“You remember the analogy? Yes, that’s exactly it. Who’d be foolish enough to rock a lifeboat?”
And what would the passengers do to keep the peace, wondered the Chief Inspector. He sipped his coffee and took in the room. It was faded and comfortable, a room he would choose to live in. Did she not notice, though, the worn fabric, the chipped paint? The small repairs adding up? He knew when people lived in a place for a long time, a lifetime, they stopped seeing it as it is, instead always seeing it as it was.
And yet, the outside of the home had been kept up. Painted, repaired.
“Speaking of small communities, do you know the Mundin family?”
“The Mundins? Yes, of course. He ran a successful antique shop on Petit-Champlain for years. Had beautiful things. I’ve taken a few things there.”
Gamache looked at her quizzically.
“To sell, Chief Inspector.”
It was said without flinching, without blushing, without apology. A statement of fact.
And he had his answer. She noticed everything but used her modest income to only repair the outside. The fa?ade, the public face. The famous MacWhirter fortune had disappeared, become a fiction, one she chose to keep up.
This was a woman for whom appearances mattered, fa?ades mattered. What would she be willing to do, to keep it in place?
“There was a tragedy, I hear,” he said. “With the Mundin family.”
“Yes, very sad. He killed himself one spring. Walked out onto the river and fell in. They called it an accident, but we all knew.”
“Thin ice.”
She smiled slightly. “Just so.”
“And why did he do it, do you think?”
Elizabeth thought about it then shook her head. “I can’t imagine. He seemed happy, but then things aren’t always as they seem.”
Like the gleaming paint, the pointed stones, the perfect exterior of this home.
“Had a couple of children though I only met the one. His son. Adorable, with curly blond hair. Used to follow his father everywhere. He had a nickname for him. Can’t remember it now.”
“Old.”
“Pardon?”
“ ‘Old’ was the nickname.”
“Yes, that’s right. ‘Old son,’ his father would say. I wonder what became of the boy.”
“He lives in a village called Three Pines, making and restoring furniture.”
“The things we learn from our parents,” said Elizabeth with a smile.
“My father taught me the fiddle,” said Agent Morin. “Did your father teach you an instrument?”
“No, though he used to love to sing. My father taught me poetry. We’d go for long walks through Outremont and onto Mont Royal, and he’d recite poetry. I’d repeat it. Not well, most of the words meant nothing to me, but I remembered it all, every word. Only later did I realize what it meant.”
“And what did it mean?”
“It meant the world,” said Gamache. “My father died when I was nine.”
Morin paused. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine losing my father, even now. It must have been terrible.”
“It was.”
“And your mother? It must have been awful for her.”
“She died too. It was a car accident.”
“I’m sorry,” said the voice, small now, in pain for the large man sitting comfortably in his office while the young agent was all alone, tied to a hard chair, strapped to a bomb, facing a wall with a clock.
Counting down. Six hours and twenty-three minutes left.
And on Gamache’s computer the rapid instant messages from his team, covertly following leads.
It was clear now the young agent wasn’t being held at the La Grande dam. Agent Nichol and Inspector Beauvoir couldn’t pick up the sounds of the massive turbines. But they could pick up other sounds. Trains. Some freight according to Nichol. Some passenger. Planes overhead.
Agent Nichol stripped back layer after layer of sound. Isolating bits and pieces.
We can’t trace the call because it’s embedded, her message had said.
What does that mean? Gamache had written.
It’s like a hobo, riding along on a telecommunication line. Popping up here and there. That’s why he seems to be everywhere at once.
Can you find which line?
Not enough time, Nichol replied.
Six hours left. Then two things would happen, simultaneously. A bomb would destroy the biggest dam in North America. And Agent Paul Morin would be executed.
As the moments ticked down Chief Inspector Armand Gamache knew a terrible decision was racing toward them. A choice.
“Is Mundin’s son happy?” Elizabeth asked.
It took Gamache a moment, a heart beat, to come back. “I think so. Has a son of his own. Charlie.”
“Charlie,” she smiled. “I always think it’s nice when a child is named for a parent.”
Elizabeth got up, clearing the breakfast things. Gamache carried the tray to the old kitchen.
“There’s someone else I wanted to ask you about,” said Gamache, drying the dishes. “Do you know Carole Gilbert?”
“As in Vincent Gilbert?”
“Oui,” though he couldn’t believe Madame Gilbert would like to be defined by her estranged and exacting husband.
“I knew her slightly, we belonged to the same bridge club. But I think she’s moved away. Quebec City is quite small, Chief Inspector. And old Québec even smaller, within the walls.”
“And social circles smaller still?” smiled the Chief.
“Exactly. Some defined by language, some by economics and social standing, some by common interests. And often they overlap, and most people belong to more than one circle of friends and acquaintances. Carole Gilbert was an acquaintance, of the bridge variety.”