He felt his heart tug, as tethers he never knew existed were released.
“We suggested she try to work it out with David.”
“What?” asked Beauvoir, shocked back to the present.
“We just don’t want to see her make a mistake.”
“But,” said Beauvoir, his mind racing. “Maybe she’s already made the mistake. Maybe David’s the mistake.”
“Maybe. But she has to be sure.”
“So what did you suggest?”
“We told her we’d support whatever she decided, but we did gently suggest couple’s counseling,” said the Chief, putting his large, expressive hands on the wooden table and trying to hold Beauvoir’s eyes. But all he saw was his daughter, his little girl, in their living room Sunday night.
She’d swung from sobbing to raging. From hating David, to hating herself, to hating her parents for suggesting counseling.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?” Gamache had finally asked.
“Like what?” Annie had demanded.
Her father had been quiet for a moment. Reine-Marie sat beside him on the sofa, looking from him to their daughter.
“Has he hurt you?” Gamache had asked. Clearly. His eyes firmly on his daughter. Searching for the truth.
“Physically?” Annie asked. “Has he hit me, do you mean?”
“I do.”
“Never. David would never do that.”
“Has he hurt you in other ways? Emotionally? Is he abusive?”
Annie shook her head. Gamache held his daughter’s eyes. He’d peered into the faces of so many suspects trying to glean the truth. But never did anything feel so important.
If David had abused his daughter—
He could feel the rage roil up, just at the thought. What would he do if he found out the man had actually—
Gamache had pulled himself back from that precipice and nodded. Accepting her answer. He’d sat beside her then, and folded her into his arms. Rocking her. Feeling her head in the hollow by his shoulder. Her tears through his shirt. Just as he’d done when she’d cried for Humpty Dumpty. But this time she was the one who’d had a great fall.
Eventually Annie pulled away and Reine-Marie handed her some tissues.
“Would you like me to shoot David?” Gamache had asked as she blew her nose with a mighty honk.
Annie laughed, catching her breath in snags. “Maybe just knee cap him.”
“I’ll move it to the very top of my to-do list,” said her father. Then he bent down so that they were eye to eye, his face serious now. “Whatever you decide to do, we’re behind you. Understand?”
She nodded, and wiped her face. “I know.”
Like Reine-Marie, he wasn’t necessarily shocked, but he was perplexed. There seemed something Annie wasn’t telling them. Something that didn’t quite add up. Every couple had difficult periods. He and Reine-Marie argued at times. Hurt each other’s feelings, at times. Never intentionally, but when people lived that close it was bound to happen.
“Suppose you and Dad had been married to different people when you met,” Annie finally asked, looking them square in the face. “What would you have done?”
They were silent, staring at their daughter. It had been, thought Gamache, exactly the same question Beauvoir had recently asked.
“Are you saying you’ve met someone else?” Reine-Marie asked.
“No,” Annie shook her head. “I’m saying the right person is out there for David and for me. And holding on to something wrong isn’t going to fix it. This will never be right.”
Later, when he and Reine-Marie were alone, she’d asked him the same question.
“Armand,” she’d asked, taking off her reading glasses as they lay in bed, each with their own books. “What would you have done if you’d been married when we met?”
Gamache lowered his book and stared ahead. Trying to imagine it. His love for Reine-Marie had been so immediate and so complete it was difficult seeing himself with anyone else, never mind married.
“God help me,” he finally said, turning to her. “I’d have left her. A terrible, selfish decision, but I’d have made a rotten husband after that. All your fault, you hussy.”
Reine-Marie had nodded. “I’d have done the same thing. Brought little Julio Jr. and Francesca with me, of course.”
“Julio and Francesca?”
“My children by Julio Iglesias.”
“Poor man, no wonder he sings so many sad songs. You broke his heart.”
“He’s never recovered.” She smiled.
“Perhaps we can introduce him to my ex,” said Gamache. “Isabella Rossellini.”
Reine-Marie snorted and picked up her book, but lowered it again.
“Not still thinking about Julio, I hope.”
“No,” she’d said. “I was thinking about Annie and David.”
“Do you think it’s over?” he’d asked.
She’d nodded. “I think she’s found someone else but doesn’t want to tell us.”
“Really?” She’d surprised him, but now he thought it might be true.
Reine-Marie nodded. “I think he might be married. Maybe someone at her law firm. That might explain why she’s changing jobs.”
“God, I hope not.”
But he also knew there was nothing he could do either way. Except be there to help pick up the pieces. But that image reminded him of something.
“Well, gotta get back to work,” said Beauvoir, rising. “The porn doesn’t look itself up.”
“Wait,” said Gamache. And seeing his Chief’s face Beauvoir sank back into his chair.
Gamache sat silently, his forehead furrowed. Thinking. Beauvoir had seen that look many times. He knew Chief Inspector Gamache was following a lead in his head. A thought, that led to another, that led to another. Into the darkness, not so much an alley as a shaft. Trying to find the thing most deeply hidden. The secret. The truth.
“You said the raid on the factory was what finally made you decide to separate from Enid.”
Beauvoir nodded. That much was the truth.
“I wonder if it had the same effect on Annie.”
“How so?”
“It was a shattering experience, for everyone,” said the Chief. “Not just us. But our families too. Maybe, like you, it made Annie reexamine her life.”
“Then why wouldn’t she tell you that?”
“Maybe she didn’t want me to feel responsible. Maybe she doesn’t even realize it herself, not consciously.”
Then Beauvoir remembered his conversation with Annie, before the vernissage. How she’d asked him about his separation. And made a vague allusion to the raid, and the fall-out.
She’d been right of course. It was the final push he’d needed.
He’d shut her down, refused to discuss it out of fear he’d say too much. But had she really been wanting to talk about her own turmoil?
“How would you feel if that’s what happened?” Beauvoir asked his Chief.
Chief Inspector Gamache sat back, his face slightly troubled.
“It might be a good thing,” suggested Beauvoir, quietly. “It would be good, wouldn’t it, if something positive came out of what happened? Maybe Annie can find real love now.”
Gamache looked at Jean Guy. Drawn, tired, too thin. He nodded.
“Oui. It would be good if something positive came out of what happened. But I’m not sure the end of my daughter’s marriage could be considered a good thing.”
But Jean Guy Beauvoir disagreed.
“Would you like me to stay?” he asked.
Gamache roused himself from his reverie. “I’d like you to actually do some work.”
“Well, I do have to look up ‘schnaugendender.’”