by Louise Penny
“Actually,” said Lea, a little embarrassed, “I wonder if Myrna would mind if we talked in the bookstore? Would that be okay?”
Armand looked at Reine-Marie, both of them surprised by the suggestion. She got up.
“If it’s all right with Myrna, it’s fine with me,” she said. “Unless—”
She waved toward Armand, indicating perhaps they meant they just wanted to speak with him. She was used to that. Sometimes people had things they wanted to say to a cop, and did not want Madame Cop to hear.
“Non, non,” said Lea. “Please come. We’d like you to hear this too. See what you make of it.”
Picking up their coffees, and curious, the Gamaches followed Lea and Matheo into the bookstore.
Myrna didn’t mind at all.
“It’s a quiet morning,” she said. “Apparently Death standing vigil in the middle of the village isn’t good for business. I’ll alert the Chamber of Commerce.”
“Don’t leave,” said Lea. “We’d like your opinion too. Right, Matheo?”
It really wasn’t a question. Though he looked less sure, he recovered quickly and nodded.
“About what?” asked Myrna.
Lea waved them to take seats on the sofa and in the armchairs, as though it were her place. Far from taking offense, Myrna liked that Lea felt so at home. And there was nothing officious about the gesture. She made it feel inclusive rather than demanding.
When they were settled, Matheo put a bunch of papers on the pine coffee table.
Gamache looked at the pages, mostly articles from Spanish newspapers, in Spanish.
“Can you tell me what they’re about?”
“Sorry.” Matheo sorted through the pages. “I meant to put this one on top.”
It was pink and unmistakable. The Financial Times.
The front page article had the byline Matheo Bissonette. Gamache noted the date.
Eighteen months ago.
A photograph accompanied the article. It showed a man in a top hat and tails, carrying a briefcase with writing on it. The man looked both dapper and seedy.
Gamache put his glasses on and, along with Reine-Marie and Myrna, he leaned over the picture.
“What does it say on the briefcase?” asked Myrna.
“Cobrador del Frac,” said Matheo. “It means debt collector.”
Gamache was reading the article, but stopped and looked up over his half-moon glasses.
“Go on.”
“My parents live in Madrid. About a year and a half ago, my father emailed this article.” Matheo shuffled the printouts and found an article from another newspaper. “He’s always looking for things that might interest me. I’m a freelance journalist, as you know.”
Gamache nodded, his attention taken by the Spanish article, which also had a photo of the top-hat-and-tails debt collector.
“I pitched it to various papers and the Financial Times bought the story from me. So I went to Spain and did some research. The cobrador del frac is a particularly Spanish phenomenon, and with the financial crisis they’ve grown.”
“This man is a debt collector?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Oui.”
“Well, they sure look nicer than the debt collectors in North America,” said Myrna.
“They’re not what they appear,” said Matheo. “They’re not at all civilized or genteel. That’s more a disguise than a costume.”
“And what are they disguising?” asked Gamache.
“What it is they’re collecting,” said Matheo. “A collection agency here will repossess a car or a home or furniture. A cobrador del frac takes away something else entirely.”
“What?” asked Armand.
“Your reputation. Your good name.”
“How does he do that?” asked Reine-Marie.
“He’s hired to follow the debtor. Always keeping a distance, never speaking to the person, but always there.”
“Always?” she asked, while Armand listened, his eyebrows drawing together in unease.
“Always,” said Lea. “He stands outside your home, follows you to work. Stands outside your business. If you go to a restaurant or a party, he’s there.”
“But why? Surely there’re easier ways to collect on a bad debt?” said Reine-Marie. “A lawyer’s letter? The courts?”
“Those take time, and the Spanish courts are clogged with cases since the meltdown,” said Matheo. “It could be years, if ever, before someone pays up. People were getting away with terrible things, taking clients and partners and spouses for all they were worth, knowing they’d almost certainly never be made to pay it back. Scams were proliferating. Until someone remembered—”
He looked down at the photograph. Of a man in a top hat and tails. Only now did the Gamaches notice the man in the crowd, a distance ahead, hurrying forward but glancing back. A look of dread dawning.
