He got up and gave her a very small bow, then put on his coat and headed into the winter day.
From her armchair, Thérèse Brunel watched him walk briskly along the road ringing the village green and over to Gabri’s B and B. He disappeared inside.
*
“Yes, Chief,” said Inspector Lacoste. “I have it here.”
Gamache could hear the keys click on her computer. He’d called her on her cell and caught her at home this Sunday afternoon.
“It’ll take me just a moment.” Her voice was muffled and he could see her pinning the phone between her shoulder and ear, while tapping away on her laptop. Trying to find the one obscure reference.
“No rush,” he said, and sat on the side of the bed. In what he considered “his” bedroom at the B and B. And it still was. He’d kept it, paid for it, and even had a few of his personal items around.
In case anyone came looking.
And whenever he needed to make a call to Montréal, or Paris, he came here. If he was right, they’d be traced. He wanted nothing traced back to the Longpré house.
“Got it,” said Lacoste, and her voice became clear again as she read. “In Marguerite’s room … let’s see … two pairs of gloves. Some heavy mitts. Four winter scarves. And yes, here it is. Two hats. One warm and store-bought and one looked hand-knitted.”
Gamache stood up. “The hand-knitted one, can you describe it?”
He held his breath. Lacoste wasn’t looking at the actual inventory, that was still in the little home. She was reading from the notes she’d taken.
“It was red,” she read, “and had pine trees around it. A tag was sewn into it with MM on it.”
“Marie-Marguerite. Anything else?”
“About the tuque? Sorry, Chief, that’s it.”
“And the other bedrooms? Did Constance and Josephine also have those handmade hats?”
There was another pause and more clicking.
“Yes. Josephine’s was green with snowflakes. The tag inside says MJ. The one in Constance’s room had reindeer—”
“And a tag with MC.”
“How’d you guess?”
Gamache gave a short laugh. Lacoste went on to describe two other tuques, found in the back of the front hall closet, with MV and MH sewn in.
All accounted for.
“Why’s this important, Chief?”
“It might not be, but their mother knitted those hats. It seems the only things they kept from their childhoods. The only souvenirs.”
Remembrances, thought Gamache, of their mother. Of being mothered. And being individuals.
“There’s something else, patron.”
“And what’s that?”
He was so focused on the find that for a split second he failed to take in her darkening tone. The warning pulse before the impact. He started to stand up, to meet it. To bring up his defenses.
But he was just too late.
“Inspector Beauvoir’s been sent on another raid. You caught me in because I was monitoring it. This one’s bad.”
Chief Inspector Gamache felt his cheeks both flush and drain. The atmosphere around him seemed to disappear, as though he was suddenly in a sensory deprivation tank. All his senses seemed to fail at once, and he felt like he was suspended. Then falling.
Within a moment he started breathing again, and then his senses rushed back. Acute. Everything was suddenly stark, loud, bright.
“Tell me,” he said.
He gathered himself, steadied himself. With the exception of his right hand. That he kept closed in a tight, and tightening, fist.
“It was last-minute. Martin Tessier himself is leading it. Only four agents, from what I can gather.”
“What’s the target?” His voice was clipped, commanding. Assessing.
“A meth lab on the South Shore. Must be Boucherville, judging by the route they took.”
There was a pause.
“Inspector?” demanded Gamache.
“Sorry, Chief. Seems to be Brossard. But they took the Jacques Cartier Bridge.”
“The bridge doesn’t matter,” he said, irritated. “Has the raid begun?”
“Just. They’re meeting resistance. There’s arms fire.”
Gamache pressed the telephone to his ear, as though that would bring him closer.
“An ambulance has just been called. Medics going in. Officer hit.”
Lacoste, used to making reports, tried to make this one simply factual. And she almost succeeded.
“Officer down,” she repeated the phrase. The one she herself had shouted, over and over, as she’d seen both Beauvoir and the Chief shot down. In that factory.
Officer down.
“Christ,” she heard down the telephone line. It sounded more like a plea than profanity.
Gamache saw movement out of the corner of his eye and spun around. Agent Nichol was standing in the open doorway to his room. The perpetual sneer froze when she saw his face.
The Chief looked at her for a moment, then reached out and slammed the door shut with such force the pictures shook on the walls.
“Chief?” called Lacoste down the line. “Are you all right? What was that?”