Reine-Marie recognized the quote from one of Ruth’s poems. She wanted to warn this man to stop. She wanted to tell him that while he might think he was wooing Ruth with her own words, he had no idea what he was poking.

Ruth turned to Professor Massey and spoke, her voice strong and clear.

“That the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal.”

She’d completed the couplet.

As they left for home, Reine-Marie mulled over what she’d heard. About Professor Norman. His passion, and his folly. The tenth muse. The missing muse.

That the deity who kills for pleasure will also heal.

Was the tenth muse that deity? Like the other muses, did it inspire? Did it heal?

But did this one also kill, for pleasure?

Chapter 26

TWENTY-SIX

Marcel Chartrand placed the rolled-up canvases on the wooden table.

They were in his office at the back of the gallery, away from prying eyes.

The gallery itself was open, and tourists and artists and enthusiasts had streamed in all day. Not to buy, but to pay homage.

It was easy to spot those from away, and those from Québec. The tourists from other provinces or countries stood before the Clarence Gagnon oil paintings and smiled, appreciating the works of art.

Those from Québec looked about to burst into tears. An unsuspected yearning uncovered, discovered. For a simpler time and a simpler life. Before Internet, and climate change, and terrorism. When neighbors worked together, and separation was not a topic or an issue or wise.

Yet the Gagnon paintings weren’t idealized images of country life. They showed hardship. But they also showed such beauty, such peace, that the paintings, and the people looking at them, ached.

Gamache stood at the door between the office and the gallery and watched the patrons react to the paintings.

“Armand?”

Clara called him back in. He closed the door behind him and joined the others at the table.

Over lunch they’d discussed what to do next. They’d spent the morning driving to the cabin Peter had rented. Far from being a charming little Québécois chalet, this was a nondescript, cheap one-room hovel, one step up from a slum.

The landlady remembered Peter.

“Tall. Anglo. Paid cash,” she said, and looked around with distaste at the room, under no illusions about its quality. “Rents by the month. You interested?”

She eyed Clara, the most likely prospect.

“Did he have any visitors?” Clara asked.

The landlady looked at her as though it was a ridiculous question, which it was, but one that had to be asked. As was the next—

“Did he ask you about a man named Norman?”

Same response.

“Do you know a man named Norman?”

“Look, you want the place or not?”

Not.

The landlady locked up.

“Did he say why he was here?” Clara tried one more time as they stood outside the door.