How the Light Gets In

FORTY

It took a split second to break through the Yale lock, then they were in the schoolhouse.

Tessier stepped through first, followed by the two large agents. Sylvain Francoeur strolled in last and looked around. Monitors, cables, wires, and boxes were against one wall. Five empty chairs circled the still warm woodstove.

Francoeur took off his gloves and let his hand hover over the cast-iron woodstove.

Yes. They’d been here, and not long ago. They’d gotten out in a hurry, leaving behind all that incriminating equipment. Gamache, the Brunels, and Agent Nichol were shut down and on the run. Incapable of more damage. It was just a matter of time before they were found.

“How’d you know?” Francoeur asked Beauvoir.

“The schoolhouse was closed,” Beauvoir explained. “But the path to it’s been cleared. Like the Longpré place.”

“Gamache makes a habit of abandoning places,” the Chief Superintendent said. “And people.”

He turned his back on Beauvoir and joined the others at the computers.

Jean-Guy watched for a moment, then left.

His boots crunched on the snow, munch, munch, munch, as he walked across the village green, which was very, very, suspiciously, quiet. Normally kids would be playing hockey, parents either watching or out cross-country skiing. Families would be tobogganing down the hill, shedding passengers as they flew over bumps.

But today, despite the sunshine, Three Pines was quiet. Not abandoned, he felt. Not a ghost town. Three Pines seemed to be waiting. And watching.

Jean-Guy walked over to the bench and sat down.

He didn’t know what Francoeur and Tessier were about. He didn’t know why they were here. He didn’t know how Gamache figured in. And he didn’t ask.

He pulled a pill bottle out of his pocket, shook two out and swallowed them. He looked at the OxyContin bottle. He had two more in his apartment, and a nearly full bottle of anti-anxiety pills.

Enough to do the job.

“Hello, numb nuts,” said Ruth, as she sat on the bench beside Jean-Guy. “Who’re your new friends?”

Ruth waved her cane toward the old schoolhouse.

Beauvoir watched as one of Francoeur’s agents carried something from the van into the schoolhouse.

Beauvoir said nothing. He simply stared ahead of him.

“What’s so interesting over there?” Ruth asked him.

Olivier had tried to stop her from going outside, but when Ruth saw Beauvoir sit on the bench alone, she put on her coat, picked up her duck, and left, saying, “Don’t you think he’d find it strange if the village was completely deserted? I won’t tell him anything. What do you think I am? Crazy?”

“As a matter of—”

But it was too late. The old poet had left the building. Olivier watched with trepidation. Myrna and Clara watched from the window of the bookstore. In the loft, Gabri, Nichol, and the Brunels watched as Ruth crossed the road and joined Beauvoir on the cold bench.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Thérèse asked Gabri.

“Oh, no. It’ll be fine,” said Gabri, and grimaced.

“I have a clear shot,” said Nichol, her voice hopeful.

“I think Nichol and the crazy poet might be related,” Jérôme said to Thérèse.

Down below, Ruth, Rosa and Jean-Guy sat side by side, watching the activity at the schoolhouse.

“Who hurt you once,” Ruth whispered to the young man, “so far beyond repair?”

Jean-Guy roused, as though finally noticing he wasn’t alone. He looked at her.

“Am I, Ruth?” he asked, using her first name for the first time. “Beyond repair?”

“What do you think?” She stroked Rosa, but looked at him.

“I think maybe I am,” he said softly.

Beauvoir stared at the old schoolhouse. Instead of taking the computers out, new equipment was being brought in from the van. Boxes and wires and cables. It looked familiar, but Beauvoir couldn’t be bothered to dig through his memory for the information.

Ruth sat quietly beside him, then she lifted Rosa from her lap, feeling it warm where the duck had been. She carefully placed Rosa on Jean-Guy’s lap.

He seemed not to notice, but after a few moments he brought his hand up and stroked Rosa. Softly, softly.

“I could wring her neck, you know,” he said.

“I know,” said Ruth. “Please don’t.”

She watched Rosa, holding her dark duck eyes. And Rosa looked at Ruth, as Jean-Guy’s hand caressed the feathers of Rosa’s back, coming closer and closer to the long neck.

Ruth held fast to Rosa’s eyes.

Finally Jean-Guy’s hand stopped, and rested.

“Rosa came back,” he said.

Ruth nodded.

“I’m glad,” he said.

“She took the long way home,” said Ruth. “Some do, you know. They seem lost. Sometimes they might even head off in the wrong direction. Lots of people give up, say they’re gone forever, but I don’t believe that. Some make it home, eventually.”

