The Piano Maker (24 page)

She got out of bed and opened the blinds. She walked into the living room. What time? Just past four o’clock. The sun was nearly down and the roofs stood unevenly against the sky; shadowed light on old ridge tiles, snow on thatch and cedar. Smoke rising from David Chandler’s chimney, straight in the air. No wind. Not snowing now. She went
back into the bedroom and closed the blinds and stepped barefoot into the fine shoes he’d made for her. She sat down on the bed in the dim light and lay back for a moment. She lay with her hands covering her face.
How to live with all that? How to tell it? How?

Later she went into the kitchen. She sat in the chair and looked down at her feet in those beautiful shoes with the Renaissance heel. Fine leather, neat stitching. A pattern there on the side.

She took the leftover stew from the wall larder and ate it with her fingers, three fingers forming cold lumps and putting them into her mouth and letting them melt there to slide down.
Thank you
,
my Lord
,
and will you please forgive me
.

Marie-Tatin, the young kitchen maid with the red curls and the freckles, found her asleep at the table, her cheek in the crook of her arm.

“Ma’am!” cried Marie-Tatin. “Goodness me, ma’am.” She quickly put down the dinner tray and stepped closer. She helped her sit upright and raised her up from the chair. “Ma’am, let’s get you to bed. You want to eat later? What a day you must have had. Come this way.”

IN THE MORNING
the Honourable Sir James F. Whitmore began the proceedings by reminding defence and prosecution that the case had to be brought to a close that day. He said, “Mrs. Tancock, now that we are familiar with the situation, I would ask you to move on to the fresh evidence that this retrial is based on. Please proceed.”

The assistant Crown rose from her chair and held up some pieces of paper. “Your Honour,” she said. “I have here copies of a medical report and of the sworn testimony of one Mr. Tom Cutter. Both were presented at the last trial, but it seems to the Crown that certain key points that were dismissed must now be seen in a new light. In the course of my questioning and presentation of evidence, I will be connecting a number of aspects to support the charge of first-degree murder.”

“So go ahead, Mrs. Tancock.”

“Your Honour, Mr. Cutter is a trapper, and early one morning that December he was out inspecting his trapline
when he saw some dogs or coyotes, in his words, in the near distance. One of the dogs came charging his way and he almost shot it, but then he noticed that it had on a body harness. The dog came right up to him, and it kept on barking and turning away in a northerly direction. It stood and watched him and barked, and when he did not follow, it came back to him. In his words now, ‘I know dogs, and this one was trying to tell me something and lead me somewhere …’

“Because of the harness on the dog, Mr. Cutter eventually followed it, and by late afternoon the dog had led him to the tent, and in it he found Mrs. Giroux and Mr. Homewood. I will now read the key sentences from his statement. He says, ‘I found the woman only half under a sleeping bag, curled up in one corner, and I thought she was dead. The man was on a kind of snow seat and he was obviously dead. His right leg was in a bear trap and he had also been shot in the chest at close range. There was a great deal of blood everywhere. I knelt and touched the woman and she was not all cold, so I shook her and she stirred, and when she saw me she blinked and covered her face. I looked around for a gun but could not find one in the tent. Not far away there was a sled, a wide-runner Templeton 6, that’s a freight model. There were no dogs but the traces were still attached. There was snow on the sled, and one big domed object, and when I scraped away the snow and ice from some of it I saw what looked like a very large fossil. Other than that, the platform was mostly empty. Near the sled
I tripped over a gun that was lying in the snow. I picked it up and saw that it was loaded in all three chambers, and I made it safe and put it in the box on my sled. I prepared food from my own supplies and I gave the woman some warm broth. I hitched the strange dog into my own team and then I carried the woman to my sled. I covered her and tied her down and then I took her to Silverdale, which was four hours east. It was night now, but with snow on the ground it’s never completely dark up there, and I know that country real well. There is a hospital in Silverdale, and I took her there and then I went and talked to the
RCMP
. They kept the gun, and in the morning they organized an expedition to the site and I came along as their guide.’ ”

The assistant Crown held up the pages and said, “Those are the words of the first witness on the scene.
Prima facie
, Your Honour. I now have some questions for Mrs. Giroux.”

