by Louise Penny
“I think that first file was important,” he said. “Maybe even vital, and when Jérôme found it, they panicked.”
“But it doesn’t make sense,” said Superintendent Brunel. “I know the mandate of the Sûreté. So do you. We patrol the roads and bridges, even the federal ones. But we don’t repair them. There’s no reason for a repair dossier to be in Sûreté files, and certainly not hidden.”
“And that makes it all the more likely the file had nothing to do with official, sanctioned Sûreté business.” Gamache had her attention now. “What happens when an autoroute needs to be repaired?”
“It goes to tender, I expect,” said Thérèse.
“And then what?”
“Companies bid,” said Thérèse. “Where’re you going with this, Armand?”
“You’re right,” said Gamache. “The Sûreté doesn’t repair roads, but it does do investigations into, among other things, bid rigging.”
The two senior Sûreté officers looked at each other.
The Sûreté du Québec investigated corruption. And there was no bigger target than the construction industry.
Just about every department of the Sûreté had been involved in investigating the Québec construction industry at one time or another. From allegations of kickbacks to bid rigging to organized crime involvement, from intimidation to homicide. Gamache himself had led investigations into the disappearance and presumed murder of a senior union official and a construction executive.
“Is that what this’s about?” Thérèse asked, still holding Gamache’s eyes. “Has Francoeur gotten himself involved with that filth?”
“Not just himself,” said Gamache. “But the Sûreté.”
The industry was huge, powerful, corrupt. And now, with the collusion of the Sûreté, unpoliced. Unstoppable.
Contracts worth billions were at stake. They stopped at nothing to win the contracts, to hold them, and to intimidate anyone who challenged them.
If there was an old sin and a long, dark shadow in Québec, it was the construction industry.
“Merde,” said Superintendent Brunel under her breath. She knew it wasn’t just a piece of shit they’d stepped on, but an empire of it.
“Go back in, please, Jérôme,” said Gamache, quietly. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees. They finally had an idea what they were looking for.
“Where to?”
“Construction contracts. Big ones, recently awarded.”
“Right.” Dr. Brunel swung around and began typing. Beside him, at the other terminal, Nichol was also typing away.
“No, wait,” said Gamache, putting a hand on Jérôme’s arm. “Not new construction.” He thought for a moment before speaking. “Look for repair contracts.”
“D’accord,” said Jérôme, and began to search.
*
“Hello, I’m sorry to disturb you. Have I woken you up?”
“Who is this?” asked the groggy voice at the other end of the phone.
“My name’s Martin Tessier, I’m with the Sûreté du Québec.”
“Is this about my mother?” The woman’s voice was suddenly alert. “It’s five in the morning here. What’s happened?”
“You think this might be about your mother?” Tessier asked, his voice friendly and reasonable.
“Well, she does work for the Sûreté,” said the woman, fully awake. “When she arrived she said someone might call.”
“So Superintendent Brunel’s there with you, in Vancouver?” asked Tessier.
“Isn’t that why you’re calling? Do you work with Chief Inspector Gamache?”
Tessier didn’t quite know how to answer that, didn’t know what Superintendent Brunel might have told her daughter.
“Yes. He asked me to call. May I speak with her, please?”
“She said she didn’t want to talk to him. Leave us alone. They were exhausted when they arrived. Tell your boss to stop bothering them.”
Monique Brunel hung up, but continued to clutch the phone.
*
Martin Tessier looked at the receiver in his hand.
What to make of that? He needed to know if the Brunels had in fact traveled to Vancouver. Their cell phones had.
He’d had their phones monitored and traced. They’d flown to Vancouver and gone to their daughter’s home. In the last couple days they’d driven around Vancouver to shops and restaurants. To the symphony.
But was it the people, or just their phones?
Tessier had been convinced they were in Vancouver, but now he wasn’t so sure.
The Brunels had parted ways with their former friend and colleague, calling Gamache delusional. But someone had picked up the cyber search where Jérôme Brunel had left off. Or maybe he hadn’t left off at all.
When the Brunel daughter had first answered the phone, he could hear the concern in her voice.
“Is this about my mother?” she’d asked.
Not “What’s this about?” Not “Do you need to speak to my mother?”
No. They were the words of someone worried that something had happened to her mother. And you don’t ask that when your parents are asleep a few feet away.
Tessier called his counterpart in Vancouver.
*
“Wait,” said Gamache. He was leaning forward, his reading glasses on, looking at the screen. “Go back, please.”
Jérôme did.
“What is it, Armand?” Thérèse Brunel asked.
He looked white. She’d never seen him like that. She’d seen him angry, hurt, surprised. But never, in the years they’d worked together, had she ever seen him so shocked.
“Jesus,” Gamache whispered. “It’s not possible.”
He had Jérôme bring up other files, apparently unrelated. Some very old, some very recent. Some based in the far north, some in downtown Montréal.
But all to do with construction of some sort. Repair work. On roads and bridges and tunnels.
Finally the Chief Inspector sat back and stared ahead of him. On the screen was a report on recent road repair contracts, but he seemed to be staring right through the words. Trying to grasp a deeper meaning.
