A Fatal Grace

EIGHT

‘Did you find something?’

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache poured his wife a glass of Perrier and kissed the top of her head as he leaned over to peer at the document in her hand. It was Boxing Day and they were in his office at Sûreté headquarters in Montreal. He was in gray flannels, a shirt and a tie, which he always wore to the office, and an elegant cashmere cardigan, an acknowledgment that he was on holiday, after all. Though he was only in his early fifties there was an old world charm about Gamache, a courtesy and manner that spoke of a time past. He smiled down at his wife, his deep brown eyes taking in the soft wave of her graying hair. From where he stood he could just faintly pick up the subtle fragrance of Joy by Jean Patou, the eau de toilette he gave his wife each Christmas. Then he moved round in front of her and eased himself into the leather chair opposite, finding the familiar curves worn into the seat. His body spoke of meals enjoyed and a life of long walks rather than contact sports.

His wife, Reine-Marie, was sitting in another leather chair, a huge red and white check napkin on her lap, a dossier in one hand and a turkey sandwich in the other. She took a bite then dropped her reading glasses from her face, to dangle on their strings.

‘Thought I’d found something, but no. I thought there was a question the investigating officer hadn’t asked, but I see here he did a little later.’

‘Who was it?’

‘The Labarré case. Man pushed in front of the metro car.’

‘I remember.’ Gamache poured himself some water. Around them on the floor were neat stacks of file folders. ‘I didn’t realize it wasn’t solved. You didn’t find anything?’

‘Sorry, my love. I’m not doing so well this year.’

‘Sometimes there’s just nothing to find.’

The two of them picked up fresh folders and resumed reading in companionable silence. It had become their Boxing Day tradition. They’d take a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches, fruit and cheese to Gamache’s office in the homicide division and spend the day reading about murder.

She looked across at her husband, head buried in a file, trying to tease from it the truth, trying to find in the dry words, in the facts and figures, a human form. For in each of these manila folders there lived a murderer.

These were the unsolved murders. A few years earlier Chief Inspector Gamache had approached his opposite number in the Montreal Metropolitan Police and over cognac at the Club Saint-Denis had made his proposal.

‘An exchange, Armand?’ Marc Brault had asked. ‘How would that work?’

‘I suggest Boxing Day. It’s quiet at Sûreté headquarters and probably in your office as well.’

Brault had nodded, watching Gamache with interest. He, like most of his colleagues, had immense respect for the quiet man. Only fools underestimated him, but Brault knew the service was full of fools. Fools with power, fools with guns.

The Arnot case had proved that beyond doubt. And had almost destroyed the large, thoughtful man in front of him. Brault wondered whether Gamache knew the whole story. Probably not.

Armand Gamache was speaking, his voice deep and pleasant. Brault noted the graying of the dark hair at the temples and the obvious balding head, without attempt to comb it over. His dark moustache was thick, well trimmed and also graying. His face was lined with care, but also laughter, and his deep brown eyes, looking at Brault over his half-moon glasses, were thoughtful.

How does he survive? Brault wondered. Brutal as the world inside the Montreal police could be, he knew the Sûreté du Québec could be even worse. Because the stakes were higher. And yet Gamache had risen to run the largest and most distinguished department in the Sûreté.

He’d go no further, of course. Even Gamache knew that. But unlike Marc Brault, who was ambition itself, Armand Gamache seemed content, even happy with his life. There had been a time, before the Arnot case, when Brault had suspected Gamache was a bit simple, a bit beyond his depth. But he didn’t think that any more. He knew now what was behind the kind eyes and calm face.

He had the strangest feeling just then that Gamache understood everything that was going on, in Brault’s head and in the labyrinthine minds at the Sûreté.

‘I suggest we give each other our unsolved cases and spend a few days reading over them. See if we can find something.’

Brault took a sip of his cognac and leaned back in his chair, thinking. It was a good idea. It was also unconventional and would probably cause a stink if anyone found out. He smiled at Gamache and leaned forward again.

‘Why? Don’t you have enough work through the year? Or maybe you’re desperate to get away from your family at Christmas.’

‘Well, you know if I could I’d move into my office and live off vending machine coffee. I have no life and my family despises me.’

‘I’ve heard that about you, Armand. In fact, I despise you.’

‘And I you.’

The two men smiled. ‘I would want someone to do this for me, Marc. It’s pretty simple and pretty selfish. If I was murdered I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort. How could I deny someone else that?’

It was simple. And it was right.

Marc Brault reached out and shook Gamache’s large hand. ‘Done, Armand, done.’

‘Done, Marc. And if anything happened to you, it wouldn’t remain unsolved.’ It was said with great simplicity and it surprised Brault how much it meant.

And so for the past few years the two men had met in the parking lot at Sûreté headquarters to exchange boxes, ironically, on Boxing Day. And each Boxing Day Armand and Reine-Marie opened the boxes and looked for murderers inside.

‘Now this is odd.’ Reine-Marie lowered her dossier and caught him staring at her. She smiled and continued. ‘Here’s a case from just a few days ago. I wonder how it made it into the pile.’

‘Christmas rush. Someone must have made a mistake. Here, give it to me and I’ll put it in the out tray.’ He held out his hand, but her eyes had dropped once again to the file and she was reading. After a moment he lowered his hand.

‘I’m sorry, Armand. It’s just that I knew this woman.’

‘No.’ Gamache set his own dossier aside and came beside Reine-Marie. ‘How? What’s the case?’

‘She wasn’t a friend or anything. You probably knew her too. That bag lady down by the Berri bus station. You know, the one with all the layers in all weather. She’d been there for years.’

