A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 39

Armand Gamache looked at the cadets, one at a time.

First Nathaniel, then Huifen, then Jacques, and finally his eyes rested on Amelia.

“I know,” he said quietly.

Jacques turned his head slightly, eyes narrowing. “Know what?”

“I know what happened in Leduc’s rooms.”

There was silence then. The cadets looked at each other, and then all, naturally, turned to Huifen.

“What?” she asked. There was defiance in her voice.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir was sitting a few benches back. He and Armand had brought the young people up to the chapel first thing in the morning. They needed to speak to them, and they needed someplace private. And neutral. And peaceful.

“I’ve long known that Serge Leduc was corrupt,” said Gamache. “I came out of retirement to clean up the academy. And not just of corruption. It was clear by the quality of new agents entering the Sûreté that something was very wrong at the school. They were competent in the techniques, but they were also cruel. Not all, of course, but enough. More than enough. There was something wrong either with the recruitment process, or with the training. Or both.”

As he spoke, Commander Gamache watched them. And they watched him.

If Gamache and Beauvoir thought the four would break down and tell them everything, they were wrong. The conspiracy of silence was so ingrained as to be almost unbreakable.

“The first thing I did was fire most of your professors, and I brought in my own. Officers with real-life experience of investigations. Men and women with integrity. But who also know that with power comes temptation. Those are the real threats to Sûreté agents. The self-inflicted wounds.”

Jean-Guy could hear their breathing now. At least one, perhaps more, of the cadets was on the verge of hyperventilating.

And still they were still. And silent.

“But I kept Serge Leduc, the Duke, on.”

“Why?” asked Nathaniel.

Looking at the pale young man, Gamache tried to catch his own breath. He looked down at his hands, clasped together. Holding on tight.

Serge Leduc might have done great damage. But so had he.

If he expected the students to tell him the truth, he had to be willing to do the same.

“I didn’t know,” he said, looking back up and into the young man’s cold eyes. “I thought he was a brute, a sadist. I thought he was corrupt. I thought I could gather enough evidence against him to put him in prison, so he couldn’t do the same damage someplace else. I thought I could control him so that while I was there, his abuses would stop.”

“Don’t believe everything you think,” mumbled Amelia.

Gamache nodded. “They did not stop. It never occurred to me he could be that sick.”

“When did you find out?” asked Huifen.

“Last night, while watching the movie.”

“Mary Poppins?” she asked. She must’ve missed that scene.

“The Deer Hunter. The one Olivier was watching.” He leaned toward them. “I’m going to get you help.”

“We don’t need your help,” snapped Jacques. “There’s nothing wrong with us.”

Gamache thought before he spoke again. “Do you know where this comes from?”

He smoothed his fingers over the deep scar by his temple. Three of the cadets shook their heads, but Jacques just glared.

“There was a raid I led, on a factory. A young agent, not much older than you, was being held hostage and time was running out. We gathered as much intelligence as possible on the terrain and the hostage takers. Their number, their weapons, where they were likely to be positioned. And then we went in. Inspector Beauvoir here was critically injured, shot in the abdomen.”

The cadets turned in their seats to look back at Inspector Beauvoir.

“Three agents lost their lives,” Gamache continued. “I went to their funerals. Walked behind the caskets. Spent time with their mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and children. And then I went into therapy. Because I was broken. I still see a counselor when I feel overwhelmed. It’s human. It’s our humanity that allows us to find criminals. But it also means we care, and get hurt in places that don’t bleed. Every day, when I see this scar in the mirror,” this time he didn’t touch it, “it reminds me of the pain. Mine. But mostly theirs. But it also reminds me, every day, of the healing. Of the kindness that exists. We are introduced to Goodness every day. Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults. It’s so easy to get mired in the all too obvious cruelty of the world. It’s natural. But to really heal, we need to recognize the goodness too.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” said Jacques.

“That’s not what I mean. I think you know that.”

“Why should we trust you?” demanded Jacques. “Three agents lost their lives because of you. I saw the recording. I saw what happened. And I also saw that somehow you came out of it a hero.”

Gamache’s jaw clamped shut, the muscles working.

Beauvoir stirred but said nothing.

“It’s a trick,” said Jacques, turning to the others. “He’s just trying to get us to say things that will look bad. We have to stick together. Don’t tell him anything.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” agreed Gamache. “Only if you want to.”

He paused, to let them think, before going on.

“When did it start?”

He asked Jacques and Huifen. Who said nothing.

Then he turned to the other two.

Nathaniel opened his mouth, but a sound from Huifen made him close it. It was Amelia who finally spoke.

“When I refused to have sex with him, he decided to fuck with me in every other way,” she said, hurrying on before she changed her mind. “I had to do it, he said, or be expelled. He said you never wanted me there, and he was the one fighting to keep me. But if I refused, he’d let you throw me out.”

Gamache listened and nodded.

“You believed him, of course. Why wouldn’t you?”

“I didn’t believe him,” said Amelia. “I knew he was a shit. And you seemed so,” she searched for the word, “kind.”

They looked at each other, in a moment of intimacy that was almost painful. Jean-Guy felt he should look away, but did not.

He knew what was in that box. And he knew what was in Gamache’s stare. And he also knew that Amelia Choquet almost certainly had no idea who she was.

And who Armand Gamache was.

“But I didn’t think you could stand up to him,” she admitted. “I couldn’t take that chance. You’d let him stay, after all.”

It wasn’t meant as a mortal blow, just as an explanation. But Jean-Guy could see the internal bleeding those words produced. Gamache was reduced to silence.

