by Louise Penny
They were among the new agents, transferred in when Gamache’s own people had been transferred out and spread around the other divisions of the Sûreté. To everyone’s surprise, the Chief Inspector hadn’t protested. Hadn’t fought it. Had barely seemed to care or notice as his division was gutted.
It went beyond unflappable. Some had begun to wonder, quietly at first and then more boldly, whether Armand Gamache even cared anymore. But still, as he approached the group, they grew quiet and watchful.
“A word, Inspector,” he said, and smiled at the agents.
Isabelle Lacoste followed Gamache back to his office, where he closed the door.
“For chrissake, sir, why do we have to put up with that?” She jerked her head toward the outer office.
“We just have to make the best of it.”
“How? By giving up?”
“No one’s giving up,” he said, his voice reassuring. “You need to trust me. You’re a great investigator. Tenacious, intuitive. Smart. And you have limitless patience. You need to use that now.”
“It’s not limitless, patron.”
He nodded. “I understand.” Then, hands gripping the edges of his desk, he leaned toward her. “Don’t be bullied off course. Don’t be pushed from your center. And always, always trust your instinct, Isabelle. What does it tell you now?”
“That we’re screwed.”
He leaned back and laughed. “Then trust mine. All is not as I’d have wished, that much is certain. But it isn’t over. This isn’t inaction, this is simply a deep breath.”
She glanced out at the agents lounging at their desks, ignoring her orders.
“And while we’re catching our breath they’re taking over. Destroying the division.”
“Yes,” he said.
She waited for the “but,” but none came.
“Maybe I should threaten them,” she suggested. “The only thing a lion respects is a bigger lion.”
“Those aren’t lions, Isabelle. They’re irritating, but tiny. Ants, or toads. You step over them, or around them. But there’s no need to step on them. You don’t make war on toads.”
Toads, or turds. The droppings of some larger beast, thought Lacoste as she left. But Chief Inspector Gamache was right. These new agents weren’t worth her effort. She’d step around them. For now.
* * *
Gamache pulled his car into the reserved parking spot. He knew the employee who normally parked there wouldn’t need it. She was in Paris.
It was two o’clock. He paused, closing his eyes. Then he opened them, and with resolve he walked along the icy path to the rear entrance of the Bibliothèque nationale. At the door, he punched Reine-Marie’s code into the keypad and heard the clunk as the door unbolted.
“Monsieur Gamache.” Lili Dufour looked up from her desk, understandably perplexed. “I thought you were in Paris with Reine-Marie.”
“No, she went ahead.”
“What can I do for you?” She stood up and walked around to greet him. She was slender, self-contained. Pleasant but cool, bordering on officious.
“I have some research to do and I thought you might be able to help.”
“On what?”
“The Ouellet Quints.”
He saw her brows rise.
“Really. Why?”
“You don’t expect me to tell you that, do you?” asked Gamache, with a smile.
“Then you don’t expect me to help you, do you?”
His smile faded. Reine-Marie had told him about Madame Dufour, who guarded the documents in the National Library and Archives as though they were her own private collection.
“Police business,” he said.
“Library business, Chief Inspector,” she said, nodding toward the large, closed doors.
He followed her gaze. They were in the back offices, where the head librarians worked. Through those doors was the public area.
Most of the time, when he’d visited his wife, he’d contented himself with waiting in the huge new public library, where row after row of desks and reading lamps held students and professors, researchers and those simply curious. The desks had plugs for laptops, and wireless Internet gave access to the files.
But not all the files. The Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec contained tens of thousands of documents. Not just books, but maps, diaries, letters, deeds. Many of them hundreds of years old. And most of them not in the computer system yet.
Scores of technicians were working long hours to scan everything in, but it would take years, decades.
He loved walking the aisles, imagining all the history contained there. Maps drawn by Cartier. Diaries written by Marguerite d’Youville. The bloodstained plans for the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
And maybe, maybe, the story of the Ouellet Quints. Not the one for public consumption, but their private lives. Their real lives, when the cameras turned off.
If it was anywhere, it was here.
And he needed it.
He turned back to Madame Dufour. “I’m researching the Ouellet Quints for a case, and I need your help.”
“I guessed that much.”
“I need to look at what you have in the private archives.”
“Those are sealed.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t read them. They’re sealed.”
Gamache felt a stroke of annoyance until he noticed a slight look of amusement on her face.
“Would you like to read them?” he asked.
Now she hesitated, caught between the correct response and the truthful one.
“Are you trying to bribe me?” she asked.
Now it was his turn to be amused. He knew her currency. It was the same as his. Information, knowledge. Finding things out that no one else knew.
“Even if I let you, you couldn’t use what you found in court,” she said. “It would be illegally obtained. The principals are still alive.”
By that she meant the Quints themselves, he knew.
When he said nothing she grew quiet, her intelligent eyes assessing him, and the silence.
“Come with me.”
