by Louise Penny
“You and Mom talking, downstairs. It was Christmas Eve. I was excited about Père Noël, so I crept onto the landing. And I heard.”
“What?”
“You told Mom about taking a job with the special forces. You told her about the hostage takings, the terrorists, the raids on organized crime. All the terrible things. You said it was dangerous, that the death rate was high. But it was something you had to do.”
Armand’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly. He remembered that conversation. Years ago. But that wasn’t how it went.
“I never accepted the job. The job I agreed to do was to train recruits. That’s all. To try to get them as prepared as possible for whatever they’d face. You have to believe me.”
“Right, like you believe me? I know you’re lying. I know what I heard. I saw Mom crying. You made her cry. And every day after that, when you went to work, I knew you weren’t coming home. I hated you for that.”
“Oh, my God, Daniel, is that why you shut me out? Because you thought I was going to be killed?”
“Because you cared more for others than you did for us. For me. And yes, because you were going to die. And I couldn’t … How could I love you … how could I care … when…” The words came out haltingly, as a wail. The same sound he’d made as a boy, hurtling down from too great a height. “How could I…?”
“All these years?” Armand whispered, unable to find his voice. His eyes burning. “All this time?”
Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair / that you would greet each overture with curling lip?
The lines from Ruth Zardo’s poem exploded in his head. In his chest.
Me, he realized with horror. I did.
“I used to have nightmares,” said Daniel.
“I remember.”
And he did.
Daniel crying out in his sleep. Armand and Reine-Marie had gone to him, gently waking the boy with hushed assurances. Then the look of horror on Daniel’s face when he saw his father.
He’d push Armand aside, and reach out thin arms for his mother.
Two, three times a week this happened. He never told them what the nightmares were about. Until now.
“It was always the same one. There was a knock on the door. I’d run to answer it, and there you were.” Daniel was heaving now, sobbing. Barely able to get the words out. “But. You. Were. Dead.”
Armand was pale, his breathing shallow and rapid. He reached out, but Daniel stepped back. Away.
“Every time I look at you, that’s what I see. A dead man. My friends knew their parents would live forever. But I knew that fathers and mothers leave home and never come back. Your parents did. And now you would, too.”
“Ohhh, no,” said Armand.
He’d deliberately not talked about the death of his parents in front of Daniel and Annie, for fear of scaring, scarring, his own children. Not until they were old enough to understand.
So how?
And then it came to him.
That rainy Saturday here in Paris, years, decades ago. They were visiting Stephen’s apartment and the kids were playing hide-and-seek. They’d found a false door in the armoire in Stephen’s bedroom and crawled in.
And heard. Their father and Stephen talking. About his parents, and about that day. About the knock on the door. About the very worst thing that can happen to a child. Annie must’ve been too young to understand. But Daniel did.
Parents died.
Nightmares came true.
“You couldn’t be a teacher, a plumber? Even a normal cop? You had to do the most dangerous thing. I know you never loved us. If you did, you’d have picked us.”
“But I did. Oh, my God. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—”
He moved toward his son. Daniel stepped back and raised the only thing he had. His umbrella. “Don’t come closer. Don’t you dare try—”
“I love you. With all my heart, I love you. I’m so sorry.”
He stepped forward, and Daniel swung, at the last moment leaning away so that the handle of the umbrella swept by his father’s face, close enough for Armand to feel the air ripple.
Armand hadn’t flinched. Hadn’t closed his eyes. Keeping them on his son the whole time. Though it was hard to see clearly.
Daniel looked like he was underwater.
Throwing the umbrella on the ground, Daniel strode away. Leaving Armand staring after him.
When Daniel was out of sight, Armand raised trembling hands to his face and wept. For all the pain he’d caused. For all those hours, days, years they’d lost.
For the happy, safe, contented little boy who’d died on the stairs that Christmas Eve, waiting for Père Noël.
CHAPTER 28
“Ah, look. There’s a second floor!”
Annie was standing in the living room of Stephen’s suite at the George V, wide-eyed. Marveling.
While the bellhop took their luggage upstairs to the bedroom, she turned serious eyes on Jean-Guy. “We must never leave.”
Jean-Guy parted the curtains and was looking outside as Annie gave the young man a tip and closed the door.
“Anyone?” she asked.
“No.”
“Now,” said Annie, picking up the room service menu. “What’ll we have, little man?”
“I hope you’re asking Honoré,” said Jean-Guy, and heard her laugh.
For all her apparent lightheartedness, he knew Annie was putting on a front. For Honoré. For him. In reality she was alert. Vigilant. And worried.
“I need to leave for a few hours,” he told Annie. “Are you and Honoré all right? The flic will stay outside the door.”
“I wonder what the other guests must think.”
“They’ll think that someone very precious is staying here,” said Jean-Guy, kissing her.
As he stepped out of the hotel, he looked to his right. Then to his left, as though trying to get his bearings.
He turned right and strolled, apparently aimlessly, along avenue George V. Pausing now and then to glance in the shop windows, he continued his walk, turning into a smaller street.
