How the Light Gets In

TWENTY-TWO

“Dinner!” Clara called.

They’d watched to the end of the DVD. After the NFB footage and the newsreels, there were more clips of the Quints. At First Communion, meeting the young Queen, curtsying to the Prime Minister.

In unison, of course. And the great man laughing, delighted.

It was odd, thought Clara, as she took the casserole from the oven, to see someone she only knew as an elderly woman as an infant. It was odder still to see her grow up. To see so much of her, and so many of her.

Seeing those films one after the other went from charming, to disconcerting, to devastating. It was made even odder by not being able to tell which one was Constance. They were all her. And none were.

The films ended suddenly when the girls reached their late teens.

“Can I help?” asked Myrna, prying the warm bread from Clara’s hand.

“What did you think of the film?” Clara asked, putting the baguette Myrna sliced into a basket. Olivier was placing plates on the long pine table while Gabri tossed the salad.

Ruth was either trying to light the candles or set the house on fire. Armand was nowhere to be seen, and neither were Thérèse or her husband Jérôme.

“I keep seeing that first sister, Virginie, I think, looking at the camera.” Myrna paused in her slicing and stared ahead.

“You mean when their mother wouldn’t let them back into the house?” Clara asked.

Myrna nodded and thought how strange it was that, when talking with Gamache, she’d used the house analogy, saying that Constance was locked and barricaded inside her emotional home.

What was worse, Myrna wondered. To be locked in, or locked out?

“They were so young,” Clara said, as she took the knife from Myrna’s suspended hand. “Maybe Constance didn’t remember.”

“Oh, she’d have remembered,” said Myrna. “They all would. If not the specific event, they’d remember how it felt.”

“And they couldn’t tell anyone,” said Clara. “Not even their parents. Especially not their parents. I wonder what that does to a person.”

“I know what it does.”

They turned to Ruth, who’d struck another match. She stared, cross-eyed, as it burned down. Just before it singed her yellowed nails she blew it out.

“What does it do?” Clara asked. The room was quiet, all eyes on the old poet.

“It turns a little girl into an ancient mariner.”

There was a collective sigh. They’d actually thought maybe Ruth had the answer. They should have known better than to look for wisdom in a drunken old pyro.

“The albatross?” asked Gamache.

He was standing just inside the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. Myrna wondered how long he’d been listening.

Ruth struck another match and Gamache held her blazing eyes, looking beyond the flame to the charred core.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gilles broke the silence. “An old sailor and a tuna?”

“That’s albacore,” said Olivier.

“Oh, for chrissake,” snapped Ruth, and flicked her hand so that the flame went out. “One day I’ll be dead and then what’ll you do for cultured conversation, you stupid shits?”

“Touché,” said Myrna.

Ruth gave Gamache one final, stern look, then turned to the rest of the room.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?” When that was met with blank stares she went on. “Epic poem. Coleridge?”

Gilles leaned toward Olivier and whispered, “She’s not going to recite it, is she? I get enough poetry at home.”

“Right,” said Ruth. “People are always confusing Odile’s work with Coleridge.”

“At least they both rhyme,” said Gabri.

“Not always,” Gilles confided. “In her latest, Odile has ‘turnip’ rhyming with ‘cowshed.’”

Ruth sighed so violently her latest match blew out.

“OK, I’ll bite,” said Olivier. “Why does any of this remind you of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?”

Ruth looked around. “Don’t tell me Clouseau and I are the only ones with classical educations?”

“Wait a minute,” said Gabri. “I remember now. Didn’t the ancient mariner and Ellen DeGeneres save Nemo from a fish tank in Australia?”

“I think that was the Little Mermaid,” said Clara.

“Really?” Gabri turned to her. “Because I seem to remember—”

“Stop it.” Ruth waved them to be quiet. “The Ancient Mariner carried his secret, like a dead albatross, around his neck. He knew the only way to get rid of it was to tell others. To unburden himself. So he stopped a stranger, a wedding guest, and told him everything.”

“And what was his secret?” asked Gilles.

“The mariner had killed an albatross at sea,” said Gamache, stepping into the kitchen and taking the breadbasket to the table. “As a consequence of this cruel act, God took the lives of the entire crew.”

