“Just about,” said Clara.
Beauvoir shook his head. Still, it wasn’t perhaps unexpected, nor was it necessarily a bad thing. Myrna had helped the Chief in the past and while Beauvoir had never, until now, wanted to ask for help from the villagers he suspected they actually had some to give. And now he had no choice.
“So what do you think?” he asked.
“I’d like to hear more. Have you found out anything new?”
He told them about his conversation with Gamache and what the chief had found out in Quebec City about Old Mundin’s family and Carole Gilbert.
“Woloshyn?” Clara repeated. “Woo?”
“Perhaps,” Beauvoir nodded.
“The inn and spa has a lot of antiques,” said Myrna. “Could they have found them on rue Notre-Dame?”
“In the same store where Olivier sold the Hermit’s things?” said Beauvoir. “You’re thinking if they went in, they might have recognized some of Olivier’s items?”
“Exactly,” said Myrna. “All Carole Gilbert would have to do is casually ask how the owner got them. He would have directed her to Olivier and Three Pines, and voilà.”
“No, it doesn’t work,” said Beauvoir.
“Of course it does. It’s perfect,” said Clara.
“Think about it,” Beauvoir turned to her. “Olivier sold those things to the antique shop years ago. If Carole Gilbert found them why’d they wait almost ten years to buy the old Hadley house?”
The three sat there, thinking. Eventually Clara and Myrna started batting around other theories, but Beauvoir remained lost in his own thoughts.
Of names. Of families. And of patience.
Armand Gamache folded back the sleeve of his parka so that he could see his watch.
Quarter past one. A little early for the meeting. He dropped his arm over the satchel, protecting it.
Instead of heading straight in to the Château Frontenac he decided to stroll along the Dufferin Terrace, the long wooden boardwalk that swept in front of the hotel and overlooked the St. Lawrence River. In the summer it was filled with ice cream carts and musicians and people relaxing in the pergolas. In the winter a bitter damp wind blew down the St. Lawrence River and hit pedestrians, stealing their breaths and practically peeling the skin off their faces. But still people walked along the outdoor terrasse, so remarkable was the view.
And there was another attraction. La glissade. The ice slide. Built every winter it towered above the promenade. As he turned the corner of the Château the wind hit Gamache’s face. Tears sprung to his eyes and froze. Ahead, midway along the terrasse, he could see the slide, three lanes wide with stairs cut into the snow at the side.
Even on this brittle day kids were lugging their rented toboggans up the steps. In fact, the colder the day the better. The ice would be keen and the toboggans would race down the steep slope, shooting off the end. Some toboggans were going so fast and so far pedestrians on the terrasse had to leap out of their way.
As he watched he noticed it wasn’t just kids climbing to the top, but adults as well including a few young couples. It was as effective as a scary movie to get a hug, and he remembered clearly coming to the slide with Reine-Marie early in their relationship. Climbing to the top, dragging the long toboggan with them, waiting their turn. Gamache, deathly afraid of heights, was still trying to pretend otherwise with this girl who’d stolen his heart so completely.
“Would you like me to sit in front?” she’d whispered as the people in front of them shoved off and plummeted down the slide.
He’d looked at her, a protest on his lips, when he realized here was a person he needn’t lie to, needn’t pretend with. He could be himself.
Their toboggan hurtled toward the Dufferin Terrace below, though it looked as though they were heading straight into the river. Armand Gamache shrieked and clutched Reine-Marie. At the bottom they laughed so hard he thought he’d ruptured something. He never did it again. When they’d brought Daniel and Annie it had been their mother who’d taken them while Dad waited at the bottom with the camera.
Now Chief Inspector Gamache stood and watched the kids, the couples, an elderly man and woman walk up the narrow snow steps and then shoot back down.
It comforted him slightly to hear that they too screamed. And laughed.
As he watched he heard another shout but this wasn’t from the direction of the ice slide. This came from over the side of the terrace, from the river.
He wasn’t the only one to notice. A few people drifted to the handrail. Gamache walked over and wasn’t surprised to see teams of canoeists out on the ice practicing. The race was Sunday, two days away.
