How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (26 page)

“How the hell should I know her secret?” demanded Ruth.

Gamache looked across the table. Myrna was the wedding guest, he suspected. The person Constance Ouellet had chosen to unburden herself to. But she never got that chance.

And, more and more, Gamache suspected it wasn’t a coincidence that Constance Ouellet, the last Quint, was murdered as she prepared to return to Three Pines.

Someone wanted to prevent her from getting here.

Someone wanted to prevent her from unburdening herself.

But then another thought struck Gamache. Maybe Myrna wasn’t the only wedding guest. Maybe Constance had confided in someone else.

The rest of the meal was spent talking about Christmas plans, menus, the upcoming concert.

Everyone, except Ruth, cleared the table while Gabri took Olivier’s trifle out of the fridge, with its layers of ladyfingers, custard, fresh whipped cream and brandy-infused jam.

“The love that dares not speak its name,” Gabri whispered as he cradled it in his arms.

“How many calories, do you think?” asked Clara.

“Don’t ask,” said Olivier.

“Don’t tell,” said Myrna.

After dinner, when the table was cleared and the dishes done, the guests took their leave, getting on their heavy coats and sorting through the jumble of boots by the mudroom door.

Gamache felt a hand on his elbow and was drawn by Gilles into a far corner of the kitchen.

“I think I know how to connect you to the Internet.” The woodsman’s eyes were bright.

“Really?” asked Gamache, barely daring to believe it. “How?”

“There’s a tower up there already. One you know about.”

Gamache looked at his companion, perplexed. “I don’t think so. We’d be able to see it,
non
?”

“No. That’s the beauty of it,” said Gilles, excited now. “It’s practically invisible. In fact, you can barely tell it’s there even from right under it.”

Gamache was unconvinced. He knew those woods, not, perhaps, as intimately as Gilles, but well enough. And nothing came to mind.

“Just tell me,” said the Chief. “What’re you talking about?”

“When Ruth was talking about killing that bird, it made me think of hunting. And that reminded me of the blind.”

The Chief’s face went slack from surprise.
Merde,
he thought. The hunting blind. That wooden structure high up in a tree in the forest. It was a platform with wooden railings, built by hunters to sit comfortably and wait for a deer to walk past. Then they’d kill it. The modern equivalent of the Ancient Mariner in his crow’s nest.

It was, for a man who’d seen far too many deaths, shameful.

But it might, this day, redeem itself.

“The blind,” whispered Gamache. He’d actually been on it, when he’d first come to Three Pines to investigate the murder of Miss Jane Neal, but he hadn’t thought of it in years. “It’ll work?”

“I think so. It’s not as high as a transmission tower, but it’s on the top of the hill and it’s stable. We can attach a satellite dish up there for sure.”

Gamache waved Thérèse and Jérôme over.

“Gilles’s figured out how to get a satellite dish up above.”

“How?” the Brunels asked together and the Chief told them.

“That’ll work?” asked Jérôme.

“We won’t know until we try, of course,” said Gilles, but he was smiling and clearly hopeful, if not completely confident. “When do you need it up by?”

“The dish and other equipment are arriving sometime tonight,” said Gamache, and both Thérèse and Jérôme looked at him, surprised.

Gilles walked with them to the door. The others were just leaving, and the four of them put on their parkas and boots, hats and mitts. They thanked Clara, then left.

Gilles stopped at his car. “I’ll be by tomorrow morning then,” he said.
“À demain.”

They shook hands, and after he’d driven away Gamache turned to the Brunels.

“Do you mind walking Henri? I’d like a word with Ruth.”

Thérèse took the leash. “I won’t ask which word.”

*   *   *

“Good.”

Sylvain Francoeur glanced from the document his second in command had downloaded, then went back to the computer. They were in the Chief Superintendent’s study at home.

As his boss read the report, Tessier tried to read his boss. But in all the years he’d worked for the Chief Superintendent, he’d never been able to do that.

Classically handsome, in his early sixties, the Chief Superintendent could smile and bite your head off. He could quote Chaucer and Tintin, in either educated French or broad joual. He’d order poutine for lunch and foie gras for dinner. He was all things. To all people. He was everything and he was nothing.

