Kingdom of the Blind (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #14)

by Louise Penny

  The cast-iron tub moved, but only slightly.

  “Wait, hold it,” said Armand, stepping back and catching his breath. Then he nodded to Billy, and the two of them went at it again.

  But the tub, crushed under tons of debris, barely budged.

  “Can you help over here?” asked Myrna.

  “Just. A. Moment,” said Armand, through gritted teeth. Pushing. Pushing. Before staggering back. Defeated. Staring at the solid barrier between them and whoever was alive behind it.

  There was a creaking, groaning sound. The wall of rubble was moving. Shifting.

  Gamache took a half step back, sweeping Billy back with him.

  He turned to warn Myrna. But stopped. His face opening in astonishment. It looked as though Myrna was single-handedly lifting the debris. Then he looked more closely.

  Where he’d grabbed a shovel and Billy a tire iron, Myrna had quietly picked up the jack from Armand’s car and now had it wedged under a beam. And was leaning on the arm.

  The beam was lifting, inch by precarious inch.

  “I need help,” she called.

  The two men joined her and leaned into the arm of the jack. One. Two pumps. More snow drifted down, and they paused. Three.

  There was a cracking as rafters and crossbeams shifted.

  Gamache, his breathing shallow, his eyes sharp, his hearing keen, waited. For it to either collapse or stabilize.

  Then he heard, through the shifting debris, more tapping. Increasingly frantic.

  “Stop,” he called. One sharp word. And the tapping stopped.

  Myrna, with their help, had jacked up the beam as high as they dared. The opening was about eighteen inches.

  Gamache stared at it, then at Myrna.

  “You’re not leaving me behind,” she said, reading his thoughts.

  “You won’t make it through.”

  “And you will?”

  Armand was taking off his heavy parka. “I will.”

  “Then so will I. We go together.” She took off her coat and hugged it to her.

  “Ego?” asked Armand.

  “Practicality,” she said. “You need me.”

  “If I have a choice, I’d take her over you any day,” said Billy, smiling at Myrna. “Mighty fine woman.”

  “What did he say?” asked Armand.

  She told him.

  “You must’ve misheard,” said Armand. But he was smiling.

  “Oh for fook’s sake,” said Billy. “Let’s try again. Another coupla inches should do it.”

  He grabbed the lever and pushed. Armand and Myrna joined him.

  More groaning. Some from the house. Most from them.

  But it shifted. Just enough. They figured. They hoped.

  “I’ll go first,” said Armand.

  He glanced behind him, down the narrow, rubble-strewn, passage they’d just come through. They were, he knew, in what had been the kitchen. Heading, it seemed, toward the dining room. Via the second-floor bathroom.

  He turned again toward the opening. It looked like a mouth, ready to clamp shut. Every survival instinct cried out for him not to do it.

  Getting onto his back, faceup, he pushed himself into the opening. His eyes within centimeters of shards of wood and rusted nails, like teeth. Turning his head, closing his eyes, exhaling to make himself as flat as possible. He inched forward.

  The scent of fresh-cut grass. Walking along the Seine, holding the little hands of Flora and Zora. Reine-Marie in his arms on a lazy Sunday morning.

  His face was through. Then his neck. He twisted his shoulders. His chest made it through.

  And then his progress stopped. His shirt was snagged on the nails.

  He was too far in for Myrna or Billy to be able to help.

  The place shifted again, and he felt it drop. The nails now touched his chest every time he took a shallow breath.

  “Armand?” called Myrna.

  “Just a moment,” he said.

  Closing his eyes again, he steadied his breathing. Steadied his mind.

  Laundry on the line. The scent of Honoré. Sitting in the garden with an iced tea. Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.

  He pushed again and felt the nails ripping his shirt.

  Tiny pieces of rubble fell onto his face, peppering his lids and lips. As he breathed, they went into his nose, and he could feel himself on the verge of a cough. Smothering it, fighting it, he pushed harder, more frantically.

