Gamache knelt down and looked closely at the old man’s face again. It was weathered and withered. An almanac face, of sun and wind and cold. A seasoned face. Gamache gently rubbed his thumb across the dead man’s cheek, feeling stubble. He was clean shaven, but what might have grown in would’ve been white. The dead man’s hair was white and cut without enthusiasm. A snip here, a snip there.
Gamache picked up one of the victim’s hands, as though comforting him. He held it for an instant, then turned it over, palm up. Then he slowly rubbed his own palm over the dead man’s.
“Whoever he was he did hard work. These are calluses. Most tramps don’t work.”
Gamache shook his head slowly. So who are you? And why are you here? In the bistro, and in this village. A village few people on earth even knew existed. And even fewer found.
But you did, thought Gamache, still holding the man’s cold hand. You found the village and you found death.
“He’s been dead between six and ten hours,” the doctor said. “Sometime after midnight but before four or five this morning.”
Gamache stared at the back of the man’s head and the wound that killed him.
It was catastrophic. It looked like a single blow by something extremely hard. And by someone extremely angry. Only anger accounted for this sort of power. The power to pulverize a skull. And what it protected.
Everything that made this man who he was was kept in this head. Someone bashed that in. With one brutal, decisive blow.
“Not much blood.” Gamache got up and watched the Scene of Crime team fanning out and collecting evidence around the large room. A room now violated. First by murder and now by them. The unwanted guests.
Olivier was standing, warming himself by the fire.
“That’s a problem,” said Dr. Harris. “Head wounds bleed a lot. There should be more blood, lots more.”
“It might’ve been cleaned up,” said Beauvoir.
Sharon Harris bent over the wound again then straightened up. “With the force of the blow the bleeding might have been massive and internal. And death almost instantaneous.”
It was the best news Gamache ever heard at a murder scene. Death he could handle. Even murder. It was suffering that disturbed him. He’d seen a lot of it. Terrible murders. It was a great relief to find one swift and decisive. Almost humane.