Premier lifted his hands. “Sounds reasonable to me. Nothing it is.”
“Pardon?” asked Corriveau. She’d been kidding when she said “nothing.”
“I spoke to the Chief Justice yesterday and told him what I thought might have happened. He agreed that while technically improper, you acted in the best interest of the province. Of the people. You used great judgment.”
The Premier Ministre du Québec stood up and put out his hand.
Judge Corriveau stood and shook it.
“Merci,” he said.
Then he turned to Gamache, also on his feet now.
“I’m sorry, my dear friend, that any punishment should come your way. We should be giving you a medal—”
Gamache leaned away from that suggestion.
“—but I can’t,” continued the Premier. “I can, though, promise you and Inspector Beauvoir a fair investigation.”
He walked them out, then the Premier Ministre closed the door, and closed his eyes. And saw again the charming bistro, and the kindly man with the knife.
CHAPTER 35
“Well,” said Clara. “What do you think?”
In the wake of the attacks, she’d canceled her art show. The vernissage would have been that very day, at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal. But instead, she’d hung her latest works in the bistro.
“Certainly covers up the holes,” said Gabri.
It was the best that could be said of the paintings. They couldn’t cover all the huge pockmarks in the plaster walls, but the worst were now hidden behind these strange portraits.
Gabri was not completely convinced it was an improvement.
The debris had been cleaned up. The shattered glass and wood and broken furniture thrown into bins.
The injured were healing. Olivier stood beside him, his arm bandaged and in a sling.
The insurance people had been and gone. And been again, and gone again. And were returning. They could not quite believe the claim that said the damages came from automatic weapons fire. Until they saw. And still, they needed to return.
And yet, there it was. Holes blasted in the walls. The old bay window shattered, a makeshift replacement put in by a local contractor.
People from surrounding villages had come to help. And now, if you didn’t look too closely, the bistro was almost back to normal.
Ruth was standing in front of a painting of Jean-Guy.
There was a light, airy quality about it. Probably because the canvas wasn’t obscured by a lot of paint. In fact, there was very little.
“He’s undressed,” said Ruth. “Disgusting.”
This was not completely true. What body there was had clothes. But it was really more a suggestion of a body. A suggestion of clothing. His handsome face was detailed. But older than the man himself.
Clara had painted Jean-Guy as he might look in thirty years. There was peace in the face and something else, deep in his eyes.
They walked around, drinks in hand, staring at the walls. Staring at themselves.
Over the course of a year, Clara had painted all of them. Or most of them.
Myrna, Olivier, Sarah the baker, Jean-Guy. Leo and Gracie.
She’d even painted herself, in the long-awaited self-portrait. It looked like a middle-aged madwoman staring into a mirror. Holding a paintbrush. Trying to do a self-portrait.
Gabri had hung that near the toilets.
“But there’re no holes here,” Clara had pointed out.
“And isn’t that lucky?” said Gabri, hurrying away.
Clara smiled, and followed him into the body of the bistro, taking up a position at the bar and sipping a cool sangria.
She watched. And wondered. When they’d get it. When they’d see.
That the unfinished portraits were in fact finished. They were not, perhaps, finished in the conventional sense, but she had captured in each the thing she most wanted.
And then, she’d stopped.
If Jean-Guy’s clothes weren’t perfect, did it matter?
If Myrna’s hands were blurry, who cared?
If Olivier’s hair was more a suggestion than actual hair, what difference did it make? And his hair, as Gabri was always happy to point out, was becoming more of a suggestion every day.
Ruth was staring at the portrait of Rosa, even as she held the duck.
The Rosa in Clara’s painting was imperious. Officious. Had Napoleon been a canard, he’d have been Rosa. Clara had pretty much nailed her.
Ruth gave a small snort. Then she shuffled along to the next painting. Of Olivier. Then the next and the next.
By the time she’d done the circuit, everyone was watching her. Waiting for the explosion.
Instead she went up to Clara, kissed her on the cheek and then went back to the painting of Rosa and stood there for a very long time.
The friends stared at each other, then one by one they joined Ruth.