A Great Reckoning

by Louise Penny

  “And by that you mean guess?” said Gamache, and saw the sweaty younger man smile.

  “Your actions, sir, made no sense,” Charpentier said. “Especially your actions toward Deputy Commissioner Gélinas. Until I factored in one possibility. And that became a probability. And that eventually became a certainty. It explained everything.”

  “Go on,” said Gamache.

  “Serge Leduc was rotten, corrupt. He was more than that, obviously, but let’s just focus on what you knew when you first arrived.”

  Gamache nodded.

  “Leduc had stolen millions in the building of the academy. Taking kickbacks and bribes from contractors,” said Charpentier. “Perhaps even allowing substandard construction.”

  “We’re having the buildings inspected, yes,” said Gamache.

  “A very good idea. But you had a problem. While there was a ton of suggestive material, there was no smoking gun, so to speak. You had to find hard evidence. You had to find the money.”

  “It would help.”

  “It would nail him. And he knew it. He might have initially thought you’d taken the job as commander to get control of the academy—”

  “And to be fair, that was the main reason.”

  “Oui, but it went hand in hand with gathering enough evidence on Leduc to arrest him. To get him out of circulation. It didn’t take Leduc long to realize that was on your agenda.”

  “I told him as much.”

  “And so began a game of cat and mouse,” said Charpentier. “But while intelligent, Leduc wasn’t very bright. He was no match for you, and he knew it. He must’ve felt your breath on his neck. He became desperate. And so he did something he should never have done.”

  “He contacted his partner,” said Gamache, watching Charpentier closely. “His very silent partner. The one who’d really planned most of this. The one who knew how and where to hide the money.”

  Now it was Charpentier’s turn to watch Gamache closely.

  “So I asked myself,” Gamache went on, “where was this partner? Where had he been all this time? In the academy? Not likely. In the Sûreté? Again, possible but not likely. That rot had been removed. So where was he? And there was only one answer. Far away. Beyond suspicion.”

  “Oui.” Charpentier smiled and moved his wheelchair back and forth, by inches. Agitated. Or excited.

  “But when Leduc broke the cardinal rule and contacted him a few months ago, Leduc himself became the target,” said Gamache. “And needed to be taken care of. The partner returned, accepting a job that surprised everyone.”

  Charpentier stopped rocking his chair and went very still.

  * * *

  “Where’s Jacques?” asked Huifen.

  “I don’t know,” said Nathaniel, and looked at Amelia, who frowned and shrugged.

  “Wasn’t he in class with you?” she said.

  The four cadets had been driven back to the academy that morning, after their conversation in the chapel with Gamache.

  “Commander Gamache showed up to speak to Charpentier, and we were dismissed early. I was supposed to meet Jacques here. He hasn’t been in?”

  Huifen looked around the study hall. A few cadets were sitting at the long tables, reading or tapping on their tablets. But there was no Jacques.

  “He’ll be here soon,” said Amelia. “Don’t worry.”

  “Why is Gamache speaking to Charpentier?” asked Huifen. “What’s he telling him? Is he telling him about us?”

  “Why would he?” asked Amelia.

  Huifen sat down, but immediately got up.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Amelia.

  But on seeing Huifen’s face, she also rose. As did Nathaniel.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  * * *

  “You know more than you’re saying,” said Gamache.

  “Better than knowing less, don’t you think?” said Charpentier.

  “The time has come, Hugo, to tell me everything.”

  The young professor nodded. “I agree. I began to wonder how much you really knew when you didn’t tell Deputy Commissioner Gélinas about the four cadets. You told Inspector Beauvoir and Chief Inspector Lacoste that they’d been taken to Three Pines, but you kept it from him. I thought there could be only one explanation. You didn’t trust him. And yet you were the one who’d invited him here. To do that, you didn’t just go over Lacoste’s head, you went behind her back. An uncharacteristic thing for you to do. I knew there had to be a very good reason. You thought Deputy Commissioner Gélinas was Leduc’s partner. His very silent, very senior partner.”

