by Louise Penny
It was a prayer. A meditation. An invocation.
It was, Isabelle felt, very calming. Between the whispered words, the fluid motions, the occasional toss of the horse’s mane and tail, the musky scent of horse and hay, the warmth of the barn, Lacoste could feel herself relax.
“Do you know horses, Inspector?” asked Haniya, without stopping.
“A bit. I rode as a child, but I could never figure out the bridle.”
“It is complicated.” Haniya moved to the other side of the horse and could now see Lacoste. “The leather and metal bit and straps. The means of control.”
The horse was leaning against Haniya Daoud. Not in a threatening way. It seemed to like the contact. As did she.
“Billy Williams tells me the owners of the Auberge saved these animals from the abattoir,” said Haniya. “This one’s a former racehorse who was no longer useful. So it was going to be killed and ground up. Turned into dog food and sweet treats for children.”
She looked over to another stall, where Billy was just putting a large harness on an immense animal.
“I’m not totally sure that’s a horse,” she confided in Lacoste.
“No,” said Isabelle, glancing over. “That’s Gloria. We think she might be a moose.”
Haniya snorted in some amusement and looked around. “What a strange place.”
“It grows on you,” said Lacoste.
“So does a mole.”
Putting down the brushes, Haniya traced the lattice of whip marks on the horse’s flank.
“We haven’t actually met. My name’s Isabelle Lacoste, I’m with the Sûreté. But you already knew that.”
“Yes, you work with Monsieur Gamache. I’ve seen you around.”
“Can we talk?”
Haniya looked behind her. “Monsieur Williams is just hitching up the sleigh to take the children out, but he’s offered to take me on a short ride first. I suppose you might as well come along.”
Not the most gracious invitation Lacoste had had, but far from the worst.
A few minutes later, a heavy blanket tucked around them, they were ensconced in the back seat of the big red sleigh looking at Gloria’s immense rump. Billy sat high in the driver’s seat, his back to them, muttering to Gloria, who seemed to understand his incantations. His invocations. And maybe his prayers.
She meandered across the road and into the woods. Away from the Auberge. Away from the crime scene.
Haniya tipped her head back, letting the huge flakes land on her face. She was almost smiling.
This close to the woman who would probably be named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Isabelle could see two things. How young Haniya Daoud actually was, and the scars all over her face. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle, imperfectly assembled.
“I can’t get used to snow,” Haniya said, her eyes closed, her face tilted and moist.
The small bells on Gloria’s bridle jingled merrily. The rails of the sleigh slid along the snow making a soft sound. Shhhh.
“Tell me what happened to you in Sudan.”
“You don’t want to know,” she said to the sky.
“I do.”
“Why?” Haniya asked the snowflakes. Then lowered her face and opened her eyes and looked at the homicide investigator. “Oh. You want to know how damaged I am. And if I’ve killed before. Let me give you the shorthand. I am damaged, beyond repair, as your lunatic poet would say. And yes, I’ve killed.” She studied Isabelle. “I think you know how both feel.”
“I do.”
“So, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you if you tell me.”
Isabelle sat quietly for a moment, looking into the naked woods. Only in the winter was it possible to see both the forest and the trees. Homicide, she thought, was a perpetual winter.
“Agreed.”
So with the swish of Gloria’s tail for accompaniment, and the shhhhh of the sleigh, Haniya told her.
About being kidnapped at the age of eight, when her village was attacked and destroyed. Her crime? Being a member of an ethnic minority. She was beaten and whipped and slashed with machetes. Staked naked in the dirt. And left there. Given just enough food and water to be kept alive. For the men to rape. Day after night after day.
To the tune of the sleigh bells, Haniya told her about giving birth at twelve. The baby taken from her.
Then again at thirteen, and fourteen. And every year until she’d escaped. Expelling babies from her body. Some dead. Some screaming. Never to be seen again.
“They told me that the meat I was eating was the flesh of my dead children,” she told the pine trees as they passed.
