Glass Houses--A Novel

by Louise Penny

  “Remarkable,” said Gamache. “Beautiful, really. In its own way. But what does that have to do with the cobrador?”

  He gestured outside.

  It had been there for almost forty-eight hours, and the villagers, far from growing used to it, were growing more and more stressed. Nerves had begun to fray. Arguments were breaking out. Quarrels between long-standing friends could be heard in the bistro. Over trivial matters.

  The short tempers could have been blamed on the fact that they hadn’t seen the sun in days. Felt like weeks. Felt like forever. The November skies remained cloudy. Occasionally dropping rain, sleet. That seemed to seep right through clothing, skin, and pool in the bones.

  But the core of the problem stood on the dying grass of the village green.

  A long, long way from an island in fourteenth-century Spain. A long way from home.

  The bell jar had expanded again, the cobrador’s world was swelling, his dominion growing, while theirs seemed to be collapsing into itself.

  Armand was wondering how much longer they had before something terrible happened.

  “Some of those who were strong enough returned to the mainland,” said Jean-Guy. “But they were disfigured by disease, so they wore masks and gloves. And long cloaks with hoods.”

  “Why return?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “Revenge,” said Gamache. It was, he knew, a powerful force. Often overwhelming good sense.

  “That’s what I thought too,” said Jean-Guy, turning to him. “But no. They went looking for the people who banished them. Damned them. Mostly priests, senior church officials. Magistrates. Even princes. But incredibly, when they found them, they did nothing. Just followed them. Which, of course, turned out to be quite something.”

  “What happened?” Gamache asked.

  “I think you know. I think they knew,” said Beauvoir. He didn’t need to consult his research. He doubted he’d ever forget what he’d read. “The first ones were beaten to death by mobs, who believed they were the embodiment of the Black Death. But as one died, another appeared. Little by little, the mobs noticed that the guys in the black robes and masks weren’t doing harm. There was even, it seems, a sort of dignity about them. Even when they knew they were going to die, they just stood still. They didn’t try to defend themselves. They didn’t fight back. They just kept staring at the person they were following until they were beaten to the ground.”

  Gamache shifted in his seat and glanced over his shoulder, toward the village green.

  Such devotion to a cause was admirable. But it was also, perhaps, insane.

  “The priests and authorities couldn’t allow this to continue,” said Beauvoir. “They figured out who these people were, and where they came from. Soldiers were sent to La Isla del Cobrador, and every man, woman and child was slaughtered.”

  Gamache inhaled sharply. Even from a distance, over time and territory, he could feel the outrage, the pain.

  “When the population heard about that, there was a shit storm,” said Beauvoir.

  Gamache glanced down at the printouts, fairly certain “shit storm” was not how it was described there.

  “The robed figures became part of the mythology,” said Jean-Guy. “They were called cobradors, after the island. But it was a sideshow to all the other crap happening in Europe at the time. The cobradors were quickly forgotten.”

  “But they didn’t disappear completely,” said Reine-Marie.

  “Non. It seems not everyone from La Isla del Cobrador was killed. Some escaped. The theory was that they were helped by soldiers who couldn’t bring themselves to follow orders. Every now and then one would be spotted, mostly in the mountain villages.”

  “And they continued to follow people who had done something terrible?” asked Gamache. “Something for which they had not been held accountable?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  “And that’s how cobrador became debt collector.”

  “No, that’s just it. That’s a modern interpretation. Cobrador translates, literally, into ‘collector.’ And there is that about them. The debt. But in the villages, they became known as something else. A conscience.”

  *

  The courtroom clock ticked past five.

  All other cases had been adjourned for the day. They could hear footsteps in the hallway and voices murmuring and occasionally calling. Barristers who’d been pounding away at each other minutes before in court now invited each other for drinks on the terrasse of the nearby brasserie.

  Inside Judge Corriveau’s courtroom, the atmosphere was close. The heat stifling. Everyone yearned to get out into the fresh air and sunshine. Get away from both the atmosphere and the increasingly claustrophobic story.

  But there was one more question to be asked and answered.

  “Chief Superintendent Gamache,” said the Crown. For once he didn’t sound self-important or pompous. For the first time all day he wasn’t preening or acting. His voice was quiet, grave. “From what Inspector Beauvoir found out about the cobrador, did you come to any conclusion?”

  “I did.”

  “And what was that?”

  “That someone in the village had done something so horrific that a conscience had been called.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Not coming home tonight?” Reine-Marie asked Armand when he called that evening.

  “Afraid not. I’ll stay in the Montréal apartment. Too much to do here and court starts early.”

  “Would you like me to drive in? I can bring something from the bistro.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m not much company, I’m afraid. And I have to work.”

  “The trial?”

  “Oui.”

  “Are things going your way?”

  He rubbed his forehead and considered the question. “It’s hard to tell. So many things have to come together just right. There seems such a fine line between falling into place and falling apart.”

  Reine-Marie had seen him worried about court cases, the testimony of certain witnesses especially. But in this case, he was the only witness so far. What could worry him so soon?

