“May I help you?”
An elderly man sat at the very back, at a desk. He wore glasses and peered at Beauvoir, assessing him. The Inspector knew the look, but he was normally the one giving it.
The two men assessed each other. Beauvoir saw a slim man, well but comfortably dressed. Like his merchandise, he seemed old and refined and he smelled a little of polish.
The antique dealer saw a man in his mid to late thirties. Pale, perhaps a little stressed. Not out for a lazy Sunday stroll through the antique district. Not a buyer.
A man, perhaps, in need of something. Probably a toilet.
“This shop,” Beauvoir began. He didn’t want to sound like an investigator, but suddenly realized he didn’t know how to sound like anything else. It was like a tattoo. Indelible. He smiled and softened his tone. “I have a friend who used to come here, but that was years ago. Ten years or more. It’s still called Temps Perdu, but has it changed hands?”
“No. Nothing’s changed.”
And Beauvoir could believe it.
“Were you here then?”
“I’m always here. It’s my shop.” The elderly man stood and put out his hand. “Fréderic Grenier.”
“Jean-Guy Beauvoir. You might remember my friend. He sold you a few things.”
“Is that right? What were they?”
The man, Beauvoir noticed, didn’t ask Olivier’s name, just what he sold. Is that how shopkeepers saw people? He’s the pine table? She’s the chandelier? Why not? That’s how he saw suspects. She’s the knifing. He’s the shotgun.
“I think he said he sold you a miniature painting.”
Beauvoir watched the man closely. The man was watching him closely.
“He might have. You say it was ten years ago. That’s a long time. Why’re you asking?”
Normally Beauvoir would have whipped out his Sûreté homicide ID, but he wasn’t on official business. And he didn’t have a ready answer.
“My friend just died and his widow wonders if you sold it. If not she’d buy it back. It’d been in the family for a long time. My friend sold it when he needed money, but that’s no longer a problem.”Beauvoir was quite pleased with himself, though not altogether surprised. He lived with lies all the time, had heard thousands. Why shouldn’t he be good at it himself?
The antique dealer watched him, then nodded. “That sometimes happens. Can you describe the painting?”
“It was European and very fine. Apparently you paid him fifteen hundred dollars for it.”
Monsieur Grenier smiled. “Now I remember. It was a lot of money, but worth it. I didn’t often pay that much for such a small piece. Exquisite. Polish, I believe. Unfortunately I sold it on. He came in with a few other things after that, if I remember. A carved cane that needed work. It was a little cracked. I gave it to my restorer then sold it too. Went quickly. Those sorts of things do. I’m sorry. I remember him now. Young, blond. You say his wife wanted the things back?”
Beauvoir nodded.
The man frowned. “That must have come as a surprise to his partner. The man, as I remember, was gay.”
“Yes. I was trying to be delicate. In fact, I’m his partner.”
“I’m sorry to hear of your loss. But at least you had a chance to get married.”
The man pointed to Beauvoir’s wedding band.
Time to leave.
That had certainly, thought Beauvoir once back in the car and driving over the Champlain Bridge, been les temps perdu. Except for announcing that his husband, Olivier, had died nothing of significance had happened.
He was almost back in Three Pines when he remembered what had been bothering him after the interview with Olivier. The word that had been missing.
Pulling off to the side of the road he dialed the prison and was eventually connected to Olivier.
“People will begin to talk, Inspector.”
“You have no idea,” said Beauvoir. “Listen, during the trial and investigation you said the Hermit didn’t tell you anything about himself, except that he was Czech and his name was Jakob.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a large Czech community around Three Pines, including the Parras.”
“Yes.”
“And quite a few of his pieces came from former Eastern Bloc countries. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia. You testified that your impression was he’d stolen their family treasures, then skipped to Canada in the confusion when communism was collapsing. You thought he was hiding from his countrymen, the people he stole from.”