Page 65 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

Gamache gave him a thin smile. Then narrowing his eyes, he removed his glasses and drew his brows together in concentration.

“But why would whoever is behind Réunion want to hide who they are? Why post a misleading photo? It’s not like they’re doing anything dangerous, or illegal, that needs to be kept secret. Are they?”

He looked at his colleagues, who looked at him.

“Some people in business are just very private,” said the accountant. “We run into it a lot. It can look like they’re trying to hide something when actually they’re just trying to protect their privacy, especially as they get more wealthy.”

“Then why put up any photo, never mind a fake one?” asked Beauvoir. “That’s just asking for trouble. It’s not necessary.”

“And they must know it would be found out,” said Gamache. This was a very odd thing for Réunion to do. “Still, Brian Fillmore does exist. He visited Clara, after all. People met him.”

“But we don’t know that’s who he really was. I doubt Clara asked for ID.”

Armand nodded. He too doubted that. But if not Fillmore, then who? And why visit Clara in Three Pines? What did he want?

“There’s something else odd about the photograph and this James Clybourne,” said Eidinger. She tapped some keys and up came another picture. This one grainy in black and white.

“This is Aldous Clybourne, James’s grandfather. He was on the Empress when it went down. One of the crew who survived.”

Gamache was staring at the photograph of a very young man in uniform. Aldous Clybourne was looking directly at the camera and grinning. Behind him was a large ship.

How in the world could all these things be connected to the murder?

Armand felt as though he’d lost sight of land. A fog bank had rolled in and brought with it a long-lost ship, a landscape architect, a genealogy empire, a plant long thought to be extinct, a Lost Nation, and a decomposing body in a suit of vintage clothing.

Clothes the men on the doomed ship would have worn.

Armand felt a moment of dislocation. As his imagination briefly left reality, he wondered if the body wasn’t that of a passenger on the Empress of Ireland. Washed up in Lost Nation.

Surrounded by Miss Wolcott’s Ghost.

That was, of course, fantastic. And yet there was a thread, an umbilical cord that connected the body to the sinking. There must be.

And then there was their friend and neighbor Clara Morrow. How was she involved? What connection did she have to all this? There was one, otherwise why would Fillmore have visited her?

“What became of him?” Gamache asked. “Aldous Clybourne.”

“I don’t know. Yet. I have my team looking into it. Ironically, Réunion could help with the search. It’s exactly what they do.”

“Probably best not to ask them,” said Beauvoir.

Gamache turned to Eidinger. “Find out what you can about this Brian Fillmore. When was the last time he was seen? Is he the founder of Réunion? And if so, why hide that fact? Any odd transactions? Payments? Donations? They must have board meetings, shareholder meetings, now that it’s public. Let me know as soon as you find anything. We’re heading there now.”

Gamache looked again at the photo. The man Réunion claimed was its founder, Brian Fillmore, but who was actually James Clybourne. Long dead and buried. Whose grandfather had survived the Empress of Ireland tragedy.

The threads were there, the connections, but all tangled up.

“You say Clybourne was a landscape architect and a member of the Royal Canadian Horticultural Society?”

“Oui.”

Gamache turned to Beauvoir, but the younger man had anticipated what the Chief Inspector was about to say.

“I’ll have Isabelle contact Dr. Lagacé and find out what she knows about this James Clybourne.”

As Beauvoir made the call, Gamache walked Samantha Eidinger to the door.

“Do you know what Aldous Clybourne did on the Empress? What was his job?”