Kingdom of the Blind

CHAPTER 15

“Can someone go and wake up Benedict?” asked Jean-Guy as he pushed the bacon around the cast-iron skillet with a fork.

The kitchen smelled of maple-smoked bacon and fresh-perked coffee. The eggs were ready to go on.

It was eight fifteen in the morning, and the sun was up. But Benedict was not.

“I’ll go,” said Armand.

He’d just emerged from his study, having made a private call. He looked slightly distracted, his attention elsewhere, as he walked up the stairs.

They heard a knocking on the bedroom door and Armand calling, “Benedict. Breakfast’s ready.”

Then more knocking. “Up and at ’em.”

Reine-Marie smiled. How often had she heard Armand saying the same thing? Up and at ’em. Outside their son Daniel’s door?

Though the final few months Daniel had been at home had been less than amusing, given the reason he was passed out at ten in the morning. And she remembered the rage their son had felt when his father entered his room to wake him up.

It had verged on violence.

But still Reine-Marie smiled. It had started out as normal, and natural, for a young fellow to sleep in. And had been that way for a long while. Before it all changed.

“Can you come here, please?” Armand called down.

They looked at one another, then Annie gathered Honoré in her arms and they all walked upstairs.

“He’s not here,” said Armand, stepping aside so they could look through the open door.

They peered in. Not only was he not there but the bed hadn’t been slept in. Armand stepped into the room and looked around.

“His things?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Still here.”

Sure enough, the room was exactly as Benedict had left it the night before.

“I’ll make some calls,” said Reine-Marie, heading down the stairs and into the living room, picking up the phone while Armand and Jean-Guy put on their coats, tuques, mitts, and boots.

Armand had already been outside once that morning, walking around the village green with Henri and Gracie. But the sun had been barely up, and it was possible Armand had missed something. Someone. In a snowbank.

The bitter-cold snap had broken, and now it was merely cold. Once outside, Gamache glanced at the thermometer on the verandah. Minus six Celsius.

Cold enough.

The men broke into a trot, Armand pointing clockwise while he went counterclockwise around the village green.

He forced himself to slow to a rapid walk. He didn’t want to miss anything.

His eyes were sharp, scanning. His mind on the search. Trying to divorce action from emotion. Trying not to imagine Benedict curled up by the side of the road.

If that was the case, then there was no hurry, and yet they hurried. In case.

Jean-Guy came around the bend. “Nothing, patron.”

They went around again, slower this time. The snowbanks were steep, but Jean-Guy managed to scramble, with Armand’s help, to the top and walk, like a man on a tightrope, across the jagged ridge. Peering on either side.

Clara came out of her cottage, soon joined by Myrna from her bookshop. Even Ruth appeared.

“Reine-Marie called,” said the old poet. “Anything?”

“Nothing.”

Reine-Marie joined them. “I just spoke to Olivier. Benedict was in the bistro last night. He had a few beers but wasn’t drunk.”

She knew as well as Armand that sometimes people got disoriented in the cold and dark. Often helped along by drink and drugs.

“Nothing here,” said Jean-Guy, sliding off the snowbank.

“We need to split up,” said Armand. “Check the roads in and out of town.”

“I’ll take the Old Stage Road,” said Clara, not waiting for a response but heading in that direction.

They divvied up the paths while Ruth went into the bistro to talk to Olivier.

A few minutes later, they heard a sharp whistle. Ruth was calling them back to the bistro.

Their skin tingled and ached as they stepped into the warmth.

“He was here last night,” Olivier confirmed. “I didn’t see him leave—”

“But I did,” said Gabri, wiping his hands on his apron. “He left with Billy Williams. They’d been talking, and the two went out together.”

“Where did they go?”

“I have no idea, but I did see Billy’s truck drive away. I don’t know if the kid was with him.”

Gabri picked up the phone on the bistro bar and called. They saw him nod, listen, then hang up.

“Billy says he gave Benedict a lift to Madame Baumgartner’s farmhouse.”

Myrna stopped rubbing her hands by the fire and turned to him. “Why would he do that?”

“Benedict asked to go,” said Gabri. “Something about the kid’s truck. It’s on Billy’s way home, so he drove him over.”

“And just left him there?” asked Clara.

“I guess so,” said Gabri. Though it didn’t sound like Billy Williams. He maintained the roads and did odd jobs around the area, and he was well aware that the cold kills. “That’s all Billy knows.”

“Benedict must’ve driven back to Montréal,” said Olivier.

“Maybe,” said Armand.

