How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

by Louise Penny

  No hoarding here.

  He looked at the bookshelves and mantelpiece. He got on his hands and knees and looked under furniture. From what the Montréal police could tell, Constance hadn’t been robbed. Her purse was still there, money and all. Her car sat on the road. There were no blank spots on the walls where a painting might have once hung, or gaps in the curio cabinet where a surprisingly valuable knickknack might have sat.

  Nothing was taken.

  But still he looked.

  He knew he was going over territory the Montréal police had already covered, but he was looking for something different. Their initial search was for clues to the killer. A bloody glove, an extra key, a threatening note. A fingerprint, a footprint. Signs of theft.

  He was looking for clues to her life.

  “Nothing, Chief,” said Lacoste, wiping her hands of the dust from the basement. “They didn’t seem a sentimental lot. No baby clothes, no old toys, no sleds or snowshoes.”

  “Snowshoes?” asked Gamache, amused.

  “My parents’ basement is full of that sort of stuff,” Lacoste admitted. “And when they die, mine will be.”

  “You won’t get rid of it?”

  “Couldn’t. You?”

  “Madame Gamache and I kept a few things from our parents. As you know, she has three hundred siblings so there was no question of it all coming to us.”

  Isabelle Lacoste laughed. Every time the Chief described Madame Gamache’s family, the number of siblings grew. She supposed for an only child like the Chief, it must have been overwhelming to suddenly find himself in a large family.

  “What was downstairs?” he asked.

  “A cedar chest with summer clothing, the outdoor furniture brought in for the winter. Mostly that cheap plastic stuff. Garden hoses and tools. Nothing personal.”

  “Nothing from their childhood?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  They both knew that, even for people who were rigorously unsentimental, that was unusual. But for the Quints? Whole industries had been built around them. Souvenirs, books, dolls, puzzles. He was fairly sure if he looked hard enough in his own home he’d find something from the Quints. A spoon his mother collected. A postcard from Reine-Marie’s family with the girls’ smiling faces.

  At a time when the Québécois were just beginning to turn from the Church, the Quints had become the new religion. A fantastic blend of miracle and entertainment. Unlike the censorious Catholic Church, the Quints were fun. Unlike the Church, whose most powerful symbol was of sacrifice and death, the lingering image of the Ouellet Quints was of happiness. Five smiling little girls, vibrant and alive. The world fell to its knees before them. It seemed the only ones not enamored of the Quints were the Quints themselves.

  Gamache and Lacoste walked down the hall, each one taking a bedroom. They met up a few minutes later and compared notes.

  “Nothing,” said Lacoste. “Clean. Tidy. No clothing and no personal effects.”

  “And no photographs.”

  She shook her head.

  Gamache exhaled deeply. Had their lives really been so antiseptic? And yet, the home didn’t feel cold. It felt like a warm and inviting place. There were personal possessions, but no private ones.

  They walked into Constance’s bedroom. The bloodstained carpet was still there. The suitcase sat on the bed. The murder weapon had been taken away, but there was police tape indicating where it had been dropped.

  Gamache walked over to the small suitcase and lifted items out, putting them neatly on the bed. Sweaters, underwear, thick stockings, a skirt and comfortable slacks. Long underwear and flannel nightgown. All the things you’d pack for Christmas in a cold country.

  Packed between warm shirts he found three gifts, covered in candy cane wrapping paper. He squeezed and the paper crinkled. Whatever was inside was soft.

  Clothing, he knew, having received his share of socks and ties and scarves from his children. He looked at the tags.

  One for Clara, one for Olivier, and one for Gabri.

  He handed them to Lacoste. “Can you unwrap these, please?”

  While she did he felt around the suitcase. One of the sweaters didn’t give as much as it should. Gamache picked it up and unrolled the wool.

  “A scarf for Clara,” said Lacoste, “and mittens for Olivier and Gabri.”

  She wrapped them up again.

  “Look at this,” said Gamache. He held up what he’d found in the center of the sweater. It was a photograph.

  “That wasn’t listed in the search by the Montréal cops,” said Lacoste.

  “Easy to miss,” said Gamache. And he could imagine their thinking. It was late, it was cold, they were hungry, and this would soon not even be their case.

  They hadn’t been so much incompetent as less than thorough. And the small black and white photo was almost hidden in the thick wool sweater.

  He took it over to the window, and he and Lacoste examined it.

  Four women, in their thirties Gamache guessed, smiled at them. Their arms were around each other’s waists, and they looked directly at the camera. Gamache found himself smiling back, and noticed Lacoste was as well. The girls’ smiles weren’t big, but they were genuine and infectious.

  Here were four happy people.

  But while their expressions were identical, everything else about them was different. Their clothes, their hair, their shoes, their style. Even their bodies were different. Two were plump, one skinny, one average.

  “What do you think?” he asked Lacoste.

  “It’s obviously four of the sisters, but it looks like they’ve done all they can to make sure they’re not alike.”

  Gamache nodded. That was his impression as well.

  He looked at the back of the picture. There was nothing there.

  “Why only four?” Lacoste asked. “What happened to the other one?”

  “I think one died quite young,” he said.

