TWENTY-NINE
Everything creaks when you’re afraid. Armand Gamache remembered the words of Erasmus and wondered whether the creak he’d just heard was real or just his fear. He swung his flashlight to the stairs behind him. Nothing.
He could see the floor was dirt, hardpacked from years of weight. It smelled of spiders and wood rot and mold. It smelled of all the crypts he’d ever been in, exhuming bodies of people taken before their time.
What lay buried down here? He knew something was. He could feel it. The house seemed to claw at him, to cloy and smother, as though it had a secret, something wicked and malicious and cruel it was dying to say.
There it was again. A creak.
Gamache spun around and the puny circle of light from his flashlight threw itself against the rough stone walls, the beams and posts, the open wooden doors.
His cell phone began vibrating.
Taking it out he recognized the number.
‘All?.’
‘C’est moi,’ said Reine-Marie, smiling at her colleague and walking into one of the aisles of books at the Bibliothèque Nationale. ‘I’m at work. Where are you?’
‘The old Hadley house.’
‘Alone?’
‘Hope so.’ He laughed. ‘Armand, did you see the newspaper?’
‘I did.’
‘I’m so sorry. But we’ve known it was coming. It’s almost a relief.’
Armand Gamache was never more glad he’d married this woman, who made his battles theirs. She stood steadfast beside him, even when he tried to step in front. Especially then.
‘I’ve tried to get Daniel but there’s been no answer. Left a message though.’
Gamache had never questioned Reine-Marie’s judgment. It made for a very relaxing relationship. But he wasn’t sure why she’d call their son in Paris about some scurrilous article.
‘Annie called just now. She saw it too and said to pass on her love. She also said if there’s anyone you’d like her to kill, she’ll do it.’
‘How sweet.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ she asked.
‘Franchement, I thought I’d ignore it. Not give it any legitimacy.’
There was a pause.
‘I wonder if maybe you should speak to Michel.’
‘Brébeuf? Why?’
‘Well, after the first one, I felt the same way, but I wonder whether it’s gone too far.’
‘The first? What do you mean?’ His flashlight flickered. He jostled it and the light burned bright again.
‘Tonight’s paper. The early edition of Le Journal de Nous. Armand, haven’t you seen it?’
His flashlight flickered off, then after a long moment came back on, but the light was dim and frail. Once again he heard the creak. This time behind him. He spun round and pointed the dull light toward the stairway, but it was empty.
‘Armand?’
‘I’m here. Tell me what the paper says, please.’
As he listened the sorrow of the old Hadley house closed in. It crept toward him and ate the last of his light, until finally he was standing in the bowels of the old Hadley house in complete darkness.
‘Natives killing each other wasn’t enough for Arnot,’ said Beauvoir. He and Lacoste walked side by side through the late afternoon sun as it dappled the dirt road at their feet. ‘Arnot ordered his two top officers into the reserves to stir up trouble. Agents provocateurs.’
‘And then?’ It was almost unbearable, but she had to know. She listened to the terrible words as they walked through the tranquil forest.
‘And then Pierre Arnot ordered his officers to kill.’
Beauvoir found it hard to say. He stopped and looked into the forest, and after a moment or two the roar between his ears settled and he could make out the singing again. A robin? A blue jay? A pine? Was that what made Three Pines remarkable? Did the three giant trees on the village green sometimes sing together? Was Gilles Sandon right?
‘How many died?’
‘Arnot’s men never kept track. There’s a team from the S?reté still trying to find all the remains. The murderers killed so many they couldn’t remember where they put all the bodies.’
‘How did they get away with it? Didn’t the families complain?’
‘To whom?’