“What is it?” asked Clara as Myrna went into her shop to get the papers from the notary, with Benedict’s phone number.

“He promised he wouldn’t drive his truck,” said Armand. “That’s why we left it behind. It doesn’t have winter tires.”

“Don’t tell me someone lied to you?” Ruth thrust out her lower lip and made a sad face.

“Did he cross his heart?”

And hope to die?

But she stopped short of saying that, to Armand’s surprise. Seemed Ruth had a filter after all.

“Wouldn’t he have told us if he’d returned to Montréal?” asked Reine-Marie.

“He’s probably still asleep in his apartment,” said Clara. “You’ll get a call when he wakes up.”

“Well, I’m not waiting,” said Myrna, waving the papers she’d retrieved and going to the phone. “I’m calling his cell.”

She placed the call. They watched. And waited. And waited.

She spoke into the receiver, then hung up.

“It clicked over to voice mail. I told him to call here.”

“There’s just the one number for him?” asked Jean-Guy, looking over Myrna’s shoulder at the papers. “No home phone?”

“Kids today don’t have home phones, numbnuts,” Ruth explained to Jean-Guy. “You’re old, so you wouldn’t know that.”

“We have to go to the farmhouse,” said Armand, heading to the door. “And make sure.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Myrna. “We’re a team. Liquidators stick together.” She returned Armand’s stare. “What? It’s a thing.”

“It’s a nothing,” said Ruth.

“I know,” said Myrna, responding more to Armand’s eyes than Ruth’s words.

He nodded. They both knew what they might find. And of the group, he and Myrna were closest to Benedict. The young man invited a kind of intimacy, a near-immediate affection. And Myrna was right. They did feel like an odd little team.

“I’m coming too,” said Beauvoir, walking to the car with them.

“So am I,” said Reine-Marie.

“Can you stay at home?” Armand asked her. “In case he calls there?”

“Let me know,” she said as they got into the car.

“Oh Christ,” said Myrna, straining forward in her seat belt as they turned the corner and saw the farmhouse.

“I’ll call 911,” said Jean-Guy.

Armand grabbed the shovel from the trunk of his car.

Benedict’s truck was parked where they’d left it. Armand walked quickly over and looked into the cab.

Empty. The keys were in the ignition, and it had been turned on but must’ve run out of gas. He pulled the keys out and pocketed them.

“Rescue team’s on its way,” said Beauvoir, catching up.

“No one here,” called Myrna. She was standing next to the other vehicle in the yard. Not one Armand recognized. “This wasn’t here when we left yesterday, was it?”

“Non,” said Armand.

Beauvoir had pulled a shovel out of the snowbank by the front steps and now held it like a weapon.

Myrna joined them, and all three stared.

Madame Baumgartner’s home had collapsed.

The roof and second floor had caved in, part of it crushing the main floor, part of it hanging loose, barely holding together.

“Call back. Tell them to bring the dogs,” said Gamache as he advanced, slowly.

Beauvoir made the call.

“Is he inside?” Myrna whispered.

“I think so.” Gamache glanced behind him, at the other car. “And he’s not alone.”

He took off his tuque and cocked his head toward the farmhouse.

“Did you hear that?”

Jean-Guy and Myrna took off their hats and listened.

Nothing.

Gamache strode over to his car and hit the horn. Two quick blasts, then stopped. And listened.

But there was only grim silence.

Nothing. Nothing.

Something.

A knock. A crack?

They looked at one another.

“It could be a beam breaking, patron.”

“Or it could be Benedict,” said Myrna. “Or someone else, trying to signal. What do we do? We can’t just stand here.”

Help was on the way, but it could be twenty or thirty minutes before it arrived. The difference, in this cold, between life and death. If someone had survived this long through the bitter night, they must be close to the end.

“We have to make sure that someone’s alive in there before we decide what to do,” said Armand. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Benedict!”

“Allô!” called Beauvoir.

They fell silent. Listening.

There was a knock. Definite this time. Then another. A rat-a-tat. No mistaking it. Someone was alive. And afraid.

It reminded Gamache, just for a moment, of someone else. Amelia and her tongue stud. Rat-a-tat. Her tell.

Save Our Souls.

“He has to stop,” said Myrna, her eyes wide, her breathing rapid. “He’ll bring the whole place down.” She shouted, “Stop it.”

“We hear you,” Gamache called. “We’re coming. Stop knocking.”

He turned to them and saw the fear in their faces.

“We have to go in, don’t we?” said Beauvoir.