  “You’ve done well,” said Gamache. “You know a surprising amount.”

  “Not surprising, really. You should know me by now, sir. You recruited me.”

  “And Michel Brébeuf trained you.”

  “At your suggestion.”

  “Yes. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Michel’s greatest strength is that he’s a masterful tactician. It’s how he was able to get away with so much for so long. And he trained you. Well.”

  Now Charpentier grew wary.

  “There is, of course, another possibility,” said Gamache. “Why I specifically invited Deputy Commissioner Gélinas to be the independent observer. Yes, I might have suspected him—”

  “Or maybe you didn’t, at all,” said Charpentier, guessing where Gamache was going. “Maybe Gélinas wasn’t the one you had your eye on. He was another whale. A great lumpen redirection. If anyone grew suspicious, you wanted that suspicion to fall on the senior RCMP officer. Who’d been away in Europe. Who had access to private Swiss banks. Your real target would think you were focused on Gélinas, and that would leave him unguarded.”

  “You think I’m that calculating?”

  “I know you are, patron. I’ve seen it. How you’ve maneuvered through the rat’s nest of the Sûreté. You don’t survive as long as you have without being cunning.”

  “You, of course, would know,” said Gamache, and Charpentier colored a bit, unsure if that was a compliment or an accusation.

  “But I quit, remember?” Gamache continued. “Burned out.”

  “And now you’re back. Risen from the ashes. With a vengeance.”

  “Non.” Gamache shook his head. “Not a vengeance. Never that.”

  “Service, Integrity, Justice,” said Charpentier. “Despite all that’s happened to you?”

  “Because of it. A belief of convenience isn’t much use, is it?”

  “Why are you here?” Charpentier asked.

  “In this room? Just to talk.”

  Hugo Charpentier looked toward the closed door and struggled to get up from the chair.

  “What’s happening out there?”

  “Nothing that concerns you, Hugo. Please, sit down.”

  Charpentier glanced once more at the door, then sat.

  “More misdirection, monsieur?” he asked warily, wearily.

  “Depends where you were heading,” said Gamache. “But I’m not here to talk to you about Serge Leduc’s corruption. I’m here to talk about his murder.”

  “The two are connected, non?”

  “Serge Leduc’s corruption went far beyond simply his ethics. Far beyond money. His very being had become corrupt, twisted. Perverted.” Gamache leaned forward, into Charpentier’s personal space. And whispered, “He made them weep before he died. Someone knew. And someone killed him for it.”

  * * *

  “Do you think the Commander’s going to tell everyone?” Huifen asked. “What we did?”

  “Would it matter?” asked Amelia.

  “Maybe not to you,” said Huifen. “You’re already an outsider, but it would to Jacques.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t understand,” said Huifen. “You can’t. Jacques’s whole thing is about being admired. The strong leader. The hero.”

  “Head cadet,” said Nathaniel.

  “Oui. But if it came out, what we allowed Leduc to do, he’d be humiliated. N

o one would understand. They’d think we were weak, stupid. They’d look at us like we were freaks. He’d rather die than have that happen.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Nathaniel. “That’s just a figure of speech, right?”

  “Fucking Leduc knew that about him,” said Huifen, walking rapidly out of the study hall as she spoke. “He used it against him. Feeding that need in Jacques. Until Jacques would do anything to stay on the pedestal. Contort into anything Leduc wanted.”

  “You hated him,” said Amelia, almost running to keep up with Huifen. “Leduc.”

  “Of course I did. And so did you. But Jacques’s feelings were more complicated.”

  Nathaniel reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop. The corridors, now teeming with cadets getting from class to class, surged around them.

  “What? Tell us.”

  “You could see it, couldn’t you?” said Huifen. “Jacques and the Duke were close.”

  “Yes, we know that.”

  “No, very close. Like father and son. He believed everything the Duke told him. He accepted everything he said and did, believing Leduc when he said it was for his own good. Jacques trusted him completely.”

