‘Could you show me your studio?’ Gamache asked Clara, hoping to get far enough away from the cake to overcome the temptation to put his finger in it. ‘I realize I’ve never seen your art.’

The two drifted across the kitchen toward the door to Clara’s studio, wide open. Next to hers, Peter’s studio was closed.

‘In case the muse should try to escape,’ explained Clara, and Gamache nodded sagely. Now he walked to the center of Clara’s large, crowded studio and stood still.

The studio had tarpaulins spread everywhere and the comforting smell of oils and acrylics and canvas. An old, worn armchair stood in one corner, with stacks of art magazines creating a table on which stood a dirty coffee mug. He turned leisurely, stopping to stare at one wall that held three images.

He moved closer to them.

‘That’s Kaye Thompson,’ he said.

‘Well done.’ Clara came up beside him. ‘And that’s Mother.’ She indicated the next work. ‘I sold Émilie to Dr Harris a while ago but look over here.’ She pointed to the end wall where a huge canvas stood. ‘All three.’

Gamache stood in front of an image of three elderly women, arms entwined, cradling each other. It was an amazingly complex work, with layers of photographs and paintings and even some writing. Em, the woman in the middle, was leaning back precipitously, laughing with abandon, and the other two were supporting her and also laughing. It ached of intimacy, of a private moment caught in women’s lives. It captured their friendship and their dependence on each other. It sang of love and a caring that went beyond pleasant lunches and the remembrance of birthdays. Gamache felt as though he was looking into each of their souls, and the combination of the three was almost too much to bear.

‘I call it The Three Graces,’ said Clara.

‘Perfect,’ Gamache whispered.

‘Mother is Faith, Em is Hope and Kaye is Charity. I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.’

‘Is it finished? It looks as though there’s space for another.’

‘That’s very perceptive of you. It is finished, but in each of my works I try to leave a little space, a kind of crack.’

‘Why?’

‘Can you make out the writing on the wall behind them?’ She nodded toward her painting.

Gamache leaned in and put on his reading glasses.

‘Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There’s a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.’

He read it out loud. ‘Beautiful. Madame Zardo?’ he asked.

‘No, Leonard Cohen. All my works have vessels of some sort. Containers. Sometimes it’s in the negative space, sometimes it’s more obvious. In The Three Graces it’s more obvious.’