“I need ideas,” Gamache said. “From you. From the others. I’ve been thinking about it.”
He’d spent many autumn mornings and evenings, Henri and Gracie at his feet, sitting on the bench above Three Pines. The one inscribed Surprised by Joy and, above that, A Brave Man in a Brave Country.
He’d looked at the tiny village, going about its life, and then beyond that, the mountains and forest and ribbon of golden river. And he’d thought. And he’d thought.
He’d turned down the job of Chief Superintendent of the S?reté, Québec’s top cop, twice. Partly because he didn’t want to be the one on the bridge when a ship he’d once so admired went down. And he couldn’t see any way to save it.
But the third time he was asked, he again took himself up to the bench, and he thought. About the corruption. The damage done.
He thought about the S?reté Academy and the young recruits. He thought about a life of peace. Of quiet. Here in Three Pines. Off the map. Off the radar.
Safe.
Reine-Marie had often joined him. They’d sit side by side, quietly. Until one evening, she’d spoken.
“I was just thinking about Odysseus,” she’d said.
“Oddly”—he turned to her—“I was not.”
She’d laughed. “I was thinking about his retirement.”
“Odysseus retired?”
“He did. As an old man he was tired. Of war. He was even tired of the sea. And so he took an oar and walked into the woods. He walked and walked, until he found a people who had no idea what an oar was. And there he made his home. Where no one would know the name Odysseus. Where no one would have heard of the Trojan War. Where he could live out his life anonymously. In peace.”
Armand had sat very still and very silent for a long time, looking at Three Pines.
And then he’d gotten up, and returned home. And made a phone call.
Odysseus’s battle was done. His war won.
Gamache’s wasn’t yet won. Or lost. There was at least one more battle.
And now here he was in a bistro in Old Montréal with a very young superintendent, talking about ships.
“My husband was right about the leaky ship. But he was wrong about something else. I’m not alone.”
“No, you’re not.”
She nodded. She’d felt alone for so long she’d failed to notice that was no longer the case. She had colleagues. People standing not behind her, but beside her.
“We need to commit totally,” she said. “Burn our ships. No going back.”
Gamache stared at her, then sat back in his chair.
“Patron?” she asked, just a little afraid he was having a petit mal. Or maybe, as the moments went by, a grand mal.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and drew a napkin toward him.
Taking a pen from his breast pocket, he scribbled a few words, then looked up and smiled, beamed, at her. He folded the napkin and put it in his pocket. And leaned toward her.
“That’s what we’ll do. We won’t repair the ship. We’ll burn it.”
He gave one firm nod.
When Superintendent Toussaint arrived back after lunch, she was reenergized. Invigorated. By his words. And she tried not to think about the hint of madness that had played on the edges of Chief Superintendent Gamache’s tone.
Madeleine Toussaint might have been the first, but before it was over she’d be far from the last person to think that the new head of the S?reté had lost his mind.
CHAPTER 13
The first meeting of the afternoon was with Inspector Beauvoir, who wanted to discuss a suggestion that the S?reté form a ceremonial drill team.
“Like in the military,” said Beauvoir. “Those close marches.”
Chief Superintendent Gamache listened, unconvinced. “Why would we do that?”
“Well, now, this isn’t my idea, one of the senior officers came to me with it. When I stopped laughing, I started to think.”
He gave his boss a stern look of warning not to be a smart-ass. Gamache lifted his hand in surrender.
“It could start in the academy, with training,” Beauvoir continued. “It would be, I think, a great way to bond, but it’d also be something we could take into communities. You’re always saying we need to rebuild trust. We could go into schools and community centers and put on shows. Maybe as fundraisers for local food banks or rehabs.”
Now Gamache was leaning forward, nodding.
“You know, that’s a terrific idea.”
They discussed it for a few minutes.
When they’d finished, Gamache got to his feet. He was tempted to show Jean-Guy the napkin from lunch. And the words scrawled there.
But he didn’t.
It wasn’t time yet. He needed to sit quietly, and think.
“I’m glad that thing on the village green has gone,” said Beauvoir, walking to the door. “But you still have no idea why he was there?”
“None. And he’s taken up more than enough of my time.”
Jean-Guy adjusted his glasses. They were new to him, and the younger man found it humiliating to need them. The first sign of decrepitude.
It also didn’t help that the chief, a good twenty years older than Beauvoir, only needed his for reading, whereas Jean-Guy had been told he needed to wear his all the time.
“Honoré grabbed them last night at bath time,” said Jean-Guy, taking them off and examining them again. “Pulled them right into the water. That kid’s strong.”
“Are you sure it was Honoré who threw them into the water?” asked Armand, taking the glasses from Beauvoir and quickly adjusting them.
He’d had years of experience with twisted and damaged frames.
He handed them back.
“Merci, patron. What are you suggesting?”
“Sabotage, sir,” said Gamache melodramatically. “And then you have the temerity to blame your infant son. You’re a scoundrel.”
“Jeez, Annie said the same thing. Are you colluding?”
“Yes. We speak endlessly about your glasses.”
That was when the very gentle ding was heard from Gamache’s laptop.
The vast majority of his mail went through Madame Clarke to sort and prioritize. There was a shocking amount of it, but Gina Clarke had proven up to the task, and then some. Even organizing the Chief Superintendent, as though he was just one more email to be replied to, forwarded or sometimes deleted.
Jean-Guy often sat in the chief’s outer office just to watch him be bossed around by the young woman with the pierced nose and pink hair. It was as though Tinker Bell had turned.
But this email had been sent to his private work account.
Gamache got up and walked to his desk. “Do you mind waiting for a moment?”
“Not at all, patron.”
Jean-Guy stood by the door and checked his own messages.
Gamache clicked on the email. It was the report from the lab on the drugs found on Paul Marchand the evening before. But the chief was interrupted by a call on his cell phone.
“Oui, all?,” he picked up the phone, while studying the computer screen, his face grim.
“Armand?”
It was Reine-Marie.
Something was wrong.
*
“So she called you first, before dialing 911?” asked the Crown.
“She did,” said Gamache. Was it getting even hotter in the courtroom? He could feel his shirt, under his jacket, sticking to his skin.
“And what did she tell you?”