“Tell us about the man who lived in the cabin,” Chief Inspector Gamache said, matter-of-factly. “The dead man.” He folded his hands, settling in. A good dinner companion who wanted to hear your stories.
There was no escape, Olivier knew. He’d known it from the instant he’d seen the Hermit dead on the bistro floor. He’d seen this avalanche sliding toward him, gaining momentum. Olivier couldn’t run. Could never outrun what was coming.
“He was one of my first customers when Gabri and I moved to Three Pines.”
The words, kept inside for so long, crawled out. Rotting. Olivier was surprised his breath didn’t stink.
Gamache gave him a small nod of encouragement.
“We just had an antique shop then. I hadn’t turned this into a bistro, yet. We rented the space above to live in. It was awful. Crammed full of junk, and filthy. Someone had plastered over all the original features. But we worked day and night to restore it. I think we’d only been here a few weeks when he walked in. He wasn’t the man you saw on the floor. Not then. This was years ago.”
Olivier saw it all again. Gabri was upstairs in their new home, stripping the beams and taking the drywall off, exposing the magnificent original brick walls. Each discovery more exciting than the last. But none could rival the growing awareness that they’d found a home. A place they could finally settle. At first they’d been so intent on unpacking they didn’t really take in the details of the village. But slowly, over the first few weeks and months, the village revealed itself.
“I was still setting up the business and didn’t have much stuff, just odds and ends collected over the years. I’d always dreamed of opening an antique store, since I was a kid. Then the chance came.”
“It didn’t just come,” said Gamache quietly. “It was helped along.”
Olivier sighed. He should have known Gamache would find out.
“I’d quit my job in the city. I’d been quite successful, as you might have heard.”
Gamache nodded again.
Olivier smiled, remembering those heady days. Of silk suits and gym memberships, of visiting the Mercedes dealership when the only issue was the color of the car.
And of taking that one step too far.
It’d been humiliating. He’d been so depressed he was afraid of what he might do to himself, so he’d sought help. And there, in the waiting room of the therapist, was Gabri. Large, voluble, vain and full of life.
At first Olivier had been repulsed. Gabri was everything he’d come to despise. Olivier thought of himself and his friends as gay men. Discreet, elegant, cynical.
Gabri was just queer. Common. And fat. There was nothing discreet about him.
But neither was there anything mean. And over time Olivier grew to appreciate how very beautiful kindness was.
And he fell in love with Gabri. Deeply, totally, indiscreetly in love.
Gabri had agreed to leave his job at the Y in Westmount and move out of the city. It didn’t matter where. They got in their car and drove south. And there, over a rise in the road, they’d stopped the car. Finally admitting they were lost. Though since they had no destination they couldn’t be lost, Gabri happily told Olivier, who was busy in the driver’s side wrestling with a Carte Routière du Québec. Eventually he realized Gabri was standing outside and softly tapping on his window. He lowered it and Gabri gestured.
Annoyed, Olivier shoved the map into the backseat and got out.
“What?” he snapped at Gabri, who was looking ahead. Olivier followed his gaze. And found home.
He knew it immediately.
It was the place in all the fairy tales he’d read as a kid, under the bedding, when his father thought, hoped, he was reading about naval battles. Or naked girls. Instead he’d been reading about villages, and cottages, and gardens. And little wisps of smoke, and dry stone walls older than anyone in the village.
He’d forgotten all that, until that very moment. And in that instant he remembered his other childhood dream. Of opening an antique shop. A modest little affair where he could put his finds.
“Shall we, ma belle?” Gabri took Olivier’s hand and leaving the car where it stood they walked down the dirt road and into Three Pines.
“I was disappointed at first when the Hermit came in—”
“The Hermit?” Gamache asked.
“That’s what I called him.”
“But didn’t you know his name?”
“He never told me and I never asked.”
Gamache caught Beauvoir’s eye. The Inspector was looking both disappointed and disbelieving.