Armand nodded. Their fear, and one he shared, was that the place they were about to enter would collapse completely. But while he and Myrna were afraid, Jean-Guy was terrified.

He had claustrophobia. This was, quite literally, his nightmare.

Beauvoir gave a curt nod, gripped the shovel even tighter, and took a step toward the ruin.

“I think you should—” Gamache began, but stopped when he heard a sound.

They turned to look back down the drive. A pickup truck had arrived. Jean-Guy lowered his shovel and almost wept.

Help. Rescuers. Who actually knew what they were doing. Who could go in instead of them.

The truck stopped, and a single man got out. And Beauvoir could have wept again.

It wasn’t help. It was Billy Williams.

“Heard the boy was missing. Came to see if I could help.” He stood beside his vehicle and stared at the house. Then said something else that sounded to Gamache like “Whale oil beef hooked.”

Gamache turned to Myrna. “What did he say?”

For reasons that baffled Gamache, he seemed the only person on earth who could not understand a word Billy Williams said. Not a word. Not even close.

“Not important,” she said.

“Boy alive in there?”

“We think so,” said Myrna. “Someone is. Either Benedict or someone else. Was that here when you dropped him off last night?” She pointed to the car, parked off to the side.

“Not so’s I noticed.” He turned to the house again. “But it were dark. Right. I should go in and get him. My fault he’s here.”

Gamache, trying to follow this exchange, looked at Myrna. “Ask if he has any training. In rescuing people out of buildings. Does he know what he’s doing?”

Now Billy turned to Gamache. “You think I don’t understand you? I understand perfectly.”

Billy’s face was so weathered and worn that it was impossible to say if he was thirty-five or seventy-five. His body was cord-thin, and even through the heavy winter clothing there was a sense of taut muscle and sinew.

But his eyes were soft as he looked at Armand, with an expression of tenderness. Billy smiled.

“One day, old son, you’ll understand me.”

But Gamache did understand.

What he understood, and had from the first moment he’d met the man, was that Billy Williams had more than the average measure of the divine.

Billy’s face grew grim as he studied the heap of house, and then he turned back to Armand.

“When this is over,” he said, picking up a huge tire iron from his truck, “you owe me a lemon meringue pie.”

Myrna didn’t bother to translate that.

Billy took a step forward, and Gamache reached out to stop him, but Billy shook him off.

“I dropped the kid here last night. Boosted his truck to get it going. Then I left. I should never have left him. So I’ve come back. To get him. To bring him home.”

Gamache didn’t need Myrna this time to translate. It didn’t matter what Billy said—all that mattered now were actions.

“You can’t go in alone. You need help. I’ll come with you.” Armand turned to Jean-Guy and Myrna. “Wait for the emergency team. They should be here soon. Let them know what’s happening.”

“If you’re going, so am I,” said Myrna.

“No you’re not.”

“There’re two people trapped in there,” she said. “You need more help.” When Armand still hesitated, she said, “This isn’t your decision, Armand. It’s mine. Besides, I’m stronger than I look.”

His brows rose. She looked pretty strong.

Gamache nodded. She was right. They would need her. And it wasn’t his decision.

“Patron?” said Jean-Guy. He looked in torment.

“You get the heights, mon vieux,” said Armand quietly. “And I get the holes. Remember? That’s the deal.”

“Are you coming?” called Billy, already at the front steps. “Hurry up.”

Beauvoir stepped back.

“He says be careful,” said Jean-Guy, but Armand had already squeezed into the semicollapsed doorway behind Billy and Myrna.

It was darker in there, though shafts of sunlight from openings above them were hitting the floor. Snow trickled down in drifts as it slid off the roof and through the jagged holes.

It was quiet too. Except for their breathing and the sound of their footfalls as they made their way forward, squeezing along narrow, debris-clogged passages.

They moved as quickly and quietly as possible.

And then came to a halt.

A bathroom above had fallen into what had been the kitchen. The debris, including a claw-foot tub, blocked their way forward.

Gamache tapped his shovel, softly, on the tub and waited.

There was silence, and just as Armand’s heart was sinking, there was a knock. Then another.

Billy pointed in the direction of the sound.

Exactly where the debris blocked their path.

Billy muttered something that Gamache completely understood. Some oaths needed no translation.

Then Gamache watched in surprise as Billy dropped to his knees. Catching Myrna’s eyes, Armand saw she was thinking the same thing.

Was the man praying? Armand was all for that, but now might not be the time. Besides, he suspected that God knew exactly how they felt and how they wanted this to go.

