by Louise Penny
He’d walked up and down rue d’Auteuil many times in the past. It was a particularly beautiful street in a city thick with them. It followed the line of the old stone walls that defended the capital, but was set back, a ribbon of parkland between the street and the walls. And on the other side of the street, these homes.
This was where the first families of Québec lived, French and English. The premier ministres, the industrialists, the generals and archbishops, all lived in this row of elegant houses looking over the walls as though daring their enemies to attack.
Gamache had been to cocktail parties in some of the homes, a few receptions and at least one state dinner. But he’d never been into the one he stood in front of now. The stone was beautifully pointed, the wood painted, the iron work kept up and repaired.
As he stood on the stoop the door opened. He stepped in quickly, bringing the chill with him. It clung to him as he stood in the dark wood entrance but slowly the cold, like a cloak, slid off.
Elizabeth took his coat and he removed his boots. A neat rank of velvet slippers, some for men, some for women, was lined up in the entrance.
“Take whichever fits, if you’d like.”
He found a pair and wondered how many feet, over how many generations, had used the slippers. They looked Edwardian and felt comfortable.
The walls were papered in a William Morris print, rich, ornate, beautiful. Gleaming mahogany panels went a third of the way up the walls.
On the fine wood floors Indian rugs were scattered.
“Follow me. I eat in the morning room.”
He followed her into a bright and airy room, a fire lit in the hearth, bookcases along a wall, jardinières filled with healthy ferns and Christmas cacti. And a breakfast tray on a hassock in front of the fire. Toast and jam and two bone china coffee cups.
“May I?” she asked.
“Please.”
She poured him a cup and he added a touch of cream and sugar. As he sat in a comfortable chair across from the sofa where she sat, he noticed books on the floor and three newspapers. Le Devoir, Le Soleil and the Gazette.
“What brings you to the Lit and His so early, Chief Inspector?”
“We’re getting closer to knowing what the books were that Augustin Renaud got from your sale.”
“That’s a little awkward,” she smiled slightly. “Our critics right. Most embarrassing. Did we sell books that should never have left us?”
Gamache looked into her eyes. They were steady, unwavering, dreading the answer, perhaps, but wanting to hear it anyway. As he watched her he noticed a few things, details that caught his eye. The faded and even frayed upholstery of the sofa and his own chair. A few floorboards heaved slightly, out of alignment. They could be easily nailed back to place. A handle missing from one of the doors of a cupboard.
“I’m afraid you did. They were Father Chiniquy’s personal journals and diaries.”
She closed her eyes but did not lower her head. When she opened them again a moment later her eyes were still steady but perhaps a little sad.
“Oh dear, that’s not good news. The board will have to be told.”
“They’re evidence now but I suspect if you speak with Monsieur Renaud’s widow she might sell them back at a reasonable price.”
She looked relieved. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“But one is missing. From 1869.”
“Really?”
“It was one of the books we were looking for, one of the books Augustin Renaud makes reference to in his own journals.”
“Why 1869?”
“I don’t know.” And that was true, to a point. He actually had a very good idea why, but wasn’t going to talk about it just yet.
“And the other book?”
“Missing too. We’ve found the lot it was bought with, but it could be anything.” He put his cup down carefully on the tray. “Did you ever hear of a meeting in the Literary and Historical Society between Father Chiniquy, James Douglas and two Irish workers?”
“In the late 1800s?” She was surprised. “No. Irish workers you say?” Gamache nodded. She said nothing, but frowned.
“What is it?”
“It’s just unlikely the Irish would have come to the Lit and His back then. Nowadays, yes, we have lots of members who are Irish. There isn’t such a distinction, thank God. But I’m afraid back then there was a lot of animosity between the Irish and the English.”
That was the weakness, Gamache knew, about New Worlds. People brought old conflicts.
“But feelings aren’t so bad today?”
“No, with the passage of time things got better. Besides, we’re too small, can’t afford to fight.”
“The lifeboat?” he smiled, picking up his coffee.
“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 façade, 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, façades 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.
“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.”
She smiled at him warmly as they walked to the front hall. “But why do you ask?”
They put on their heavy winter coats, boots, hats and scarves, so that by the time they were finished there wasn’t all that much to distinguish the Chief Inspector of homicide for Québec from the seventy-five-year-old woman.
“There was a case a few months back, in a village called Three Pines. Carole Gilbert lives there now. So does Old Mundin.”
“Really?” But she didn’t seem all that interested. Polite, but hardly riveted. Heading out into the sunshine they walked side-by-side down the middle of the narrow streets. Ahead they could see the young mountaineers strapped and harnessed thirty feet above the ground. They labored all winter shoveling snow from the steep metal roofs. It was harrowing to watch as they swung their axes and picks, hacking away at the feet of ice and snow that had accumulated, threatening to collapse the roofs.
Every winter roofs did collapse and every winter snow and ice slid off to the sidewalk below, crushing unfortunate pedestrians. There was a sound sliding ice made, a sound like no other, a cross between a slow, deep moan and a shriek. Every Québécois knew it, like buzz bombs in the Blitz.
But hearing it, and being able to do anything were two different things. The sound echoed off the old stone buildings, disguising location. It might be right above you, or it might be streets away.
