The Murder Stone Read Online Free PDF Page A

this time, he rested his large hand on the top of the box, and smiled.
    It was marble. He’d been afraid of a cube of marble, he chuckled at himself. Very humbling. Standing back, Gamache stared at it. The white stone glowed as though it had captured what little moonlight came its way. It was just a cube of marble, he told himself. Not a bear, or a cougar. Nothing to worry about, certainly nothing to spook him. But it did. It reminded him of something.
    ‘Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.’
    Gamache froze.
    ‘Peter’s perpetually purple pimple popped.’
    There it was again.
    He turned round and saw a figure standing in the middle of the lawn. A slight haze hung about her and a bright red dot glowed near her nose.
    Julia Martin was out for her secret cigarette. Gamache cleared his throat noisily and brushed his hand along a bush. Instantly the red dot fell to the ground and disappeared under an elegant foot.
    ‘Good evening,’ she called merrily, though Gamache doubted she could possibly have known who was there.
    ‘Bonsoir, madame,’ said Gamache, bowing slightly as he came up beside her. She was slender and was wearing an elegant evening dress. Hair and nails and make-up were done, even in the wilderness. She wafted a slim hand in front of her face, to disperse the pungent tobacco smell.
    ‘Bugs,’ she said. ‘Blackflies. The only trouble with the east coast.’
    ‘You have no blackflies out west?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, not many in Vancouver. Some deerflies on the golf courses. Drive you crazy.’
    This Gamache could believe, having been tormented by deerflies himself.
    ‘Fortunately smoke keeps the bugs away,’ he said, smiling.
    She hesitated, then chuckled. She had an easy manner and an easy laugh. She touched his arm in a familiar gesture, though they weren’t all that familiar. But it wasn’t invasive, simply habit. As he’d watched her in the past few days he’d noticed she touched everyone. And she smiled at everything.
    ‘You caught me, monsieur. Sneaking a cigarette. Really, quite pathetic.’
    ‘Your family wouldn’t approve?’
    ‘At my age I’ve long since stopped caring what others think.’
    ‘C’est vrai? I wish I could.’
    ‘Well, perhaps I do just a little,’ she confided. ‘It’s a while since I’ve been with my family.’ She looked towards the Manoir and he followed her gaze. Inside, her brother Thomas was leaning over and speaking to their mother while Sandra and Mariana looked on, not speaking and unaware anyone was watching them.
    ‘When the invitation arrived I almost didn’t come. It’s an annual reunion, you know, but I’ve never been before. Vancouver’s so far away.’
    She could still see the invitation sitting face up on the gleaming hardwood floor of her impressive entrance where it had fallen as though from a great height. She knew the feeling. She’d stared at the thick white paper and the familiar spider scrawl. It was a contest of wills. But she knew who’d win. Who always won.
    ‘I don’t want to disappoint them,’ Julia Martin finally said, quietly.
    ‘I’m certain you couldn’t do that.’
    She turned to him, her eyes wide. ‘Really?’
    He’d said it to be polite. He honestly had no idea how the family felt about each other.
    She saw his hesitation and laughed again. ‘Forgive me, monsieur. Each day I’m with my family I regress a decade. I now feel like an awkward teenager. Needy and sneaking smokes in the garden. You too?’
    ‘Smoking in the garden? No, not for many years now. I was just exploring.’
    ‘Be careful. We wouldn’t want to lose you.’ She spoke with a hint of flirtation.
    ‘I’m always careful, Madame Martin,’ said Gamache, careful not to return the flirtation. He suspected it was second nature to her and harmless. He’d watched her for a few days and she’d used the same inflection on everyone, men and women, family and stranger, dogs, chipmunks, hummingbirds. She cooed to them all.
    A movement off to