by Louise Penny
“Well, the person I’m chasing is far more clever. Brunel might be one of the hackers, but I think I know who the other one is.”
“Who?”
“Agent Yvette Nichol.”
“Who?”
“She worked with Gamache for a while, but he fired her. Put her in the basement.”
“Wait, I know her,” said Tessier. “In that monitoring room. Awful little shithead.”
“That’s her,” said Lambert. As she spoke they could still hear her fingers on the keyboard. Running Agent Nichol to ground. “I brought her to Cyber Crimes but she didn’t work out. Too damaged. I sent her back.”
“It’s her?” asked Francoeur.
“I think so.”
“Meet me in the sub-basement.”
“Yessir.”
“You find out where Gamache is going,” he said to Tessier, and headed out the door. Was it possible Gamache’s people had been working out of Sûreté headquarters? They’d been here all along, right under their noses? In the sub-basement? That would explain the ultra high-speed.
And Gamache, hiding away in that village, was a decoy.
Yes, thought Francoeur as he descended to the sub-basement, it was the sort of bold move that would appeal to Gamache’s ego.
Inspector Lambert was already outside the locked door in the basement when Chief Superintendent Francoeur and two other massive agents arrived.
Francoeur took Lambert a few paces down the corridor and whispered, “Could they be inside?”
“It’s possible,” said Lambert.
Francoeur turned to the two agents. “Knock it down.”
One drew his weapon while the other kicked. There was a bang as the door flew open, to reveal a tiny room, with banks of monitors, keyboards, terminals, candy wrappers, moldy orange peels, empty soft drink cans. But otherwise empty.
Lambert sat at the desk and hit some keys.
“Nothing. She wasn’t working from here. But let me check something.”
She walked rapidly down the corridor to another door, unlocked it and called them over.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” Francoeur asked.
“Old equipment confiscated from hackers. The room should be full.”
It wasn’t.
“What’s missing?”
“Satellite dishes, cables, terminals, monitors,” said Lambert, studying the near-empty storage room. “Clever little shit.”
“She could be anywhere, is that what you’re saying?” asked Francoeur.
“Anywhere, but probably somewhere that needs a satellite dish to connect to the Internet. She took one,” said Lambert.
Francoeur knew where that was.
* * *
Dr. Brunel and Agent Nichol copied the files onto a USB flash drive and packed up all the documents.
“Come on, Agent Nichol,” Superintendent Brunel called from the open door.
“Just a moment.”
“Now,” Thérèse Brunel snapped.
Nichol perched in her chair, ready to leave. But there was one last thing to do. She knew they’d be coming, searching her computer. And when they did, they’d find her little present. With a few final keystrokes she planted her logic bomb.
“Eat that, dickhead,” she said, and logged out. It wouldn’t keep the hounds away, but would give them a nasty surprise when they arrived.
“Hurry up,” Superintendent Brunel called from the door. Her voice held no trace of panic, just imperative.
Dr. Brunel and Gilles had already gone, and the old schoolhouse was empty. Except for Nichol. She turned the computers off and gave them one last look. They were as close as she came to family these days. Her father, while proud of her, didn’t understand her. Her relatives thought she was just weird, a sort of embarrassment.
And, to be fair, she thought the same of them. Of everyone.
But computers she understood. And they understood her. Life was simple around them. No debates, no arguments. They listened to her and did as she asked.
And these old ones, abandoned by others, considered useless, had done her proud. But now it was time to leave and to leave them behind. Superintendent Brunel held the door open, and Nichol hurried through it. Behind her Thérèse Brunel locked up. It was ridiculous to suppose an old Yale lock would stop what was coming for them, but it was a comforting conceit.
They walked back down the slope to Emilie Longpré’s home. That had been Gamache’s short email message.
See Emilie. And they knew what it meant.
Leave. Get out. There was nowhere safe, but there was someplace comfortable to sit and wait.
They were coming. Thérèse Brunel knew it. They all knew it.
They were coming here.
* * *
An electronic bleep sounded and Lambert checked her text message.
Charpentier lost her.
Lambert expected the Chief Superintendent to explode and was surprised when he just nodded.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Francoeur walked quickly back down the corridor toward the elevator.
Where’s Gamache? he texted Tessier.
Jacques Cartier Bridge. Keep monitoring him?
No. That’s what he wants. He wants to draw us away. He’s a decoy.
He gave Tessier instructions, then returned, briefly, to his office. If Gamache was heading to Sûreté headquarters, he wouldn’t find them waiting for him. It was almost certainly what Gamache wanted. He knew he was being followed, and he wanted their eyes on him. And not turning south. To that little village, so well hidden.
And now found.
* * *
“I think you’d better not, Jérôme,” said Thérèse, when her husband went to lay a fire in the hearth.
He stopped and nodded, then joined her on the sofa and together they watched the door. The front curtains were drawn and the lamps were turned on. Nichol sat in an armchair, also watching the door.
“What were you doing at the end there?” Thérèse asked Nichol.
“Huh?”
“On your computer, when I was trying to get you to leave. What were you doing?”
“Oh, nothing.”