Jean-Guy lifted Rosa from his lap and attempted to return her to Ruth. But the old woman held up her hand.

“No. You keep her now.”

Jean-Guy stared at Ruth, uncomprehending. He tried again to give Rosa back, and again Ruth gently, firmly declined.

“She’ll have a good home with you,” she said, now not looking at Rosa at all.

“But I don’t know how to look after a duck,” he said. “What would I do with her?”

“Isn’t the question more what’ll she do with you?” asked Ruth. She got up and fished in her pocket. “These are the keys to my car.” She gave them to Beauvoir and nodded toward an old beat-up Civic. “I think Rosa would be better off away from here, don’t you?”

Beauvoir stared at the keys in his hand, then at the thin, wrinkled, wretched old face. And the rheumy eyes that, in the bright sunshine, seemed to be leaking light.

“Leave here,” she said. “Take Rosa. Please.”

She bent down slowly, as though each inch was agony, and kissed Rosa on the top of her head. Then she looked into Rosa’s bright eyes and whispered, “I love you.”

Ruth Zardo turned her back on them and limped away. Her head erect, she walked slowly forward. Toward the bistro and whatever was coming next.

“It’s a joke, right?” the fat cop on the other side of the counter said to Isabelle Lacoste. “Someone’s gonna blow this up?”

He waved at his monitors and all but called her “little lady.”

Lacoste didn’t have time for diplomacy. She’d shown him her Sûreté ID and told him what was about to happen. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t been eager to close the bridge.

Now she walked around the counter and stuck her Glock under his chin. “It’s no joke,” she said, and saw his eyes widen in terror.

“Wait,” he begged.

“Explosives are attached to the piers and will be set off any moment now. The bomb squad will be here in a few minutes but I need you to close the bridge, now. If you don’t, you’ll go down with it.”

When the Chief Inspector had told her the target and ordered her to close the bridge, she’d been faced with a problem. Who to trust?

Then it struck her. The security guards on the bridge. They couldn’t know what was about to happen, or they’d have gotten out of there fast. Anyone still working on the bridge could be trusted. The question now was, could they be convinced?

“Call your squad cars back in.”

She waited, her gun still trained on him, while he radioed the cars and ordered them back.

“Download this.” She handed the guard a USB key and watched as he put it in his computer and opened the files.

“What are these?” he asked, scanning them. But Lacoste didn’t answer, and slowly, slowly his face went slack.

She returned her gun to its holster. He was no longer looking at it, or her. His eyes, and attention, were completely focused on the screen. A couple of his colleagues arrived back at the guard post. They looked at Lacoste, then at him.

“What’s up?”

But the look on his face stopped any banter.

“What is it?” one asked.

“Call the Super, get the bomb squads out, close the bridge—”

But Lacoste didn’t hear any more. She was back in her car and heading over the bridge. To the far shore. To the village.

Gamache sped along the familiar, snow-covered secondary road. His car fishtailed on a patch of ice and he took his foot off the accelerator. No time for an accident. Everything that happened from here on in needed to be considered and deliberate.

He spotted a convenience store and pulled into it.

“May I use your phone, please?” He showed the clerk his Sûreté ID.

“You have to buy something.”

“Give me your phone.”

“Buy something.”

“Fine.” Gamache picked up the closest thing he could find. “There.”

“Really?” the clerk looked at the pile of condoms.

“Just give me the phone, son,” said Gamache, fighting his desire to throttle this amused young man. Instead he brought out his wallet and put a twenty on the counter.

“If you want to use the can you’ll have to buy something else,” the kid said as he rang up the sale and handed Gamache the phone.

Gamache dialed. It rang, and rang. And rang.

Please, oh please.

“Francoeur.” The voice was clipped, tense.

“Bonjour, Chief Superintendent.”

There was a pause.

“Is that you, Armand? I’ve been looking for you.”

The connection kept cutting in and out, but Sylvain Francoeur’s voice had become happy, friendly. Not in a sly way, but he seemed genuinely pleased by the call. As though they were best friends.

It was, Gamache knew, one of the Chief Superintendent’s many gifts, the ability to make an imitation appear genuine. A counterfeit man. Anyone listening, and there could be any number, would be in no doubt about Francoeur’s sincerity.

“Yes, I’m sorry I’ve been out of contact,” said Gamache. “Tying up loose ends.”

“Exactly what I’m doing. What can I do for you?”

In the old schoolhouse, Francoeur watched as the agents worked. He pressed the phone to his ear and stood by the window, barely able to get the signal. “You’ll have to speak up. I’m in a village with very poor reception.”

Gamache felt as though he’d swallowed battery acid.