And there he stopped.
He’d lied to Annie. Loiselle had been outside, watching.
* * *
Reine-Marie slowly closed the dossier and looked across the table at the Chief Archivist.
“This file is inconclusive. It quotes anonymous sources as saying Stephen Horowitz was possibly a collaborator. That he claimed to have been working with the Resistance, but might have been turning them over to the Gestapo for interrogation in the Lutetia.”
“No, not the Gestapo. Common mistake. Many of the documents even from the time say Gestapo, but it was actually a division called the Abwehr that occupied the Lutetia,” said Madame Lenoir.
“Who were they?”
“Intelligence. As bad as the Gestapo. Their job was to wipe out the Resistance. They’d arrest suspected members, take them to a room in the Lutetia, and torture them until they gave up others. Then kill them and move on. Many, most, died without a word.”
Reine-Marie had to pause and gather herself. “You know a lot about it.”
“My grandmother was one of those killed. And the Lutetia, to its credit, has been very open about that time in its history. Many employees fled when the Nazis took over—”
“So they’d have to hire new people.”
“Oui. Maybe that’s where your Monsieur Horowitz comes in. The fact he was German would work in his favor for the Abwehr, but would’ve raised suspicions among other employees, and understandably so. Some were definitely working with the Resistance, but others were collaborators. And some were just trying to keep their heads down and survive. It was a confusing time.”
“To say the least. It would be easy to tar someone’s reputation, to make a false accusation.”
Madame Lenoir grunted agreement. “Many of the executions after the liberation were reprisals, but not for working with the Nazis. Neighbors took it as an excuse to do away with some
one they just didn’t like, or who they felt had cheated them. Or whose property they wanted. Private vendettas. Hundreds were shot or hanged without any trial at all. Though serious effort has been made to go back and sort the real from the manufactured. But it’s hard. Documents were destroyed. The archives themselves were in a shocking state after the war. They’d been ransacked by the Nazis, who burned anything that contradicted their worldview. We lost countless irreplaceable manuscripts. For instance, their insistence on an Aryan race. We had document after document proving there’s no such thing. It was a construct, a myth, created hundreds of years ago and resurrected by the Nazis.”
“They destroyed anything proving it?”
“They tried. Fortunately the people they sent to do it weren’t exactly geniuses. Some evidence survived. Though, let’s be clear, the Germans weren’t the only ones to ransack and rewrite. It served the Allies well to bury, even destroy, much of the evidence. They needed former Nazis in their own programs. How do you think the Americans got to the moon?”
Reine-Marie shook her head. As a librarian and archivist herself, she knew that history wasn’t just written by the victors. First it had to be erased and rewritten. Replacing troublesome truth with self-serving myth.
“If Stephen was working for the Resistance,” she said, “wouldn’t he pretend to be a friend of the Abwehr officers? Wouldn’t that be the best way to get the information he needed?”
“Yes. And that became the problem. Identifying those pretending and those who really were helping the Nazis.”
Reine-Marie sorted through the small pile of photos in front of her until she came to the one of Himmler. Repulsive. Toad-like at the table. And behind him? An impossibly young and impish Stephen in a waiter’s uniform. Beaming.
Putting her hand to her face, she stared at it. Thinking.
She knew Stephen wasn’t a collaborator. The question was, how to prove it. They couldn’t let the smear mar a courageous man’s legacy. And they sure couldn’t let a lie undermine whatever truth Stephen and Alexander Plessner had discovered.
But there was another question that came to mind as she stared at the photos.
“The police investigating the murder of Monsieur Plessner had copies of some of these documents within hours of his death. Is that possible?”
“Non.” The answer was unequivocal.
“Why not? It didn’t take you long to find them.”
“I’m the Chief Archivist. I was practically born in a file drawer. I know this place, these files, better than I know my own family.”
“But Allida, you can’t know all the documents in the archives. Even just the ones on the war. There must be hundreds of thousands.”
“Which is why I know there’s no way anyone could’ve put their hands on that”—she pointed at the file in front of Reine-Marie, with the doodle of the ship in peril—“so quickly. It would take weeks, months, to dig through all the documents. I think they found what they needed, then left them here, to be used when needed.”
“Which means—”
“Someone must’ve been planning this for a while.”
Not just someone, thought Reine-Marie. The file was in the possession of the police.
She felt physically sick. Her head was spinning with the effort of trying to grab hold of something too immense to grasp.
“When was this file last requested?” she asked.
Madame Lenoir got back on the electronic catalog. It didn’t take long before she looked up, meeting Reine-Marie’s eyes.
“Five weeks ago.”
“Does it say by whom?”
Madame Lenoir was no longer able to make eye contact.
“Daniel Gamache.”
* * *
Armand stood outside Daniel’s apartment and stared at the door.
Then he knocked.
It was opened by Roslyn, who stepped outside into the corridor and closed the door behind her.
“I’m sorry, Armand. He doesn’t want to speak with you. What happened? I’ve never seen him so upset.”
“He’ll have to be the one to tell you. But please, Ros, I need to speak with him. It’s urgent.”