Gamache nodded. ‘Still, it can’t be considered an unsolved case yet. You say she’s only been dead a few days?’

‘She was killed on the twenty-second. And this is strange. She wasn’t at the Berri bus station. She was over on de la Montagne, by Ogilvy’s. That’s a good, what? Ten, fifteen blocks away.’

Gamache resumed his seat and waited, watching Reine-Marie as she read, a few strands of her graying hair falling across her forehead. She was in her early fifties and lovelier than when they’d married. She wore little make-up, comfortable with the face she’d been given.

Gamache could sit all day watching her. He sometimes picked her up at her job at the Bibliothèque nationale, intentionally arriving early so he could watch her going over historic documents, taking notes, head down and eyes serious.

And then she’d look up and see him watching her and her face would break into a smile.

‘She was strangled.’ Reine-Marie lowered the file. ‘Says here her name was Elle. No last name. I can’t believe it. It’s an insult. They can’t even be bothered to find her real name so they call her She.’

‘These things are difficult,’ he said.

‘Which is probably why kindergarten children aren’t homicide detectives.’

He had to laugh as she said it.

‘They didn’t even try, Armand. Look at this.’ She held the dossier up. ‘It’s the thinnest file there. She was just a vagrant to them.’

‘Would you like me to try?’

‘Could you? Even if it’s just to find her name.’

He found the box for Elle’s case, stacked with the others from Brault against one wall of his office. Gamache put on gloves and removed the contents, spreading them on the floor of his office. Before long it was full of rancid, putrid clothing, and a smell that put their blue cheese to shame.

Old newspapers, curling and filthy, sat next to the clothing. Used for insulation, Gamache suspected, against the brutal Montreal winter. Words could do many things, he knew, but they couldn’t halt the weather. Reine-Marie joined him and together they sifted through the box.

‘She seems to have literally surrounded herself with words,’ said Reine-Marie, picking up a book. ‘Those papers for insulation and even a book.’

Opening it she started to read at random.

‘May I see that?’ Gamache took the book and looked at the cover. ‘I know this poet. I’ve met her. It’s Ruth Zardo.’ He looked at the cover. I’m FINE.

‘The one from that small village you liked so much? She’s one of your favorite poets, isn’t she?’

Gamache nodded and flipped to the beginning of the book. ‘It’s one I don’t have. Must be new. I don’t think Elle even read it.’ He looked up the publication date and noticed the inscription: ‘You stink, love Ruth.’

Gamache went to the phone and made a call.

‘Is this the Ogilvy bookstore? I’m calling to find out about – yes, I’ll hold.’ He cocked his head at Reine-Marie and smiled. She was putting on evidence gloves and reaching for a small wooden box that had also come out of the evidence box. It was simple and worn. Reine-Marie turned it over and found four letters stuck to the bottom.

‘What do you make of that?’ she asked, showing it to Armand.

B KLM

‘Does it open?’

She gently pried the top off and looked inside, and her face grew even more puzzled.

It was full of letters of the alphabet.

‘Why don’t you – yes, hello?’ He raised his eyebrows in apology. ‘I’m calling about Ruth Zardo’s latest book. That’s right. Many people? I understand. Well, merci.’ He hung up. Reine-Marie had turned the contents of the box onto his desk and was organizing the letters into neat piles.

Five of them. Bs, Cs, Ms, Ls and Ks.

‘The same as the bottom, except the Cs,’ she said. ‘Why these letters and why capitals?’

‘Do you think it’s significant they’re all capital letters?’ Gamache asked.

‘I don’t know, but I know from the documents I handle at work when a series of capital letters is used it’s because each letter represents a word.’

‘Like RCMP or DOA.’

‘Always a cop, but that’s the idea. For instance, I’m FINE,’ she pointed to Ruth’s book now on Gamache’s desk. ‘I bet that stands for something else. What did the bookstore say?’

‘Ruth Zardo launched this book a few days ago, at the Ogilvy store. December twenty-second.’

‘The day Elle died,’ said Reine-Marie.

Gamache nodded. Why would Ruth give a copy to a vagrant and sign it ‘love Ruth’? He knew the old woman well enough to know she didn’t toss around the word ‘love’. He reached for the phone again, but it rang just as he touched it.

‘Oui, allô? Gamache here.’

There was silence for a moment on the other end.

‘Oui, bonjour?’ He tried again.

‘Chief Inspector Gamache?’ A voice came down the line. ‘I didn’t think you’d answer your own phone.’

‘I’m a man of many parts.’ He laughed disarmingly. ‘How may I help you?’

‘My name is Robert Lemieux. I’m the duty officer at the Cowansville police station in the Eastern Townships.’

‘I remember. We met during the Jane Neal investigation.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘What can I do for you, son?’

‘There’s been a murder.’

After getting the information Gamache hung up and looked at his wife. She sat in the chair composed and calm.

‘Do you have your long underwear?’ she asked.

‘I do, madame.’ He slid open his top desk drawer to reveal a lump of deep blue silk.

‘Don’t most officers keep guns there?’ she asked.

‘I find long underwear protection enough.’

‘I’m glad.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’ll leave you, my dear. You have work to do.’

At the door she watched as he made his calls, his back to her, staring out the window at the Montreal skyline. She watched him move in ways she knew, and she noticed how his hair curled slightly at his neck and she watched his strong hand as it held the phone at his ear.

Within twenty minutes Armand Gamache was on his way to the scene, his second in command Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir at the wheel as they drove over the Champlain bridge and onto the autoroute for the hour and a half trip into the heart of the Eastern Townships.

Gamache stared out the window for a few minutes then opened the book once again, finishing the poem Reine-Marie had begun reading to him.