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Chapters (43)
  1. A Fatal Grace
  2. ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
  3. A Fatal Grace
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

‘I got the car and picked her up outside. We didn’t stop anywhere.’

‘Did she go anywhere else before you picked her up?’

Myrna thought about it and shook her head. Gamache stood up. He had to get over to the Morrow place.

‘Well, there was one thing she told me the next day. She bought some food for this old beggar outside. She—’ Myrna stopped herself.

‘Go on.’ Gamache turned at the door.

‘Nothing.’

Gamache just stared.

‘I can’t tell you. It’s for Clara to say.’

‘The beggar’s dead. Murdered.’ He held up Ruth’s book and said softly, ‘You need to tell me.’

imageTWENTY-EIGHT image

Peter ushered Gamache into their home and took his coat. There was a definite smell of popcorn and the sounds of a Gothic choir in the background.

‘They’re just finishing the movie,’ said Peter.

‘It’s over,’ said Clara, popping into the kitchen to greet Gamache. ‘Even better the second time, I think. And we found something.’

They walked through to the living room to find Jean Guy Beauvoir staring at the screen, wide-eyed, as the credits rolled.

‘Mon Dieu, no wonder you English won on the Plains of Abraham,’ he said. ‘You’re all nuts.’

‘It does help, in war,’ agreed Peter. ‘But we’re not all like Eleanor of Aquitaine or Henry.’ He was tempted to point out that Eleanor and Henry were actually both French, but decided that would be rude.

‘You think not?’ Beauvoir asked. He’d seen enough of the Anglos in Quebec to make him wonder. It was their secrecy that always scared him. He couldn’t figure out what they were thinking. And if he couldn’t figure that out, he couldn’t begin to know what they’d do. He felt exposed and endangered around the English. And he didn’t like it. Frankly, he didn’t like them, and this film had done nothing to change his mind.

Terrifying.

‘Here.’ Clara pressed the rewind and the tape whizzed. ‘It’s at about minute seventeen. The tape goes strange.’

Gamache had finally figured out Clara’s garbled message. Video tapes stretch when someone stops them at the same spot often enough. And when they stretch, the picture goes wonky. Clara’s message had been that if Peter stopped his videos at an important point and the tape stretched, then maybe CC had done the same thing.

‘There is a spot where the tape goes strange,’ said Lemieux. ‘But we watched it over and over and nothing’s happening there.’

‘I think you’ll find,’ Gamache turned to the young officer, ‘that there’s a reason for every frame of this film. And there’s a reason CC stopped it there.’

Lemieux blushed. It was the same lesson all over again. There’s a reason for everything. Gamache had spoken matter-of-factly, but they both knew this was the second time he’d had to tell Lemieux that.