But he also knew praying was more to steady the person than inform the deity.

Then he noticed that Billy had shoved his tire iron under the tub and was trying to get leverage. He put down his shovel and went to help. The two men leaned. Armand straining, pushing down with all his might.

The cast-iron tub moved, but only slightly.

“Wait, hold it,” said Armand, stepping back and catching his breath. Then he nodded to Billy, and the two of them went at it again.

But the tub, crushed under tons of debris, barely budged.

“Can you help over here?” asked Myrna.

“Just. A. Moment,” said Armand, through gritted teeth. Pushing. Pushing. Before staggering back. Defeated. Staring at the solid barrier between them and whoever was alive behind it.

There was a creaking, groaning sound. The wall of rubble was moving. Shifting.

Gamache took a half step back, sweeping Billy back with him.

He turned to warn Myrna. But stopped. His face opening in astonishment. It looked as though Myrna was single-handedly lifting the debris. Then he looked more closely.

Where he’d grabbed a shovel and Billy a tire iron, Myrna had quietly picked up the jack from Armand’s car and now had it wedged under a beam. And was leaning on the arm.

The beam was lifting, inch by precarious inch.

“I need help,” she called.

The two men joined her and leaned into the arm of the jack. One. Two pumps. More snow drifted down, and they paused. Three.

There was a cracking as rafters and crossbeams shifted.

Gamache, his breathing shallow, his eyes sharp, his hearing keen, waited. For it to either collapse or stabilize.

Then he heard, through the shifting debris, more tapping. Increasingly frantic.

“Stop,” he called. One sharp word. And the tapping stopped.

Myrna, with their help, had jacked up the beam as high as they dared. The opening was about eighteen inches.

Gamache stared at it, then at Myrna.

“You’re not leaving me behind,” she said, reading his thoughts.

“You won’t make it through.”

“And you will?”

Armand was taking off his heavy parka. “I will.”

“Then so will I. We go together.” She took off her coat and hugged it to her.

“Ego?” asked Armand.

“Practicality,” she said. “You need me.”

“If I have a choice, I’d take her over you any day,” said Billy, smiling at Myrna. “Mighty fine woman.”

“What did he say?” asked Armand.

She told him.

“You must’ve misheard,” said Armand. But he was smiling.

“Oh for fook’s sake,” said Billy. “Let’s try again. Another coupla inches should do it.”

He grabbed the lever and pushed. Armand and Myrna joined him.

More groaning. Some from the house. Most from them.

But it shifted. Just enough. They figured. They hoped.

“I’ll go first,” said Armand.

He glanced behind him, down the narrow, rubble-strewn passage they’d just come through. They were, he knew, in what had been the kitchen. Heading, it seemed, toward the dining room. Via the second-floor bathroom.

He turned again toward the opening. It looked like a mouth, ready to clamp shut. Every survival instinct cried out for him not to do it.

Getting onto his back, faceup, he pushed himself into the opening. His eyes within centimeters of shards of wood and rusted nails, like teeth. Turning his head, closing his eyes, exhaling to make himself as flat as possible. He inched forward.

The scent of fresh-cut grass. Walking along the Seine, holding the little hands of Flora and Zora. Reine-Marie in his arms on a lazy Sunday morning.

His face was through. Then his neck. He twisted his shoulders. His chest made it through.

And then his progress stopped. His shirt was snagged on the nails.

He was too far in for Myrna or Billy to be able to help.

The place shifted again, and he felt it drop. The nails now touched his chest every time he took a shallow breath.

“Armand?” called Myrna.

“Just a moment,” he said.

Closing his eyes again, he steadied his breathing. Steadied his mind.

Laundry on the line. The scent of Honoré. Sitting in the garden with an iced tea. Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.

He pushed again and felt the nails ripping his shirt.

Tiny pieces of rubble fell onto his face, peppering his lids and lips. As he breathed, they went into his nose, and he could feel himself on the verge of a cough. Smothering it, fighting it, he pushed harder, more frantically.

The ripping stopped, and he broke free.

Scrambling to his knees, Armand bent double, hacking and coughing.

“Armand?” called Myrna, more insistent.

“I’m okay,” he said, his voice raspy. “Don’t come yet.”

He looked around, and, finding a piece of concrete, he reached into the opening and used it to flatten the nails.

“It should be okay now.”

With some effort, Myrna also made it through, then Billy, who pushed their parkas in ahead of himself.

“What’s that?” asked Myrna. Her head was lifted, nose in the air.