Roslyn looked at her father-in-law. Normally so well-groomed, he was disheveled, his eyes red and his hair messy. Dark strands, mixed with gray, were plastered across his forehead, and his coat was smeared with something brown.
It looked like merde, but smelled, thankfully, of chocolate.
“Stay here. I’ll see what I can do.”
A few minutes later the door opened again and Daniel stepped out.
Armand took a deep breath.
“I can understand that you won’t believe me, but I want you to know that I love you. With all my heart. Always have. Always will. I didn’t join Task Force Two because I wanted to be there for my family. For you. I didn’t want you to go through what I did. But I did agree to train them, and I am so, so sorry that wasn’t clear. This’s my fault and I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
“I don’t care anymore. You’re twenty-five years too late.”
Armand nodded. “Oui.”
The truth, too late.
He took another deep breath, exhaled. And took the plunge.
“If you don’t believe I’m saying this as your father, then please believe that I’m saying this as a homicide investigator. I know how these things work. How an investigator’s mind works. You need to go to the police and tell them everything you know about Alexander Plessner. They’ll find out anyway.”
“From you?”
“No. Not from me. I won’t tell Commander Fontaine anything. I know you had nothing to do with Plessner’s murder, and I know for sure you’d never ever do anything to hurt Stephen. But there’s a sophisticated, powerful organization behind this, and what they need is someone to take the blame. Someone to set up. And I’m very afraid it’s you.”
“Thanks for your advice, Chief Inspector. I’ll consider it.”
Armand nodded and held out his son’s umbrella, which he’d picked off the grass in the garden. Daniel looked at him then closed the door in his face.
Resting the umbrella against the wall, Armand left.
* * *
Jean-Guy waited in the shadows.
Pedestrians glanced at him, then moved along. Not wanting to draw the attention of this tightly coiled man.
And then, there he was.
Loiselle paused for just an instant at the opening to the narrow side street, but it was all Beauvoir needed.
He grabbed him, swinging the much larger man around. With his knee he dropped Loiselle to the pavement and knelt on his back as he patted him down, coming away with a Sig pistol.
People shouted, some screamed, all leaped away. But before anyone could raise their phone and take photographs, Beauvoir hauled Loiselle to his feet and shoved him into a boutique.
“I’m a cop. I need your back room.”
The wide-eyed manager pointed. Then, rushing ahead, he unlocked a door.
“Lock it after us,” commanded Beauvoir.
“Should I call the police?”
“No. I’ve already done that,” he lied.
When the door slammed shut, he pushed Loiselle against the wall and put the gun to his throat.
But something was wrong. The man wasn’t struggling. Wasn’t fighting back. This was far too easy.
Then Loiselle did something unexpected. He put up his hands.
They stared at each other. Beauvoir’s adrenaline was so strong, his anger so great, it was all he could do not to pistol-whip the man anyway, surrender or no.
Then Loiselle did something even more unexpected.
“You said you were a cop, in Québec,” he said. “You were Inspector Beauvoir, with the Sûreté du Québec. That was you, in the factory. I’ve been wanting to talk.”
* * *
Armand’s phone rang. It was Reine-Marie.
“Can you meet me at the archives?” she said.
“I’ll
be there in five minutes.”
Armand walked quickly, and tried to get his thoughts straight. He’d told Daniel that he wouldn’t say anything to Commander Fontaine, and he wouldn’t. But still, he had to find out what Daniel and Plessner were working on. And whether it had anything to do with Plessner’s murder.
He checked his emails as he walked. Finally clicking on the one from Mrs. McGillicuddy that had come in during the night. Far from being long and convoluted it contained only two words.
Call me.
He looked at his watch and did the calculations. It was six hours earlier in Montréal. That made it five thirty in the morning. She’d be asleep.
He’d wait and call after he’d met with Reine-Marie.
* * *
“I recognized you from the video, the one in the factory,” Loiselle said, an urgency to his voice. “I saw what you did. You and the other agents. I saw what your boss did. I saw what happened.”
Loiselle was whispering, as though what had happened that terrible day a few years earlier was a secret. Instead of leaked and splashed across the internet. Seen by millions.
The Sûreté raid, to free a hostage. To stop heavily armed gunmen. It had been a desperate fight to prevent something even more horrific from happening. But it had been a bloodbath. They’d prevailed. Barely. And at a terrible price.
“That was Gamache I saw you with yesterday, right? The older man? I recognized him, too. That’s why I wanted to speak to you.”
“Why?”
“In the factory, none of your agents broke and ran. You were disciplined, trained, dedicated. A tight team. But still, no one faces that kind of hell and keeps moving forward unless they know there’s a good reason. A higher purpose.”
Beauvoir’s grip on the man’s jacket remained tight, but the pistol dropped a little. Allowing Loiselle to meet his eyes.
“I used to believe that, too,” Loiselle said. “That what I did was important. That it mattered. But I don’t anymore. That’s why the video is watched over and over by ex–special forces. It reminds us of what we once were. What we once had.”
“And what’s that?”
