How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (8 page)

Unlike Gamache.

Beauvoir rubbed his hand, trying to erase the lick, like a lash. He thought about the things he should have said, could have said, to his former Chief. But hadn’t.

*   *   *

“Just drop your things and head home,” said Gamache at the door to his office.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive down with you?” asked Lacoste.

“I’m sure. As I said, I’ll probably stay over. Thank you, Isabelle.”

As he looked at her now he saw, as he almost always did, a brief image. Of Lacoste bending over him. Calling to him. And he felt again her hands gripping either side of his head as he lay sprawled on the concrete floor.

There’d been a crushing weight on his chest and a rush in his head. And two words that needed to be said. Only two, as he stared at Lacoste, desperate for her to understand him.

Reine-Marie.

That was all there was left to say.

At first, when he’d recovered and remembered Isabelle’s face so close to his, he’d been embarrassed by his vulnerability.

His job was to lead them, to protect them. And he’d failed. Instead, she’d saved him.

But now when he looked at her, and that brief image exploded between them, he realized they were fused together forever by that moment. And he felt only great affection for her. And gratitude. For staying with him and hearing those barely whispered words. She was the vessel into which he’d poured his last thoughts.

Reine-Marie.

Armand Gamache would always remember the enormous relief when he’d realized she’d understood. And he could go.

But, of course, he hadn’t gone. In large part thanks to Isabelle Lacoste, he’d survived. But so many of his agents hadn’t, that day.

Including Jean-Guy Beauvoir. The swaggering, annoying smartass had gone into that factory, and something else had come out.

“Go home, Isabelle,” said Gamache.

*   *   *

The Superintendent continued to read the document in front of him, slowly turning a page.

Beauvoir recognized the report on the raid he’d been on a few days earlier.

“I see here,” Francoeur said slowly in his deep, calm voice, “that not all the evidence made it to the locker.”

He met Beauvoir’s eyes, which widened.

“Some drugs seem to be missing.”

Beauvoir’s mind raced, while the Superintendent again lowered his eyes to the report.

“But I don’t think that will affect the case,” Francoeur said at last, turning to Martin Tessier. “Remove it from the report.”

He tossed the paper across to his second in command.

“Yessir.”

“I have a dinner in half an hour with the Cardinal. He’s very worried about the biker gang violence. What can I tell him?”

“It’s unfortunate that girl was killed,” said Tessier.

Francoeur stared at Tessier. “I don’t think I need to tell him that, do you?”

Beauvoir knew what they were talking about. Everyone in Québec did. A seven-year-old child had been blown up along with a few members of the Hell’s Angels when a car bomb exploded. It was all over the news.

“Up until then, we’d been pretty successful at feeding rival gangs information,” said Tessier, “and having them go at each other.”

Beauvoir had come to appreciate the beauty of this strategy, though it had shocked him at first. Let the criminals kill each other. All the Sûreté had to do was guide them a little. Drop a bit of information here. A bit there. Then get out of the way. The rival gangs took care of the rest. It was easy and safe and, above all, effective. True, sometimes a civilian got in the way, but the Sûreté would plant suggestions in the media that the dead man or woman wasn’t perhaps as innocent as their family claimed.

And it worked.

Until this child.

“What’re you doing about it?” Francoeur asked.

“Well, we need to respond. Hit one of their bunkers. Since the Rock Machine planted the bomb that killed the kid, we should plan a raid against them.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir lowered his eyes, studying the carpet. Studying his hands.

Not me. Not me. Not again.

“I’m not interested in the details.” Francoeur got up and they all rose. “Just get it done. The sooner the better.”

“Yessir,” said Tessier, and followed him out the door.

Beauvoir watched them go, then exhaled. Safe.

At the elevator the Chief Superintendent handed Tessier a small vial.

“I think our newest recruit is a little anxious, don’t you?” Francoeur pressed the pill bottle into Tessier’s hand. “Put Beauvoir on the raid.”

He got in the elevator.

*   *   *

Beauvoir sat at his desk, staring blankly at the computer screen. Trying to get the meeting out of his mind. Not with Francoeur, but with Gamache. He’d structured his days, done everything he could, to avoid seeing the Chief. And for months it had worked, until tonight. His whole body felt bruised. Except for one small patch, on his hand. Which still felt moist and warm no matter how hard he rubbed it dry.