For a moment there was an enormous silence in the hall, as if all the people in it weren’t daring to breathe or stir. Then a camera flash went off, over-bright and loud, and the judge blinked and pounded his gavel. “That photographer – now, wait a minute. Clerk, I want you to clear this court of all cameras and any device that keeps a record of any kind. There will be no pictures and no film taken from now on, and no recording machine is allowed. See to it, clerk. And have them take down that blasted light while you’re at it. Sergeant and matron, go help the clerk, and if these picture people give you any
trouble, arrest them and throw them in jail. We’ll just sit here and wait.”

There was a commotion and muted protests, but it was all over in minutes, and then a much softer light in the room came from the windows along the west side and from the overhead light bulbs in enamel shades. Out the windows it was snowing again.

“Well,” said the judge. “Proceed, Mrs. Tancock.”

The assistant Crown stood up and looked at her. “Mrs. Giroux, were you and Mr. Homewood lovers?”

“No, we were not. We were travelling companions and old friends. He was running a business in museum exhibits and he wanted my help, my language skills. I helped him.”

“You helped him. But were you also intimate, Mrs. Giroux? I believe this question was not asked at the last trial, but I have my reasons, Your Honour, as we shall see.”

Hélène looked at Mr. Quormby, but he just shrugged and opened his hands.

“Intimate?”

“Mrs. Giroux, did you have sexual relations with the man? That is the simple question.”

“No, I did not.”

“Night after night in a tent. Travelling as a man-and-woman team, and you were never intimate?”

“No, we were not. We were friends. There are some good friendships that sexual relations can only spoil. We met years ago in France when he had business dealings with my mother. In time we developed respect and a liking for each other.”

“As friends?”

“Yes.”

“Does friendship preclude sexual relations?”

Mr. Quormby stood up and said, “Objection, Your Honour. Would my learned friend like to move on from that point. Her question has already been answered in the negative. More than once.”

“So it has,” said the judge. “Move on, Mrs. Tancock.”

“I shall, Your Honour. Mrs. Giroux, how were you intending to feed the dogs after you ran out of meat?”

“I had no clear plan for that. I was in shock. I was preoccupied with Nathan’s injury.”

“I’m sure you were. But is it not true that you felt sorry for the dogs too? You’ve told us how you came to understand and handle them, and suddenly you couldn’t feed them any more. They would have starved to death, and so you set them free. Is that not the case? We know that at least one of them was still in a harness. Would you please stand up, Mrs. Giroux.”

She rose and then stood there for a moment where the
X
marked her spot, and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She opened her eyes and said, “Yes. I did set them free.”

“Ah. Thank you! You did set them free! You did, and in doing so you also sealed your own fate. Because you knew that now you would not be able to leave that place, and you accepted that. Yes? Because is it not also true that after a number of terrible days or weeks in this tent – as
it’s being called here, but really it was just a mean crawl space under a tarpaulin held up with sticks – is it not also true that after all those hopeless days of suffering and before you set the dogs free, you and Mr. Homewood made a murder-suicide pact, Mrs. Giroux? You were to kill him and then take your own life. Is that not true?”

“No. It is not.”

“It is not?”

“No.”

“Very well. Your Honour, at this time I would like to bring in my second witness. Would the clerk please ask Mr. Christian-Jones to come in and stand here at this table.”

The clerk brought in a man in his forties with blond hair, wearing an English shooting jacket. He was sworn in and then the assistant Crown said, “Mr. Christian-Jones, what is your profession?”

“I’m a stock-fitter, ma’am. And a gunsmith.”

“What does a stock-fitter do?”

“We work on guns, especially shotguns, so that they fit exactly. We shape the stock to fit the shooter so the gun comes up just right.”

“And do you also know about gun locks and gun barrels?”

“I would say I do, ma’am. I have a master’s brief from the British guild of gunsmiths.”

“Thank you. Would you take a good look at this gun here on the table and tell us about it?”

The gunsmith picked up the gun and hinged it open and checked that it was unloaded. He raised it and sighted
through the bores towards the windows, and he turned it in the light to see details on the receiver and barrels.

