A Trick of the Light
“Go if you have to,” said Myrna. “But just make sure you’re doing it for them and not for you.”
With that ringing in her ears Clara had crossed the village green and made for the Incident Room, to speak with Beauvoir. But also to get something else.
Their address.
Now, after listening to the Inspector, Clara nodded. Two people had given her the same advice. To wait. Clara realized she was staring at the wall of the old railway station. At the photos of Lillian, dead. In her garden.
Where that strange woman and Chief Inspector Gamache were waiting for her.
* * *
“I’ve remembered most of Lillian’s secrets, I think.”
“You think?” asked Gamache. They were strolling around Clara’s garden, stopping now and then to admire it.
“I wasn’t lying to you last night, you know. Don’t tell my sponsees, but I get their secrets all mixed up. After a while it’s hard to separate one from the other. All a bit of a blur, really.”
Gamache smiled. He too was the safe in which many secrets were stored. Things he’d learned in investigations that had no relevance to the case. That never needed to come to light. And so he’d locked them away.
If someone suddenly demanded Monsieur C’s secrets he’d balk. At spilling them, certainly, but also, frankly, he’d need time to separate them from the rest.
“Lillian’s secrets were no worse than anyone’s,” said Suzanne. “At least, not the ones she told me about. Some shoplifting, some bad debts. Stealing money from her mother’s purse. She’d dabbled in drugs and cheated on her husband. When she was in New York she’d steal from her boss’s till and not share some tips.”
“Nothing huge,” said Gamache.
“It never is. Most of us are brought down by a bunch of tiny transgressions. Little things that add up until we collapse under them. It’s fairly easy to avoid doing the big bad things, but it’s the hundred mean little things that’ll get you eventually. If you listen to people long enough you realize it’s not the slap or the punch, but the whispered gossip, the dismissive look. The turned back. That’s what people with any conscience are ashamed of. That’s what they drink to forget.”
“And people without a conscience?”
“They don’t end up in AA. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with them.”
Gamache thought about that for a moment. “You said ‘at least, not the ones she told me about.’ Does that mean she kept some secrets from you?”
He wasn’t looking at his companion. He found people opened up more if given the conceit of their own space. Instead, Chief Inspector Gamache stared straight ahead at the honeysuckle and roses growing up an arbor and warming in the early afternoon sun.
“Some manage to flush it all out in one go,” said Suzanne. “But most need time. It’s not that they’re intentionally hiding anything. Sometimes they’ve buried it so deep they don’t even know it’s there anymore.”
“Until?”
“Until it claws its way back up. By then something tiny has turned into something almost unrecognizable. Something big and stinky.”
“What happens then?” asked the Chief Inspector.
“Then we have a choice,” said Suzanne. “We can look the truth square in the face. Or we can bury it again. Or, at least try.”
To a casual observer they would appear to be two old friends discussing literature or the latest concert at the village hall. But someone more astute might notice their expressions. Not grave, but perhaps a little somber on this lovely, sunny day.
“What happens if people try to bury it again?” Gamache asked.
“I don’t know about normal human beings, but for alcoholics it’s lethal. A secret that rotten will drive you to drink. And the drink will drive you to your grave. But not before it steals everything from you. Your loved ones, your job, your home. Your dignity. And finally, your life.”
“All because of a secret?”
“Because of a secret, and the decision to hide from the truth. The choice to chicken out.” She looked at him closely. “Sobriety isn’t for cowards, Chief Inspector. Whatever you might think of an alcoholic, to get sober, really sober demands great honesty, and that demands great courage. Stopping drinking’s the easy part. Then we have to face ourselves. Our demons. How many people are willing to do that?”
“Not many,” Gamache admitted. “But what happens if the demons win?”