Beauvoir sensed a presence at his elbow and looked up.

“Good news,” said Inspector Tessier. “You’ve impressed Francoeur. He wants you on the raid.”

Beauvoir’s stomach curdled. He’d already taken two OxyContin, but now the pain returned.

Leaning over the desk, Tessier placed a pill bottle by Beauvoir’s hand.

“We all need a little help every now and then.” Tessier tapped the top of the bottle, his voice light and low. “Take one. It’s nothing. Just a little relaxant. We all take them. You’ll feel better.”

Beauvoir stared at the bottle. A small warning sounded, but it was too deep and too late.

SEVEN

Armand Gamache turned off the lights, then he and Henri walked down the corridor, but instead of pressing the down button, he pressed up. Not to the very top floor, but the one just below it. He looked at his watch. Eight thirty. Perfect.

A minute later he knocked on a door and went in without waiting for a response.

“Bon,”
said Superintendent Brunel. “You made it.”

Thérèse Brunel, petite and soignée as always, rose and indicated a chair next to her husband, Jérôme, who was also on his feet. They shook hands and everyone sat.

Thérèse Brunel was beyond the Sûreté retirement age, but no one had the stomach, or other organs, to tell her. She’d come late to the force, been trained by Gamache, then rapidly lapped him, partly through her own hard work and ability, but partly, they all knew, because his career had hit a wall, constructed by Chief Superintendent Francoeur.

They’d been friends since the academy, when she was twice the age of any other recruit and he was her professor.

The roles, the offices, the ranks they now enjoyed should have been reversed. Thérèse Brunel knew that. Jérôme knew that. And Gamache knew that, though he alone didn’t seem to care.

They sat on the formal sofa and chairs, and Henri stretched out between Gamache and Jérôme. The older man dropped an arm, absently stroking the shepherd.

Jérôme, hovering on the far side of seventy, was almost completely round, and had he been slightly smaller, Henri would have been tempted to chase him.

Despite the difference in their ranks, it was clear that Armand Gamache was in charge. This was his meeting, if not his office.

“What’s your news?” he asked Thérèse.

“We’re getting closer, I think, Armand, but there’s a problem.”

“I’ve hit a few walls,” Jérôme explained. “Whoever’s done this is clever. Just when I get up a head of steam, I find I’m actually in a
cul-de-sac.
”

His voice was querulous, but his manner was jovial. Jérôme had rolled forward, his hands clasped together. His eyes were bright and he was fighting a smile.

He was enjoying himself.

Dr. Brunel was an investigator, but not with the Sûreté du Québec. Now retired, he’d been the head of emergency services for the Hôpital Notre-Dame in Montréal. His training was to quickly assess a medical emergency, triage, diagnose. Then treat.

Retired a few years now, he’d refocused his energy and skills toward solving puzzles, cyphers. Both his wife and Chief Inspector Gamache had consulted him on cases involving codes. But it was more than a retired doctor passing the time. Jérôme Brunel was a man born to solve puzzles. His mind saw and made connections that might take others hours or days, or never, to find.

But Dr. Brunel’s game of choice, his drug of choice, was computers. He was a cyber junkie, and Gamache had brought him uncut heroin in the form of this gnarly puzzle.

“I’ve never seen so many layers of security,” said Jérôme. “Someone’s tried very hard to hide this thing.”

“What thing, though?” Gamache asked.

“You asked us to find out who really leaked that video of the raid on the factory,” Superintendent Brunel said. “The one you led, Armand.”

He nodded. The video was taken from the tiny cameras each of the agents wore, attached to their headphones. They recorded everything.

“There was an investigation, of course,” Superintendent Brunel continued. “The conclusion of the Cyber Crimes division was that a hacker had gotten lucky, found the files, edited them, and put them on the Internet.”

“Bullshit,” said Dr. Brunel. “A hacker could never have just stumbled on those files. They’re too well guarded.”

“So?” Gamache turned to Jérôme. “Who did?”

But they all knew who’d done it. If not a lucky hacker, it had to be someone inside the Sûreté, and high enough up to cover his trail. But Dr. Brunel had found that trail, and followed it.