She turned away from the large doors that led to the glass and metal public library, and took him in the opposite direction. Along a corridor. Down some stairs. And finally, she tapped a code into a keypad and a large metal door clicked open with a slight whoosh.
Incandescent lights went on automatically when the door opened. It was cool inside the windowless room.
“Sorry for the lighting,” she said, locking the door behind them and moving farther into the room. “We try to keep it to a minimum.”
As his eyes adjusted he realized he was in a large room, but only one of many. He looked right. Then left. Then ahead of him. Room after room, all connected, had been constructed under the bibliothèque.
“Coming?” she said, and walked away. Gamache realized if he lost her, he’d be lost. So he made sure not to lose her.
“The rooms are set out according to quarter centuries,” she said as she walked quickly from one to another.
Gamache tried to read the labels on the drawers as they walked by, but the dull lighting made it difficult. He thought he saw Champlain on one, and he wondered if Champlain himself was actually filed there. And later, in another room, War of 1812.
After a while he kept his eyes ahead of him, concentrating on Madame Dufour’s thin back. It was best not to know the treasures he was walking by.
Finally she stopped and he almost bumped into her.
“There.” She nodded to a drawer.
The label read Ouellet Quintuplets.
“Has anyone else seen the documents?” he asked.
“Not that I know of. Not since they were collected and sealed.”
“And when was that?”
Madame Dufour went to the drawer and looked closely at the label.
“July 27, 1958.”
“Why then?” he wondered.
“Why now, Chief Inspe
ctor?” she asked, and he realized that she was standing between him and what he needed to know.
“It’s a secret,” he said, his voice light, but his eyes not leaving hers.
“I’m good at keeping secrets,” she said, glancing down the long line of files.
He considered her for a moment. “Constance Ouellet died two days ago.”
Madame Dufour took in that information, her face troubled. “I’m sorry to hear that. She was the last of them, I believe.”
Gamache nodded, and now she studied him more closely.
“She didn’t just die, did she?”
“No.”
Lili Dufour took a long breath, and sighed. “My mother went to see them, you know, at that home that was built for them here in Montréal. She lined up for hours. They were just children at the time. She talked about it until the day she died.”
Gamache nodded. There’d been something magical about the Quints, and their extreme privacy later in life only added to the mystique.
Madame Dufour stepped aside, and Gamache reached for the drawer where their private life lived.
* * *
Beauvoir looked at his watch. Ten minutes to three. He was plastered against a brick wall. Three Sûreté officers were behind him.
“Stay here,” he whispered, and stepped around the corner. He had a brief glimpse at the surprise in their faces. Surprise and concern. Not about the biker gang they were about to raid, but the officer who was supposed to lead them.
Beauvoir knew they had reason to be afraid.
He leaned his head again the brick, hitting it lightly. Then he crouched down so that his knees were against his chest, and he began rocking himself. As he rocked he heard the rhythmic squeaking of his heavy boots on the snow. Like a rocking horse in need of oiling. In need of something.
Eight minutes to three.
Beauvoir reached into the pocket of his Kevlar vest. The one that held bandages and tape to staunch wounds. He pulled out two pill bottles and, twisting the top off one, he quickly swallowed two OxyContin. He’d thrown up the earlier ones and now he could barely think for the pain.
And the other. The other. He stared at the pill bottle, and felt like a man halfway across a bridge.
Afraid to take the pill and afraid not to. Afraid of going into the bunker, afraid of running away. He was afraid of dying and he was afraid of living.
Mostly, he was afraid that everyone would find out just how frightened he really was.
Beauvoir twisted off the cap and shook the bottle. Pills cascaded out, bouncing off his trembling hand, and were lost in the snow. But one was saved. It sat in the center of his palm. His need was so great, and it was so tiny. He couldn’t get it into his mouth fast enough.
Five minutes to three.
* * *
Gamache sat at a desk in the archive room, reading and making notes. Captivated by what he’d found so far. Diaries, personal letters, photographs. But now he took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the books and documents still to be read. There was no way he’d get through them that afternoon.
Madame Dufour had shown him the buzzer, and now he pressed it. Three minutes later he heard footsteps on the sealed concrete floor.
“I’d like to take it with me.” He nodded to the stacks on the desk.
She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. And considered.
“Constance Ouellet really was murdered?” she asked.
“She was.”
“And you think something in there”—she looked at the documents on the desk—“might help you?”
“I think it might.”
“I retire next August, you know. Mandatory retirement.”
“I’m sorry,” he said as she looked around her.
“Shelved,” she said with a smile. “I suspect neither I, nor that file, will be missed. Feel free to take it, monsieur. But please bring it back. Quite a steep fine, you know, if you lose it, or your dog eats it.”
“Merci,” he said, and wondered if Madame Dufour had met Henri. “There’s something else I need from you.”
“A kidney?”
“A code.”
A few minutes later they stood by the rear door. Gamache had his coat on, and held the heavy box in both hands.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for, Chief Inspector. Give my best to Reine-Marie when you see her. Joyeux Noël.”