Now Jérôme focused on the young woman. “You were doing something on the computer?”
“I was setting a bomb,” she said defiantly.
“A bomb?” Thérèse demanded, and turned to see Jérôme smiling and studying Agent Nichol.
“She means a logic bomb, don’t you?”
Nichol nodded.
“It’s a sort of cross between a super virus and a time bomb,” he explained to his wife. “Programmed to do what?” he asked Nichol.
“Nothing good,” she said, and challenged him to chastise her. But Jérôme Brunel only smiled and shook his head.
“Wish I’d thought of that.”
Silence descended again as the three of them returned to staring at the closed curtains and the closed door.
Only Gilles had his back to the door. He gazed out the rear windows. Those curtains were open and Gilles could see the snow-covered garden and the woods. And the tall trees that whispered to him. Comforted him. Forgave him.
He continued to look into the forest even as the first footsteps sounded on the front verandah. The squeal of boots on hard snow.
They saw a shadow pass the curtains.
Then the footsteps stopped at the door.
And there was a knock.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Armand Gamache pulled into the driveway of the little home. Christmas lights hung off the eaves, a wreath was on the front door. All the seasonal decorations were in place. Except comfort and joy. Gamache wondered if the pall was obvious even to someone who didn’t know what grief this home held.
He rang the doorbell.
And waited.
* * *
Superintendent Thérèse Brunel walked to the door. Her back was straight and her eyes determined. She held her gun behind her back and opened the door.
Myrna Landers stood on the ve
“You have to come to my place,” she said quickly, looking from Thérèse to the people grouped behind her. “Hurry. We don’t know when they’ll arrive.”
“Who?” asked Jérôme. He was stooped over, holding on to Henri’s collar.
“Whoever you’re hiding from. They’ll find you here, but they might not look in my place.”
“What makes you think we’re hiding?” Nichol asked.
“Why else would you have come here?” asked Myrna, getting more and more antsy. “You didn’t seem on vacation, and it wasn’t for the outlet stores. When we saw you working all last night in the schoolhouse, then bringing document boxes back here, we guessed that something had gone wrong.”
She studied the faces in front of her. “We’re right, aren’t we? They’ve found out where you are.”
“Do you know what you’re offering?” Thérèse asked.
“A safe place,” said Myrna. “Who doesn’t need that at least once in their lives?”
“The people who’re looking for us don’t want a simple chat,” said Thérèse, holding Myrna’s eyes. “They don’t want to negotiate, they don’t even want to threaten us. They want to kill us. And they’ll kill you too, if we’re found in your home. There is no safe place, I’m afraid.”
She needed Myrna to understand. Myrna stood before her, clearly frightened, but determined. Like one of the Burghers of Calais, thought Thérèse, or those boys in the stained-glass window.
Myrna gave one decisive nod. “Armand wouldn’t have brought you here if he didn’t think we’d protect you. Where is he?” She peered into the room.
“He’s leading them away,” said Nichol, finally understanding why the Chief had chosen to take a car and a cell phone that would obviously be followed.
“Will it work?” Myrna asked.
“For a while, perhaps,” said Thérèse. “But they’ll still come looking for us.”
“We thought so.”
“We?”
Myrna turned to look at the road and Thérèse followed her glance. Standing on the snow-covered path were Clara, Gabri, Olivier, and Ruth and Rosa.
The end of the road.
“Come,” said Myrna.
And they did.
* * *
“Bonjour. My name’s Armand Gamache. I’m with the Sûreté du Québec.”
He spoke softly. Not in a whisper, but his voice low enough so that the girls he could see staring at him from down the corridor, behind their father, didn’t hear.
Gaétan Villeneuve looked done in. Standing up only because if he fell he’d land on his children. The girls weren’t yet in their teens and they watched him wide-eyed. Gamache wondered if the news he was about to bring them would help, or hurt. Or make barely a ripple in their ocean of grief.
“What do you want?” Monsieur Villeneuve asked. It wasn’t a challenge. There wasn’t enough energy there for a challenge. But neither was he letting the Chief Inspector across the threshold.
Gamache leaned in a few inches, toward Villeneuve. “I’m the head of homicide.”
Now Villeneuve’s weary eyes widened. He examined Gamache, then stepped aside.
“These are our daughters, Megan and Christianne.”
Gamache noticed that Villeneuve had not yet moved to the singular.
“Bonjour,” he said to the girls, and smiled. Not a beam, but a warm smile before turning back to their father. “I wonder if we could speak privately.”
“Go outside and play, girls,” said Monsieur Villeneuve. He asked them kindly. Not an order, but a request, and they obeyed. He closed the door and walked Gamache to a small but cheerful kitchen at the back of the house.
It was tidy, all the dishes clean, and Gamache wondered if Villeneuve had done it, to keep order in the house for the girls, or if the girls had done it, to keep order for their grieving and lost father.
“Coffee?” Monsieur Villeneuve asked. Gamache accepted the offer, and while it was being poured he looked around the kitchen.
Audrey Villeneuve was everywhere. In the aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg for the Christmas cookies she must have baked, and the photos on the fridge, showing a grinning family camping, at a birthday party, at Disney World.