  “Will you get a conviction?”

  “Yes.”

  But his answer was too swift, too certain, for a man usually so measured and thoughtful.

  “What are you doing for dinner?” she asked.

  “Grabbing something here at the office.”

  “Alone?”

  Armand glanced through the crack in the door into the conference room, where Jean-Guy, Isabelle and the other officers were bent over maps. Mugs of coffee and platters of sandwiches from the local brasserie sat on the long table, along with jugs of water, laptops and papers. Beyond all that, he saw the lights of Montréal.

  “Oui.”

  *

  Chief Superintendent Gamache rejoined the team and, putting his glasses back on, he bent over the large map of Québec.

  Transparencies were layered on top of it. Each with different patterns, in different colors.

  Bold slashes. Of red. Of blue. Of green. Of black Magic Marker. Though hardly, Gamache thought, examining the patterns, magic.

  Held up on their own, the bright lines on the transparencies were meaningless. But once laid on top of each other, and then on top of the map of Québec, the lines coalesced. A casual observer might think it was a subway route map. A very large subway and an extremely busy route.

  And they wouldn’t be far wrong.

  It was, in effect, a map of the underworld.

  Lines snaked down the St. Lawrence River. Others came down from the north. Many branched from Montréal and Québec City. But they all made for the border with the United States.

  Superintendent Toussaint, the new head of Serious Crimes, picked up a blue marker from the cup on the conference table.

  It was, for some of the younger members of this inner circle, like picking up a hammer and chisel, so crude was this method of mapping. They were used to laptops and more precise, more powerfu
l, tools.

  But the map, and those transparencies, had a great advantage. No one could hack them. And, when separated, no one could decode what they meant.

  And that was vital.

  “Here’s the latest information,” said Madeleine Toussaint. “Our informant on the Magdalen Islands says a shipment arrived two days ago on board a cargo ship from China.”

  “Two days?” asked an agent. “Why’s it taken so long to get the information?”

  “We’re lucky to get it at all,” said Toussaint. “We all know what’ll happen if they find our informant. And he knows too.”

  She lowered the pen until a blue blotch appeared on the islands, hanging out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  “Do we know how much?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Eighty kilos.”

  They looked at her in silence.

  “Of fentanyl?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

  “Oui.” Toussaint lifted the marker. Blue for fentanyl.

  They looked at each other. Eighty kilograms.

  It would be the largest shipment in North America. By almost double. Certainly the largest they knew of.

  The cartels were growing bolder and bolder.

  And why not? They went almost unchallenged.

  Everyone in that room turned to Chief Superintendent Gamache, who was staring at the tiny group of islands floating in the salt water between Gaspé and Newfoundland. A prettier spot would be hard to find. Or a more perfect place for trafficking.

  Windswept, isolated, sparsely populated. And yet on a major trade route for cargo vessels from, and to, the whole wide world.

  It was a port of entry into Québec. Into Canada. A kind of back door. A revolving door. Given short shrift by authorities who were busy investigating the major ports, air and sea.

  But the tiny, achingly beautiful Magdalen Islands were the sweet spot.

  And from there?

  Gamache looked at the various bold lines in different colored marker. Originating in different points of Québec, but all heading in the same direction.

  The border. La frontière.

  The United States.

  Almost all the lines, all the colors converged, and went straight through a tiny village not even on the map. Gamache had had to pencil it in.

  Three Pines.

  But it was now obliterated by the Magic Markers making for the border.

  Drugs flowed into the United States through that hole in the border, and money flowed back.

  Tons of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin had moved across the border there. For years.

  When Gamache assumed the leadership of the Sûreté and realized the extent of the drug problem in and through Québec, he realized something else. Only a fraction of the trafficking could be accounted for through the traditional routes.

  So how was the rest getting across?

  Armand Gamache, the new Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté du Québec, had assigned teams to investigate those drugs made in Québec, and those imported. Those consumed here, and those destined for a more lucrative market.

  He set up teams. Scientists, hackers, ex-cons, informants, marine and aviation experts, biker gang infiltrators, dock workers, union officials, packagers, and even marketers were recruited. Most had no real idea what the end goal was, or even who they were working for. Each formed a small cell, with a single problem to solve.

  And while the drugs were funneled to one point, so was all this information.

  Chief Superintendent Gamache.

  A decisive blow had to be landed. Not a series of small irritants, but a hard, fast, effective strike. At the heart.

  After almost a year of intense investigation, the lines on the transparencies had grown. Intersected. Entwined. And a pattern had appeared.

  But still Chief Superintendent Gamache didn’t act.

  Despite pleading by some of his senior officers, Armand Gamache waited, and waited. Bearing the brunt of increasing private and professional and political criticism, from a public and colleagues who saw only a growth in crime and inaction on the part of the Sûreté.

  Then, finally, the team had found what they were looking for. The person at the head of all this.

  The break had come through collaboration, intelligence, courage on the part of undercover agents and informants.