  The ripping stopped, and he broke free.

  Scrambling to his knees, Armand bent double, hacking and coughing.

  “Armand?” called Myrna, more insistent.

  “I’m okay,” he said, his voice raspy. “Don’t come yet.”

  He looked around, and, finding a piece of concrete, he reached into the opening and used it to flatten the nails.

  “It should be okay now.”

  With some effort, Myrna also made it through, then Billy, who pushed their parkas in ahead of himself.

  “What’s that?” asked Myrna. Her head was lifted, nose in the air.

  Armand had just caught it too. A whiff of something acrid. It was familiar. Comforting, even. Except—

  Wood, charred. Charring.

  He and Myrna locked eyes, then over to Billy, who looked genuinely alarmed for the first time.

  Gamache felt the hairs go up on his neck.

  The place was on fire.

  “We need to move.”

  * * *

  “Come on, come on,” said Jean-Guy, staring at the farmhouse.

  His focus was so complete he barely breathed. Didn’t blink. Didn’t hear the vehicles arrive.

  Nothing existed except the house.

  The time for caution was past.

  “Hello,” Myrna shouted. “Where are you?”

  “Here, I’m here,” came the reply. The voice hoarse. Unfamiliar.

  They looked in the direction of the shout. There was another barrier of debris between them and the voice.

  Scrabbling with their hands, they cleared chunks of concrete and wood until they’d made a hole. Armand lay on his stomach and peered through.

  And saw the long, thin tail of a tuque.

  And then a familiar face.

  “It’s Benedict,” he called to the others.

  “Oh thank God,” said Myrna, and hugged Billy.

  Benedict had his back against a doorway. His eyes were wide, barely daring to believe that what he’d prayed for, cried out for, had actually happened.

  The young man brought his hand up to his face, not able to hold back tears.

  “You came. You came.”

  Billy enlarged the opening, and when Armand crawled through, Benedict gripped him in a tight embrace, sobbing.

  Armand held him for a moment, then stepped back so he could see Benedict’s face. His body. He seemed unhurt.

  “There’s someone else here,” said Gamache. “Where is he?”

  “There is?” asked Benedict. “I don’t think so. I can’t believe you came—”

  “There’s another car in the drive,” said Myrna, who’d joined them, as had Billy.

  “Yes, I saw that, but when I came in, I called and no one answered.”

  Armand noticed a small circle of smoldering wood on the floor. Benedict had survived the bitter-cold night by burning whatever wood he could lay his hands on.

  That had been the smell. The house wasn’t on fire after all.

  He began to point it out to Myrna, just as Billy touched Armand’s arm. For quiet. Billy’s face was tilted up, his head cocked to one side. Listening.

  “Is it the rescuers?” Myrna asked.

  “Rescuers?” asked Benedict. “Aren’t you the—”

  “Shh,” hissed Billy, and they hushed.

  Billy stared at the ceiling. Then Armand saw his eyes widen, at the same moment he heard a great rending. Like a scream. The house was shrieking.

  “No,” Jean-Guy shouted.

  He started forward, but hands held him. He twist
ed and bucked, struggling to break free.

  Members of the local Sûreté rescue team dragged him back, as the farmhouse disappeared into a cloud of snow.

  “Holy hell,” whispered one of the agents.

  As the structure fell, Benedict pulled Armand toward him.

  “Get into the doorway,” the young man shouted.

  Billy grabbed Myrna and just managed to leap in there before there was an almighty splitting sound.

  They sank to their knees, eyes screwed shut. Clinging to each other. The violence was overwhelming. The din deafening. Disorienting. Banging, booming. Scraping. Screaming. From the house. From them. As the house came crashing down on top of them.

  Rubble fell against Armand, pushing him sideways, but there was nowhere to go. Debris, wreckage, was closing in on both sides of them now. Pinning them there. Crushing them there.

  Benedict pulled him closer, and he heard the sobbing of the boy, whose body was folded over his. Protecting him from the inevitable.

