‘Were you lovers?’ The very thought disgusted him, but he put on his sympathetic face and hoped he’d remind Monsieur Beliveau of a son.
‘No. We had not made love.’ Monsieur Beliveau said it simply, without embarrassment. He was beyond caring about things like that.
‘Do you have a family, monsieur?’
‘No children. I had a wife. Ginette. She died two and a half years ago. October twenty-second.’
Chief Inspector Gamache had sat Robert Lemieux down when he’d first joined homicide, and given him a crash course in catching killers.
‘You must listen. As long as you’re talking you’re not learning, and this job is about learning. And not just the facts. The most important things you learn in a homicide investigation you can’t see or touch. It’s how people feel. Because,’ and here the Chief Inspector had leaned forward and Agent Lemieux had had the impression this senior officer was about to take his hands. But he didn’t. Instead he looked squarely into Lemieux’s eyes. ‘Because, we’re looking for someone not quite right. We’re looking for someone who appears healthy, who functions well. But who is very sick. We find those people not by simply collecting facts, but by collecting impressions.’
‘And I do that by listening.’ Agent Lemieux knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear.
‘There are four statements that lead to wisdom. I want you to remember them and follow them. Are you ready?’
Agent Lemieux had taken out his notebook and, pen poised, he’d listened.
‘You need to learn to say: I don’t know. I’m sorry. I need help and I was wrong.’
Agent Lemieux had written them all down. An hour later he was in Superintendent Brebeuf’s office, showing him the list. Instead of the laughter he’d expected the Superintendent’s lips had grown thin and white as he clenched his jaws.
‘I’d forgotten,’ said Brebeuf. ‘Our own chief told us those things when we first joined. That was thirty years ago. He said them once and never again. I’d forgotten.’
‘Well, they’re hardly worth remembering,’ said Lemieux, judging that was what the Superintendent wanted to hear. He was wrong.
‘You’re a fool, Lemieux. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? Why the hell did I think you could do anything against Gamache?’
‘You know,’ Lemieux said, as though he hadn’t heard the reproach, ‘it almost seems as though Chief Inspector Gamache believes those things.’
As I did once, said Brebeuf to himself. Once, when I loved Armand. When we trusted each other and pledged to protect each other. Once, when I could still admit I was wrong, I needed help, I didn’t know. When I could still say, I’m sorry.
But that was long ago now.
‘I’m not such a fool, you know,’ said Agent Lemieux softly.
Brebeuf waited for the inevitable whining, the doubts, the need for reassurance, yes we’re doing the right thing, yes Gamache betrayed the Surete, you’re a clever young man, I know you see through his deceit. Brebeuf had needed to repeat these things so often to the beleaguered Lemieux he almost believed them himself.
He stared at the agent and waited. But Brebeuf saw a poised, self-contained officer.
Good. Good.
But a tiny, cool breeze enveloped Brebeuf’s heart.
‘One other thing he told me,’ said Lemieux at the door now, smiling disarmingly. ‘Matthew 10:36.’
Brebeuf watched, stone-faced, as Agent Lemieux closed the door softly behind him. Then he began breathing again, shallow, fast breaths, almost gasps. Looking down he saw he’d made a fist of his hand, and filling that fist, crumpled and balled, was the paper with the four simple statements.
And filling his head, like a fist, were Lemieux’s last words.
He’d forgotten that too. But what he knew he’d remember for a very long time was the look on Lemieux’s face. What he’d seen there wasn’t the familiar squirrely, needy, pleading look of a man who wanted to be convinced. Instead, he’d seen the look of a man who no longer cared. It wasn’t cleverness he’d surprised there, but cunning.
Now Agent Lemieux listened and waited for Monsieur Beliveau to tell him more, but the old grocer seemed content to also wait.
‘How did your wife die?’
‘Stroke. High blood pressure. She didn’t die immediately. I was able to bring her home and care for her for a few months. But she had another one and that took her. She’s buried up behind St Thomas’s church in the old cemetery there, with her parents and mine.’
Agent Lemieux thought there would be nothing worse than to be buried here. He planned to be buried in Montreal or Quebec City, or Paris, the retired and revered President of Quebec. Up until recently the Surete had provided him with a home, a purpose. But Superintendent Brebeuf had unwittingly given him something else. Something missing from his life. A plan.
Robert Lemieux’s plan didn’t include being with the Surete long. Just long enough to rise through the ranks, make a name for himself, then run for public office. Anything was possible. Or would be, once he brought down Gamache. He’d be a hero. And heroes were rewarded.
‘