“Jeez,” said Gilles. “I’m no fan of hunting, but a bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?”

“Only the mariner was spared,” said Gamache. “To stew. When he was finally rescued he realized that he could only be free if he talked about what had happened.”

“That a bird died?” asked Gilles, still trying to wrap his mind around it.

“That an innocent creature was killed,” said Gamache. “That he’d killed it.”

“You’d think God should also have to answer for slaughtering the entire crew,” Gilles suggested.

“Oh, shut up,” snapped Ruth. “The Ancient Mariner brought the curse on himself and them. It was his fault, and he had to admit it, or carry it the rest of his life. Got it?”

“Still doesn’t make sense to me,” mumbled Gilles.

“If you think this is difficult, try reading The Faerie Queene,” said Myrna.

“Fairy Queen?” asked Gabri, hopefully. “Sounds like bedtime reading to me.”

They sat down for dinner, the guests jockeying not to sit next to Ruth, or the duck.

Gamache lost.

Or perhaps he wasn’t playing.

Or perhaps he won.

“You think Constance had an albatross around her neck?” he asked Ruth as he spooned chicken and dumplings onto her plate.

“Ironic, don’t you think?” Ruth asked, without thanking him. “Talking about the killing of an innocent bird while eating chicken?”

Gabri and Clara put down their forks. The rest pretended they hadn’t heard. It was, after all, very tasty.

“So what was Constance’s albatross?” asked Olivier.

“Why ask me, numb nuts? How would I know?”

“But you think she had a secret?” Myrna persevered. “Something she felt guilty about?”

“Look.” Ruth laid down her cutlery and stared across at Myrna. “If I was a fortune-teller, what would I say to people? I’d look them in the eye and say…” She turned to Gamache and moved her spiny hands back and forth in front of his amused face. She took on a vague eastern European accent and lowered her voice. “You carry a heavy burden. A secret. Something you’ve told no living soul. Your heart is breaking, but you must let it go.”

Ruth dropped her hands but continued to stare at Gamache. He gave nothing away, but became very still.

“Who doesn’t have a secret?” Ruth asked quietly, speaking directly to the Chief.

“You’re right, of course,” said Gamache, taking a forkful of the delicious casserole. “We all carry secrets. Most to the grave.”

“But some secrets are heavier than others,” said the old poet. “Some stagger us, slow us. And instead of taking them to the grave, the grave comes to us.”

“You think that’s what happened with Constance?” asked Myrna.

Ruth held Gamache’s thoughtful brown eyes for a moment longer, then broke off to stare across the table.

“Don’t you, Myrna?”

More frightening than the thought was Ruth’s use of Myrna’s actual name. So serious was the suddenly and suspiciously sober poet that she’d forgotten to forget Myrna’s name.

“What do you think her secret was?” asked Olivier.

“I think it was that she was a transvestite,” said Ruth so seriously that Olivier’s brows rose, then quickly descended and he glowered. Beside him, Gabri laughed.

“The Fairy Queen after all,” he said.

“How the hell should I know her secret?” demanded Ruth.

Gamache looked across the table. Myrna was the wedding guest, he suspected. The person Constance Ouellet had chosen to unburden herself to. But she never got that chance.

And, more and more, Gamache suspected it wasn’t a coincidence that Constance Ouellet, the last Quint, was murdered as she prepared to return to Three Pines.

Someone wanted to prevent her from getting here.

Someone wanted to prevent her from unburdening herself.

But then another thought struck Gamache. Maybe Myrna wasn’t the only wedding guest. Maybe Constance had confided in someone else.

The rest of the meal was spent talking about Christmas plans, menus, the upcoming concert.

Everyone, except Ruth, cleared the table while Gabri took Olivier’s trifle out of the fridge, with its layers of ladyfingers, custard, fresh whipped cream and brandy-infused jam.

“The love that dares not speak its name,” Gabri whispered as he cradled it in his arms.

“How many calories, do you think?” asked Clara.

“Don’t ask,” said Olivier.

“Don’t tell,” said Myrna.

After dinner, when the table was cleared and the dishes done, the guests took their leave, getting on their heavy coats and sorting through the jumble of boots by the mudroom door.

Gamache felt a hand on his elbow and was drawn by Gilles into a far corner of the kitchen.

