine.’



‘And that one?’ Gamache pointed to the other half of the screen.



‘That’s CC’s corporate logo. It’s on the cover of her book, kind of. It’s all smudged, a not very good reproduction, but that’s what it is.’



‘You were right,’ said Beauvoir. ‘CC stopped the video at minute seventeen to get a good look at the front of the boat. She must have recognized it as Eleanor’s emblem, and wanted to copy it.’



‘Everything makes sense,’ murmured Lemieux.



‘How’d you make the connection?’ Beauvoir asked.



‘I had an unfair advantage,’ admitted Gamache. ‘Lyon showed me CC’s book and pointed out the logo. It’s unforgettable.’ So this explained the ridiculous choice of a belligerent eagle as a logo, he thought. It was Eleanor’s emblem.



‘There’s something I need to show you.’ Gamache walked over to his satchel and removed the photographs taken by Saul Petrov. The team pulled their chairs up to the conference table while Gamache spread them out.



‘I figured out why CC grabbed the chair in front of her,’ he said, nodding to the series of pictures. ‘It’s all there.’



They stared and after a minute Gamache took pity on them. They were all tired and hungry and Agent Lacoste had a long drive back to Montreal.



‘See here?’ He pointed to one of the early shots of CC watching the curling. ‘The chair looks fine, right?’



They nodded.



‘Now look here.’ He pointed to one of the last pictures of CC.



‘My God, it’s so obvious. How could I have missed it?’ Beauvoir looked from the pictures to Gamache in astonishment. ‘It’s crooked.’