“Which one do you want?” Father Antoine asked when they were in his office at the back of the church.
“The 1930s forward, please,” said the Chief. He’d called ahead and spoken to Father Antoine, but still the priest seemed put out.
He looked around the room, as did Gamache. Books and files were everywhere. Gamache could see that it had once been a comfortable, even inviting, room. There were two easy chairs, a hearth, bookcases. But now it felt neglected. Filled, but empty.
“It’ll be over there.” The priest pointed to a bookcase by the window, dropped the keys on the desk, and left.
“Merci, mon père,” the Chief called after him, then closed the door, turned on the lamp on the desk, took off his coat, and got to work.
*
Chief Superintendent Francoeur handed the paper to his lunch companion and watched as he read, folded it back up, and placed it on the table beside the bone china plate with the warm whole-grain roll. A curl of shaved butter sat beside a sterling silver knife.
“What do you think it means?” his companion asked. His voice, as always, was warm, friendly, steady. Never flustered, rarely angry.
Francoeur didn’t smile, but he felt like it. Unlike Tessier, this man wasn’t fooled by Gamache’s plodding attempt to throw them off.
“He suspects we’ve bugged his office,” said Francoeur. He was hungry, but he didn’t dare appear distracted in front of this man. “That”—he nodded toward the paper on the linen tablecloth—“was meant for us.”
“I agree. But what does it mean? Is he resigning or not? What message is he sending us? Is this”—he tapped the paper—“a surrender, or a trick?”
“To be honest, sir, I don’t think it matters.”
Now Francoeur’s companion looked interested. Curious.
“Go on.”
“We’re so close. Having to deal with that woman at first seemed a problem—”
“By ‘deal with,’ you mean throwing Audrey Villeneuve off the Champlain Bridge,” the man said. “A problem you and Tessier created.”
Francoeur gave him a thin smile and composed himself. “No, sir. She created it by exceeding her mandate.”
He didn’t say that she should never have been able to find the information. But she had. Knowledge might be power, but it was also an explosive.
“We contained it,” said Francoeur. “Before she could say anything.”
“But she did say something,” his companion pointed out. “It was only good luck that she went to her supervisor, who then came to us. It was very nearly a catastrophe.”
The use of that word struck Francoeur as interesting, and ironic, considering what was about to happen.
“And we’re sure she didn’t tell anyone else?”
“It would’ve come out by now,” said Francoeur.
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“She didn’t really know what she’d found,” said Francoeur.
“No, Sylvain. She knew, but she couldn’t quite believe it.”
Instead of anger in his companion’s face, Francoeur saw satisfaction. And felt a frisson of that himself.
They’d counted on two things. Their ability to conceal what was happening and, if found, that it would be dismissed as inconceivable. Unbelievable.
“Audrey Villeneuve’s files were immediately overwritten, her car cleaned out, her home searched,” said Francoeur. “Anything even remotely incriminating has disappeared.”
“Except her. She was found. Tessier and his people missed the water. Hard to do, wouldn’t you say, given it’s such a large target? Makes me wonder how good their aim must be.”
Francoeur looked around. They were alone in the dining room, except for a cluster of bodyguards by the door. No one could see them. No one could record them. No one could overhear them. But still, Francoeur lowered his voice. Not to a whisper. That felt too much like plotting. But he dropped his voice to a discreet level.
“That turned out to be the best possible outcome,” said Francoeur. “It’s still listed as a suicide, but the fact that her body was found under the bridge allowed Tessier and his people to get under there too. Without questions being asked. It was a godsend.”
Francoeur’s companion raised his brows and smiled.
It was an attractive, almost boyish expression. His face held just enough character, just enough flaws, to appear genuine. His voice held a hint of roughness, so that his words never came across as glib. His suits, while tailored, were just that little bit off, so that he looked like both an executive and a man of the people.
One of us, to everyone.
There were few people Sylvain Francoeur admired. Few men he met he didn’t immediately want to piss on. But this man was one. More than thirty years they’d known each other. They’d met as young men and each had risen in his respective profession.
Francoeur’s lunch companion ripped the warm bun in half and buttered it.
He’d come up the hard way, Francoeur knew. But he’d come up. From a worker on the James Bay hydro dams to one of the most powerful men in Québec.