“We trusted you, sir,” said Huifen. “We thought when you arrived it would end, but it only got worse.”

Jean-Guy thought he could hear Gamache’s heart pounding in his chest, and expected it to explode at any moment.

“I made a terrible mistake,” he said. “And you all paid for it. I’ll do all I can to make it up to you.”

And then there was another sound. Completely unexpected.

Laughter.

“The Duke was right,” said Jacques. “You are weak.”

His laughter was replaced by a sneer.

“Leduc made me stronger. I arrived a kid. Spoiled, soft. But he toughened me up. Got me ready for my job as a Sûreté agent. He said nothing would scare me again, and he was right. He chose the most promising agents and made them even tougher.”

“You’re wrong,” said Huifen. “He chose the biggest threats to him. The independent-minded. Those who’d one day have the backbone to stand up to what he was teaching. Do you remember what you were like that first day at the academy? I do. You weren’t soft and spoiled. Leduc told you you were, but you weren’t. You were funny, and smart, and eager. And you wanted to help, to do good.”

“I was a kid.”

“You were kind,” said Huifen. “Now look at you. Look at me. He chose us. And he broke us.”

“I’m not broken,” said Jacques. “I’m stronger than ever.”

“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” said Amelia. “Isn’t that right, sir? You put that on the blackboard that first week.”

“As long as they’re allowed to mend,” said Gamache. “Yes.”

“Three years.”

They looked at Huifen. She spoke matter-of-factly. Just giving a report to the commanding officer.

“It began the first month we arrived. We’d never know when the call would come, and we’d have to go to his rooms. Sometimes it would be on our own, but mostly it was with others.”

“What would happen?” asked Gamache. So clearly not wanting to hear, but needing to know.

“He’d bring out his revolver,” she said. “He made a whole ritual of it, putting it on a tray engraved with the Sûreté motto. He’d choose one of us to carry it into the living room.”

“It was an honor,” muttered Nathaniel.

“But the biggest honor was reserved for the cadet chosen to carry the next tray,” said Huifen. “The one with the bullet.”

“We’d draw lots,” said Nathaniel. “The long straw won.”

He started to giggle, and when he couldn’t stop and was on the verge of hysteria, Amelia touched his arm. And steadied him.

“I won,” Nathaniel said, his voice barely audible now. “Three times.”

He sat up straight then and looked right at Gamache. His eyes defiant.

“Three times I had to put that single bullet in the chamber. And spin the barrel…”

When Nathaniel couldn’t go on, Huifen stepped in.

“And bring the gun up.” She placed her finger to her temple, mimicking a handgun.

When she couldn’t go on, Amelia stepped in.

“And pull the trigger,” she said softly.

“Three times,” whispered Nathaniel.

“Twice,” said Amelia. She raised her chin and compressed her lips.

Neither Huifen nor Jacques said anything, and with horror Gamache realized they’d lost count.

“You are very brave,” said Gamache, holding their eyes that held a touch of madness.

“If I was brave,” said Nathaniel, “I’d have refused to do it.”

Gamache shook his head vehemently. “Non. You had no choice. Sitting here now, safe in this chapel, it seems you did. But you didn’t. It was Serge Leduc who was the coward.”

“That last time,” whispered Nathaniel, staring at Gamache, his eyes wide and tears rolling slowly down his face, “I prayed it would go off. I wet myself.”

His voice was barely audible.

Armand Gamache stood up and drew the young man to him, and held him tight as he sobbed.

Broken. But now, perhaps, healing.

There was a slight sound behind Beauvoir and he turned to see Paul Gélinas closing the chapel door.

And then the RCMP officer joined Beauvoir.

“He made them play Russian roulette?” said Gélinas.

“The man was a monster,” said Beauvoir.

Gélinas nodded. “Yes. But someone finally stopped him. And now we know why. We have the missing piece. Motive. Serge Leduc was killed with a single bullet to his brain. And we know the killer is in this room. No matter how well deserved, it’s still murder.”

Paul Gélinas at least had the decency to look saddened by the fact that they’d have to arrest a person who had dispatched a monster.

“It could have been self-defense,” said Jean-Guy. “Or even an accident. Maybe Leduc did it to himself.”

“Did he seem the sort to take that chance? To put the revolver to his own temple and pull the trigger, the way he made the cadets do? To play Russian roulette?”

“No,” Beauvoir admitted.

“No. And there was no residue on his hands. Someone did that to him. Someone who knew about the revolver and the game. Someone who wanted to end it.”

“Commander Gamache didn’t know.”

“Maybe he found out just that night,” said Gélinas. “And went there to confront Leduc. And killed him.”

Gélinas got up, crossed himself, then bent down to whisper in Beauvoir’s ear.

“Out of respect for Monsieur Gamache, I won’t arrest him here, now. We can consider this sanctuary. But we’re going back to the academy this morning. You need to be prepared. I’ll get a warrant first. Then I’ll be coming for him.”

“You’re making a mistake,” said Beauvoir. “He didn’t kill Leduc.”

“Does that look like a man who doesn’t have murder on his mind?”

Gélinas gestured toward Commander Gamache, at the front of the chapel, surrounded by the cadets.

The RCMP officer straightened up.

“Your father-in-law likes poetry. The death of the Duke was almost poetic, don’t you think? Knowing what we now know. A bullet through his brain. Come hither, and behold your fate.”

Jean-Guy heard the door click shut as he watched the cadets and Armand at the front of the chapel.

There was nothing at all poetic about what had happened. Or what was about to happen.