But Francoeur also had a boss. Someone he answered to. Tessier had seen the Chief Superintendent with him just once. The man hadn’t been introduced as Francoeur’s boss, of course, but Tessier could tell by the way Francoeur behaved. “Grovel” would be too strong a word, but there’d been anxiety there. Francoeur had been as anxious to please that man as Tessier was to please Francoeur.

At first it had amused Tessier, but then the smile had burned away when he realized there was someone who scared the most frightening man he knew.

Francoeur finally sat back, rocking a little in the chair.

“I need to get back to my guests. I see it went well.”

“Perfectly.” Tessier kept his face placid, his voice neutral. He’d learned to mirror his boss. “We got completely kitted out, drove there in the assault van. By the time we got there Beauvoir could barely stand. I made sure some of the evidence ended up in a baggie in his pocket, with my compliments.”

“I don’t need to know the details,” said Francoeur.

“Sorry, sir.”

It wasn’t, Tessier knew, because Francoeur was squeamish. It was that he just didn’t care. All he cared about was that it was done. The details he left up to his subordinates.

“I want him sent on another raid.”

“Another?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Inspector?”

“It’s a waste of time, in my opinion, sir. Beauvoir’s had it. He’s past the edge now, hanging in midair. He just hasn’t fallen. But he will. There’s no way back for him and nothing to go back to. He’s lost everything, and he knows it. Another raid is unnecessary.”

“Is that so? You think this is about Beauvoir?”

The calm should have warned him. The slight smile certainly should have. But Inspector Tessier had taken his eyes off Francoeur’s face.

“I realize this is about Chief Inspector Gamache.”

“Do you?”

“But did you see here—” Tessier leaned forward and pointed to the computer screen. He didn’t see that the Chief Superintendent’s eyes never left him. Never wavered. Barely blinked.

“The psychologist’s report, Dr. Fleury. Gamache was so upset he went to see him today. A Saturday.”

Too late, he looked up into those glacier eyes. “We picked this off Dr. Fleury’s computer late this afternoon.”

He hoped for some sign of approval. A slight thaw. A sign of life. But all he met was the dead stare.

“He says Gamache is spinning out of control. Delusional even. Don’t you see?” And even as he said that he could have shot himself. And might have. Francoeur saw everything, ten steps ahead of everyone else. Which was why they were on the verge of success.

There’d been a few unexpected setbacks. The raid on the factory was one. The dam plot discovered. Gamache again.

But that’s what made this report all the sweeter. The Chief Superintendent should be pleased. Then why was he looking like that? Tessier felt his blood cool and grow thick and his heart labor.

“If Gamache ever tries to go public, his own therapist’s report can be leaked. His credibility will be gone. No one will believe a man who…” Tessier looked over at the report, desperate to find that perfect sentence. He found it and read,
“… is suffering from persecution mania. Seeing conspiracies and plots.”

Tessier scrolled down, reading fast. Trying to create a wall of reassuring words between himself and Francoeur.

“Chief Inspector Gamache is not simply a broken man,”
he read,
“but shattered. When I return from Christmas vacation I will recommend he be relieved of duty.”

Tessier looked up and met, again, those arctic eyes. Nothing had changed. Those words, if they penetrated, had only found more ice. Colder. Older. Endless.

“He’s isolated,” said Tessier. “Inspector Lacoste is the only one left of his original investigators. The rest have either transferred out on their own or been moved by you. His last senior ally, Superintendent Brunel, has even abandoned him. She also thinks he’s delusional. We have the recordings from her office. And Gamache refers to it here.”

Once again Tessier rifled through the therapist’s report. “See? He admits they’ve left for Vancouver.”

“They may have gone, but they got too close.” Francoeur spoke at last. “Thérèse Brunel’s husband turned out to be more than a weekend hacker. He almost figured it out.”

The voice was conversational, at odds with the glacial look.

“But he didn’t,” said Tessier, eager to reassure his boss. “And it scared him shitless. Brunel shut down his computer. Hasn’t turned it on since.”

“He saw too much.”

“He has no idea what he saw, sir. He won’t be able to put it together.”

“But Gamache will.”

