“I’m sorry,” Agent Morin repeated. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. Are you hurt?” Gamache had asked.
“No.” He sounded terrified and trying not to show it.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find you.”
There was a pause. “Yes sir.”
“But you still haven’t answered my question,” said Ruth, impatiently. “Do you think I have all night? What had the farmer done, besides the shit bomb?”
Jean-Guy Beauvoir looked down at the white, plastic garden table, feeling its rough edges. No doubt the demented old poet had found it by the side of some road or in a Dumpster.
Some piece of trash no one else wanted. She’d brought it home with her.
He stared for a very long time at the table, in a daze. No one had been told this, it hadn’t been made public. And Beauvoir knew he shouldn’t be saying anything now.
But he had to tell someone and who better than someone who didn’t care? There’d be no sympathy, no pity, no real understanding. There’d be no awkwardness when they saw each other in the village, because while he’d bared his soul to her she wouldn’t care.
“The bomb was wired to the phone line,” he finally said, still staring at his hands and the expanse of white table. “It would go off if the line was cut.”
“Okay,” she said.
“And it would be cut if there was dead air. If they stopped talking for more than a few seconds.”
There was silence then. “So you all took turns talking,” said Ruth.
Beauvoir took a deep breath and sighed. There was something in the corner, by Ruth’s chair, something he couldn’t quite make out. A sweater she’d dropped or a dish towel.
“It didn’t work that way. He needed Gamache tied to Morin, so he couldn’t search for him.”
“What do you mean, ‘tied to Morin’?”
“There was voice recognition. It needed to be the two of them. Morin and the Chief.”
“Oh, come on,” laughed Ruth. “There’s no such thing. You’re making this up.”
Beauvoir was silent.
“Well, okay, maybe you’re not, but the farmer sure was. Are you telling me some backwoods bumpkin made a bomb, then a timer, then attached it to the phone line with, what did you call it? Voice recognition?”
“Would you risk it?” he growled, his eyes hard, daring her to go further. Hating her, as he knew he would, for seeing him so vulnerable. For not caring, for mocking. But he already hated her, what was a little more bile?
He pressed his lips together so hard he could feel his teeth cutting through.
In the office he watched his Chief as Gamache realized what this meant.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the young voice said down the phone line.
“I’m going to find you,” the Chief promised.
“They talked the whole time?” Ruth asked.
“Every moment. For twenty-four hours. Until 11:18 the next morning.”
Beauvoir glanced into the corner and knew what was curled there. It was a blanket, a soft, flannel blanket made into a nest. Ready. Just in case.
Armand Gamache woke, groggy, and looked at the bedside clock.
Three twenty in the morning.
He felt the chill of the night air on his face and the warmth of the sheets and duvet around him. Lyng there, he hoped maybe this time he’d fall back asleep but eventually he got up. Slowly, stiffly. Putting on one light he dressed. As he sat on the side of the bed gathering himself he stared at the small pill bottle on the bedside table. Beside him Henri watched, his tail swishing back and forth, his eyes bright, a fluorescent yellow tennis ball in his mouth. Gamache gripped the bottle in his large hand, feeling it there. Then he placed it in his pocket and walked quietly downstairs, making sure not to waken émile. Gamache put on his parka, his scarf, his toque and mitts. Lastly, he picked up the Chuck-it and they stepped out into the night.
Up the street they walked, their feet squeaking on the hard snow. At rue St-Louis they turned out the gate through the walls of the fortified and frozen city and past the ice palace. Bonhomme’s palace.
Then onto the Plains of Abraham to toss the ball and contemplate a general’s fatal mistakes. Henri, Chief Inspector Gamache and Agent Morin.