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For Michael
Surprised by Joy
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While essentially a solitary undertaking, I find that when I write there is a parade of people, of events, of memories keeping me company. And never more so than with The Long Way Home.
I won’t discuss the themes here, or the reasons I wrote this book in this way, but I do want to mention a few influences, including Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Homer’s Odyssey. And the remarkable Marilynne Robinson’s book Gilead. As well as the old spiritual “Balm in Gilead.”
And, as always, I have been inspired by the setting, by the history and geography and nature of Québec. And, specifically, by memories of my travels along the glorious St. Lawrence River. By the haunting coastline of the Lower North Shore. And the villages and villagers there. I have traveled a lot in my life, as a journalist and as a private person, but I have never, ever met kindness so profound, and integrity so deep, as I did in kitchens and porches and front rooms along that coast.
Thank you to the people of Mutton Bay, La Tabatière, St. Augustine, Harrington Harbour, and so many other ports. People who asked for so little and gave so much.
I have also been fortunate to spend time in Charlevoix, an area so beautiful it almost defies reason. Now, having said that, I recognize that the Baie-Saint-Paul of this book is not a completely accurate reflection of the actual town. I hope those of you who live there, or visit that lovely area, forgive me some artistic license. Especially the gracious owners of the Auberge La Muse and the Galerie Clarence Gagnon.
This book owes more than I feel I want to admit to my remarkable editor at Minotaur Books/St. Martin’s Press in the United States, Hope Dellon. And to Andrew Martin, Sarah Melnyk, Paul Hochman, Cassie Galante, and David Rotstein.
In the UK, I am indebted to the wise counsel of my editor, Lucy Malagoni, and publisher, David Shelley, at Little, Brown.
Many thanks to Jamie Broadhurst and the people at Raincoast Books, for introducing Gamache et al. to so many Canadians.
Many of you found me through my newsletter and website. They’re designed and constructed and maintained by the remarkable Linda Lyall. We’ve been together since before Still Life was published. And we’ve never met. I live in Québec and Linda lives in Scotland. But we’ve developed as close a bond as any colleagues who share an office.
Thank you to Teresa Chris, who is both my agent and my friend. It feels as though Fate brought us together ten years ago. Actually, the first time we met I almost ran her over with a car. Shhhh. I’m not sure she realizes that.
Thank you to Susan McKenzie, for being a constructive, kind, and thoughtful first reader. And a loving friend.
To my brother Doug, who is also a first reader and tireless champion. Funny, I spent much of my childhood wishing he would go away. And now I cherish his company.
Endless thanks to My Assistant, Lise Desrosiers, who is so much more than an assistant. A sister, a friend, a help-mate, a confidante. Merci, ma belle.
And finally, to Michael. Who made all my dreams come true. He is my heart and my home.
It’s my turn now, dear Michael.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Also by Louise Penny
About the Author
Copyright
ONE
As Clara Morrow approached, she wondered if he’d repeat the same small gesture he’d done every morning.
It was so tiny, so insignificant. So easy to ignore. The first time.
But why did Armand Gamache keep doing it?
Clara felt silly for even wondering. How could it matter? But for a man not given to secrets, this gesture had begun to look not simply secretive, but furtive. A benign act that seemed to yearn for a shadow to hide in.
And yet here he was in the full light of the new day, sitting on the bench Gilles Sandon had recently made and placed on the brow of the hill. Stretched out before Gamache were the mountains, rolling from Québec to Vermont, covered in thick forests. The Rivière Bella Bella wound between the mountains, a silver thread in the sunlight.
And, so easy to overlook when faced with such grandeur, the modest little village of Three Pines lay in the valley.
Armand was not hiding from view. But neither was he enjoying it. Instead, each morning the large man sat on the wooden bench, his head bent over a book. Reading.
As she got closer, Clara Morrow saw Gamache do it again. He took off his half-moon reading glasses, then closed the book and slipped it into his pocket. There was a bookmark, but he never moved it. It remained where it was like a stone, marking a place near the end. A place he approached, but never reached.
Armand didn’t snap the book shut. Instead he let it fall, with gravity, closed. With nothing, Clara noticed, to mark his spot. No old receipt, no used plane or train or bus ticket to guide him back to where he’d left the story. It was as though it didn’t really matter. Each morning he began again. Getting closer and closer to the bookmark, but always stopping before he arrived.
And each morning Armand Gamache placed the slim volume into the pocket of his light summer coat before she could see the title.
She’d become slightly obsessed with this book. And his behavior.
She’d even asked him about it, a week or so earlier, when she’d first joined him on the new bench overlooking the old village.
“Good book?”
“Oui.”
Armand Gamache had smiled as he said it, softening his blunt answer. Almost.
It was a small shove from a man who rarely pushed people away.
