my division. Narcotics. She took to it.’
‘Then why send her back to me?’ Gamache asked.
‘What is it you like to say, Chief Inspector? There’s a reason for everything. Very deep. There’s a reason for everything, Gamache. Figure it out. Now I have a question for you.’ His voice lowered even further. ‘What was in that envelope you were passing so secretively to your son? Daniel’s his name, I believe. Daughter, Florence. Wife. Did I hear she’s pregnant?’
Now no one else in the room could hear, the words were spoken so softly. Gamache had the strangest impression Francoeur hadn’t even spoken out loud, but had inserted them directly into his head. Sharp, stabbing, intended to wound and warn.
He inhaled sharply and tried to contain himself, to not bring his fist up and smash the leering, smug, wretched face.
‘Do it, Gamache,’ hissed Francoeur. ‘To save your family, do it.’
Was Francoeur inviting him to attack? So that he’d be arrested, imprisoned? Exposed to any ‘accident’ that might happen in the cells? Was that the price Francoeur was proposing for backing off his family?
‘Fucking coward.’ Francoeur smiled and stepped back, shaking his head. ‘I think the least Chief Inspector Gamache can do is explain himself,’ he said in a normal voice. The faces, strained and nervous, relaxed a little now that they could hear again. ‘I think before we can even consider acting on his behalf, or accepting his resignation, we need to know a few things. Like what was in the envelope he was passing to his son.
Around the conference table there were nods of agreement. Gamache looked over at Brebeuf who cocked his brow as though to say it was a strangely benign request. They’d get off easy if this was all the council wanted.
Gamache remained silent for a moment, thinking. Then he shook his head.
‘I’m sorry. It’s private. I can’t tell you.’
It was over, Gamache knew. He bent down and placed his papers in his satchel, then made for the door.
‘You’re a stupid man, Chief Inspector,’ Superintendent Francoeur called after him, smiling broadly. ‘You walk out of here now your life will be in ruins. The media will keep picking at you and your children until even the bones are gone. No careers, no friends, no privacy, no dignity. All because of your pride. What was it one of your favorite poets said? Yeats? Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.’
Gamache stopped, turned and deliberately walked back. With each step he seemed to expand. The officers around the table, wide-eyed, leaned out of his way. He walked to Francoeur, whose smile had disappeared.
‘This center will hold.’ Gamache pronounced each word slowly and clearly, his voice strong and low and more menacing than anything Francoeur had ever heard. He tried to recover himself as Gamache turned and walked through the door, but it was too late. Everyone in the room had seen fear on Francoeur’s face and more than one wondered whether they’d backed the wrong man.
But it was too late.
As Gamache strode down the corridor, men and women on each side smiling hello and nodding to him, his mind settled. Something Francoeur said had jogged something loose. Some piece of information had twisted in that instant and he’d seen it in a different way. But in the stress of the moment Gamache had lost it. Was it to do with Arnot? Or was it the case in Three Pines?
‘Well, that went well. For Francoeur,’ said Brebeuf, catching up with him as they waited for the elevator. Gamache said nothing, but stared at the numbers, trying to recall what had struck him as so significant. The elevator came and the two men stepped in, alone.
‘You could have told him what was in the envelope, you know,’ said Brebeuf. ‘It can’t possibly be that important. What was in it anyway?’
‘I’m sorry, Michel, what did you say?’ Gamache brought himself back to the present.
‘The envelope, Armand. What was in it?’
‘Oh, nothing much.’
‘For God’s sake, man, why not tell him?’
‘He didn’t say please.’ Gamache smiled.
Brebeuf scowled. ‘Do you ever listen to yourself? All the advice you give others, does any of it penetrate your own thick skull? Why keep this secret? It’s our secrets that make us sick. Isn’t that what you always say?’
‘There’s a difference between secrecy and privacy.’
‘Semantics.’
The elevator door opened and Brebeuf stepped out. The meeting had gone better than he’d dared dream. Gamache was almost certainly out of the Surete, but more than that, he was humiliated, ruined. Or soon would be.
Inside the elevator Armand Gamache stood rooted like one of Gilles Sandon’s trees. And had Sandon been there he might have heard what no one else could, Armand Gamache screaming as though felled.
The haunting words of St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians swirled around Gamache’s head. The words had been prophetic. In the twinkling of an eye his world had changed. He could see clearly something that had been hidden. Something he never wanted to see.
He’d stopped at the high school in Notre-Dame-de-Grace and just caught the secretary as she left for the day. Now he sat in the parking lot staring at the two things she’d given him. An alumni list and another yearbook. She’d wondered why in the world he needed so many, but Gamache had mumbled apologies and she’d relented. He thought she might assign him lines. I will not lose another yearbook.
But it hadn’t been lost. It’d been stolen. By someone who’d been at school with Madeleine and Hazel. Someone
