A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,69
no longer able to hold it, he breathed in. Deeply.
There was a familiar smell. Not a scent. Not an aroma. Nothing that exotic. It was more earthy. It certainly wasn’t cooking.
It was books. Musky words filled the air.
* * *
“I’m in here.”
Amelia dropped her bag in the kitchen and followed the voice.
At the door into the back room, she stopped.
Clara Morrow was sitting on a wooden stool with a wind-up seat, her back to the door. A paintbrush in her mouth. Staring at a canvas.
Amelia couldn’t see that much of the painting. It was hidden behind a mass of Clara’s hair.
“So what should I do?” asked Amelia. “Aren’t you supposed to cook or something?”
Clara snorted, then turned. At her feet, a very tiny lion stirred.
She looked at her guest.
Jet-black hair. Luminous white skin, almost transparent. Piercings through her nose, her brows, her cheek. But the studs weren’t black or blood-red. They were tiny faux diamonds. Gleaming where they caught the light. Like stars.
Her ears were encased in rings. Her fingers looked like they’d been dipped in metal.
It was as though this girl was encasing herself in armor.
And where skin was exposed, there were tattoos.
But the one thing this girl could not mark or pierce or hide were her eyes. The only original bit left. They were bright, like diamonds.
* * *
“What?” said Huifen when Gabri handed her an apron and pointed to the dishes in the bistro kitchen. “I’m—”
“Yes, I know. You’re this close”—he brought his thumb and forefinger up—“to being a Sûreté officer. You’ve said. And I’m this close”—he brought the fingers even closer—“to kicking you out.”
“You can’t.”
“Of course I can. This is a favor we’re doing for Monsieur Gamache, not for you. I’m happy to put you up, but you have to work for your room and board. An hour a day here in the bistro or the B and B. Wherever we need you.”
“That’s slave labor.”
“That’s life in the real world. You sat here most of the afternoon ordering food. Then you went to the B and B and ate all the cake. Well, here’s the bill.”
He tossed her a tea towel.
* * *
“We didn’t get off to a good start,” said Myrna, putting a Coke down in front of Jacques. He was slumped on the sofa in her loft above the bookstore, hitting the screen of his iPhone with increasing force.
“Fucking thing doesn’t work here.”
“Language,” said Myrna, sitting in a large chair in which her outline was permanently stamped.
“I heard that old woman say worse.”
“And when you’re an old woman, we’ll tolerate it from you too. For now, you’re a guest in my home, in this village, and you’ll watch your language. And you’re right. There’s no wireless here, no satellite coverage.”
Jacques shoved his iPhone into his pocket.
“Should we start again?” Myrna asked.
She’d calmed down since their confrontation in the bistro. Seeing Ruth as the reasonable one had been deeply humbling to her. She’d returned to her bookstore for the afternoon, then headed upstairs, made a bed for her guest, and began dinner.
“Do you want to talk about what happened at the academy?” she asked. “You were close to the professor?”
Jacques stood up. “You make me sick. A man’s dead, murdered. And all you want is gossip.”
Myrna also stood and stared at him. Her look steady, unwavering.
“I know what you’re going through.”
“Oh, really,” he laughed. “You know about murder? In books, maybe. You have no idea what it’s like out there.” He waved out the window. “In the real world.”
“Oh, I have some idea,” she said quietly. “This isn’t the peaceful village it appears.”
“What? Has your car been scratched? Did someone steal your recycling bin?”
“Before I had a bookstore, I was a psychologist in Montréal. Among my clients were inmates at the SHU. You know it?”
Myrna could see some of the anger turn to surprise, then interest. But he was too invested in his opinion to change now.
“The Special Handling Unit,” he said.
“The worst cases.”
“And did you cure anyone?”
“Now, you know that’s unlikely, perhaps even impossible.”
“So you failed. And you came here. Like Gamache. A village filled with failures.”
Myrna wasn’t going to be goaded again by this kid. Though she felt anger crooking its finger at her. Instead, she nodded toward the laptop, plugged into a phone line. “You’re welcome to use it. Look up some things. Change the facts and you’ll change the feelings.”
“Wow, thanks for that insight.”
He grabbed his jacket and took the stairs two at a time, down to Myrna’s New and Used