“I think I know how to connect you to the Internet.” The woodsman’s eyes were bright.

“Really?” asked Gamache, barely daring to believe it. “How?”

“There’s a tower up there already. One you know about.”

Gamache looked at his companion, perplexed. “I don’t think so. We’d be able to see it, non?”

“No. That’s the beauty of it,” said Gilles, excited now. “It’s practically invisible. In fact, you can barely tell it’s there even from right under it.”

Gamache was unconvinced. He knew those woods, not, perhaps, as intimately as Gilles, but well enough. And nothing came to mind.

“Just tell me,” said the Chief. “What’re you talking about?”

“When Ruth was talking about killing that bird, it made me think of hunting. And that reminded me of the blind.”

The Chief’s face went slack from surprise. Merde, he thought. The hunting blind. That wooden structure high up in a tree in the forest. It was a platform with wooden railings, built by hunters to sit comfortably and wait for a deer to walk past. Then they’d kill it. The modern equivalent of the Ancient Mariner in his crow’s nest.

It was, for a man who’d seen far too many deaths, shameful.

But it might, this day, redeem itself.

“The blind,” whispered Gamache. He’d actually been on it, when he’d first come to Three Pines to investigate the murder of Miss Jane Neal, but he hadn’t thought of it in years. “It’ll work?”

“I think so. It’s not as high as a transmission tower, but it’s on the top of the hill and it’s stable. We can attach a satellite dish up there for sure.”

Gamache waved Thérèse and Jérôme over.

“Gilles’s figured out how to get a satellite dish up above.”

“How?” the Brunels asked together and the Chief told them.

“That’ll work?” asked Jérôme.

“We won’t know until we try, of course,” said Gilles, but he was smiling and clearly hopeful, if not completely confident. “When do you need it up by?”

“The dish and other equipment are arriving sometime tonight,” said Gamache, and both Thérèse and Jérôme looked at him, surprised.

Gilles walked with them to the door. The others were just leaving, and the four of them put on their parkas and boots, hats and mitts. They thanked Clara, then left.

Gilles stopped at his car. “I’ll be by tomorrow morning then,” he said. “À demain.”

They shook hands, and after he’d driven away Gamache turned to the Brunels.

“Do you mind walking Henri? I’d like a word with Ruth.”

Thérèse took the leash. “I won’t ask which word.”

“Good.”

Sylvain Francoeur glanced from the document his second in command had downloaded, then went back to the computer. They were in the Chief Superintendent’s study at home.

As his boss read the report, Tessier tried to read his boss. But in all the years he’d worked for the Chief Superintendent, he’d never been able to do that.

Classically handsome, in his early sixties, the Chief Superintendent could smile and bite your head off. He could quote Chaucer and Tintin, in either educated French or broad joual. He’d order poutine for lunch and foie gras for dinner. He was all things. To all people. He was everything and he was nothing.

But Francoeur also had a boss. Someone he answered to. Tessier had seen the Chief Superintendent with him just once. The man hadn’t been introduced as Francoeur’s boss, of course, but Tessier could tell by the way Francoeur behaved. “Grovel” would be too strong a word, but there’d been anxiety there. Francoeur had been as anxious to please that man as Tessier was to please Francoeur.

At first it had amused Tessier, but then the smile had burned away when he realized there was someone who scared the most frightening man he knew.

Francoeur finally sat back, rocking a little in the chair.

“I need to get back to my guests. I see it went well.”

“Perfectly.” Tessier kept his face placid, his voice neutral. He’d learned to mirror his boss. “We got completely kitted out, drove there in the assault van. By the time we got there Beauvoir could barely stand. I made sure some of the evidence ended up in a baggie in his pocket, with my compliments.”

“I don’t need to know the details,” said Francoeur.

“Sorry, sir.”

It wasn’t, Tessier knew, because Francoeur was squeamish. It was that he just didn’t care. All he cared about was that it was done. The details he left up to his subordinates.

“I want him sent on another raid.”

“Another?”

“Do you have a problem with that, Inspector?”

“It’s a waste of time, in my opinion, sir. Beauvoir’s had it. He’s past the edge now, hanging in midair. He just hasn’t fallen. But he will. There’s no way back for him and nothing to go back to. He’s lost everything, and he knows it. Another raid is unnecessary.”