  “Shouldn’t be hard to find out,” said Lacoste.

  “Right. Sounds like a job for me, then,” said Gamache. “You can look after the hard stuff.”

  Gamache put the photograph in his pocket and they spent the next few minutes searching Constance’s room.

  A few books were stacked on the bedside table. He went back to the suitcase and found the book she was reading. It was Ru by Kim Thúy.

  He opened it to the bookmark and deliberately turned the page. He read the first sentence. Words Constance Ouellet would never get to.

  As a man who loved books, a bookmark placed by the recently dead always left him sad. He had two books like that in his possession. They were in the bookcase in his study. They’d been found by his grandmother, on the bedside table of his parents’ room, after they’d been killed in a car accident when Armand was a child.

  Every now and then he pulled the books out and touched the bookmarks, but hadn’t yet found the strength to pick up where they left off. To read the rest of the story.

  Now he lowered Constance’s book and looked out the window into the small backyard. He suspected that, beneath the snow, there was a small vegetable garden. And in the summer the three sisters would sit on the cheap plastic chairs in the shade of the large maple and sip iced tea. And read. Or talk. Or just be quiet.

  He wondered if they ever talked about their days as the Ouellet Quints. Did they reminisce? He doubted it.

  The home felt like a sanctuary, and that was what they were hiding from.

  Then he turned back to look at the stain on the carpet, and the police tape. And the book in his hand.

  Soon he’d know the full story.

  “So, I can understand why the Ouellet sisters might not want everyone to know they were the Quints,” said Lacoste, when they were ready to leave. “But why not have personal photographs and cards and letters in the privacy of their own home? Does that strike you as strange?”

  Gamache stepped off the porch. “I think we’ll find that very little about their life could be considered no
rmal.”

  They walked slowly down the snow-packed path, squinting against the brilliant sun bouncing off the snow.

  “Something else was missing,” the Chief said. “Did you notice?”

  Lacoste thought about that. She knew this wasn’t a test. The Chief Inspector was beyond that, and so was she. But her mind was drawing a blank.

  She shook her head.

  “No parents,” he said.

  Damn, thought Lacoste. No parents. She’d missed that. In the crowd of Quints, or missing Quints, she’d missed something else.

  Monsieur et Madame Ouellet. It was one thing to blank out a part of your own past, but why also erase your parents?

  “What do you think it means?” she asked.

  “Perhaps nothing.”

  “Do you think that’s what the killer took?”

  Gamache thought about that. “Photographs of the parents?”

  “Family photographs. Of the parents and the sisters.”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” he said.

  “I’m just wondering…” she said when they reached her car.

  “Go on.”

  “No, it’s really too stupid.”

  He raised his brows, but said nothing. Just stared at her.

  “What do we really know about the Ouellet Quints?” she asked. “They deliberately dropped from view, became the Pineault sisters. They were private in the extreme…”

  “Just say it, Inspector,” said Gamache.

  “Maybe Constance wasn’t the last.”

  “Pardon?”

  “How do we know the others are dead? Maybe one isn’t. Who else could get into the house? Who else even knew where they lived? Who else might take family photographs?”

  “We don’t know if the killer even realized she was a Quint,” the Chief Inspector pointed out. “And we don’t know that family photos were stolen.”

  But as he drove away, Lacoste’s statement grew in his mind.

  Maybe Constance wasn’t the last.

  TWELVE

  Pay attention, Jean-Guy Beauvoir begged himself. For chrissake, hold it together.

  His knee jittered up and down and he placed his hand on it. Pressing down.

  At the front of the room, Martin Tessier was instructing the Sûreté agents who’d soon be raiding the biker gang stronghold.

  “These aren’t tattooed thugs,” said Francoeur’s second in command, turning away from the graphics on his tablet to face them. “Too many dead cops and mob bosses have underestimated the bikers. These’re soldiers. They might look like yahoos, but make no mistake, they’re disciplined and committed and highly motivated to protect their territory.”

  Tessier went on, flashing images, schematics, plans.

  But all Beauvoir heard was his own voice, pleading.

  Dear God, don’t let me die.

  *

  Chief Inspector Gamache knocked on the door, then stepped into Thérèse Brunel’s office. She looked up from her desk as he entered.

  “Close the door, please,” she said, removing her glasses. Her voice and manner were uncharacteristically brusque.

  “I got your message but was out of town.” He glanced at the clock on her desk. Just past noon.

  She indicated a seat. He hesitated a moment, then sat. She took the chair beside him. She looked tired, but was still perfectly turned out, and perfectly in command of herself and him.

  “We’ve come to the end, Armand. I’m sorry.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean. I’ve been thinking about it, and speaking with Jérôme, and we think there’s nothing there. We’ve been chasing our own tails.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t interrupt me, Chief Inspector. This whole video thing has gotten out of control and out of proportion. It’s done. The video’s out there, nothing we can do will get it back. You need to let it go.”

  “I don’t understand…” He searched her face.

  “It’s quite simple. You were hurt and angry and wanted revenge. Perfectly natural. And then you became convinced there was more there than just the video. You got yourself rattled and managed to rattle everyone around you. Including me. That’s my fault, not yours. I allowed myself to believe you.”