No, thought Clara, as she watched him in profile now. It wasn’t that he’d shoved her. Instead, he’d let her be, but had taken a step back himself. Away from her. Away from the question. He’d taken the worn book, and retreated.
The message was clear. And Clara got it. Though that didn’t mean she had to heed it.
* * *
Armand Gamache looked across to the deep green midsummer forest and the mountains that rolled into eternity. Then his eyes dropped to the village in the valley below them, as though held in the palm of an ancient hand. A stigmata in the Québec countryside. Not a wound, but a wonder.
Every morning he went for a walk with his wife, Reine-Marie, and thei
r German shepherd Henri. Tossing the tennis ball ahead of them, they ended up chasing it down themselves when Henri became distracted by a fluttering leaf, or a black fly, or the voices in his head. The dog would race after the ball, then stop and stare into thin air, moving his gigantic satellite ears this way and that. Honing in on some message. Not tense, but quizzical. It was, Gamache recognized, the way most people listened when they heard on the wind the wisps of a particularly beloved piece of music. Or a familiar voice from far away.
Head tilted, a slightly goofy expression on his face, Henri listened, while Armand and Reine-Marie fetched.
All was right with the world, thought Gamache as he sat quietly in the early August sunshine.
Finally.
Except for Clara, who’d taken to joining him on the bench each morning.
Was it because she’d noticed him alone up here, once Reine-Marie and Henri had left, and thought he might be lonely? Thought he might like company?
But he doubted that. Clara Morrow had become one of their closest friends and she knew him better than that.
No. She was here for her own reasons.
Armand Gamache had grown increasingly curious. He could almost fool himself into believing his curiosity wasn’t garden-variety nosiness but his training kicking in.
All his professional life Chief Inspector Gamache had asked questions and hunted answers. And not just answers, but facts. But, much more elusive and dangerous than facts, what he really looked for were feelings. Because they would lead him to the truth.
And while the truth might set some free, it landed the people Gamache sought in prison. For life.
Armand Gamache considered himself more an explorer than a hunter. The goal was to discover. And what he discovered could still surprise him.
How often had he questioned a murderer expecting to find curdled emotions, a soul gone sour? And instead found goodness that had gone astray.
He still arrested them, of course. But he’d come to agree with Sister Prejean that no one was as bad as the worst thing they’d done.
Armand Gamache had seen the worst. But he’d also seen the best. Often in the same person.
He closed his eyes and turned his face to the fresh morning sun. Those days were behind him now. Now he could rest. In the hollow of the hand. And worry about his own soul.
No need to explore. He’d found what he was looking for here in Three Pines.
Aware of the woman beside him, he opened his eyes but kept them forward, watching the little village below come to life. He saw his friends and new neighbors leave their homes to tend to their perennial gardens or go across the village green to the bistro for breakfast. He watched as Sarah opened the door to her boulangerie. She’d been inside since before dawn, baking baguettes and croissants and chocolatine, and now it was time to sell them. She paused, wiping her hands on her apron, and exchanged greetings with Monsieur Béliveau, who was just opening his general store. Each morning for the past few weeks, Armand Gamache had sat on the bench and watched the same people do the same thing. The village had the rhythm, the cadence, of a piece of music. Perhaps that’s what Henri heard. The music of Three Pines. It was like a hum, a hymn, a comforting ritual.
His life had never had a rhythm. Each day had been unpredictable and he had seemed to thrive on that. He’d thought that was part of his nature. He’d never known routine. Until now.
Gamache had to admit to a small fear that what was now a comforting routine would crumble into the banal, would become boring. But instead, it had gone in the other direction.
He seemed to thrive on the repetition. The stronger he got, the more he valued the structure. Far from being limiting, imprisoning, he found his daily rituals liberating.
Turmoil shook loose all sorts of unpleasant truths. But it took peace to examine them. Sitting in this quiet place in the bright sunshine, Armand Gamache was finally free to examine all the things that had fallen to the ground. As he had fallen.
He felt the slight weight and bulk of the book in his pocket.
Below them, Ruth Zardo limped from her run-down cottage, followed by Rosa, her duck. The elderly woman looked around, then glanced up the dirt road out of town. Up, up the dusty path, Gamache could see her old steel eyes travel. Until they met his. And locked on.
She lifted her veined hand in greeting. And, like hoisting the village flag, Ruth raised one unwavering finger.
Gamache bowed slightly in acknowledgment.
All was right with the world.
Except—
He turned to the disheveled woman beside him.
Why was Clara here?
* * *
Clara looked away. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. Knowing what she was about to do.
She wondered if she should speak to Myrna first. Ask her advice. But she’d decided not to, realizing that would just be shifting responsibility for this decision.
Or, more likely, thought Clara, she was afraid Myrna would stop her. Tell her not to do it. Tell her it was unfair and even cruel.
