Glass Houses

CHAPTER 12

With the Conscience gone, Chief Superintendent Gamache felt it safe to return to Montréal and work. Driving through the November mist that persisted, he arrived at Sûreté headquarters and went about his day, getting caught up on the paperwork and meetings that had been put on hold while the cobrador had occupied Three Pines.

He had lunch with the new head of Serious Crimes at a bistro in Old Montréal. Over the soup of the day and grilled sandwiches, they discussed organized crime, cartels, drugs, money laundering, terrorism threats, biker gangs.

All on the rise.

Gamache pushed his sandwich aside and ordered an espresso, while Superintendent Toussaint finished her grilled cubain.

“We need more resources, patron,” she said.

“Non. We need to use what we have better.”

“We’re doing the best we can,” said Toussaint, leaning forward toward the Chief Superintendent. “But it’s overwhelming.”

“You’re new to this post—”

“I’ve been in the Serious Crimes division for fifteen years.”

“But being in charge is different, non?”

She put down her sandwich, wiped her hands, and nodded.

“You’ve been handed a huge task. But it’s also a great opportunity,” said the chief. “You get to reinvent your entire department. Organize it, define it, put your stamp on it. Toss out all the old ideas, and begin fresh. I chose you because you stood up to the corruption and paid the price.”

Madeleine Toussaint nodded. She’d been on her way out when Armand Gamache had reached down and pulled her back.

She wasn’t so sure she should thank him.

All sorts of eyes were on her.

The first woman in charge of Serious Crimes. The first Haitian to head up any department.

It was, her husband had made clear, an impossible task. It was as though a ship filled with shit was sinking in an ocean of piss.

And she’d just been promoted to captain.

“They chose you because you’re a black woman,” her husband had said. “You’re expendable. If you fail, that’s okay. You can do their dirty work, clean up their house, as Haitians have for decades. And you know what you’ll get?”

“No, what?” Though she knew where this was heading.

“Even more shit. You’ll have their merde all over you, and you’ll be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb—”

“All these farm animals, André. Is there something you need to tell me?”

He’d grown angry then. But then he was often angry. Not abusive, not violent. But he was a thirty-nine-year-old black man. He’d been stopped so many times by the cops, he’d stopped counting. They’d had to train their fourteen-year-old son, from the time he could walk, how to behave when stopped by the cops. When harassed. When targeted. When pushed and provoked.

Don’t react. Move slowly. Show your hands. Be polite, do as you’re asked. Don’t react.

André had a right to his anger, his cynicism.

She was also angry, enraged often. But she was willing to give it one last chance. As she’d been given one last chance.

“You might be right,” she said. “But I have to try.”

“Gamache is like all the rest,” he’d said. “Just wait. When the shit starts flying, he’ll step aside and it’ll hit you. That’s why he chose you.”

“He chose me because I’m very, very good at what I do,” she said, getting angry herself. “If you can’t see that, then we have to have another discussion.”

She’d glared at him, her anger heightened by her suspicion he was right.

And now she sat with Chief Superintendent Gamache, at a little wooden table, surrounded by laughing, chatting diners.

And he was asking her to build the ship mid-ocean. The shit ship was taking on piss, and he wanted her not just to repair it, but to redesign it?

Madeleine Toussaint looked across the table, into his worn face. If that was all she saw, she’d think him spent and those who followed him doomed. But she saw that the creases radiating from his eyes and mouth were made more from humor than weariness. And the eyes, deep brown, were not just intelligent, they were thoughtful.

And kind.

And determined.

Far from being spent, here was a person at the height of his power. And he’d reached down, into the muck, and pulled her up. And given her power beyond imagining. And asked her to stand beside him. To stand with him.

To run Serious Crimes.

“When you feel overwhelmed, come talk to me,” he said. “I know what it’s like. I’ve felt like that myself.”

“And who do you talk to, sir?”

He smiled, and the lines down his face deepened. “My wife. I tell her everything.”

“Everything?”

“Well, almost. It’s important, Madeleine, not to cut people out of our lives. Isolation doesn’t make us better at our job. It makes us weaker, more vulnerable.”

She nodded. She’d have to think about that.

“My husband says you’ve made me captain of a sinking ship. That this is an unsalvageable situation.”

Gamache nodded thoughtfully, and took a long, deep breath. “He’s right. In part. The situation as it stands is untenable, unwinnable. As I said in the meeting, the war on drugs is lost. So what do we do?”

Toussaint shook her head.

“Think,” he said, intense.

And she did. What to do when your position was unwinnable?

You either give up, or—

“We change.”

He smiled. And nodded. “We change. But not slightly. We need a radical change, and that, unfortunately, cannot come from the old guard. It needs bold, creative new minds. And brave hearts.”

“But you’re—”

She stopped herself just in time. Or perhaps, not quite in time.