“There was a woman,” he finally said. “She killed herself a few days ago. Jumped from the Champlain Bridge. Can you find her? Marc Brault was investigating for the Montréal police.”
Jérôme didn’t ask why Gamache wanted to know. He went to work and found it quickly in the Montréal police files.
“Her name’s Audrey Villeneuve. Age thirty-eight. Body found below the bridge. Dossier closed two days ago. Suicide.”
“Personal information?” asked Gamache, searching the screen.
“Husband’s a teacher. Two daughters. They live on Papineau, in east-end Montréal.”
“And where did she work?”
Jérôme scrolled down, then up. “It doesn’t say.”
“It must,” said Gamache, pushing forward, nudging Jérôme out of the way. He scrolled up and down. Scanning the police report.
“Maybe she didn’t work,” said Jérôme.
“It would say that,” said Thérèse, leaning in herself, searching the report.
“She worked in transportation,” said Gamache. “Marc Brault told me that. It was in the report and now it’s gone. Someone erased it.”
“She jumped from the bridge?” asked Thérèse.
“Suppose Audrey Villeneuve didn’t jump.” Gamache turned from the screen to look at them. “Suppose she was pushed.”
“Why?”
“Why was her job erased from her file?” he asked. “She found something out.”
“What?” asked Jérôme. “That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? From some despondent woman to murder?”
“Can you go back?” Gamache ignored his comment. “To what we were looking at before?”
The construction contract files came up. Hundreds of millions of dollars in repair work for that year alone.
“Suppose this is all a lie?” he asked. “Suppose what we’re looking
at was never done?”
“You mean the companies took the money but never did the repairs?” asked Thérèse. “You think Audrey Villeneuve worked for one of these companies, and realized what was happening? Maybe she was blackmailing them.”
“It’s worse than that,” said Gamache. His face was ashen. “The repair work hasn’t been done.” He paused to let that sink in. There materialized, in midair in the old schoolhouse, images. Of overpasses over the city, of tunnels under the city. Of the bridges. Huge great spans, carrying tens of thousands of cars every day.
None of it repaired, perhaps in decades. Instead, the money went into the pockets of the owners, of the union, of organized crime, and those who were entrusted to stop it. The Sûreté. Billions of dollars. Leaving kilometer after kilometer of roads and tunnels and bridges about to collapse.
*
“Got ’em,” said Lambert.
“Who are they?” Francoeur demanded. He’d returned to his office and was connected to the search on his own computer.
“I don’t know yet, but they got in through the Sûreté detachment in Schefferville.”
“They’re in Schefferville?”
“No. Tabarnac. They’re using the archives. The library grid.”
“Which means?”
“They could be anywhere in the province. But we have them now. It’s just a matter of time.”
“We have no more time,” said Francoeur.
“Well, you’ll have to find it.”
*
“Can we lose them?” Thérèse asked, and her husband shook his head.
“Then ignore them,” said Gamache. “We have to move forward. Get into the construction files. Dig as deep as you can. There’s something planned. Not just ongoing corruption, but a specific event.”
Jérôme threw away all caution and plunged into the files.
*
“Stop him,” yelled Francoeur into the phone.
On his computer a name had appeared, then in a flash it disappeared. But he’d seen it. And so had they.
Audrey Villeneuve.
He watched, aghast, as his screen filled with file after file. On construction. On repair contracts.
“I can’t stop him,” said Lambert. “Not until I find out where he is, where he’s coming from.”
Francoeur watched, powerless, as file after file was opened, tossed aside, and the intruder moved on. Ransacking, then racing ahead.
He looked at the clock. Almost ten in the morning. Almost there.
But so was the intruder.
And then, suddenly, the frantic online search stopped. The cursor throbbed on the screen, as though frozen there.
“Christ,” said Francoeur, his eyes wide.
*
Gamache and Thérèse stared at the screen. At the name that had come up. Buried at the deepest level. Below the legitimate dossiers. Below the doctored documents. Below the fixed and the fraud. Below the thick layer of merde. There was a name.
Chief Inspector Gamache turned to Jérôme Brunel, who also stared at the screen. Not with the astonishment his wife and his friend felt. But with another overwhelming emotion.
Guilt.
“You knew,” whispered Gamache, barely able to speak.
The blood had gone from Jérôme’s face and his breathing was shallow. His lips were almost white.
He knew. Had known for days. Since he’d tripped the alarm that had sent them into hiding. He’d brought this secret with him to Three Pines. Lugged the name around with him, from the schoolhouse to the bistro to bed.
“I knew.” The words were barely audible, but they filled the room.
“Jérôme?” asked Thérèse, not sure what was the greater shock. What they’d found, or what they’d found out about her husband.
“I’m sorry,” he said. With an effort he pushed his chair back and it squealed on the wooden floor, like chalk on a blackboard. “I should’ve told you.”
He looked into their faces and knew those words didn’t come close to describing what he should have done. And hadn’t. But their gaze had shifted from him back to the terminal, and the cursor blinking in front of the name.
Georges Renard. The Premier of Québec.