Because it was. Which was why it had taken Clara this long.
Every day she’d come here, determined to say something to Armand. And every day she’d chickened out. Or, more likely, the better angels of her nature were straining on the reins, yanking her back. Trying to stop her.
And it had worked. So far.
Every day she made small talk with him, then left, determined not to return the next day. Promising herself, and all the saints and all the angels and all the gods and goddesses, that she would not go back up to the bench the next morning.
And next morning, as though by magic, a miracle, a curse, she felt the hard maple beneath her bum. And found herself looking at Armand Gamache. Wondering about that slim volume in his pocket. Looking into his deep brown, thoughtful eyes.
He’d gained weight, which was good. It showed Three Pines was doing its job. He was healing here. He was tall, and a more robust frame suited him. Not fat, but substantial. He limped less from his wounds, and there was more vitality to his step. The gray had left his face, but not his head. His wavy hair was now more gray than brown. By the time he was sixty, in just a few years, he’d be completely gray, Clara suspected.
His face showed his age. It was worn with cares and concerns and worries. With pain. But the deepest crevices were made by laughter. Around his eyes and mouth. Mirth, etched deep.
Chief Inspector Gamache. The former head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.
But he was also Armand. Her friend. Who’d come here to retire from that life, and all that death. Not to hide from the sorrow, but to stop collecting more. And in this peaceful place to look at his own burdens. And to begin to let them go.
As they all had.
Clara got up.
She couldn’t do it. She could not unburden herself to this man. He had his own to carry. And this was hers.
“Dinner tonight?” she asked. “Reine-Marie asked us over. We might even play some bridge.”
It was always the plan, and yet they rarely seemed to get to it, preferring to talk or sit quietly in the Gamaches’ back garden as Myrna walked among the plants, explaining which were weeds and which were perennials, coming back year after year. Long lived. And which flowers were annuals. Designed to die after a magnificent, short life.
Gamache rose to his feet, and as he did Clara saw again the writing carved into the back of the bench. It hadn’t been there when Gilles Sandon had placed the bench. And Gilles claimed not to have done it. The writing had simply appeared, like graffiti, and no one had owned up to it.
Armand held out his hand. At first Clara thought he wanted to shake it good-bye. A strangely formal and final gesture. Then she realized his palm was up.
He was inviting her to place her hand in his.
She did. And felt his hand close gently. Finally, she looked into his eyes.
“Why are you here, Clara?”
She sat, suddenly, and felt again the hard wood of
the bench, not so much supporting her as stopping her fall.
TWO
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Olivier placed the order of French toast, with fresh-picked berries and maple syrup, in front of Reine-Marie.
“Astrophysics would be my guess,” she said, looking up into his handsome face. “Or perhaps Nietzsche.”
Olivier followed her gaze out the mullioned window.
“You do know I was talking about Ruth and the duck,” he said.
“As was I, mon beau.”
Olivier laughed as he moved away to serve other patrons of his bistro.
Reine-Marie Gamache sat in her habitual seat. She hadn’t meant to make it a habit, it just happened. For the first few weeks after she and Armand had moved to Three Pines, they’d taken different seats at different tables. And each seat and table really was different. Not simply the location in the old bistro, but the style of furniture. All antiques, all for sale, with price tags hanging from them. Some were old Québec pine, some were overstuffed Edwardian armchairs and wing chairs. There was even a smattering of mid-century modern pieces. Sleek and teak and surprisingly comfortable. All collected by Olivier and tolerated by his partner, Gabri. As long as Olivier kept his finds in the bistro and left the running, and decorating, of the bed and breakfast to Gabri.
Olivier was slim, disciplined, aware of his country-casual image. Each piece of his wardrobe was curated to fit the impression he needed to make. Of a relaxed and gracious and subtly affluent host. Everything about Olivier was subtle. Except Gabri.
Oddly, thought Reine-Marie, while Olivier’s personal style was restrained, even elegant, his bistro was a mad mix of styles and colors. And yet, far from feeling claustrophobic or cluttered, the bistro felt like visiting the home of a well-traveled and eccentric aunt. Or uncle. Someone who knew the conventions and chose not to follow them.
Huge stone fireplaces anchored either end of the long, beamed room. Laid with logs but unlit now in the midsummer warmth, in winter the flames crackled and danced and defied the darkness and bitter cold. Even today Reine-Marie could catch a hint of wood smoke in the room. Like a ghost or guardian.
Bay windows looked onto the homes of Three Pines, their gardens full of roses and daylilies and clematis and other plants she was just learning about. The homes formed a circle, and in its center was the village green. And in the center of that were the pine trees that soared over the community. Three great spires that inspired the name. Three Pines. These were no ordinary trees. Planted centuries ago, they were a code. A signal to the war-weary.