  And the appearance of a dark figure on a sleet-slashed village green.

  Though few people knew that was the pivot point, and Gamache was desperate to keep it that way.

  The officers looked at Chief Superintendent Gamache. Waiting for him to say something. To do something.

  Superintendent Toussaint lowered the bright blue Magic Marker and drew a line on the transparency, from the harbor on the Magdalen Islands, around the curve of the Gaspé Peninsula. The marker squealed as it slowly traveled down the great St. Lawrence River. Finally turning inland. And down, down.

  Until the blue line hit the border.

  There Toussaint’s hand stopped.

  She looked at Gamache. Who stared at the map. At the mark.

  Then he looked up, over his glasses. Past his officers to the wall, and the schematic.

  A map of a different sort. It showed not how the drugs, and money, and violence flowed, but how the power flowed.

  Photographs were affixed to the chart. Some mug shots, most clandestine photos taken by a high-powered lens.

  Men and women going about their lives. Apparently quite normal. On the outside. Their skin stretched across the void inside.

  And at the top, where all the lines and images converged, was simply a dark silhouette. No picture.

  Faceless. Featureless. Not quite human.

  Armand Gamache knew who it was. Could indeed have placed a face there. But chose not to. In case. He stared for a moment into that dark, blank visage, then shifted his attention back to Superintendent Toussaint. And nodded.

  She hesitated, perhaps to allow him time to change his mind.

  There was utter silence in the room.

  “You can’t,” said Toussaint quietly. “Eighty kilos, sir. It might be on the move already. I haven’t heard back from our informant. At least let us put people in place.”

  Chief Superintendent Gamache took the marker from her hand, and without hesitation he drew one final line.

  A slash across the border, as the opioid poured out of Québec and into the United States.

  Armand Gamache put the cap back on the marker with a firm click and looked up into the faces of his most trusted officers and saw the same expression there.

  They were appalled.

  “You have to stop it,” said Toussaint, her voice rising before she was able to modulate it. “You can’t let it cross the border. Eighty kilos,” she repeated, her outrage threatening to break free again. “If you don’t—”

  Gamache stood up straight. “Go on.”

  But she fell silent.

  He scanned the other faces and didn’t have to ask who agreed with her. Clearly it was the majority opinion.

  But that didn’t make it the right one.

  “We stay the course,” he said. “I made it clear when we set up this operation almost a year ago. We have a plan and we stick to it.”

  “No matter the consequences?” demanded another of the officers. “Yes, we have a plan. But we have to be responsive. Things change. It’s crazy to stick to a plan just because we have it.”

  Gamache raised his brows, but said nothing.

  “I’m sorry, patron,” said the officer. “I didn’t mean crazy.”

  “I know what you meant,” said Gamache. “The plan was made before we had all the information.” The officer nodded. “It was made in a cold, clinical, logical environment.” More nods.

  “Why are we bothering to risk lives to get this information?” Another officer waved at the map. “If we aren’t going to act on it?”

  “We are acting,” said Gamache. “Simply not in a way the cartels expect. Believe me, I want to stop the shipment. But this entire ope
ration is about the long view. We hold firm. D’accord?”

  He looked at each of them, one at a time. Handpicked. Not because they’d bend to his will, conform, but because they were smart and experienced, ingenious and creative. And courageous enough to speak their minds.

  And speak they did. But now it was his turn.

  Gamache considered before speaking. “When we go on a raid and bullets are flying and chaos threatens, what do we do?”

  He looked at all of them, each of whom had been in that situation. As had Gamache.

  “We keep our heads and we keep our nerve. And we keep control of the situation. We focus. We do not give in to distractions.”

  “Distractions?” said Toussaint. “You make this sound like a noise off to the left.”

  “I’m not trivializing this shipment, the decision or the consequences, Superintendent.”

  He glanced over, briefly, at the schematic on the wall. Drawn to the dark face.

  “Never lose sight of the goal,” he said, returning his gaze to his subordinates. “Never.” He paused to let that sink in. “Never.”

  They shifted, but began to stand a little straighter.

  “Every other officer in your position has abandoned the strategy,” continued Gamache. “They’ve bailed. Not because they were weak, but because the consequences were so great. There was a screaming need for action. And it is screaming.” He put his finger on the fresh mark. “And it is a need. Eighty kilos of fentanyl. We need to stop it.”

  They nodded.

  “But we can’t.”

  He took a long, deep breath and focused briefly on the lights of the city behind them. And beyond that, in the long view, the mountains. And the valley. And the village.

  And the goal.

  Then he brought his eyes, and his thoughts, back to the conference room.

  “We monitor,” said Chief Superintendent Gamache, his voice brisk now. “From a distance. We do not interfere. We do not stop the shipment. D’accord?”

  There was just a moment’s hesitation before first one, then all said, “D’accord.”

  Agreed. It was grudging, but it was given.

  Gamache turned to Superintendent Toussaint, who had been silent. She looked down at the map. Then over at the chart on the wall. Then back to her boss.