“There’s a tower up there already. One you know about.”
Gamache looked at his companion, perplexed. “I don’t think so. We’d be able to see it, non?”
“No. That’s the beauty of it,” said Gilles, excited now. “It’s practically invisible. In fact, you can barely tell it’s there even from right under it.”
Gamache was unconvinced. He knew those woods, not, perhaps, as intimately as Gilles, but well enough. And nothing came to mind.
“Just tell me,” said the Chief. “What’re you talking about?”
“When Ruth was talking about killing that bird, it made me think of hunting. And that reminded me of the blind.”
The Chief’s face went slack from surprise. Merde, he thought. The hunting blind. That wooden structure high up in a tree in the forest. It was a platform with wooden railings, built by hunters to sit comfortably and wait for a deer to walk past. Then they’d kill it. The modern equivalent of the Ancient Mariner in his crow’s nest.
It was, for a man who’d seen far too many deaths, shameful.
But it might, this day, redeem itself.
“The blind,” whispered Gamache. He’d actually been on it, when he’d first come to Three Pines to investigate the murder of Miss Jane Neal, but he hadn’t thought of it in years. “It’ll work?”
“I think so. It’s not as high as a transmission tower, but it’s on the top of the hill and it’s stable. We can attach a satellite dish up there for sure.”
Gamache waved Thérèse and Jér?me over.
“Gilles’s figured out how to get a satellite dish up above.”
“How?” the Brunels asked together and the Chief told them.
“That’ll work?” asked Jér?me.
“We won’t know until we try, of course,” said Gilles, but he was smiling and clearly hopeful, if not completely confident. “When do you need it up by?”
“The dish and other equipment are arriving sometime tonight,” said Gamache, and both Thérèse and Jér?me looked at him, surprised.
Gilles walked with them to the door. The others were just leaving, and the four of them put on their parkas and boots, hats and mitts. They thanked Clara, then left.
Gilles stopped at his car. “I’ll be by tomorrow morning then,” he said. “à demain.”
They shook hands, and after he’d driven away Gamache turned to the Brunels.
“Do you mind walking Henri? I’d like a word with Ruth.”
Thérèse took the leash. “I won’t ask which word.”
*
“Good.”
Sylvain Francoeur glanced from the document his second in command had downloaded, then went back to the computer. They were in the Chief Superintendent’s study at home.
As his boss read the report, Tessier tried to read his boss. But in all the years he’d worked for the Chief Superintendent, he’d never been able to do that.
Classically handsome, in his early sixties, the Chief Superintendent could smile and bite your head off. He could quote Chaucer and Tintin, in either educated French or broad joual. He’d order poutine for lunch and foie gras for dinner. He was all things. To all people. He was everything and he was nothing.
But Francoeur also had a boss. Someone he answered to. Tessier had seen the Chief Superintendent with him just once. The man hadn’t been introduced as Francoeur’s boss, of course, but Tessier could tell by the way Francoeur behaved. “Grovel” would be too strong a word, but there’d been anxiety there. Francoeur had been as anxious to please that man as Tessier was to please Francoeur.
At first it had amused Tessier, but then the smile had burned away when he realized there was someone who scared the most frightening man he knew.
Francoeur finally sat back, rocking a little in the chair.
“I need to get back to my guests. I see it went well.”
“Perfectly.” Tessier kept his face placid, his voice neutral. He’d learned to mirror his boss. “We got completely kitted out, drove there in the assault van. By the time we got there Beauvoir could barely stand. I made sure some of the evidence ended up in a baggie in his pocket, with my compliments.”
“I don’t need to know the details,” said Francoeur.
“Sorry, sir.”
It wasn’t, Tessier knew, because Francoeur was squeamish. It was that he just didn’t care. All he cared about was that it was done. The details he left up to his subordinates.
“I want him sent on another raid.”
“Another?”
“Do you have a problem with that, Inspector?”
“It’s a waste of time, in my opinion, sir. Beauvoir’s had it. He’s past the edge now, hanging in midair. He just hasn’t fallen. But he will. There’s no way back for him and nothing to go back to. He’s lost everything, and he knows it. Another raid is unnecessary.”
“Is that so? You think this is about Beauvoir?”
The calm should have warned him. The slight smile certainly should have. But Inspector Tessier had taken his eyes off Francoeur’s face.
“I realize this is about Chief Inspector Gamache.”
“Do you?”
“But did you see here—” Tessier leaned forward and pointed to the computer screen. He didn’t see that the Chief Superintendent’s eyes never left him. Never wavered. Barely blinked.
“The psychologist’s report, Dr. Fleury. Gamache was so upset he went to see him today. A Saturday.”
Too late, he looked up into those glacier eyes. “We picked this off Dr. Fleury’s computer late this afternoon.”
He hoped for some sign of approval. A slight thaw. A sign of life. But all he met was the dead stare.
“He says Gamache is spinning out of control. Delusional even. Don’t you see?” And even as he said that he could have shot himself. And might have. Francoeur saw everything, ten steps ahead of everyone else. Which was why they were on the verge of success.
There’d been a few unexpected setbacks. The raid on the factory was one. The dam plot discovered. Gamache again.
But that’s what made this report all the sweeter. The Chief Superintendent should be pleased. Then why was he looking like that? Tessier felt his blood cool and grow thick and his heart labor.
“If Gamache ever tries to go public, his own therapist’s report can be leaked. His credibility will be gone. No one will believe a man who…” Tessier looked over at the report, desperate to find that perfect sentence. He found it and read, “… is suffering from persecution mania. Seeing conspiracies and plots.”
Tessier scrolled down, reading fast. Trying to create a wall of reassuring words between himself and Francoeur.
“Chief Inspector Gamache is not simply a broken man,” he read, “but shattered. When I return from Christmas vacation I will recommend he be relieved of duty.”
Tessier looked up and met, again, those arctic eyes. Nothing had changed. Those words, if they penetrated, had only found more ice. Colder. Older. Endless.
“He’s isolated,” said Tessier. “Inspector Lacoste is the only one left of his original investigators. The rest have either transferred out on their own or been moved by you. His last senior ally, Superintendent Brunel, has even abandoned him. She also thinks he’s delusional. We have the recordings from her office. And Gamache refers to it here.”