So Sylvain was already in Three Pines. Gamache had miscalculated, thinking it would take Francoeur longer to find the place. But then another dose of acid hit his insides. Francoeur must have found someone who knew the way.

Jean-Guy.

Gamache took a deep breath and steadied his voice. Tried to make it sound casual, polite, slightly bored.

“I’m heading out your way, sir. I was wondering if we could meet.”

Francoeur raised his brows. He’d expected to have to hunt Gamache down. It never occurred to him that Gamache’s hubris was so great it consumed all good sense.

But apparently it did.

“Fine with me,” said Sylvain Francoeur cheerfully. “Shall we meet here? Inspector Tessier tells me there’s an interesting satellite dish set up in the woods. I haven’t seen it yet. He thinks it might have been put there by the Aztecs. Do you know it?”

There was a pause.

“I do.”

“Good. Why don’t we meet there.”

Francoeur hung up. He knew Gamache would never make the rendezvous. Agents were closing in and would pick up the Chief Inspector any moment now.

He turned to his second in command.

“They know what to do?” he indicated the two agents. One was under the desk, the other was at the door into the schoolhouse, working with wires.

Tessier nodded. The agents had been with him when he’d dealt with Pierre Arnot and Audrey Villeneuve, and others. They did as they were told.

“Come with me.”

At the door, Tessier turned to the agents.

“Don’t forget about Beauvoir. We need him here.”

“Yessir.”

Beauvoir was no longer on the bench, but Tessier wasn’t worried. He was probably passed out in the SUV.

“What do you think it means?” Jérôme whispered as they watched Francoeur and Tessier walk up the hill out of the village. “Are they leaving?”

“On foot?” asked Nichol.

“Maybe not,” conceded Dr. Brunel. “But at least Beauvoir’s gone.”

They looked at the blank spot in the snow where Myrna’s car had been.

Downstairs, Myrna turned to Ruth. “You gave him my car?”

“Well, I couldn’t very well give him mine. I don’t have a car.”

“Where’d you get the keys?”

“They were on the desk where you always keep them.”

Myrna shook her head, but she couldn’t be angry at Ruth. Beauvoir might have taken Myrna’s car, but he’d taken something far more precious from Ruth.

They heard the door to the bookstore close and looked over at it, then out the window. Gabri was walking swiftly along the road, without a coat or hat or boots. He slipped, but righted himself.

“Shit,” said Nichol, racing downstairs, “where’s he going?”

The Brunels were behind her, and Thérèse stopped the young agent before she followed Gabri outside.

“He’s going to the church,” said Clara. She threw on her coat and was almost at the door when Nichol grabbed her arm.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Nichol.

Clara shook her arm free in a move so sudden and violent it took Nichol by surprise. “Gabri’s my friend and I’m not going to leave him on his own.”

“He’s running away,” said Nichol. “Look at him, he’s scared shitless.”

“I doubt that,” said Ruth. “Gabri will never be shitless. He has an endless supply of it.”

“Was that Gabri?” Olivier hurried through the connecting door from the bistro.

“He’s going to the church,” said Clara. “I’m going too.”

“So’m I,” said Olivier.

“No,” said Thérèse. “You have to look after the bistro.”

“You look after it.” He tossed the tea towel at her and followed Clara out the door.

Once up the hill and in the woods, Francoeur’s and Tessier’s devices began to buzz. It was as though they’d crossed a membrane from one world to another.

Francoeur paused on the path and scanned his messages.

His orders had been followed, swiftly, effectively. The mess Gamache had created was being contained, cleaned up.

“Merde,” said Tessier. “We thought we had Gamache.”

“You’ve lost him?”

“He threw his cell phone and the tracking device away.”

“And it took your agents this long to figure that out?”

“No, they realized it half an hour ago, but that fucking village stopped the messages from getting through. Besides—”

“Oui?”

“They thought they were following him, but he put the tracking devices on a float in the Christmas parade.”

“Are you telling me the elite of the Sûreté followed Santa Claus through downtown Montréal?”

“Not Santa. It was Snow White.”

“Christ,” Francoeur huffed. “Still, it doesn’t matter. Gamache’s coming to us.”

Before putting his phone back in his pocket, Francoeur noticed a short text, sent to all points almost half an hour earlier, announcing Chief Inspector Gamache’s resignation. So like Gamache, Francoeur thought. Thinking the whole world would care.

Thérèse Brunel saw one of the Sûreté officers emerge from the old schoolhouse. As she watched, he surveyed the village, then went into Emilie’s home, then over to the B and B. A minute or so later he emerged and opened the passenger doors of the SUV.

Superintendent Brunel heard the car door slam and watched as the agent looked around in frustration.