Crayon drawings were framed. Drawings only a parent knew were works of art.
This had been a happy home until a few days ago, when Audrey Villeneuve had left for work, and hadn’t returned.
Villeneuve put the coffees on the table and the two men sat.
“I have some news for you, and some questions,” said Gamache.
“Audrey didn’t kill herself.”
Gamache nodded. “It’s not official, and I might be wrong—”
“But you don’t think so, do you? You think Audrey was killed. Someone did this to her. So do I.”
“Can you think who?” Gamache saw life and purpose creep back to this man. Villeneuve paused for a moment, thinking. Then shook his head.
“Had anything changed? Visitors, phone calls?”
Again Villeneuve shook his head. “Nothing like that. She’d been short-tempered for weeks. She wasn’t normally like that. Something was bothering her, but that last morning she seemed better.”
“Do you know why she was upset?” Gamache asked.
“I was afraid to ask…” He paused and looked down at his coffee. “… in case it was me.”
“Did she keep an office or a desk here at home?”
“Over there.” He nodded to a small desk in the kitchen. “But the other officers took all her papers.”
“Everything?” Gamache asked, getting up and walking over to the desk. “You didn’t find anything she might’ve hidden? May I?”
He motioned to the desk and Villeneuve nodded.
“I looked after they left. They searched the whole house.” He watched as Gamache expertly, swiftly rifled the desk, and came up empty-handed.
“Computer?” asked Gamache.
“They took it. Said they’d bring it back, but they haven’t. It didn’t seem normal, for a…” He took a breath. “Suicide.”
“It’s not,” said Gamache, returning to sit at the kitchen table. “She worked with the Ministry of Transport, right? What did she do?”
“She put reports onto the computer. Said it was actually quite interesting. Audrey likes things to be orderly. Organized. When we travel she has plans and backup plans. We used to kid her.”
“Which department was she in?”
“Contracts.”
Gamache said a quiet prayer before asking the next question. “What sort of contracts?”
“Specifications. When a contract was awarded the company had to report progress. Audrey entered that in the files.”
“Was there a geographic area she looked after?”
He nodded. “Because she’s so senior, Audrey looked after repair work in Montréal. The heavy volume area. It always struck me as ironic. I’d kid her all the time.”
“About what?”
“That she worked at Transport, but hated using the highways, especially the tunnel.”
Gamache grew still. “Which tunnel?”
“The Ville-Marie. She had to take it to get to work.”
Gamache felt his heart begin to race. That was it. Audrey Villeneuve was afraid because she knew the repairs on the tunnel hadn’t been done. The Ville-Marie ran under much of Montréal. If it collapsed, it would start a chain reaction in the métro, in the whole underground city. It would take the downtown core with it.
He got up, but was restrained by Gaétan Villeneuve’s hand on his forearm.
“Wait. Who killed her?”
“I can’t tell you that yet.”
“Can you at least tell me why?”
Gamache shook his head. “You might be visited soon by other agents, wondering about my being here.”
“I’ll tell them you weren’t here.”
“No, don’t do that. They already know. If they ask, tell them everything. What I asked, and what you answered.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The two men walked to the door.
“I can tell you that your wife died trying to stop something horrible from happening. I want you and your girls to know that.” He paused. “Stay home today. You and the girls. Don’t go into downtown Montréal.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?” Now the blood drained from Villeneuve’s face.
“Just stay here,” said Gamache firmly.
Villeneuve searched Gamache’s face. “My God, you don’t think you can stop it, do you?”
“I really have to go, Monsieur Villeneuve.”
Gamache put on his coat, but remembered something Villeneuve had said, about Audrey.
“You say your wife was happy on that last morning. Do you know why?”
“I’d assumed it was because she was going to the office Christmas party. She’d made a new dress specially for it.”
“Were you going?”
“No. We had an agreement. She didn’t come to my office Christmas parties and I didn’t go to hers. But she seemed to be looking forward to it.”
Villeneuve looked uneasy.
“What is it?” Gamache asked.
“Nothing. It’s personal. Nothing to do with what happened.”
“Tell me.”
Villeneuve studied Gamache and seemed to realize there was nothing left to lose. “I just wondered if she was having an affair. It’s not true, she’d never have done it, but with the new dress and all. She hadn’t made herself a dress in a long time. And she seemed so happy. Happier than she’d been with me for a while.”
“Tell me about this party. Was it only for the office staff?”
“Mostly. The Minister of Transport always showed up, but not for long. And this year there were rumors of a special guest.”
“Who?”
“The Premier. Didn’t seem such a big deal to me, but Audrey was excited.”
“Georges Renard?”
“Oui. Maybe that’s why she made the dress. She wanted to impress him.”
Villeneuve looked at his daughters, building a snowman on the small front yard. Armand shook Gaétan Villeneuve’s hand, waved to the girls, and got in his car.
He sat there for a moment, putting it together. The target, he suspected, was the Ville-Marie Tunnel.
Audrey Villeneuve had almost certainly realized something was wrong, as she’d entered the reports. After years and years of working on repair files, she knew the difference between work genuinely done, or badly done. Or not done at all.
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