True Québécois walked in the middle of the road. Tourists often thought the Québécois gracious, to cede the sidewalk to them, until the sound began.
“Would they have known each other here in Quebec City?” he asked.
“It’s possible. She might have bought some antiques from Monsieur Mundin, or sold some I suppose. She had marvelous things, as I remember. An old Québec family, you know.”
“The Gilberts?”
“No, Madame Gilbert’s family. The Woloshyns.”
They were approaching the Literary and Historical Society.
“I always liked Carole. Very sensible,” said Elizabeth as she brought out the key, warm from being carried in her glove. “It was a pleasure to play bridge with her. She’d never do anything foolish. Very patient, very calm, great strategist.”
Once inside Gamache helped Elizabeth turn on the lights and turn up the heat, then she went to her office leaving the Chief Inspector alone in the magnificent library. He stood for a moment, like a miser at the bank. Then walking over to the circular iron staircase he hauled himself up. At the top he paused again. It was quiet, as only an old library can be and he was left alone with his thoughts.
“La Grande? Are you fucking kidding me?” Chief Superintendent Francoeur demanded.
Inspector Beauvoir had joined the Chief Inspector in his office, bringing with him the evidence he and Agent Nichol had collected. It was sparse, but enough. They thought. They hoped. Beauvoir had again taken the stairs two at a time, preferring to arrive unannounced, by the back way. From the stairwell door he’d once again seen the Chief Superintendent leading the search operations. Monitoring. Issuing orders. Giving every impression of doing his best.
And he probably was doing his best. But his best was not, Beauvoir knew, good enough.
He could hear over the speakers Chief Inspector Gamache talking about his days at Cambridge University. How he’d arrived with almost no English. Only the phrases he’d picked up off the English television programs beamed into Québec in the 1960s.
“Like what?” Paul Morin asked. His voice dragged, each word forced out.
“Fire on the Klingons,” said the Chief Inspector.
Agent Morin laughed, perking up. “Did you actually say that to anyone?”
“Sadly, I did. It was either that or, ‘My God, Admiral, it’s horrible.’ ”
Now Agent Morin whooped with laughter and Beauvoir saw smiles on the faces of the men and women in the Incident Room, including Chief Superintendent Francoeur. Smiling himself Beauvoir turned his attention to the Chief Inspector.
Through the glass he saw the Chief. His eyes closed, gray stubble on his face. And then Gamache did something Beauvoir had never seen him do before. In all the years, all the cases, all the death and despair and exhaustion of past cases.
Chief Inspector Gamache lowered his head into his hands.
Just for a moment, but it was a moment Inspector Beauvoir would never forget. As young Paul Morin laughed, Chief Inspector Gamache covered his face.
Then he looked up, and met Inspector Beauvoir’s eyes. And the mask reappeared. Confident. Energetic. In command.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir entered the Chief’s office with the evidence. And at Gamache’s request, invited Chief Superintendent Francoeur in and played him the tape.
“Are you fucking kidding?”
“Does it look like I’m kidding?”
The Chief was on his feet. He’d asked Paul Morin to carry the conversation, to keep speaking. And had whipped his headphone off, covering the microphone with his hand.
“Where’d you even get that recording?” Francoeur demanded. In the background Paul Morin was talking about his father’s vegetable garden and how long it took to grow asparagus.
“It’s background sound, from where Morin’s being held,” said Gamache.
“But where did you get it?” Francoeur was annoyed.
“It can’t possibly matter. Are you listening?” Gamache replayed the fragment Agent Nichol had found. “They mention it two or three times.”
“La Grande? As in La Grande Fromage? This isn’t a cartoon.” Gamache took a long breath and tried to control his frustration. On the speakers they could hear that Morin had moved on to a monologue on heirloom tomatoes.
“This is what I think, sir,” said Gamache. “The kidnapping wasn’t done by a frightened backwoods farmer with a marijuana crop. This was planned all along—”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that before. There’s no evidence.”
“This is evidence.” With a mighty effort Gamache stopped himself from shouting, instead lowering his voice to a growl. “The farmer has not left Morin alone as he said he would. In fact, not only is Morin clearly not alone, there’re at least two, maybe three others with him.”
“So, what? You think he’s being held at the dam?”
“I did at first, but there’re no turbine sounds in the background.”
“Then what’s your theory, Chief Inspector?”
“I think they’re planning to blow the dam and they kidnapped Agent Morin to keep us occupied elsewhere.”
Chief Superintendent Francoeur stared at Gamache. It was a scenario the Sûreté had practiced for, had protocols for. Dreaded. A threat against this mighty dam.
“You’re delusional. Based on what? Two words barely heard far in the background. It might even be crossed wires. You think that in what”—Francoeur turned to look at the clock—“six hours someone’s going to destroy the La Grande dam? And yet, they’re not even there? They’re sitting with your young agent somewhere else?”
“It’s misdirection. They wa—”
“Enough,” snapped Chief Superintendent Francoeur. “If it’s misdirection it’s one you’ve fallen for. They want you to hare off after a ridiculous clue. I thought you were smarter than that. And who are this mysterious ‘they’ anyway? Who’d want to destroy the dam? No, it’s absurd.”
“For God’s sake, Francoeur,” said Gamache, his voice low and hoarse with fatigue, “suppose I’m right?”
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