The thin face was obviously relieved. How many times had she opened the door a crack, to see kids taunting her? To see the landlord demanding rent? To see unkindness take human form?
But not this time. These men were with the Sûreté. They wouldn’t hurt her. She was of a generation who still believed that. It was written all over her worn face.
The door closed, the chain was lifted and the door swung open.
She was tiny. And in an armchair sat a man who looked like a puppet. Small, stiff, sunken. He struggled to get up, but Gamache walked swiftly over to him.
“No, please, Monsieur Dyson. Je vous en prie. Stay seated.”
They shook hands and he reintroduced himself, speaking slowly, clearly, more loudly than normal.
“Tea?” Madame Dyson asked.
Oh, no no no, thought Beauvoir. The place smelled of liniment and slightly of urine.
“Yes, please. How kind of you. May I help?” Gamache went with her into the kitchen, leaving Beauvoir alone with the puppet. He tried to make small-talk but ran out after commenting on the weather.
“Nice place,” he finally said and was treated to Monsieur Dyson looking at him as though he was an idiot.
Beauvoir scanned the walls. There was a crucifix above the dining table, and a smiling Jesus surrounded by light. But the rest of the walls were taken up with photographs of one person. Their daughter Lillian. Her life radiated out from the smiling Jesus. Her baby pictures closest to Him, then she got older and older as the pictures wrapped around the walls. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. The parents too aged, from a young, beaming couple holding their first born, their only born, in front of a neat, compact home. To first Christmas, to gooey birthdays.
Beauvoir scanned the walls for a photo of Lillian and Clara then realized if there had been one it would have been taken down long ago.
There were pictures of a gap-toothed little girl with gleaming orange hair holding a huge stuffed dog, and a little later standing beside a bike with a big bow. Toys, gifts, presents. Everything a little girl could want.
And love. No, not just love. Adoration. This child, this woman, was adored.
Beauvoir felt something stir inside. Something that seemed to have crawled into him while he’d lain in his own blood on the floor of that factory.
Sorrow.
Since that moment death had never been the same, and neither, it must be said, had life.
He didn’t like it.
He tried to remember Lillian Dyson forty years after this picture was taken. Too much makeup, hair dyed a straw blond. Bright red look-at-me dress. Almost a mockery. A parody of a person.
But try as Beauvoir might it was too late. He saw Lillian Dyson now as a young girl. Adored. Confident. Heading into the world. A world her parents knew needed to be kept out, with chains.
But still, they’d opened the door a crack, and a crack was enough. If there was something malevolent, malicious, murderous on the other side, a crack was all it needed.
“Bon,” came the Chief’s voice behind him and Beauvoir turned to see Gamache carrying a tin tray with a teapot, some milk, sugar and fine china cups. “Where would you like me to put this?”
He sounded warm, friendly. But not jovial. The Chief wouldn’t want to trick them. Would not want to give the impression they were there with riotous good news.
“Just here, please.” Madame Dyson hurried to clear the TV guide and remote off a faux-wood table by the sofa, but Beauvoir got there first, scooping them up and handing them to her.
She met his eyes and smiled. Not a wide smile, but a softer, sadder version of her daughter’s. Beauvoir knew now where Lillian had gotten her smile.
And he suspected these two elderly people knew why they were there. Probably not the exact news. Not that their only daughter was dead. Murdered. But the look Madame Dyson had just given him told Jean Guy Beauvoir that she knew something was up. Amiss.
And she was being kind anyway. Or was she just trying to keep whatever news they had at bay? Keep them silent for one more precious minute.
“A bit of milk and sugar?” she asked the puppet.
Monsieur Dyson sat forward.
“This is a special occasion,” he pretended to confide in their visitors. “Normally she doesn’t offer milk.”
It broke Beauvoir’s heart to think these two pensioners probably couldn’t afford much milk. That what little they had was being offered now, to their guests.
“Gives me gas,” explained the old man.
“Now, Papa,” said Madame Dyson, handing the cup and saucer to the Chief to hand to her husband. She too pretended to confide in their company. “It is true. I figure you have about twenty minutes from the first sip.”