  He could barely breathe now. There was room for only one thought. One feeling.

  Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.

  And then the unholy shrieking died down. There were thumps and thuds as rafters fell. And settled. But the great rending sound, the crashing, had slowed.

  Armand opened his eyes, squinting against the grit stinging them. He lifted his head, coughing.

  And looked right into Benedict’s face.

  There was blood on Benedict’s forehead, making its way through the plaster and concrete dust. So that the handsome young man looked like a statue that had cracked.

  But his eyes were bright. And blinking.

  “Myrna?” Armand rasped, barely recognizing his own voice.

  “Here.” He felt her move against his back but couldn’t turn around. They were pinned there.

  “Billy?”

  There was a word Armand didn’t recognize, in a voice he did.

  They’d all survived.

  Benedict closed his eyes, shutting out the grit in the air. But Armand kept his eyes open. Staring. Peering beyond the boy who still hugged him. Through eyes, watering and burning, he could see the doorjamb that had saved their lives and the familiar marks made on it decades ago. Height charts.

  Anthony. Caroline. Shooting up with each measurement. And Hugo, who was not.

  But Armand was staring beyond the marks on the wood. At a gray hand thrust up through the rubble.

  CHAPTER 16

  Amelia woke up, clawing her way to the surface, to the sunlight. Her head throbbed, and her mind was numb. And her eyes refused to focus.

  She looked around, blinking, until she could make out what she was seeing. And not seeing.

  This wasn’t her bedroom. Certainly not the small, neat room at the academy that she’d called home for the past two years.

  But neither was it the shithole in the rooming house.

  This was a whole other shithole.

  And then she remembered. Sinking back into the grimy sheets, her face going slack, and she closed her eyes.

  “What have I done?”

  “What did you do, Sweet Pea?”

  Marc sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear gray and sagging. His eyes were bright in their sunken sockets. Like a gleam from some deep well.

  She and Marc had been toddlers in the same village. Playing in the same playgrounds, schoolyards. Streets.

  Marc had come to Montréal first. Young, gay, fresh, and alive. Fit and handsome. Excited to be out. He’d made a life for himself. A male prostitute, to be sure. But clean and careful. With his own tiny place.

  His dream was to find some rich old queen and settle down.

  She’d followed Marc to Montréal. He’d guided her. To the best dealers. The ones who didn’t cut their shit with worse shit. When she’d sunk low enough, he guided her to the best street corners. And protected her. He was like a big brother to her.

  He was careful himself, teetering on the edge of addiction but not quite tipping over. Keeping himself presentable. For the nice restaurants, the private clubs, the international travel he knew was in the next car. On the next corner.

  When Gamache kicked her out of the academy, Amelia had gone to the only person she knew could help her find what she needed.

  They’d stared at each other, on either side of the threshold of his apartment. Barely recognizing each other. Marc’s hair wasn’t just greasy, it was falling out. His scabbed scalp visible in patches. His lips chapped, his skin mottled.

  When he smiled, she could see gaps where teeth had once been.

  “Am I so bad?” he asked, reading the look on her face.

  “No, no. Am I?”

  She could see herself in his eyes. A stranger. Repulsive in her cleanliness. Jet-black hair shiny. Complexion smooth.

  They were no longer brother and sister. They were barely of the same species.

  “Why’re you here?” he asked, barring the door.

  “I need your help. I got kicked out of the academy.”

  “Why?”

  “Possession. Maybe trafficking.”

  He’d laughed then, relieved. “Maybe?”

  Amelia might look like another species, but they shared some DNA after all. She’d come home. To him. To the gutter. Where she belonged.

  “What?” he’d asked, dropping his arm and letting her in. “Hell dust? Percs?”

  “Fen.”

  “The good stuff.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you have it on you now?”

  He reached filthy hands toward her. She backed up, tripping over a pile of clothes on the floor but quickly righting herself.