*
“They know,” said Francoeur. He was on the phone to his boss and had told him everything. “We have to move ahead with the plan. Now.”
There was a pause before Georges Renard spoke.
“We can’t move ahead,” he said at last. His voice was calm. “Your part isn’t the only element, you know. If Gamache is that close, then stop him.”
“We’re still working to find the intruder,” said Francoeur, trying to bring his own voice, and breathing, under control. To sound both persuasive and reasonable.
“The intruder isn’t critical anymore, Sylvain. He’s obviously working with Gamache. Feeding him the information. If the Chief Inspector’s the only one who can put it all together, then ignore the intruder and go after him. Plenty of time later to deal with the others. You said he’s in some village in the Eastern Townships?”
“Three Pines, yes.”
“Get him.”
*
“How long before they find us?” Gamache asked as he walked toward the door. Gilles brought his chair down as the Chief approached, so that the front legs thumped onto the floor. He stood up and pulled the chair aside.
“An hour, maybe two,” said Jérôme. “Armand…”
“I know, Jérôme.” Gamache took his coat off the peg by the door. “None of us is blameless in this. I doubt it would have mattered. We have to focus now, and move forward.”
“Should we leave?” Thérèse asked, watching as Gamache put on his coat.
“There’s nowhere to go.”
He spoke gently, but firmly, so that they could harbor no false hope. If there was a stand to be taken, it would have to be here.
“We now know who’s involved,” said the Chief. “But we still don’t know what they have planned.”
“You think it’s more than covering up hundreds of millions of dollars in graft?” asked Thérèse.
“I do,” said Gamache. “That’s a happy by-product. Something to keep their partners quiet. But the real goal is something else. Something they’ve been working on for years. It started with Pierre Arnot and ends with the Premier.”
“We’ll see what we can find on Renard,” said Jérôme.
“No. Leave Renard,” said Gamache. “The key now is Audrey Villeneuve. She found something and was killed. Find out everything you can about her. Where she worked, what she was working on. What she might’ve found.”
“Can’t we just call Marc Brault?” asked Jérôme. “He investigated her death. He’d have it in his notes.”
“And someone edited his report,” said Thérèse, shaking her head. “We don’t know who to trust.”
Gamache pulled his car keys out of his coat pocket.
“Where’re you going?” Thérèse asked. “You’re not leaving us?”
Gamache saw the look in her eyes. Much the same look he’d seen in Beauvoir’s eyes that day in the factory. When Gamache had left him.
“I need to go.”
He reached under his jacket and brought out his gun, holding it out to them.
Thérèse Brunel shook her head. “I brought my own weapon—”
“You did?” asked Jérôme.
“Did you think I worked in the cafeteria at the Sûreté?” asked Thérèse. “I’ve never used it, and I hope not to, but I will if I have to.”
Gamache looked at the far end of the room, and Agent Nichol working on her terminal.
“Agent Nichol, walk with me to the car, please.”
Her back remained turned to them.
“Agent Nichol.”
Far from raising his voice, Chief Inspector Gamache had lowered it. It moved across the schoolroom, and lodged in that small back. They could see her tense.
And then she got up.
Gamache rubbed Henri’
s ears, then opened the door.
“Wait, Armand,” said Thérèse. “Where’re you going?”
“To the SHU. To speak to Pierre Arnot.”
Thérèse opened her mouth to object, but realized it didn’t matter. They were out in the open now. All that mattered was speed.
Gamache waited for Nichol outside, standing on the stoop of the schoolhouse.
Gabri walked across to the bistro and waved, but didn’t approach. It was almost eleven in the morning, and the sun was gleaming on the snow. It looked as though the village was covered in jewels.
“What do you want?” asked Nichol, when she finally came out and the door was closed behind her.
She looked to Gamache not unlike the first Quint, shoved into the world against her will. He walked down the steps and along the path to his car and didn’t look at her as he spoke.
“I want to know what you were doing in the B and B the other day.”
“I told you.”
“You lied to me. We haven’t much time.” Now he did look at her. “I made a choice that day in the woods to trust you, even though I knew you’d lied. Do you know why?”
She glared at him, her tiny face turning red. “Because you had no choice?”
“Because despite your behavior I think you have a good heart. A strange head,” he smiled, “but a good heart. But I need to know now. Why were you there?”
She walked beside him, her head down, watching her boots on the snow.
They stopped beside his car.
“I followed you there to tell you something. But then you were so angry. You slammed the door in my face, and I couldn’t.”
“Tell me now,” he asked, his voice quiet.
“I leaked the video.”
The puffs of her words were barely visible before they disappeared.
The Chief’s eyes widened and he took a moment to absorb the information.
“Why?” he finally asked.
Tears made warm tracks down her face, and the more she tried to stop them the more they came. “I’m sorry. I didn’t do it to hurt. I felt so bad…”
She couldn’t talk. Her throat closed around the words.
“… my fault…” she managed. “… I told you there were six. I only heard…”
And now she sobbed.
Armand Gamache took her in his arms and held her. She heaved, and shook. And sobbed. She cried and cried, until there was nothing left. No sound, no tears, no words. Until she could barely stand. And still he held her and held her up.