“You’re new to this post—”
“I’ve been in the Serious Crimes division for fifteen years.”
“But being in charge is different, non?”
She put down her sandwich, wiped her hands, and nodded.
“You’ve been handed a huge task. But it’s also a great opportunity,” said the chief. “You get to reinvent your entire department. Organize it, define it, put your stamp on it. Toss out all the old ideas, and begin fresh. I chose you because you stood up to the corruption and paid the price.”
Madeleine Toussaint nodded. She’d been on her way out when Armand Gamache had reached down and pulled her back.
She wasn’t so sure she should thank him.
All sorts of eyes were on her.
The first woman in charge of Serious Crimes. The first Haitian to head up any department.
It was, her husband had made clear, an impossible task. It was as though a ship filled with shit was sinking in an ocean of piss.
And she’d just been promoted to captain.
“They chose you because you’re a black woman,” her husband had said. “You’re expendable. If you fail, that’s okay. You can do their dirty work, clean up their house, as Haitians have for decades. And you know what you’ll get?”
“No, what?” Though she knew where this was heading.
“Even more shit. You’ll have their merde all over you, and you’ll be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb—”
“All these farm animals, André. Is there something you need to tell me?”
He’d grown angry then. But then he was often angry. Not abusive, not violent. But he was a thirty-nine-year-old black man. He’d been stopped so many times by the cops, he’d stopped counting. They’d had to train their fourteen-year-old son, from the time he could walk, how to behave when stopped by the cops. When harassed. When targeted. When pushed and provoked.
Don’t react. Move slowly. Show your hands. Be polite, do as you’re asked. Don’t react.
André had a right to his anger, his cynicism.
She was also angry, enraged often. But she was willing to give it one last chance. As she’d been given one last chance.
“You might be right,” she said. “But I have to try.”
“Gamache is like all the rest,” he’d said. “Just wait. When the shit starts flying, he’ll step aside and it’ll hit you. That’s why he chose you.”
“He chose me because I’m very, very good at what I do,” she said, getting angry herself. “If you can’t see that, then we have to have another discussion.”
She’d glared at him, her anger heightened by her suspicion he was right.
And now she sat with Chief Superintendent Gamache, at a little wooden table, surrounded by laughing, chatting diners.
And he was asking her to build the ship mid-ocean. The shit ship was taking on piss, and he wanted her not just to repair it, but to redesign it?
Madeleine Toussaint looked across the table, into his worn face. If that was all she saw, she’d think him spent and those who followed him doomed. But she saw that the creases radiating from his eyes and mouth were made more from humor than weariness. And the eyes, deep brown, were not just intelligent, they were thoughtful.
And kind.
And determined.
Far from being spent, here was a person at the height of his power. And he’d reached down, into the muck, and pulled her up. And given her power beyond imagining. And asked her to stand beside him. To stand with him.
To run Serious Crimes.
“When you feel overwhelmed, come talk to me,” he said. “I know what it’s like. I’ve felt like that myself.”
“And who do you talk to, sir?”
He smiled, and the lines down his face deepened. “My wife. I tell her everything.”
“Everything?”
“Well, almost. It’s important, Madeleine, not to cut people out of our lives. Isolation doesn’t make us better at our job. It makes us weaker, more vulnerable.”
She nodded. She’d have to think about that.
“My husband says you’ve made me captain of a sinking ship. That this is an unsalvageable situation.”
Gamache nodded thoughtfully, and took a long, deep breath. “He’s right. In part. The situation as it stands is untenable, unwinnable. As I said in the meeting, the war on drugs is lost. So what do we do?”
Toussaint shook her head.
“Think,” he said, intense.
And she did. What to do when your position was unwinnable?
You either give up, or—
“We change.”
He smiled. And nodded. “We change. But not slightly. We need a radical change, and that, unfortunately, cannot come from the old guard. It needs bold, creative new minds. And brave hearts.”
“But you’re—”
She stopped herself just in time. Or perhaps, not quite in time.
Chief Superintendent Gamache looked at her with amusement.
“Old?”
“Er.”
“Er?” he asked.
“Older,” she said. “Désolé.”
“Don’t be. It’s true. But someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be expendable.”
Madeleine Toussaint knew then that her husband might’ve been right about many things, but he’d been wrong about one. She was not the goat tethered to the ground. To draw the predators.
Gamache was.
“We have a great advantage, Superintendent,” said Gamache, his voice crisp and businesslike again. “Several actually. Our predecessors spent most of their energy on breaking their own laws and covering up. They also spent much of their time on internecine wars. Firing at each other, sometimes literally. Crime got out of control, partly because the attention of the top S?reté officers was on their own corruption, and partly because the cartels paid good money for blind eyes.”
“They blinded their own eyes,” said Toussaint. “For money and power.”
“Yes. Very Greek.” But he didn’t look amused. And she wondered if that was a joke or if he really did see it as an ancient tragedy playing out in modern-day Québec.
“And now?” she asked.
“You said it yourself. We change. Everything. While appearing to change nothing.” He looked at her, studying her. “The only reason we police as we do is because someone a century ago organized us this way. But what worked then doesn’t work now. You’re young. Use that to your advantage. Our adversaries are expecting the same old tactics.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. But it was filled with energy, awe even.
“Reinvent, Madeleine. Make it new and bold. Now’s our chance. While no one thinks we can do it. While no one’s looking. Your husband isn’t alone. Everyone thinks that the S?reté is irreparably damaged. Not just in reputation, but that there’s rot. And the whole thing is teetering. And you know what? They’re right. So we can either spend our time and energy and resources propping up a mortally damaged institution, or we can begin again.”
“And what do we do?” she asked, swept up in his excitement.
He leaned back. “I don’t know.”
She felt herself deflate, but only slightly. Part of her was pleased to hear it. It meant she could contribute rather than just implement.