“It’s a very good gun, ma’am. And a rare configuration, a double-over and single-under. This one was made in England by the firm of Bentley and Barnes. It’s an all-round gaming gun with two smooth bores for shot or slugs, and one rifled for bullets. The barrels are relatively long for the model. Thirty inches, I should say. Because of their independent locks, these guns are favoured as the first gun on expeditions in the colonies.”

“I see. Mr. Christian-Jones, could one kill a man with this gun?”

“Kill a man – yes, of course one could. They are twelve-gauge barrels for shot, and the rifled barrel is bored and chambered for a big-game shell and bullet. Those bullets are mostly round-nosed and solid lead with no jacket because they hit harder that way. Fired from this gun, a bullet would develop tremendous muzzle energy. Inside the target, say in a body of muscle and organs and bone, a lead bullet with that much energy would deform instantly. It would cause massive tissue damage. That is why it’s used for big game, ma’am. You could drop a grizzly with that, first shot. And a twelve-gauge at close range would tear out a man’s entire heart in an instant.”

“I see,” said the assistant Crown. “And if the rifle were fired at a man’s body at close range, say from a few inches away, would the bullet go right through? And what would it look like on the other side?”

“It would pass right through, ma’am. Instantly. On the other side, a lead bullet might look like a sheared lump as big as this fingertip. I’ve also seen them flat like a coin, but if it fragmented you’d find only pieces of lead.”

“Thank you, Mr. Christian-Jones. Now, tell us, could a person kill themselves with this gun?”

Once again there was a deep silence in the hall. The crowd behind the rope barrier stood mesmerized, staring at the gunsmith and the gun in his hands.

She had sat down again on the chair, and she sat with her eyes closed. She did not care what they thought about that. Sat unmoving with her eyes closed and her hair pinned up neatly, in the dark-grey wool dress with the creases almost all hung out, and silk stockings. On her feet she wore again the good new outdoor shoes David Chandler had made for her.

And since she sat with her eyes looking inward now, she did not see what the gunsmith was doing. Mildred told her later how he held up Nathan’s gun with both hands and turned his head to look at the assistant Crown. “Kill themselves, ma’am? Is that the question? How a person might accomplish that?”

“Yes, Mr. Christian-Jones. That is the question. Move on, please. We don’t have all day.”

“Well, ma’am. It would not be easy. A thirty-inch barrel, plus the length of the receiver. I do not know anybody with arms long enough to hold up this gun and put the muzzle to his head or in his mouth or to his chest and still be able to reach the trigger.”

He demonstrated, and with the muzzle at his face, his probing index finger came well short of the gun lock. He set the gun butt-down on the floor and said, “But if they are desperate enough, they’ll find a way. I’ve heard of people using a stick to push the trigger, but more often than that they’ll use their bare foot.”

He lowered his forehead to the muzzle and raised his right foot from the ground. “The large toe, ma’am,” he said. “The bare large toe in the trigger guard. That is how they could do it.”

“Thank you, Mr. Christian-Jones. I have no more questions, Your Honour.”

The judge looked away from the demonstration, and he shook his head once as though to dislodge some unwanted thought inside it. He looked at her sitting there with her eyes closed, and he sat back and said, “Your witness, Mr. Quormby.”

Mr. Quormby stood up. He, who was usually so calm and confident, now seemed confused and troubled. He stood thinking of what to say – you could feel that, said Mildred later – and then he told the judge that he had no questions for this witness. “Not now,” he said. “Perhaps later, Your Honour.”

The gunsmith was shown out of the hall by the clerk, and the judge gave the jury members a long look and then he nodded at the assistant Crown and told her to proceed.

And the assistant Crown stood up. She was smiling. “The accused seems to be asleep,” she said. “Would she please open her eyes and pay attention?”

Hélène obeyed, and the assistant Crown said, “Thank you, Mrs. Giroux. Your Honour, as to the new evidence now that was previously not linked with the murder, I am asking the accused to please take off her right shoe and remove the stocking on that leg.”

She waited, then continued: “Mrs. Giroux, would you please do that now, and then stand up and raise the hem of your dress so that this court may have a clear view of your bare right foot.”