Isabelle felt herself grow faint, and thought she might pitch forward, out of the sleigh.
“But I didn’t believe them,” Haniya said to Gloria’s swaying back. “I know they’re alive.”
They glided through the silent woods.
As the rails of the sleigh requested silence, shhhhh, Haniya spoke. “One night a particularly drunk soldier raped me, and then, as he beat me, his machete fell from his belt. When he passed out, I was able to saw through the rope. Took a long time, but I did it.” Haniya turned to face Isabelle. Her eyes steady, her voice soft, almost kindly. “I killed him. Then I killed them all. Then I released the others, and we escaped, taking their machetes with us.”
She paused then. “They had child soldiers guarding the camp.” Haniya stared ahead, at the pristine landscape. “Have you ever heard of brown brown?”
“Non.”
“When children are abducted, that’s how they turn them into soldiers. They’re given brown brown. It’s cocaine mixed with gunpowder.”
Isabelle inhaled deeply but said nothing. Dear God, she thought. Dear God.
“It … it … turns them into something else,” said Haniya. “When we went to get away, a boy tried to stop us. I could see that look in his eyes. His brown brown eyes.”
“What did you do?” Isabelle whispered.
Shhhhh went Gloria’s tail. Shhhhh went the rails of the sleigh.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” said Haniya.
Almost, thought Isabelle, and wondered how much of herself Haniya had left behind at the boundary.
“We finally crossed the border. And were safe.” Now Haniya smiled. “But you know as well as I do, Inspector, that no place is safe.”
Haniya Daoud tipped her head back again, closed her eyes, and let the cold snowflakes melt into her scars. To the sky she said, “I’m alive because of my children. I had to survive, to save them. Every woman and child I save is my baby.”
Isabelle wondered, but didn’t ask, if Haniya Daoud, once out, had turned her machetes into plowshares. But she was pretty sure she knew the answer.
Haniya opened her eyes and looked around, as though surprised to see the thick Québec forest, and the trees. Then her eyes came to rest on Isabelle.
“Your turn.”
CHAPTER 32
When Gloria stopped in front of the bistro, Haniya and Isabelle got out.
The village children crowded around, and while some wanted to get into the sleigh, others were far more interested in Gloria. Reaching up as she bent down, they rubbed her huge silky nose.
“Just a moment,” said Billy, laughing, as kids pushed and shoved to climb onto the sleigh. “Everyone’ll get a turn. I promise.”
It was, perhaps, not completely surprising that children understood every word Billy Williams said, while adults struggled.
Gloria started off, pausing to let the car pass as it came slowly down the hill into Three Pines. Billy touched his tuque, in a salute to them. But mostly to Myrna, who also understood him.
Then, with a cheerful jingle, they set off again.
“Papa,” Florence, Zora, and Honoré shouted a minute later as they passed their grandfather. He was walking from the Auberge back into the village and had stopped to wave to them. Then he continued, his hands behind his back, his head down. Thinking.
* * *
Haniya Daoud s
tared at the door that connected the bookstore to the bistro. A door she’d been through a few times. Then she looked at the long, beamed room with its wide-plank floors cut from trees that grew within sight of the building.
At the huge stone hearths at either end, made of rocks pulled from nearby fields.
At the men and women sitting there, including the demented poet and her fucking duck. Sons and daughters of Québec, whether born there or not.
Haniya Daoud, the Hero of the Sudan, had listened as Isabelle Lacoste told her what had happened. There. In this quiet place, in this quiet village.
Shhhhhh.
The gun placed at the base of her skull. The push through the bookstore door. Catching Gamache’s eye as he sat in the bistro, and that instant of mutual recognition. Of what she was about to do. Of what he had to let her do.
She was about to die. So that others in the bistro—including Armand and Jean-Guy, including Ruth and Gabri and Olivier—might have a chance.
Shhhhh. But Isabelle continued.