They all knew it would lead to the office right above them. To the very highest level in the Sûreté.

But Gamache had long since begun to wonder if they were asking the right question. Not who, but why. He suspected they’d find that the video was simply the disgusting dropping of a much larger creature. They’d mistaken the
merde
for the actual menace.

Armand Gamache looked at the gathering. A senior Sûreté officer, past her retirement age. A rotund doctor. And himself. A middle-aged, marginalized officer.

Just the three of them. And the creature they sought seemed to grow each time they caught a glimpse of it.

Gamache knew, though, that what was a disadvantage was also an advantage. They were easily overlooked, dismissed, especially by people who believed themselves invisible and invincible.

“I think we’re getting closer, Armand, but I keep hitting dead ends,” said Jérôme. The doctor suddenly looked a little furtive.

“Go on,” said Gamache.

“I’m not certain, but I think I detected a watcher.”

Gamache said nothing. He knew what a watcher was, in physical as well as cyber terms. But he wanted Jérôme to be more precise.

“If I have, he’s very cunning and very skilled. It’s possible he’s been watching me for a while.”

Gamache rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his large hands in front of him. Like a battleship plowing toward its target.

“Is it Francoeur?” Gamache asked. No need to pretend otherwise.

“Not him personally,” said Jérôme, “but I think whoever it is is within the Sûreté network. I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I’ve never seen anything this sophisticated. Whenever I stop and look, he fades into the background.”

“How do you even know he’s there?” asked Gamache.

“I don’t for sure, but it’s a sense, a movement, a shift.”

Brunel paused and for the first time Gamache saw in the cheerful doctor a hint of concern. A sense that as good as he was, Dr. Brunel might be up against someone better.

Gamache sat back in his chair as though something had walked by him, and pushed.
What have we uncovered?

Not only were they hunting the creature, it seemed the creature might now be hunting them.

“Does this watcher know who you are?” he asked Jérôme.

“I don’t think so.”

“Think?” asked Gamache, his voice sharp, his eyes hard.

“No,” Jérôme shook his head. “He doesn’t know.”

Yet. The word was unspoken, but implied. Yet.

“Be careful, Jérôme,” said Gamache, as he rose and picked up Henri’s leash. He said his good-byes, left them, and headed into the night.

The lights of the cities and towns and villages faded in his rearview mirror as they drove deeper into the forest. After a while the darkness was complete, except for the beams of his headlights on the snowy roads. Eventually he saw a soft glow ahead, and knew what it was. Gamache’s car crested a hill, and there in the valley he saw three huge pines lit with green and red and yellow Christmas lights. Thousands of them, it seemed. And around the village cheery lights were hung along porches and picket fences and over the stone bridge.

As his car descended, the signal on his device disappeared. No phone reception, no emails. It was as though he and Henri, asleep on the backseat, had fallen off the face of the earth.

He parked in front of Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore and noted the lights still on upstairs. So often he’d come here to find death. This time he’d brought it with him.

EIGHT

Clara Morrow was the first to notice the car arrive.

She and Myrna had had a simple dinner of reheated stew and a salad, then she’d gotten up to do the dishes, but Myrna soon joined her.

“I can do them,” said Clara, squirting the dishwashing liquid into the hot water and watching it foam. It was always strangely satisfying. It made Clara feel like a magician, or a witch, or an alchemist. Not, perhaps, as valuable as turning lead into gold, but useful all the same.

Clara Morrow was not someone who liked housework. What she liked was magic. Water into foam. Dirty dishes into clean. A blank canvas into a work of art.

It wasn’t change she liked so much as metamorphosis.

“You sit down,” she said, but Myrna took the tea towel and reached for a warm, clean dish.

“It helps take my mind off things.”

They both knew drying the dinner dishes was a fragile raft on a rough sea, but if it kept Myrna afloat for a while Clara was all for it.

They fell into a reassuring rhythm. She washed and Myrna dried.

When Clara was finished she drained the water, wiped the sink, and turned to face the room. It hadn’t changed in the years since Myrna had given up her psychologist’s practice in Montréal and packed her tiny car with all her worldly possessions. When she rolled into Three Pines she looked like someone who’d run away from the circus.