Chief Superintendent Gamache looked at her with amusement.

“Old?”

“Er.”

“Er?” he asked.

“Older,” she said. “Désolé.”

“Don’t be. It’s true. But someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be expendable.”

Madeleine Toussaint knew then that her husband might’ve been right about many things, but he’d been wrong about one. She was not the goat tethered to the ground. To draw the predators.

Gamache was.

“We have a great advantage, Superintendent,” said Gamache, his voice crisp and businesslike again. “Several actually. Our predecessors spent most of their energy on breaking their own laws and covering up. They also spent much of their time on internecine wars. Firing at each other, sometimes literally. Crime got out of control, partly because the attention of the top Sûreté officers was on their own corruption, and partly because the cartels paid good money for blind eyes.”

“They blinded their own eyes,” said Toussaint. “For money and power.”

“Yes. Very Greek.” But he didn’t look amused. And she wondered if that was a joke or if he really did see it as an ancient tragedy playing out in modern-day Québec.

“And now?” she asked.

“You said it yourself. We change. Everything. While appearing to change nothing.” He looked at her, studying her. “The only reason we police as we do is because someone a century ago organized us this way. But what worked then doesn’t work now. You’re young. Use that to your advantage. Our adversaries are expecting the same old tactics.”

He leaned forward and lowered his voice. But it was filled with energy, awe even.

“Reinvent, Madeleine. Make it new and bold. Now’s our chance. While no one thinks we can do it. While no one’s looking. Your husband isn’t alone. Everyone thinks that the Sûreté is irreparably damaged. Not just in reputation, but that there’s rot. And the whole thing is teetering. And you know what? They’re right. So we can either spend our time and energy and resources propping up a mortally damaged institution, or we can begin again.”

“And what do we do?” she asked, swept up in his excitement.

He leaned back. “I don’t know.”

She felt herself deflate, but only slightly. Part of her was pleased to hear it. It meant she could contribute rather than just implement.

“I need ideas,” Gamache said. “From you. From the others. I’ve been thinking about it.”

He’d spent many autumn mornings and evenings, Henri and Gracie at his feet, sitting on the bench above Three Pines. The one inscribed Surprised by Joy and, above that, A Brave Man in a Brave Country.

He’d looked at the tiny village, going about its life, and then beyond that, the mountains and forest and ribbon of golden river. And he’d thought. And he’d thought.

He’d turned down the job of Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté, Québec’s top cop, twice. Partly because he didn’t want to be the one on the bridge when a ship he’d once so admired went down. And he couldn’t see any way to save it.

But the third time he was asked, he again took himself up to the bench, and he thought. About the corruption. The damage done.

He thought about the Sûreté Academy and the young recruits. He thought about a life of peace. Of quiet. Here in Three Pines. Off the map. Off the radar.

Safe.

Reine-Marie had often joined him. They’d sit side by side, quietly. Until one evening, she’d spoken.

“I was just thinking about Odysseus,” she’d said.

“Oddly”—he turned to her—“I was not.”

She’d laughed. “I was thinking about his retirement.”

“Odysseus retired?”

“He did. As an old man he was tired. Of war. He was even tired of the sea. And so he took an oar and walked into the woods. He walked and walked, until he found a people who had no idea what an oar was. And there he made his home. Where no one would know the name Odysseus. Where no one would have heard of the Trojan War. Where he could live out his life anonymously. In peace.”

Armand had sat very still and very silent for a long time, looking at Three Pines.

And then he’d gotten up, and returned home. And made a phone call.

Odysseus’s battle was done. His war won.

Gamache’s wasn’t yet won. Or lost. There was at least one more battle.

And now here he was in a bistro in Old Montréal with a very young superintendent, talking about ships.

“My husband was right about the leaky ship. But he was wrong about something else. I’m not alone.”

“No, you’re not.”

She nodded. She’d felt alone for so long she’d failed to notice that was no longer the case. She had colleagues. People standing not behind her, but beside her.

“We need to commit totally,” she said. “Burn our ships. No going back.”

Gamache stared at her, then sat back in his chair.

“Patron?” she asked, just a little afraid he was having a petit mal. Or maybe, as the moments went by, a grand mal.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and drew a napkin toward him.

Taking a pen from his breast pocket, he scribbled a few words, then looked up and smiled, beamed, at her. He folded the napkin and put it in his pocket. And leaned toward her.

“That’s what we’ll do. We won’t repair the ship. We’ll burn it.”

He gave one firm nod.

When Superintendent Toussaint arrived back after lunch, she was reenergized. Invigorated. By his words. And she tried not to think about the hint of madness that had played on the edges of Chief Superintendent Gamache’s tone.

Madeleine Toussaint might have been the first, but before it was over she’d be far from the last person to think that the new head of the Sûreté had lost his mind.