She told Haniya about that moment, frozen in time, as she held Armand’s eyes, and thought of her children. Then Isabelle braced and shoved with all her might, so that her body slammed into the gunman behind her. Throwing him, for one precious moment, off guard.
The last thing she saw, the last thing Isabelle believed she’d ever see, was Gamache lunging forward, toward the other gunmen.
She hoped he’d survived. Hoped Jean-Guy had. And the others.
Because she knew, as she felt the explosion, that she had not.
And then she described things she didn’t know, but had herself been told. How Ruth had, in the midst of the bedlam, crawled across the floor of the bistro, to hold her hand. So that she would not die alone.
How her husband, her colleagues, her friends, had taken turns at the hospital, holding her hand and reading to her.
Haniya listened, and wondered if someone, anyone, would hold her hand when her time came.
“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” she said, and wondered where that had come from.
“Yes.”
Neither woman had described their long, long journey back. But both recognized it had led them there. To that moment. In this quiet place, in this peaceful village.
Shhhhh.
The Hero of the Sudan looked around the bistro, at the villagers. At the friends and families. There were small cracks between them. She knew that because she could see the light.
* * *
Armand met Reine-Marie, Myrna, and Jean-Guy outside the bistro.
“How did it go?” he asked.
But he could tell by their expressions that it hadn’t gone well. Or, perhaps, “well” was not the word.
“Let’s go inside and talk,” he said. Putting his hand on Reine-Marie’s arm, he searched her eyes. “You okay?”
She nodded, but without conviction. “Actually, I’d like to go home. I want to go through that last box. With the kids on the sleigh ride it’ll be quiet.”
The truth was, she was a coward. Vincent Gilbert might be in the bistro, and she was terrified of what she might say, what she might do, if she met him. Home was the only safe place.
“Do you want company?” Armand asked.
“Non, merci, mon coeur. You need to hear what they have to say.”
He looked at Jean-Guy and Myrna, grim-faced. He probably did need to hear it, though he doubted he wanted to hear it.
While she went home, the rest headed into the bistro. Isabelle was sitting by the fire with Haniya, Ruth, and Clara. They got to their feet when the others arrived. Except Ruth, who took the opportunity to switch her empty scotch glass for Clara’s almost full one.
“Looks like you have things to talk about,” said Clara. It didn’t take a portrait painter to understand their expressions. “Why don’t we go back to my place?”
“What? We have the best seats in the house, right in front of the fireplace,” said Ruth. “Why would I leave to walk through a blizzard to your shack?”
Rosa, in her arms, nodded agreement and gave Clara the stink eye.
Clara glanced outside at the softly falling flurries. Hardly a maelstrom. “Well, I have a bottle of single malt.”
“So does Olivier.”
“I have chocolate cake.”
Ruth used Rosa to gesture toward the cake stand on the long bar.
“I’ll let you critique my latest work,” said Clara.
Ruth became more interested. Finding fault was just about her favorite thing to do.
As they left, Ruth paused in front of Armand. “Did you speak with her?”
“All sorted. Professor Robinson will stop using the quote and donate whatever they’ve raised to LaPorte.”
“Thank you, Armand,” she whispered.
At the door, Clara and Ruth looked back. Haniya was standing in the middle of the room, between the groups.
“Well?” demanded Ruth. “Do you need the king of Sweden to invite you? Dumb shit.”
Haniya paused, then walked across the bistro to join them. She was not totally sure, but she suspected being called “dumb shit” by Ruth Zardo was almost as good as winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Though it was possible the old poet was calling the king of Sweden a dumb shit.
As they trudged through the snow toward Clara’s pretty little cottage, Ruth lost her footing. Haniya grabbed her before she fell. She held Ruth’s hand for the rest of the way, and wondered if maybe the key was not in being held, but in holding.
* * *
Gabri put down a pot of tea. “It’s already steeped, just as you like it.” Then he threw a birch log onto the fire, and stirred it, before leaving them.