  “What father does that to his son?” asked Nathaniel.

  “Have him put a gun to his head and pull the trigger?” asked Huifen. “For Leduc, it was never about love. It was about control. You’ve had it for a few months, Jacques had it for three years.”

  “So did you,” Amelia pointed out.

  “Believe me, I’m fucked up, but nothing compared to Jacques. I never saw the Duke as anything other than crazy. I was trapped. But Jacques was there by choice. Not at first, but by second year Leduc could make him do anything. If he’d told Jacques to murder another cadet, he probably would’ve done it.”

  “Do you really believe that?” asked Amelia.

  Huifen compressed her lips and nodded.

  “And now that Leduc is gone?” asked Amelia.

  But she knew the answer.

  Jacques was directionless, rudderless. The grip on the tiller was gone. And Jacques was lost.

  “I wish you’d known him before. He was…” Huifen searched for the word. “Glorious. Smart and funny. Sweet. A natural leader. The Duke saw that, and ruined it. Because he could.”

  Huifen spoke with such venom the other two exchanged glances.

  CHAPTER 41

  “Come in.” Brébeuf stepped back from the threshold.

  “You don’t seem surprised, Michel,” said Gamache.

  He’d come directly there after speaking with Charpentier, Michel Brébeuf’s protégé and perhaps his greatest success.

  “I wasn’t exactly expecting you, but I’m not altogether surprised either,” said Brébeuf, waving toward the sitting area.

  Armand Gamache glanced around the little room, swiftly taking in the details. In the months since Michel had arrived at the academy, Armand had never once been in his private quarters.

  He was surprised by how many things he recognized. The framed photographs of family. A couple of paintings that had once hung in the Brébeuf home.

  Michel had brought his favorite chair too. Which he was now offering to Armand. Gamache sat, and Brébeuf took the chair across from him.

  “What can I do for you, Armand?”

  “You must have known I’d figure it out.”

  “Ah.” Brébeuf sighed. “So that’s it.”

  He managed a small, almost wistful, smile and studied his guest.

  “It’s possible I’ve always underestimated you, Armand. I’ve loved you and admired you, but maybe part of me has always seen you as a boy. Funny, isn’t it? All that we’ve been through. I saw you go off to Cambridge, saw you get married, have children, become a senior officer in the Sûreté, and yet part of me will always think of you as the boy who lost his parents. The boy I needed to protect.”

  “You betrayed me, Michel, years ago. I was almost killed because of you.”

  “I never meant that to happen.”

  “Really? The master tactician never saw that coming?”

  “It was a mistake,” admitted Brébeuf.

  “And was killing Leduc also a mistake?”

  Brébeuf slowly shook his head, holding Armand’s eyes the whole time. “Non. That was intended. I knew that would happen almost from the day I arrived. When I discovered two things.”

  “Oui?”

  Gamache knew he was being played, was being led. Guided or misguided, as Charpentier would have it. But he needed to know.

  “Serge Leduc was a stupid man,” said Brébeuf. “A man driven by an infected ego. But he was also a powerful man, I’ll give him that. A charismatic personality. Stupidity and power. A dangerous combination, as we’ve found out many times, eh, Armand? Especially for anyone young and vulnerable. He’d have made a good cult leader, if he hadn’t joined the Sûreté and ended up here. In fact, he’d turned the academy into a sort of cult, hadn’t he?”

  Gamache listened, but didn’t nod. Didn’t agree or disagree. He was bending much of his will to disengaging from Brébeuf, while still listening closely.

  “After that party in your rooms the first night, Serge Leduc decided to make me his best friend. Bound by a shared loathing of you. He assumed we had that in common. He had no idea of my depth of feeling for you.”

  Michel Brébeuf looked at Gamache with undisguised tenderness.

  But what, Armand asked himself, did that tenderness itself disguise? What was lurking, swishing its tail, in those depths?

  “And yet you spent quite a lot of time with Leduc. You said it was because you were lonely.”