It was Tessier’s turn to smile. “But Dr. Brunel didn’t tell him. And now he and the Superintendent are in Vancouver, as far from Gamache as they could get. They’ve abandoned him. He’s on his own. He admitted as much to his therapist.”

“Where is he?”

“Investigating the murder of the Quint. He’s spending most of his time in some small village in the Townships, and when he’s not there he’s distracted by Beauvoir. It’s too late. He can’t stop it now. Besides, he doesn’t even know what’s happening.”

Chief Superintendent Francoeur got up. Slowly. Deliberately. And walked around his desk. Tessier twisted out of his chair and stood, then stepped back, back, until he felt his body against the bookcase.

Francoeur stopped within inches of his second in command, his eyes never leaving Tessier.

“You know what’s at stake?”

The younger man nodded.

“You know what happens if we succeed?”

Again Tessier nodded.

“And you know what happens if we don’t?”

It had never occurred to Tessier that they could possibly fail, but now he thought about it, and understood what that would mean.

“Do you want me to take care of Gamache, sir?”

“Not yet. It would raise too many questions. You need to make sure Dr. Brunel and Gamache don’t come within a thousand kilometers of each other. Understood?”

“Yessir.”

“If it looks like Gamache is coming close, you need to distract him. That shouldn’t be difficult.”

As Tessier walked to his car he knew Francoeur was right. It wouldn’t be difficult. Just a tiny little shove and Jean-Guy Beauvoir would fall. And land on Chief Inspector Gamache.

TWENTY-THREE

Jérôme and Thérèse walked Henri around the village green. Their second circuit. Deep in conversation. It was biting cold, but they needed the fresh air.

“So Armand investigated what the Cree elder told him,” said Jérôme. “And he found she was telling the truth. What did he do?”

“He made absolutely certain his case was seamless, then he took the proof to the council.”

This was the council of superintendents, Jérôme knew. The leadership of the Sûreté. Thérèse sat on it now, but at the time she was a lowly agent, a new recruit. Oblivious to the earthquake that was about to shake everything the Sûreté felt was stable.

Service, Integrity, Justice. The Sûreté motto.

“He knew it would be almost impossible to convince the superintendents, and even if convinced, they’d want to protect Arnot and the reputation of the force. Armand approached a couple of members of the council he thought would be sympathetic. One was, one wasn’t. And his hand was forced. He asked for a meeting with the council. By now Arnot and a few others suspected what it was about. They refused, at first.”

“What changed their minds?” asked Jérôme.

“Armand threatened to go public.”

“You’re kidding.”

But even as he said that, Jérôme knew it made sense. Of course Gamache would. He’d discovered something so horrific, so damning, he felt he no longer owed loyalty to the Sûreté leadership. His loyalty was to Québec, not a bunch of old men around a polished table looking at their own reflections as they made decisions.

“What happened at the meeting?” Jérôme asked.

“Arnot and his immediate deputies, the ones Armand had the most proof against, agreed to resign. They’d retire, the Sûreté would leave the Cree territory, and everyone would get on with their lives.”

“Armand won,” said Jérôme.

“No. He demanded more.”

Their feet crunched over the snow as they made their slow circuit in the light of the three great trees.

“More?”

“He said it wasn’t enough. Not even close. Armand demanded that Arnot and the others be arrested and charged with murder. He argued that the young Cree who died deserved that. That their parents and loved ones and their community deserved answers and an apology. And a pledge that it would never happen again. The council reluctantly agreed after a bitter debate. They had no choice. Armand had all the proof. They knew it would ruin the Sûreté when it all became public, when the very head of the force was tried for murder.”

That was the Arnot case.

Jérôme, like the rest of Québec, had followed it. It was, in many ways, his introduction to Gamache. Seeing him on the news walk into court, alone, each day. Swarmed by the media. Answering impolite questions politely.

Testifying against his own brothers-in-arms. Clearly. Thoroughly. Hammering home, in his reasonable, thoughtful voice, the facts.

“But there’s more,” said Thérèse quietly. “What didn’t make the papers.”

“More?”

*   *   *

“May I make you a tea, madame?” Gamache asked Ruth.

Once more they were in her small kitchen. Ruth had put Rosa to bed and taken off her cloth coat, but didn’t offer to take Gamache’s parka.