  “What’s happened, Thérèse?”

  “Superintendent,” she said.

  “Désolé. Superintendent.” He lowered his voice. “Has something happened?”

  “It certainly has. I’ve come to my senses and I advise you to do the same. I hardly slept last night, then I finally got up and made notes. Would you like to see them?”

  Gamache nodded, watching her closely. She handed him a handwritten note. He put his reading glasses on and studied it. Then he carefully folded it in half.

  “As you see, I listed all the evidence in favor of your contention that Chief Superintendent Francoeur leaked the video of the raid and has a larger, more malevolent purpose—”

  “Thérèse!” Gamache exclaimed, leaning forward suddenly as though to physically stop her from saying more.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Chief Inspector, give it up. The office isn’t bugged. No one’s listening to us. No one cares. It’s all in your head. Look at my notes. There’s no evidence. The weight of our friendship and my respect for you clouded my judgment. You’ve connected dots that you yourself created.” She leaned toward him in a manner almost threatening. “Driven almost certainly by your own personal loathing for Francoeur. If you keep this up, Armand, I’ll go to him myself with evidence of your actions.”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Gamache, barely finding his voice.

  “I’m tired, Armand,” she said, getting up and taking her seat behind her desk. “Jérôme is exhausted. You’ve dragged us both into this fantasy of yours. Give it up. Better still, retire. Go to Paris for Christmas, think about it, and when you come back…”

  She let the sentence hang in the air between them.

  He stood up. “You’re making a mistake, Superintendent.”

  “If I am, I’ll be making it in Vancouver with our daughter. And while there, Jérôme and I will also discuss my future. It’s time to step aside, Armand. The Sûreté isn’t falling apart, you are. We’re dinosaurs and the meteor has struck.”

  *

  “Ready?” Tessier clapped Beauvoir on the back.

  No.

  “Ready,” said Beauvoir.

  “Good. I want you to lead the team into the second level of the bunker.”

  Tessier was smiling as though he’d just given the Inspector a ticket to the Bahamas.

  “Yessir.”

  He just managed to get to a bathroom. Locking the stall door, he retched, and retched. Until only fetid air burped up, from deep down inside him.

  *

  “Call for you, Chief.”

  “Is it important?”

  His secretary looked through the open door into his office. In all the years she’d worked for Chief Inspector Gamache, he’d never asked that question. He’d trusted that if she put a call through, it was, in her judgment, worth taking.

  But he’d seemed distracted since he’d returned from his meeting with Superintendent Brunel and had spent the past twenty minutes staring out the window.

  “Would you like me to take a message?” she asked.

  “No, no.” He reached for the phone. “I’ll take it.”

  “Salut, patron,” came Olivier’s cheerful voice. “Hope I’m not disturbing you.” He went on without waiting for an answer. “Gabri asked me to call to make sure you still want your room for tonight.”

  “I thought I’d already spoken with him about that.” The Chief heard the slight annoyance in his voice, but did nothing to change his tone.

  “Look, I’m just passing along the message.”

  “Has he double-booked or something?”

  “No, it’s still available, but he wants to know how many you’ll be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, will Inspec
tor Beauvoir be coming down?”

  Gamache exhaled sharply into the receiver.

  “Voyons, Olivier,” he began, then reined himself in. “Listen, Olivier, I’ve been through this as well. Inspector Beauvoir’s on another assignment. Inspector Lacoste will be staying in Montréal to continue the investigation from here, and I’ll be coming down to Three Pines, to look into that end of the case. I’ve left Henri with Madame Morrow so I have to come down anyway.”

  “No need to get all upset, Chief,” snapped Olivier. “I was just asking.”

  “I’m not upset”—though it was clear he was—“I’m just busy and have no time for this. If the B and B is available, fine. If not, I’ll collect Henri and come back to Montréal.”

  “Non, non. It’s available. And stay as long as you want. Gabri isn’t taking any bookings leading up to Christmas. Too involved with the concert.”

  Gamache wasn’t going to be dragged into that conversation. He thanked Olivier, hung up, and looked at the small clock on his desk. Almost one thirty.

  The Chief Inspector leaned back in his chair, then he swung it around so that his back was to the office and he faced the large window that looked out onto snowy Montréal.

  One thirty.

  *

  It was one thirty.

  Beauvoir took another deep breath and leaned back against the rumbling van. He tried closing his eyes, but that made the nausea worse. He turned his face so that the cold metal was against his hot cheek.

  An hour and a half and the raid would begin. He wished the van had windows, so he could see the city. The familiar buildings. Solid, predictable. Jean-Guy was always more comfortable with the man-made than the natural. He tried to imagine where they were. Were they over the bridge yet? Were there buildings outside, or forests?

  Where was he?

  *

  Gamache knew where Beauvoir was. He was on a raid scheduled to begin at three.

  Another raid. An unnecessary raid, ordered by Francoeur.

  The Chief closed his eyes. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

  Then he put on his coat. At the door to his office he watched Inspector Lacoste give orders to a group of agents. Or try to.

  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.