TEN
‘Come in, Armand. Joyeuses Paques.’ Superintendent Brébeuf shook hands and closed the door.
‘Et vous, mon ami.’ Gamache smiled. ‘Happy Easter.’
The surprise of Reine-Marie’s news had worn off. He’d read the story and just as he’d finished his cell phone had rung. It was his friend and superior at the S?reté du Québec, Michel Brébeuf.
‘A case has come up,’ Brébeuf had said. ‘I know Daniel and his family are with you, I’m sorry. Can you spare some time?’
It was a courtesy, Gamache knew, for his boss to ask. He could have commanded. But then the two had grown up together, been best friends forever and gone into the S?reté together. They’d even gone after the Superintendent’s job together. Brébeuf had prevailed, but it had not affected their friendship.
‘They’re returning to Paris tonight. Not to worry. We’ve had a good visit though never long enough. I’ll be in shortly.’
He’d said his goodbyes to his son, his daughter-in-law and his Florence.
‘I’ll call later,’ he said to Reine-Marie, kissing her. She waved and watched him walk purposefully to the car park, hidden by a stand of pines. She watched until he was out of sight. And still she watched.
‘Have you read the papers?’ Brébeuf asked, settling into the swivel chair behind his desk.
‘Not so much read as chased.’ He remembered trying to read, his own massive boot print on the paper. ‘It’s not the Three Pines case you’re talking about.’
‘So you have read the papers.’
‘Reine-Marie pointed it out. But it said it was a natural death. Ghoulish, but natural. Was she really scared to death?’
‘That’s what the doctors at the Cowansville hospital said. Heart attack. But—’
‘Go on.’
‘You’ll have to see for yourself but I hear she looked…’ Brébeuf paused, almost embarrassed to say it, ‘as though she’d seen something.’
‘The paper said she’d been at a séance at the old Hadley house.’
‘A séance,’ Brébeuf harrumphed. ‘Foolishness. I can see kids doing it, but adults? I just don’t understand why anyone would waste their time with that.’
Gamache wondered why the Superintendent had come in on his day off. He couldn’t remember Brébeuf discussing a case before it had even begun.
So why this one?
‘It wasn’t until this morning the doctor thought to have blood work done. This is what came back.’
Brébeuf handed over a sheet of paper. Gamache put on his half-moon glasses. He’d read hundreds of these and knew exactly what to look for. The toxicology report.
After a minute he lowered the paper, looking at Brébeuf over his glasses.
‘Ephedra.’
‘C’est ?a.’
‘But does it have to be murder?’ Gamache asked, almost to himself. ‘Don’t people take ephedra on their own?’
‘It’s a banned substance,’ said Brébeuf.
‘True, true,’ said Gamache, distracted. He was scanning the report again. After a moment he spoke. ‘This is interesting. Listen to this.’ He read from the report. ‘The subject is five foot seven and weighs 134.7 pounds. You wouldn’t think she’d need a diet pill.’ He took off his glasses and folded them up.
‘Most people don’t,’ said Brébeuf. ‘All in their minds.’
‘I wonder what she weighed a few months ago,’ said Gamache. ‘Maybe this is how she got down to 135 pounds.’ Gamache tapped his glasses on the report. ‘With the help of ephedra.’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Brébeuf. ‘It’s your job to find out.’
‘Murder or misadventure?’ Gamache went back to the paper in his hand, wondering what else it might yield. But the Chief Inspector knew that paper rarely held the answers to his questions. Was it murder? Who was the killer? Why had the killer hated or feared this woman so much he had to take her life? Why? Why? Always the why before the who.
No, the answers lay in flesh and blood, not in a book and not in a report. And so often not even in things corporeal, but in something that couldn’t be held and contained and touched. The answers to his questions lay in the murky past and in the emotions hidden there.
The paper in his hand would yield the facts but not the truth. For that he had to go to Three Pines. For that he’d have to go, yet again, into the old Hadley house.
‘Who will you take on your team?’ The question brought Gamache back to his friend’s office. Brébeuf had tried to sound casual but the oddity of his query couldn’t be hidden. Never before had he questioned Armand Gamache, his chief of homicide, about procedure and certainly not about anything as mundane as personnel assignments.
‘Why do you ask?’
Brébeuf picked up a pen and tapped it rapidly on a stack of undone paperwork.
‘You know very well why I’m asking. You’re the one who brought her behavior to my attention. Are you going to assign Agent Yvette Nichol to this case?’
There it was. The question that had hounded Gamache on the drive from Mont Royal. Should Nichol be on the team? Was it time? He’d actually sat in his Volvo in the near-empty car park of S?reté headquarters, trying to decide. But still, he was surprised his friend had asked.
‘What’s your advice?’
‘Have you made up your mind or is there a chance I might influence you?’
Gamache laughed. They knew each other too well.
‘I’ll tell you, Michel, I’ve just about decided. But you know how much I value your opinion.’
‘Voyons, what would you rather have right now? My opinion or a brioche?’
‘A brioche,’ admitted Gamache with a smile. ‘But so would you.’
‘C’est la vérité. Listen.’ Brébeuf got up and came round to the other side of the desk, sitting on it and leaning down to stare at the Chief Inspector. ‘To take her, well, c’est fou. It’s nuts. I know you. You want to save her, to rehabilitate her. To turn her into a good and loyal agent. I’m right, aren’t I?’
Michel Brébeuf wasn’t smiling any more.
Gamache opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. Instead he let his friend vent. And vent he did.
‘One day that ego of yours’ll kill you. That’s all it is, you know. You pretend it’s selfless, you pretend to be the great teacher, the wise and patient Armand Gamache, but you and I both know it’s ego. Pride. Be careful, my friend. She’s dangerous. You’ve said so yourself.’
Gamache could feel his heat rising and had to take a few breaths to keep his calm. To not match anger with anger. He knew Michel Brébeuf was saying this because he was the Superintendent, but also because they were friends.
‘It’s time the Arnot case was ended,’ said Gamache firmly.