The white bark caught and curled as embers popped and chased each other up the chimney.
Armand poured the tea while Isabelle talked.
Within minutes, Jean-Guy, Myrna, Isabelle, and Armand had left the cheery bistro and were in the Sudan. Looking down, helpless, at the women, girls, staked to the dirt.
Armand clamped his jaw so tight he thought his molars might shatter. But if he didn’t, he was sure he’d vomit.
And still, Isabelle talked.
Jean-Guy saw his sisters, his mother. Annie. Staked there. And thought he might pass out.
And still, Isabelle talked.
Myrna felt the rawhide straps cutting into her wrists and ankles, the flesh now growing around the bindings. She saw the men approaching. Drunk. Angry. She saw them draw their machetes. And she looked up at Armand. At Jean-Guy. At Isabelle. Watching. And she pleaded with them. Begged them for help.
The world had been watching. And had done nothing.
And when Isabelle got to the part where Haniya escaped and killed her attacker, Armand unclenched his jaw.
When Isabelle got to the part where Haniya freed the other women and girls, Jean-Guy wanted to leap up and cheer.
When Isabelle got to the part where they approached the barbed- wire fence, to freedom, Myrna wanted to sob with relief.
When Isabelle got to the part where Haniya confronted the child soldier, she stopped.
“What is it?” Armand asked. “What happened?
“Brown brown,” said Isabelle.
And she told them what happened, when Haniya had a choice to make. And made it.
There was a long silence as their breathing mingled with the smoke and crackling fire and the images that had invaded the peaceful bistro.
Haniya was right, of course, thought Isabelle. No place was safe.
“Isabelle?” Armand finally said.
She looked at him. Not even the amber glow from the fire could disguise his pallor.
She knew what he was asking.
“Yes. I have no doubt she would kill again, if it meant saving lives. I’m not sure if it’s heroic or psychotic, but Haniya Daoud seems to see every innocent man, woman, and infant in the world as her children. She’s driven to save them. Obsessed even.”
A few years ago, Jean-Guy might not have understood t
hat. Now he could. Every parent, he was sure, became slightly insane the moment their children were born.
Armand nodded. He too understood.
He’d assumed Haniya Daoud had survived, where so many had given up and died, out of hatred. An all-consuming need for revenge. But something even stronger had kept her going.
Love. The love of her children. The need to save, not the need to destroy, had kept her going. And still fueled every step Haniya Daoud took.
But to have to kill one child to save others? What did that do to a person? What had that done to Haniya? And did it make every other killing so much easier?
Would Haniya Daoud murder Abigail Robinson to save men, women, and children?
In a heartbeat.
* * *
Reine-Marie poured herself a red wine, dragged the box from the small study into the living room, lit the fire in the hearth, and turned on the Christmas tree lights.
Stephen and Gracie, who she now thought might be a guinea pig, were having a nap in his bedroom. Daniel and Roslyn were at the sales in Sherbrooke, and Annie had taken Idola to visit friends in the next village over.
Henri and Fred were curled at her feet.
She had the place to herself.
Before dipping into the last box, she sat back on the sofa, put her feet up, and quietly sipped her drink, staring into the fireplace, the lit tree in the background.
They’d take it down, along with the other decorations, on January 5th. The eve of the Twelfth Night.
Neither she nor Armand were particularly religious, though both had a steadfast and private belief in God. But they loved tradition, and taking down the Christmas tree every year on that day was one they’d both grown up with.
Besides being the night before Epiphany, when the Three Wise Men recognized the Christ Child, it also saved their Hoover from needing to pick up too many dried pine needles. And burning out. Again.
In the meantime, Reine-Marie relished the tree, the decorations, the quiet.
She closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the fire on her face. But her peace was invaded by Ewen Cameron. His kindly face looked down at her, assuring her all would be well, ça va bien aller, even as he tied her wrists to the posts.