Armand had just caught it too. A whiff of something acrid. It was familiar. Comforting, even. Except—

Wood, charred. Charring.

He and Myrna locked eyes, then over to Billy, who looked genuinely alarmed for the first time.

Gamache felt the hairs go up on his neck.

The place was on fire.

“We need to move.”

“Come on, come on,” said Jean-Guy, staring at the farmhouse.

His focus was so complete he barely breathed. Didn’t blink. Didn’t hear the vehicles arrive.

Nothing existed except the house.

The time for caution was past.

“Hello,” Myrna shouted. “Where are you?”

“Here, I’m here” came the reply. The voice hoarse. Unfamiliar.

They looked in the direction of the shout. There was another barrier of debris between them and the voice.

Scrabbling with their hands, they cleared chunks of concrete and wood until they’d made a hole. Armand lay on his stomach and peered through.

And saw the long, thin tail of a tuque.

And then a familiar face.

“It’s Benedict,” he called to the others.

“Oh thank God,” said Myrna, and hugged Billy.

Benedict had his back against a doorway. His eyes were wide, barely daring to believe that what he’d prayed for, cried out for, had actually happened.

The young man brought his hand up to his face, not able to hold back tears.

“You came. You came.”

Billy enlarged the opening, and when Armand crawled through, Benedict gripped him in a tight embrace, sobbing.

Armand held him for a moment, then stepped back so he could see Benedict’s face. His body. He seemed unhurt.

“There’s someone else here,” said Gamache. “Where is he?”

“There is?” asked Benedict. “I don’t think so. I can’t believe you came—”

“There’s another car in the drive,” said Myrna, who’d joined them, as had Billy.

“Yes, I saw that, but when I came in, I called and no one answered.”

Armand noticed a small circle of smoldering wood on the floor. Benedict had survived the bitter-cold night by burning whatever wood he could lay his hands on.

That had been the smell. The house wasn’t on fire after all.

He began to point it out to Myrna, just as Billy touched Armand’s arm. For quiet. Billy’s face was tilted up, his head cocked to one side. Listening.

“Is it the rescuers?” Myrna asked.

“Rescuers?” asked Benedict. “Aren’t you the—”

“Shh,” hissed Billy, and they hushed.

Billy stared at the ceiling. Then Armand saw his eyes widen, at the same moment he heard a great rending. Like a scream. The house was shrieking.

“No,” Jean-Guy shouted.

He started forward, but hands held him. He twisted and bucked, struggling to break free.

Members of the local Sûreté rescue team dragged him back, as the farmhouse disappeared into a cloud of snow.

“Holy hell,” whispered one of the agents.

As the structure fell, Benedict pulled Armand toward him.

“Get into the doorway,” the young man shouted.

Billy grabbed Myrna and just managed to leap in there before there was an almighty splitting sound.

They sank to their knees, eyes screwed shut. Clinging to each other. The violence was overwhelming. The din deafening. Disorienting. Banging, booming. Scraping. Screaming. From the house. From them. As the house came crashing down on top of them.

Rubble fell against Armand, pushing him sideways, but there was nowhere to go. Debris, wreckage, was closing in on both sides of them now. Pinning them there. Crushing them there.

Benedict pulled him closer, and he heard the sobbing of the boy, whose body was folded over his. Protecting him from the inevitable.

He could barely breathe now. There was room for only one thought. One feeling.

Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.

And then the unholy shrieking died down. There were thumps and thuds as rafters fell. And settled. But the great rending sound, the crashing, had slowed.

Armand opened his eyes, squinting against the grit stinging them. He lifted his head, coughing.

And looked right into Benedict’s face.

There was blood on Benedict’s forehead, making its way through the plaster and concrete dust. So that the handsome young man looked like a statue that had cracked.

But his eyes were bright. And blinking.

“Myrna?” Armand rasped, barely recognizing his own voice.

“Here.” He felt her move against his back but couldn’t turn around. They were pinned there.

“Billy?”

There was a word Armand didn’t recognize, in a voice he did.

They’d all survived.

Benedict closed his eyes, shutting out the grit in the air. But Armand kept his eyes open. Staring. Peering beyond the boy who still hugged him. Through eyes, watering and burning, he could see the doorjamb that had saved their lives and the familiar marks made on it decades ago. Height charts.

Anthony. Caroline. Shooting up with each measurement. And Hugo, who was not.

But Armand was staring beyond the marks on the wood. At a gray hand thrust up through the rubble.