Tom Hancock watched his companion, let him sit in silence for a few moments.
“Doubt is natural, Chief Inspector. It can make us stronger.”
“And things are strongest where they’re broken?” asked the Chief, with a smile.
“They better be, I’m counting on it,” said the Reverend Mr. Hancock.
Gamache nodded, thinking. “But still you do it,” he said at last. “You sit with parishioners who are sick and dying. It scares you, but you do it every day. You don’t run away.”
“I have no choice. I have to aim for the ice, not the open water if I’m going to get where I want to go. And so do you.”
“Where do you want to go?”
Hancock paused, thinking. “I want to get to shore.”
Gamache took a deep breath and a long exhale. Hancock watched him.
“Not everyone makes it across the river,” said Gamache quietly.
“Not everyone’s supposed to.”
Gamache nodded.
I believe you, whispered the young voice.
Gamache leaned forward in the pew, placing his elbows on his knees and lacing his strong fingers together, one hand clasping the other, which trembled just a little. Then he rested his chin on them.
“I made some terrible mistakes,” he said at last, staring into the half light. “Not seeing the full picture, though all the clues were there. Not grasping it all until it was almost too late and even then I made a terrible mistake.”
The corridor, the closed door. The wrong door, the wrong way. The seconds ticking down. The race back toward the other door, heart pounding.
Don’t worry, son. It will be all right.
Breaking through the door and seeing him sitting there, his thin back to them, facing the wall. Facing the clock. That ticked down.
Yes sir, I believe you.
To zero.
Bringing himself back to the silent church Gamache looked over to Tom Hancock.
“Sometimes life goes in a direction not of our choosing,” said the minister, softly. “That’s why we need to adapt. It’s never too late to change direction.”
Gamache remained silent. He knew the young minister was wrong, sometimes it was too late. Général Montcalm knew that. He knew that.
“They should have sold all those boxes of books,” said Tom Hancock, at last, lost in his own reverie. “Now, there’s a symbol for you. The Lit and His cluttered with unwanted English words. Weighed down by the past.”
“Je me souviens,” whispered Gamache.
“It’ll drag them under,” said the Reverend Mr. Hancock, sadly.
Gamache was beginning to understand this community and this case.
And himself.
EIGHTEEN
“Ten more.”
Clara groaned and lifted her legs in unison.
“Keep your back flat!”
Clara ignored the order. This wasn’t pretty. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but she was going to damn well do it.
“One, grunt, two, groan, three . . .”
“Did I tell you about my day skiing at Mont Saint-Rémy?”
Pina, the exercise instructor, apparently didn’t need to breathe. Her legs and arms seemed independent of the rest of her, moving in military precision while she lay on the mat chatting away as though at a slumber party.
Myrna was swearing and sweating freely and sometimes making other noises while Ricky Martin sang “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” Clara was always happy to exercise close to Myrna since any number of sins, and sounds, could be blamed on her. And she was easy to hide behind. The entire class could hide behind Myrna.
Myrna turned to Clara. “If you hold her down, I’ll kill her.”
“But how? We’d never get away with it.” Clara had been giving it some thought. So far she’d done twelve leg lifts of the ten Pina announced, and now Pina was complaining bitterly about snowboarders while her own pneumatic legs went up and down.
“No one would say anything,” said Myrna, lifting her legs a millimeter. “And if they threaten to, we kill them too.”
It was as good a plan as Clara had heard.
“Where are we with the leg lifts?” Pina asked. “Three, four . . .”
“OK, Bugsy, I’m in,” snorted Clara.
“So’m I,” said Dominique Gilbert on Clara’s other side, her voice almost as unrecognizable as her purple face.
“Dear God,” said The Wife, across the room, “do it soon.”
“Do what?” asked Pina, starting to bicycle her legs in mid-air.
“Murder you, of course,” snapped Myrna.