“Is that so? You think this is about Beauvoir?”

The calm should have warned him. The slight smile certainly should have. But Inspector Tessier had taken his eyes off Francoeur’s face.

“I realize this is about Chief Inspector Gamache.”

“Do you?”

“But did you see here—” Tessier leaned forward and pointed to the computer screen. He didn’t see that the Chief Superintendent’s eyes never left him. Never wavered. Barely blinked.

“The psychologist’s report, Dr. Fleury. Gamache was so upset he went to see him today. A Saturday.”

Too late, he looked up into those glacier eyes. “We picked this off Dr. Fleury’s computer late this afternoon.”

He hoped for some sign of approval. A slight thaw. A sign of life. But all he met was the dead stare.

“He says Gamache is spinning out of control. Delusional even. Don’t you see?” And even as he said that he could have shot himself. And might have. Francoeur saw everything, ten steps ahead of everyone else. Which was why they were on the verge of success.

There’d been a few unexpected setbacks. The raid on the factory was one. The dam plot discovered. Gamache again.

But that’s what made this report all the sweeter. The Chief Superintendent should be pleased. Then why was he looking like that? Tessier felt his blood cool and grow thick and his heart labor.

“If Gamache ever tries to go public, his own therapist’s report can be leaked. His credibility will be gone. No one will believe a man who…” Tessier looked over at the report, desperate to find that perfect sentence. He found it and read, “… is suffering from persecution mania. Seeing conspiracies and plots.”

Tessier scrolled down, reading fast. Trying to create a wall of reassuring words between himself and Francoeur.

“Chief Inspector Gamache is not simply a broken man,” he read, “but shattered. When I return from Christmas vacation I will recommend he be relieved of duty.”

Tessier looked up and met, again, those arctic eyes. Nothing had changed. Those words, if they penetrated, had only found more ice. Colder. Older. Endless.

“He’s isolated,” said Tessier. “Inspector Lacoste is the only one left of his original investigators. The rest have either transferred out on their own or been moved by you. His last senior ally, Superintendent Brunel, has even abandoned him. She also thinks he’s delusional. We have the recordings from her office. And Gamache refers to it here.”

Once again Tessier rifled through the therapist’s report. “See? He admits they’ve left for Vancouver.”

“They may have gone, but they got too close.” Francoeur spoke at last. “Thérèse Brunel’s husband turned out to be more than a weekend hacker. He almost figured it out.”

The voice was conversational, at odds with the glacial look.

“But he didn’t,” said Tessier, eager to reassure his boss. “And it scared him shitless. Brunel shut down his computer. Hasn’t turned it on since.”

“He saw too much.”

“He has no idea what he saw, sir. He won’t be able to put it together.”

“But Gamache will.”

It was Tessier’s turn to smile. “But Dr. Brunel didn’t tell him. And now he and the Superintendent are in Vancouver, as far from Gamache as they could get. They’ve abandoned him. He’s on his own. He admitted as much to his therapist.”

“Where is he?”

“Investigating the murder of the Quint. He’s spending most of his time in some small village in the Townships, and when he’s not there he’s distracted by Beauvoir. It’s too late. He can’t stop it now. Besides, he doesn’t even know what’s happening.”

Chief Superintendent Francoeur got up. Slowly. Deliberately. And walked around his desk. Tessier twisted out of his chair and stood, then stepped back, back, until he felt his body against the bookcase.

Francoeur stopped within inches of his second in command, his eyes never leaving Tessier.

“You know what’s at stake?”

The younger man nodded.

“You know what happens if we succeed?”

Again Tessier nodded.

“And you know what happens if we don’t?”

It had never occurred to Tessier that they could possibly fail, but now he thought about it, and understood what that would mean.

“Do you want me to take care of Gamache, sir?”

“Not yet. It would raise too many questions. You need to make sure Dr. Brunel and Gamache don’t come within a thousand kilometers of each other. Understood?”

“Yessir.”

“If it looks like Gamache is coming close, you need to distract him. That shouldn’t be difficult.”

As Tessier walked to his car he knew Francoeur was right. It wouldn’t be difficult. Just a tiny little shove and Jean-Guy Beauvoir would fall. And land on Chief Inspector Gamache.