  “Of course not. They took it all. I need to find some more. But there’s even better shit. It’s not out yet, but it will be. That’s what I really want. You heard of it?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard the rumors, but it’s bullshit. There’s nothing.” Marc stared at his unexpected guest. “What do you know, Sweet Pea?”

  “I know it’s not bullshit. Some cop let it through his fingers. And it’s good, Marc.”

  “Really?”

  “Really good. Way better than fen. Whoever has it will make a fortune. Will have everything they’ve ever wanted. Forever.”

  “Everything?”

  She nodded.

  “Forever?”

  She nodded. “No more shitholes. No more turning tricks. No more wondering where the next hit’s coming from. We’ll have lots of everything.”

  “We?”

  “I need your help. Look, I learned things in the academy. Useful things, like how to organize, how to fight. The cartels are gone. Everyone’s scrambling, right?”

  He nodded.

  “I can take over.”

  “You?” He looked at the small girl and laughed.

  “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight . . .” she said. It was, she knew, his favorite saying.

  “It’s the size of the fight in the dog.” He studied her for a moment. “You are quite a bitch.”

  She laughed. “You’ll help?”

  He looked at her with both hope and suspicion.

  “You know people, Marc. I’ve been gone too long.”

  “Not just gone. You were a cop.”

  “Not quite,” said Amelia. “And since when can’t a cop also deal drugs? Not exactly a stretch. Will you help?”

  He looked out the window, then back at her. “The streets aren’t what you remember.”

  She needed no proof beyond what she saw in front of her. He wasn’t what she remembered.

  “You don’t want to mess with what’s out there, Amelia.”

  He opened his arms in display. What happened. When a tipping point was reached—and exceeded.

  “Go home, Sweet Pea.”

  “I am home.”

  Marc looked at her. And his weary brain considered. “Everything?”

  “Everything,” she said. “All we have to do is find the shit.”

  He nodded, coming to a decision
. “What the fuck. I have nothing to lose. Maybe that should be our motto.”

  Amelia grunted. “Maybe.”

  Thanks to Gamache, she too now had nothing to lose. It was, she realized, a very powerful place to be.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  * * *

  Marc hadn’t lied. The streets of inner-city Montréal had changed. Never safe. Never clean. Never fun, now they were many degrees worse. Darker, filthier. Clogged with excrement, puke.

  The faces that met her were gray. But the looks were canny. She was a stranger to them, even with Marc to vouch for her.

  “Don’t tell anyone where you’ve been,” he whispered.

  “No shit,” she said.

  “If anyone asks, I’m going to say you were in Vancouver, living on the streets.”

  They approached a loose knot of dealers, who stared at her.

  She still had some meat on her bones. Pink in her cheeks. Clothes that hadn’t hardened with a crust of frozen puke. And piss. And cum.

  “If she was in Vancouver,” a dealer asked Marc, as though Amelia weren’t standing right in front of him, “why’d she come back?”

  “I’m right here, fuckface,” she said. “Talk to me.”

  She was at least six inches shorter. She had to tip her head back to glare up at him.

  The dealer stepped forward, thrusting his pelvis into her. Pushing her until she was against the brick wall of the alley. Then he ground himself against her.

  He was twenty-five at most but looked ancient. Like something dug up at some primitive burial site. They all did. A mass grave, under micrograms of fentanyl, on the streets of Montréal.

  His breath on her face smelled of rotten eggs. Of sulfur. Of hellfire.

  “You know why I’m here,” she snarled, not bothering to push him away. “You know what I want. What I can’t get in Vancouver.”

  He thrust his body against her.

  “You came for this, did you?” Grinding his pelvis into her. “I remember you, little girl. Amelia.”

  He said her name in a drawl, dragging it through the mud.

  “You have one thing I want.” She reached between his legs. “And it isn’t this.”

  She squeezed. Though what she felt was soft. Like a mitten in his pants.

  “That’s it, little girl. Squeeze harder.”

  She brought her hand up from his crotch to his throat and gripped it in exactly the way the martial-arts instructor at the academy had taught her.