And the cobrador del frac following. His face rigid, expressionless. Remorseless.
A corridor was opening through the crowd to let him pass.
“He shames people into paying their debts,” said Matheo. “It’s a terrible thing to see. At first it looks comical, but then it becomes chilling. I was in a restaurant in Madrid recently with my parents. A very nice one. Linens and silverware. Hushed tones. A place where high-level business is discreetly conducted. And a cobrador was standing out front. First the maitre d’ then the owner went out and tried to shoo him away. Even tried to shove him. But he just stood his ground. Holding that briefcase. Staring through the window.”
“Did you know who he was staring at?” Reine-Marie asked.
“Not at first, but the man eventually gave himself away. Got all flustered and angry. He went outside and screamed at him. But the cobrador didn’t react. And when the man stomped off, he just turned and quietly followed. I can’t tell you exactly why, but it was terrifying. I almost felt sorry for the man.”
“Don’t,” said Lea. “They deserve what they get. A cobrador del frac is only used in the most extreme cases. You’d have to have done something particularly bad to bring that on yourself.”
“Can anyone hire a cobrador?” asked Myrna. “I mean, how do they know there is a legitimate debt? Maybe they just want to humiliate.”
“The company screens,” said Matheo. “I’m sure there’re some abuses, but for the most part if you’re being followed by a cobrador, there’s good reason.”
“Armand?” Reine-Marie asked.
He was shaking his head, his eyes narrow.
“It feels like vigilante action,” he said. “Taking justice into their own hands. Condemning someone.”
“But there’s no violence,” said Lea.
“Oh, there’s violence,” said Gamache. And put his finger on the face of the terrified man. “Just not physical.”
Matheo was nodding.
“The thing is,” he said, “it’s very effective. The people almost always pay up, and quickly. And you have to remember, innocent people aren’t targeted. This isn’t the first action, it’s the last. It’s what people resort to when all else fails.”
“So,” said Gamache, looking at Matheo. “Are you considering bringing the cobrador del frac to Québec? Are you asking me if it would be legal?”
Matheo and Lea stared at Gamache, then Matheo laughed.
“Good God, no. I’m showing you this because Lea and I think that that”—he pointed out the window—“is a cobrador del frac.”
“A debt collector?” asked Gamache, and felt a slight frisson. Like the warning before a quake.
Lea was all eyes now, glancing swiftly from Armand to Reine-Marie to Myrna and back. Examining them for any hint of amusement. Or agreement. Or anything. But they were almost entirely expressionless. Their faces as blank as the thing on the village green.
Armand sat back in his chair and opened his mouth, before closing it again, while Reine-Marie turned and looked at Myrna.
Finally Armand leaned forward, toward Matheo, who leaned toward him.
�
��You do know that that”—he inclined his head toward the village green—“doesn’t look anything like this.” He nodded at the photograph.
“I know,” said Matheo. “When I was researching the article, I heard rumors of something else. Something older. Dating back centuries.” He also glanced over, then looked away, as though it was folly to stare at the thing too long. “The ancestor of the current cobrador. I’d hear whispers that the thing was still alive, in remote villages. In the mountains. But I could never find one, or find anyone who admitted hiring one.”
“And that original cobrador is different?” asked Reine-Marie.
“It’s still a collector, but the debt is different.”
“Degree of debt?” asked Gamache.
“Type of debt. One is financial, often ruinous,” said Matheo, looking at the photo on the table.
“The other is moral,” said Lea.
Matheo nodded. “An elderly man I spoke with in a village outside Granada had seen one, but only once, as a boy, and in the distance. It was following an old woman. They disappeared around a corner and he never saw either again. He wouldn’t speak on the record, but he did show me this.”
From his pocket, Matheo pulled a blurry photocopy of a blurry photograph.
