A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #4)

by Louise Penny

Here I am, his mind whispered. Over here. She turned and looked directly at him. It was coincidence, of course. But the part of him that didn’t worry about reason knew she’d heard him.

She’d taught him that order was freedom. To live in chaos was to live in a prison. Order freed the mind for other things.

It was a quiet, uneventful life. It suited them.

‘The mind is its own place, monsieur,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. This is heaven. Always will be.’ ‘This place? Manoir Bellechasse?’ ‘No.’ She put her arms around him. ‘This place.’

Chief Inspector Gamache knew one thing about hate. It bound you for ever to the person you hated. Murder

All his childhood, all his teen years and into his twenties Armand Gamache had wondered why God had taken them both. Couldn’t He have left one, for him? It wasn’t a demand on his part or an accusation against a clumsy and thoughtless God, more of a puzzle. But he’d found his answer when he’d found Reine-Marie, had loved and married her and loved her more each day. He knew then how kind God had been not to take one and leave the other. Even for him.

Then he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sky, his right hand just lifting a little to take a larger hand.

‘Be careful,’ Gamache whispered. ‘You’re making hurting a habit. Spreading it around won’t lessen your pain, you know. Just the opposite.’

His body ached and he longed for home, a hot bath, and to crawl into bed beside Reine-Marie.

The mind is its own place. I was never a prisoner. Not then, not now.’

‘We’re all blessed and we’re all blighted, Chief Inspector,’ said Finney. ‘Every day each of us does our sums. The question is, what do we count?’

‘At the very bottom, underneath everything else, one thing sat and stayed. Didn’t flee.’ ‘What was it?’ asked Bean. ‘Hope.’

She reached for his wounded hand and together they did their sums. It took some time.