She was wrong, she knew. The motto might mean that, at a superficial level, but there was more to it. And more to this man.
She’d noticed something else in his gaze. A shrewdness, as though he knew her better than she knew herself. As though he saw something in her, something she didn’t think he altogether liked.
*
“Well, that was interesting,” said Reine-Marie after they’d cleaned up and could finally collapse into the seats by the fire. “Did you happen to notice a slight tension?”
It was asked with wide-eyed innocence, as though she could be wrong.
“Maybe just a little,” said her husband, joining her on the sofa.
“Want some?” asked Beauvoir. He’d gone down into the kitchens and grabbed a tray of sandwiches, which he held with one hand while eating with the other.
Now he offered the tray to Armand and Reine-Marie, who each took one.
“I don’t like it,” said Beauvoir, sitting in the Barcelona chair, which he now claimed as his own.
“What?” asked Reine-Marie.
“This whole thing,” said Beauvoir. “Socializing with cadets.”
“The lower orders?” asked Reine-Marie. “You seemed to be enjoying yourself.”
“Well, maybe a little,” he admitted. “What’s with that Goth girl? How did she get in? She doesn’t seem to even want to be here. Some of the cadets might be a little soft, but at least they’re eager. She’s just…”
He looked for the right word, then turned to his father-in-law.
“No, not evil,” said Beauvoir, before Gamache could.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Then how would you describe her?” Beauvoir asked.
“Adrift,” said Gamache. Then he paused. “No, not adrift. Drowning.”
“Troubled, certainly,” said Reine-Marie. “Why did you admit her, Armand? When last I heard, she’d been rejected.”
“What?” Beauvoir struggled to sit forward on the chair. “She’d been rejected and you changed that? Why?”
“I went over the application for every first-year cadet,” said Armand. “They’re all here because I saw something in them.”
“And what did you see in her?” Reine-Marie asked, getting in before Beauvoir could ask the same question, though not, she knew, with the same tone.
“A last chance,” he said. “A lifeline.”
There was a knock on the door and he got up.
“This isn’t a reform school,” Beauvoir called after him. “The S?reté Academy isn’t a charity.”
At the door Gamache turned, his hand on the knob. “Who said the lifeline was for her?”
Armand opened the door and came face-to-face with Michel Brébeuf.
Reine-Marie stood up and walked to her husband’s side.
“Armand,” said Brébeuf, then turning to her, “Reine-Marie.”
“Michel,” she said, her voice curt but courteous. She could smell the Scotch on his breath but he didn’t seem drunk.
“I’m sorry I showed up uninvited to your party.” He gave her an embarrassed, almost boyish, smile. “I didn’t mean to. I came in a day early because of the storm and wanted to drop by to let you know I was here. I walked right in on the party. I came back to apologize.”
“I’m a little tired,” Reine-Marie said to Armand. “I think I’ll go to bed. Michel.”
She nodded toward him, and he smiled.
As Reine-Marie left the room, Jean-Guy caught a look pass between the Gamaches.
She was angry, livid, at this further incursion into their private space, their private time. Jean-Guy had rarely seen his mother-in-law angry. Armand knew it too and acknowledged it with a quick squeeze of her hand before she walked into the bedroom and closed the door. Firmly.
“You know Jean-Guy Beauvoir, of course,” said Armand, and the two shook hands.
“Yes, Inspector. How are you?”
“Fine,” said Beauvoir. “As are you, obviously.”
Superintendent Brébeuf had also been Beauvoir’s boss, but so far up the ladder that they rarely met. And now here they were, as though equals. As though nothing had happened.
They were all playing the game. The charade.
One word. Sounds like hypocrisy.
But Beauvoir also knew there was more to it than that. Yes, the Gamaches were pretending to be civil. But there was history there. Not just of hurt, but of deep affection.
Would the affection win? Should it? Was such a thing even possible? Beauvoir wondered.
Jean-Guy watched as Gamache invited Brébeuf in. The former superintendent stood in front of the fire and waited for Armand to invite him to sit.
It was a long, ripe moment.
And then Armand gestured, and Michel sat.
And Beauvoir left, taking the sick feeling in his stomach with him.
CHAPTER 9
“Help yourself,” said Armand, waving toward the sideboard and the bottles lined up there.
Without waiting to see what Brébeuf did, he went into the bedroom and over to Reine-Marie, who was hanging up her clothes.
“You okay?” he asked, watching her fluid movements, her back to him.
Then she turned around and he could see she’d been crying.
“Oh,” was all he managed, taking her in his arms.
After a few moments, she pulled away and he handed her a handkerchief.
“It’s just upsetting,” she said, waving the handkerchief as though to clear the air. “When I see Michel, and hear him, for a moment I forget. It’s like nothing has happened. And then I remember what happened.”
She sighed. And looked toward the closed door.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked, dragging his handkerchief under her eyes to wipe away the mascara.
“Michel Brébeuf is no threat,” he said, holding her hands and holding her eyes. “Not anymore. He’s a paper tiger.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure, ma belle. Are you all right? Do you want me to ask him to leave?”
“Non. I’m fine. I have some reading to do. You go back and entertain that shithead.”
Armand looked at her with surprise.
She laughed. “I seem to be channeling Ruth. It’s quite liberating.”
“That’s one word for it. After I get rid of Michel, I’ll call an exorcist.”
He kissed her and left.
At one in the morning, Reine-Marie turned out the light. Armand was still in the living room with Michel. She could hear their laughter.
*
“Oh my God, I’d forgotten that,” said Michel.
The bottle of Scotch had been moved from the drinks table to the coffee table, and the level had moved down considerably.
“How could you forget Professor Meunier?” said Armand, reaching for the bottle and pouring them each another shot. Then sitting back, he put his slippered feet on the footstool. “He was like something out of a cartoon. Barking orders and throwing chalk at us. I still have the scar.”
He pointed to the back of his head.
“You should’ve ducked.”
“You shouldn’t have provoked him. He was aiming at you, as I remember.”
Michel Brébeuf laughed. “Okay, I remember.” His laughter slowed to a chuckle and then silence. “Those were the longest three years of my life. The academy. I think they also might have been the happiest. We were so young. Is it possible?”
“Nineteen years old when we entered,” said Armand. “I looked at the kids here tonight and wondered if we were ever so young. And I wondered how we got so old. It seems no time has passed. Came as a surprise that we’re now the professors.”
“Not just professors,” said Michel, raising his glass in salute. “But the Commander.”
He drank, then looking into the glass, he spoke softly.
“Why…”
“Oui?” said Armand, when the silence had stretched on.
“Leduc.”
“Why did I keep him on?”
Brébeuf nodded.
“You two seemed to hit it off tonight. You tell me.”
“He invited me back to his rooms after the party,” said Brébeuf. “He’s a cretin.”
“He’s worse than that,” said Gamache.
“Yes,” said Brébeuf, studying his companion. “What’re you going to do about him?”
“Ahhh, Michel,” said Armand, crossing his legs and raising his glass to his eyes, so that he saw Brébeuf through the amber liquid. “You worry about your side of the street. There’s enough mess there to keep you busy. I’ll worry about mine.”
Brébeuf nodded, eating a stale sandwich as he thought. Finally he asked, “Have you told the cadets about Matthew 10:36 yet?”