“He took this with his Brownie camera.”
The image was grainy. Black and white.
It showed a steep, narrow street and stone walls that came right to the road. There was a horse and cart. And in the distance, at a corner, something else.
Gamache put his glasses back on and brought the paper up so that it almost touched his nose. Then he lowered it and handed it to Reine-Marie.
Removing his glasses, quietly, he folded them. All the while staring at Matheo.
The photo showed a robed, masked figure. Hood up. And in front of the dark figure there was a gray blur. A gray ghost, hurrying to get away.
“Taken near the end of the Spanish Civil War,” said Matheo. “I hate to think…”
There was no mistaking it. In the photo, almost a hundred years old, was the thing that now stood in the center of Three Pines.
* * *
“And did you believe it, Chief Superintendent?” asked the Crown.
His rank now seemed more a mockery in the mouth of the Crown than an advantage.
“It was hard to know, at that moment, what to believe. It seemed not only extraordinary but, frankly, incredible. That some sort of ancient Spanish debt collector had appeared in a small village in Québec. And I wouldn’t have believed it, had I not seen it for myself. The photograph and the real thing.”
“I understand you took that piece of paper Matheo Bissonette showed you.”
“I took a copy of it, yes.”
The Crown turned to the clerk.
“Exhibit B.”
The photograph of Three Pines that gray November morning was replaced by what looked, at first, like a Rorschach test. Blots of black and gray, the borders bleeding, uncertain.
And then it coalesced into an image.
“Is that it?”
“It is,” said Gamache.
“And is that what was on your village green?”
Gamache stared at the image, the collector of moral debts, and felt again that frisson.
“It is.”
CHAPTER 5
Jacqueline kneaded the dough, leaning into it. Feeling it both soft and firm beneath her hands. It was meditative and sensual, as she rocked gently back and forth, back and forth.
Her eyes closed.
She kneaded and rocked. Kneaded and rocked.
Other hands, older, colder, plump, were laid on top of hers.
“I think that’s enough, ma belle,” said Sarah.
“Oui, madam.”
Jacqueline blushed, realizing she’d overworked the baguette yet again.
If she didn’t get this right, she’d lose her job. No matter how well she baked brownies and pies and mille-feuilles, if you couldn’t do a baguette in Québec, you were useless to a small boulangerie. Sarah wouldn’t want to let her go, but she’d have no choice.
All depended on this. And she was blowing it.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” said Sarah, her voice reassuring. “Why don’t you finish your petits fours? Madame Morrow has ordered two dozen. She says they’re for guests, but…”
Sarah laughed. It was full-bodied and wholehearted. An antidote to Jacqueline’s fears.
She wondered if Anton was next door, cooking. Trying to come up with a dish to impress Olivier. To convince the bistro owner to elevate him to chef. Or even sous chef. Or to a prep station even.
Anything other than dishwasher.
But she suspected his heart wasn’t in cooking anymore. Not since the robed figure appeared.
If she lived to be a hundred, Jacqueline would not forget the look on Anton’s face when they’d discussed the thing on the village green. When she’d suggested approaching Gamache. Telling the Sûreté officer that they both knew what it was.
“Are you all right?” asked Sarah.
“I was just thinking,” said Jacqueline.
“Maybe that’s the problem. When you make baguette, you should clear your mind. Open your mind. You’d be surprised, all the beautiful things that appear when you let your mind go.”
“When you go out of your mind, you mean?” asked Jacqueline.
Sarah looked at her for a moment. Then laughed again.
It wasn’t often the serious, almost glum young woman made a joke.
Maybe she wasn’t so serious after all, thought Sarah. There were glimmers almost of giddiness. And she also wasn’t all that young. Young compared to Sarah, but her young apprentice would be in her mid-thirties.
Still, the beauty of baking. You only got better as you got older. More patient.
“You certainly have to be out of your mind to run a bakery,” Sarah agreed. “If you need any help, ma belle, just ask Tante Sarah.”
