The Long Way Home

Putting on her dressing gown, she went downstairs. This time Henri followed, his toenails clicking on the wood floors.

“Armand?”

The living room was in darkness but a light was on in the study.

“In here,” came the familiar voice.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Something,” said Jean-Guy, stepping out of the way so that his mother-in-law could get a good view. “I think.”

Gamache offered her his chair.

Reine-Marie sat down and looked at the screen.

“It’s cosmic,” she read, then looked up at her husband. “I don’t understand. Do you think he means ‘comic’?”

Armand and Jean-Guy were staring at the curt message with as much puzzlement as she felt.

Constable Stuart had replied to Gamache’s email with two short words.

It’s cosmic.

*   *   *

Robert Stuart had been in the pub the night before when his iPhone buzzed. He had it programmed so that it made different sounds depending on who was trying to reach him.

This was clearly a work email, and normally it would never occur to him to check it, except that the man on the next barstool had been prattling on and on about how he’d been screwed on some tax bill.

Stuart lifted his iPhone and gave his companion an apologetic shrug, which the man ignored, and continued to babble. Stuart took his iPhone and his pint and found a seat in a quiet corner.

The message was from that man in Canada. The French guy with the weird accent. It couldn’t be important.

Constable Stuart put the device down. The email had served its purpose in allowing him to escape. The actual message could wait until the morning.

He sipped his beer and looked around, but his eyes kept falling back to the worn wooden table. Finally he picked up the device and opened the message. His eyes widened a bit in interest, then he opened the attachments.

Scrolling through the pictures quickly, he shook his head and felt vaguely disappointed. He didn’t know much about art, but he knew shit when he saw it. He was glad Apple hadn’t yet figured out how to send smells.

And yet. And yet. There was something about one of the images in particular. The Canadian man, a retired homicide investigator he said, hadn’t asked him to judge the art. Just to tell him if any of the places looked familiar.

They did not. Truth be told, they didn’t look like “places.” Just splotches of bright paint.

Except for one. One had bright paint, but it had something else.

“Hey, Doug.” He waved a fellow over. “Look at this, will ya?”

Doug took the device and appeared to be having trouble focusing.

“What the fook is that?”

“Does it look familiar?”

“It looks like a migraine.”

He tossed the device back to Stuart.

“Look again, you great scrotum,” said Stuart. “I think I know this place.”

“It’s a place?” Doug took it and looked again. “On earth? Poor ones.”

“Not just on earth, down the road.”

“You’re pissed,” Doug said, but continued to study the picture. Then his eyes widened and he looked at Stuart.

“Speculation, lad.”

“Aye,” said Stuart. “I thought so too. It’s cosmic.”

*   *   *

Next morning, Constable Stuart got up early and drove six miles north. The sun was just coming up and burning off the mist when he parked the car and got out.

He changed into rubber boots and took his cell phone with him. Studying the photos Gamache had sent, Constable Stuart set off across the grass.

Once away from the road, the land dipped and he found himself in a gully where the mist and fog pooled. He wore a sweater, but suddenly wished it was thicker, heavier. And he suddenly wished he wasn’t alone.

Constable Stuart was not given to flights of imagination. Not more than any other Celt. But standing there, all color drained from the world, most color drained from him, the ghouls of his maternal grandmother’s tales came back. The warnings of his paternal grandfather came back.

The ancient ghosts, the restless souls, the malevolent spirits came back. They took all the colors from the world, and in the drained mist they settled around him.

“Pull yourself together,” he told himself. “Do this quickly, then get back in time for a coffee and a bacon butty.”

The very idea of the bacon sandwich cheered him as he walked carefully through the fog, his feet testing the ground in front of him.

He kept the image of the bacon butty in the forefront of his mind, like a talisman. A charm. A replacement for the crucifix his grandmother once wore.