He’s lost something, Thérèse Brunel thought, and she could guess at what. Or whom. They were looking for Beauvoir. Then he looked in her direction, his sharp eyes just glancing past hers before she jerked back against the wall.

“What is it?” Jérôme asked.

“He’s headed over here,” said Thérèse, and brought out her gun.

The agent started toward the line of businesses. The bistro and bookstore and bakery. It was possible Beauvoir had gone in one of them, to rest. Or pass out.

This would be easy, the agent knew.

He could feel his gun on his belt, but he knew what would be most effective was in his pocket. The baggie of pills Tessier had given him, each a little bullet to the brain.

The other agent was making the final arrangements in the schoolhouse, and all they needed now was Beauvoir.

But the officer hesitated. A few minutes earlier he’d noticed a large black woman and an old woman with a cane heading to the church.

The same old woman who’d been talking to Beauvoir on the bench.

If Beauvoir was missing, she might know where he was.

He changed course and made for the church.

Armand Gamache parked beside the path into the woods. The one he and Gilles had forged just a few days earlier. It was freshly trodden, he could see.

He walked down the path, deeper and deeper into the forest. Toward the blind.

He saw Sylvain Francoeur first, standing at the base of the white pine. Then he looked up. Standing on the old wooden blind, beside the satellite dish, was Martin Tessier. Inspector Tessier, of the Serious Crimes division, was about to commit a very serious crime. He had an automatic trained on Chief Inspector Gamache.

Gamache stopped on the track, and wondered, fleetingly, if this was how the deer felt. He looked straight at Tessier and turned slightly toward him. Showing the marksman his chest. Daring him to pull the trigger.

If there was ever a time for that damned thing to collapse, thought Gamache, now was it.

But the blind held, and Tessier held him in his sights.

Gamache shifted his eyes to Francoeur and put his arms out at his sides.

The Chief Superintendent gestured and Tessier climbed rapidly and easily down the rickety ladder.

The agent entered the church and looked around. It appeared empty. Then he noticed the old woman, still in her gray cloth coat and tuque. She sat in a back pew. The large black woman sat in a front pew.

He stared into the corners but couldn’t see anyone.

“You there,” he said. “Who else is here?”

“If you’re talking to Ruth, you’re wasting your time,” said the woman at the front. She stood up and smiled at him. “She doesn’t speak French.”

She herself spoke to him in very good, though slightly accented, French.

“Can I help you?”

The agent walked down the aisle. “I’m looking for Inspector Beauvoir. You know him?”

“I do,” she said. “He’s been here before, with Chief Inspector Gamache.”

“Where is he now?”

“Beauvoir? I thought he was with you,” said Myrna.

“Why would I—”

But he didn’t get to finish his sentence. The muzzle of a Glock was thrust into the base of his skull and an expert hand reached in and took his gun from its holster.

He turned around. The elderly woman in the cloth coat and knitted tuque was holding a service revolver on him.

And she wasn’t old at all.

“Sûreté,” said Agent Nichol. “You’re under arrest.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir was on the highway heading toward Montréal. Rosa sat beside him, and hadn’t made a sound. Nor had she stopped staring at him.

But Beauvoir kept his eyes forward. Moving further and further away from the village. He didn’t know what Francoeur and Tessier and the others had planned, and he didn’t want to know.

When he’d emerged from Three Pines his device had blipped, a few times. All messages from Lacoste. Wondering where he was.

Beauvoir knew what that meant. It meant Gamache was looking for him, probably to finish what he’d started the day before. But then he’d read her last message, sent across the system.

Gamache had resigned. He was out of the Sûreté.

It was over.

He glanced at the duck. Why in the world had he agreed to take her? Though he knew the answer to that. It wasn’t that he’d agreed to take her, but that he hadn’t the energy or willpower to fight.

Beauvoir wondered, though, why Ruth had given her to him. He knew how much she loved Rosa, and how much Rosa loved her.

I love you, Ruth had whispered to the duck.

I love you. But this time the voice didn’t belong to the demented old poet, but to Gamache. In the factory. Bullets slamming into the concrete floor, into the walls. Bam, bam, bam. The clouds of choking, blinding dust. The deafening sounds. The shouts, the shots, the screams.

And Gamache dragging him to safety, and staunching his wound. Even as the bullets hit around them.

The Chief had stared into his eyes and bent over and kissed him on his forehead and whispered, “I love you.”

As Gamache had the day before, when he thought Beauvoir was about to shoot him. Instead of struggling, of fighting back, as he could have, he’d said, I love you.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew then that he and Rosa hadn’t been abandoned, they’d been saved.