And Sarah headed off to check on the pies in the ovens.
Jacqueline couldn’t help but smile.
Sarah wasn’t really her aunt, of course. It had become a thing between the older woman and the younger. A joke, but not really. Both had discovered they quite liked the idea that they were family.
In that laugh, in that moment, no dark thing existed. But then the mist of laughter dissipated and it reappeared.
And her mind went to Anton.
Tante or not, if she didn’t learn to make baguette, Sarah would eventually have to fire her ass. Replace her with someone who could.
And then she’d lose Anton.
Jacqueline threw out the overworked dough and started again. Her fourth try that day, and it wasn’t yet noon.
* * *
Armand and Reine-Marie had returned home.
She was in the living room, going through a box from the archives.
Armand had fed the photocopy he’d made of the original cobrador into the scanner and emailed it off to Jean-Guy. He’d received a slightly rude reply, asking if he was bored. Or drunk.
Gamache had picked up the phone and called. Getting his daughter Annie first, who handed the phone off to Jean-Guy.
“What’s with the weird photos, patron?” he asked.
Gamache could hear chewing and imagined Jean-Guy with a huge sandwich, like Dagwood. A reference that would be lost on his son-in-law.
When he’d explained, Jean-Guy, his mouth no longer clogged with food, said, “I’ll get right back to you.”
And Gamache knew he meant it.
He’d known Jean-Guy long before he’d become his son-in-law, having hired Agent Beauvoir away from a dead-end job guarding evidence. He’d taken a young man no one else wanted and made him an inspector in homicide, to everyone’s surprise.
But it had seemed natural, to Gamache. He barely had to think about it.
They were chief and agent. Patron and protégé. They were the head and the heart. Now father-in-law and son-in-law. Father and son.
Th
ey had been thrown together, joined together, it seemed, for this lifetime, and many past.
One evening, during a dinner at Clara’s, they’d all got to talking about life. And death. And the afterlife.
“There’s a theory,” said Myrna. “Not sure if it’s Buddhist or Taoist or what, that says that there are certain people we meet time and again, in different lifetimes.”
“I believe it’s ridiculous-ist,” said Ruth.
“The same dozen or so people,” Myrna continued, running over the verbal speed bump that was the old poet. “But in different relationships. In this life you might be partners,” she looked at Gabri and Olivier, “but in another life you were brothers, or husband and wife, or father and son.”
“Wait a minute,” said Gabri. “Are you saying that Olivier might’ve once been my father?”
“Or your mother.”
The two men grimaced.
“We change roles, but what stays the same is the love,” said Myrna. “That is absolute and infinite.”
“Fucking nuts,” said Ruth, stroking Rosa.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, agreed the duck.
There was a growing resemblance between Ruth and Rosa. Both had scrawny necks. Their heads white. Their eyes beady. They waddled when they walked. They shared a vocabulary.
If it wasn’t for Ruth’s cane they’d be almost indistinguishable.
Armand had looked across at Reine-Marie, her face glowing in the light from the log fire. She was listening, smiling. Taking it in.
If what Myrna said was true, then he’d known all these people before. It would explain his almost immediate attraction to them, and the village. The trust and comfort he felt in their company. Even mad old Ruth. With her doppelgänger. The duck who might have been her child, in a past life.
Or the other way around.
But Reine-Marie. His daughter, or mother, or brother?
Non.
She had always been his wife. He’d known that the first moment he’d seen her. He knew her, that first moment.
Through the ages. Through the lifetimes. Every other relationship might change, flow, morph into another guise, but his relationship with Reine-Marie was absolute and eternal.
She was his wife. And he was her husband. Forever.
Now, Jean-Guy was another matter. Armand had long felt there was something ancient there too. A very old camaraderie. A tie that didn’t bind, but strengthened. And Reine-Marie could see it as well. Which is why she’d put only one proviso on his becoming the top cop in Québec.