A Trick of the Light
They all imagined the scene. The fiddlers, the dancing and laughing.
Castonguay spots Lillian just arriving, coming down du Moulin from where she’d parked the car. He’s had a few drinks and hurries to intercept her. Anxious to pin down their deal before she gets a chance to speak to others at the party. All the dealers and curators and gallery owners.
He steers her into the nearest garden.
“He probably didn’t even realize it was ours,” said Clara. Still watching Gamache. And still he revealed nothing. Just listened.
They breathed silence. It felt as though the world had stopped, the world had shrunk. To this instant, and this place. And these words.
“Then Lillian told him that she’d signed with François Marois.”
Clara stopped, seeing in her mind the stricken gallery owner. Well into his sixties, and ruined. A broken, drunken man. Given the final blow. And what does he do?
“She was his last hope,” said Clara softly. “And now it’s gone.”
“He’ll plead to diminished capacity or manslaughter,” said Chief Justice Pineault. “He must have been drunk at the time.”
“At the time of what?” asked Gamache.
“At the time he killed Lillian,” said Thierry.
“Oh, André Castonguay didn’t kill her. One of you did.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Even Ruth was paying attention now. Outside, the rain had begun again, falling from the dark sky and hitting the windows in great lashes, the water streaming down the old glass. Peter walked over to the door onto the porch and closed it.
They were sealed in now.
He rejoined the group, huddled together in a ragged circle. Staring at each other.
“Castonguay didn’t kill Lillian?” Clara repeated. “Then who did?”
They shot glances at each other, careful not to lock eyes. And then all eyes arrived back at Gamache. The center of the circle.
The lights flickered and even through the sealed windows they could hear a rumble of thunder. And see a flash as the dark forest around them was illuminated. Briefly. Then fell back to darkness.
Gamache spoke quietly. Barely heard above the rain and the rumble.
“One of the first things to strike us about this case was the contrast between the two Lillians. The vile woman you knew.” He looked at Clara. “And the kind, happy woman you knew.” He turned to Suzanne.
“Chiaroscuro,” said Denis Fortin.
Gamache nodded. “Exactly. The dark and the light. Who was she really? Which was the real Lillian?”
“Do people change?” asked Myrna.
“Do people change,” repeated Gamache. “Or do they revert to type, eventually? There seemed little doubt Lillian Dyson was once a dreadful person, hurting anyone unfortunate enough to come close. She was filled with bitterness and self-pity. She expected everything would just be given to her, and when it wasn’t she couldn’t cope. It took forty years but finally her life spiraled out of control, hurried along by alcohol.”
“She hit bottom,” said Suzanne.
“And she shattered,” said Gamache. “And while it was clear to us she was once a horrendous mess, it was equally clear she was trying to heal. To pick herself up with the help of AA and find,” he looked at Suzanne, “what did you call it?”
She looked puzzled for a moment then smiled slightly. “A quiet place in the bright sunshine.”
Gamache nodded, thoughtful. “Oui. C’est ça. But how to find it?”
The Chief scanned their faces and stopped, briefly, on Beauvoir, who looked as though he might weep.
“The only way was to stop drinking. But as I’ve found out in the last few days, for alcoholics stopping drinking is just the beginning. They have to change. Their perceptions, attitudes. And they have to clean up the mess they left behind. The alcoholic is like a tornado, roaring his way through the lives of others,” Gamache quoted. “Lillian underlined those words in her AA book. She underlined another passage. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead.”
His eyes fell on Clara now. She looked stricken.
“I think she was genuinely sorry about what she did to you and your friendship. By not only failing to be supportive, but actually trying to destroy your career. It was one of the things she was sincerely ashamed of. I don’t know for sure, of course,” said Gamache, and it seemed to Clara as though everyone else had disappeared, and they were alone in the room. “But I believe that beginner’s chip you found in the garden was hers. I think she brought it with her and was holding it, trying to get up the courage to speak with you. To say she was sorry.”