Gamache dropped his eyes to the image on his device. Now, because of the angle, the face appeared to be shrieking at Gamache’s chest. His breast pocket.

Where the small book sat. The book about the balm. Of Gilead.

That made the wounded whole.

Had the tenth muse, and the pursuit of her, driven Professor Norman mad? Or was he already mad, and she was his salvation? His balm.

Would she make him whole?

Gamache stared at that distorted face.

If ever there was a sin-sick soul, this was it.

Chapter 28

TWENTY-EIGHT

“That was Reine-Marie,” Gamache said when he got back to the group in Chartrand’s office. Peter’s canvases were now rolled up and sitting civilly on the desk.

“What is it?” asked Clara, seeing his face.

“She sent this.” Gamache handed her the device. “From your yearbook.”

“Am I going to want to see it?” Clara made a face. “I wasn’t always the elegant woman I am today.”

She clicked the device while the others gathered round.

“You’re not kidding,” said Jean-Guy.

“That’s not me, dickhead,” said Clara, and for the first time Beauvoir saw evidence of Ruth as Clara’s muse.

The madman glared out at them. Disfigured with wrath.

“Poor man.” Myrna was the first to react. She, alone among them, was familiar with madness. If not immune to it.

Her “poor man” reminded Gamache of something Marcel Chartrand had said when looking at Peter’s paintings.

Poor Peter, he’d said.

While Peter’s lip painting hadn’t achieved the horror of this portrait, there was a similarity. Like looking at a younger self. And seeing where it was heading.

“Professor Norman?” Myrna asked, and Gamache nodded.

“A self-portrait,” he said. “Look at the signature.”

They did.

“Enlarge it,” he said.

They did.

And then they looked at him, confused.

“But it doesn’t say Norman,” said Clara.

And it didn’t. Only in enlarging it was the signature clear.

No Man.

“I need some fresh air,” said Clara. She looked as though someone had just put a pillowcase over her head. Disoriented, she put down the device, picked it up again, then gave it to Myrna.

She turned full-circle, looking around for the door, and finding it, she left.

The others followed her.

She walked quickly and they had to rush to catch up, until they were strung out behind her like a tail.

Far from slowing down, Clara gathered speed. She sped down the alleyways, down the back streets, the cobbled streets, the side streets, where tourists never ventured. She headed past the faded Québécois homes, chased by that bloated face, until she’d left the town behind.

Until she reached the edge. Until there was no more there there. Only air. And the river beyond.

Only then did she stop.

Jean-Guy was the first to reach her. Then Gamache and Chartrand and finally, huffing and puffing but undeterred, Myrna arrived.