But before the door closed and locked, she called him back.
“Be careful,” she said. “Light and moisture can do permanent damage.” She regarded him for a moment. “And I think, monsieur, you know something about permanent damage.”
“Oui,” he said. “Joyeux Noël.”
* * *
It was dark by the time Armand Gamache reached Three Pines. He parked not far from the B and B and barely had time to open the door before Olivier and Gabri appeared from the bistro. It seemed to Gamache that they must have been watching for his arrival.
“How was the drive?” Gabri asked.
“Not bad,” said Gamache, picking up his satchel and the heavy cardboard box. “Except for the Champlain Bridge, of course.”
“Always hellish,” agreed Olivier.
“Everything’s ready for you,” said Gabri, leading the way up the steps and along the verandah to the front door. He opened it, and Chief Inspector Gamache, instead of stepping inside, stepped aside to let his two companions in first.
“Welcome,” said Olivier.
Thérèse and Jérôme Brunel walked into Emilie Longpré’s home. The home Henri had found for them.
THIRTEEN
Olivier and Gabri brought the luggage in and took it to the bedrooms, then left.
“Merci, patron.” Gamache stepped onto the cold verandah with them.
“You’re welcome,” said Olivier. “You played your role well on the phone. I almost believed you were annoyed.”
“And you were very convincing,” said Gamache. “Worthy of the Olivier award.”
“Well, as luck would have it,” said Gabri, “I planned to reward him tonight.”
Gamache watched them cross to the bistro, then he closed the door and faced the room. And smiled.
He could finally relax.
Thérèse and Jérôme were safe.
And Jean-Guy was safe. He’d monitored the Sûreté frequency the entire drive down and heard no calls for ambulances. Indeed, what chatter he picked up led him to believe the bunker had been abandoned. The Rock Machine was no longer there.
The informant had lied. Or, more likely, there was no informant.
Gamache was both relieved and grim as he absorbed that news.
Jean-Guy was safe. For now.
Gamache looked at Emilie Longpré’s home.
Two sofas faced each other on either side of the stone fireplace. They were slip-covered in faded floral fabric. A pine blanket box sat in the space between them. On it was a game of cribbage and some playing cards.
A couple of armchairs were tucked in a corner, a table between them and a hassock in front, to be shared by weary feet. A standing lamp with tasseled shade was on and held the chairs in soft light.
The walls were painted a soothing light blue, and one had floor-to-ceiling bookcases.
It felt quiet and calm.
Olivier had spent the morning finding out who now owned Emilie’s home, and whether he could rent it. Seemed a distant niece in Regina owned the home and hadn’t yet figured out what to do with it. She readily agreed to rent it over Christmas.
Olivier then called Gamache and gave him the agreed-upon phrase—Gabri asked me to call to make sure you still want your room for tonight—that would tell Gamache he could have Emilie’s home.
Then Olivier had rounded up others in the village to help. The result was this.
Sheets had been pulled off the furniture, beds were made and clean towels put out, the home was vacuumed and dusted and polished. A fire was laid in the grate, and judging by the aroma, dinner was wa
rming in the oven.
It was as though he and the Brunels had just stepped out for a few hours and were returning home.
Two of Sarah’s fresh-baked baguettes sat in a basket on the marble kitchen counter, and Monsieur Béliveau had stocked the pantry and fridge with milk and cheese and butter. With homemade jams. Fruit sat in a wooden bowl on the harvest table
There was even a Christmas tree, decorated and lit.
Gamache loosened his tie, knelt down and struck a match to the wood and paper in the hearth, watching mesmerized as it caught and flared.
He exhaled. It felt as though a cloak, like the ghostly sheets over the furniture, had been lifted from him.
“Thérèse,” he called. “Jérôme.”
“Oui?” came the distant response.
“I’m going out.”
He put on his boots and coat and walked quickly through the crisp evening, toward the little cottage with the open gate and winding path.
* * *
“Armand,” said Clara, opening the door to his knock. Henri was so excited he didn’t know whether to jump up or curl into a ball at Gamache’s feet. Instead, the shepherd threaded his way in and out and around Gamache’s legs, crying with excitement.
“I beat him, of course,” said Clara, looking with mock disgust at Henri.
Gamache knelt down and played with Henri for a moment.
“You look like you could use a Scotch,” said Clara.
“Don’t tell me I look like Ruth,” said Gamache, and Clara laughed.
“Just around the edges.”
“Actually, I don’t need anything, merci.” He took off his coat and boots and followed her into the living room, where a fire was lit.
“Thank you for looking after Henri. And thank you for helping to get Emilie’s home ready for us.”
There was no way to explain how that home looked to weary travelers who’d come to the end of the road.
He wondered, in a moment that startled him, whether that’s what this little village was. The end of the road? And, like most ends, not an end at all.
“A pleasure,” said Clara. “Gabri combined it with a rehearsal for the Christmas concert and had us sing ‘The Huron Carol’ over and over. I suspect if you hit one of the pillows that song will come out.”