  “That was part of it,” Brébeuf admitted. “And perhaps I was attracted by his obvious respect for me. Something I hadn’t felt from anyone for a long time.”

  Brébeuf smiled in the impish way Gamache knew well. Here was a man he’d known longer than anyone else on earth. A person he had loved, man and boy, for decades.

  And despite all that had happened, he still felt that tug. As though Michel had coiled himself around Armand’s DNA. What happened in childhood had fused itself to Gamache. The losses, but also the laughter and hilarity, the roaring freedom, the friendship. The friendship. The friendship. They were brothers-in-arms. Storming the castle.

  And now he looked at that smile and could have wept.

  “What happened, Michel?”

  “That first night, he invited me back to his rooms. After too many drinks, Leduc brought out his revolver.”

  Armand had actually been asking about their friendship. About where and when and how Michel had veered away. And fallen off a rampart in the darkness.

  But the answer he got was far different.

  “He told me what he did with the gun,” said Michel. “I’ve done many things I’m ashamed of. Many things that cannot and should not be forgiven. But what Leduc told me that night shocked and sickened even me.”

  Brébeuf’s gaze drifted beyond Gamache and above him, toward the door. His eye caught something and Michel suddenly smiled, as though surprised by something pleasant. He gestured toward it.

  Armand tried to stop himself, but his head turned and his eyes followed.

  There, above the door, was a small frame. And in it was what looked like a stylized red rose. But wasn’t.

  Gamache recognized it immediately. He himself had given it to Michel years, decades, ago.

  It had once been Armand’s most precious possession.

  It was a handkerchief. A Christmas gift from Armand’s mother to his father.

  He remembered watching her embroider his father’s initials, HG, in the corner of each one. Zora had offered to help. His mother thanked her, but refused. She wanted to do them herself. Not because it was easy, but because it was difficult. Embroidery did not come naturally to her. And so the HGs were slightly bizarre, and only really intelligible to someone who knew what they were meant to be.

  Some looked like H6. Some looked like #Q. Some had tiny dots of blood, where she’d pricked herself.

  But all said the same thing, if you knew how to read them.

  HG, Honoré Gamache, was loved. By Amelia.

  His father had carried one in his pocket every day of his life.

  The morning after their deaths, Armand had gone into their room. The scent of them, the sense of them, almost too much to bear. The clothing. The book. The bookmark. The bedside clock, still ticking. He’d thought that strange. Surely it should have stopped.

  And there, on the chest of drawers, a clean handkerchief for a day that would never come.

  He’d shoved it in his pocket. And kept it with him always.

  Until one day, while playing king of the castle, Michel had fallen and gashed his knee. Armand had taken the handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to the wound. And when the bleeding had stopped, he’d looked at it, then at Michel, who was wiping away tears with the sleeve of his sweater.

  Armand brought out his penknife and made a very small cut in his own finger. Michel took a stuttering breath, tears stopping as he watched Armand dab his finger on the blood-soaked handkerchief.

  On that day they had become more than brothers-in-arms.

  “Blood brothers,” Armand had said, offering the handkerchief to Michel. Who took it. And kept it. All these years.

  And now, a lifetime later, it had returned. Armand’s mappa mundi. The map of his world. The mundane and the magnificent, fused.

  The blood had made a sort of rose pattern, just touching the HG in the corner.

  Armand looked away and met Michel’s eyes.

  “I’m many things,” said Michel. “But I am not a murderer.”

  “Then who killed Serge Leduc?”

  * * *

  Paul Gélinas stood at the window, looking out across the fields. A few months ago, he’d been in Paris, looking out over the Jardin des Tuileries. He’d been in Luxembourg, admiring the medieval ruins. He’d stood on the Bridge of Sighs in Venice.

  Now he surveyed this endless, lifeless prairie.

  “Let’s go fly a kite,” he sang under his breath.

  In showing him the laptop, Lacoste had shown him his fate. His barren future.

  And now he waited for the knock on the door.

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