A Great Reckoning

CHAPTER 42

The cadets raced through the factory silently. Taking stairs two at a time. Glancing into empty rooms before moving deeper and deeper.

Huifen had the map of the factory memorized by now, after many failed attempts to end the mock hostage taking and capture the gunmen.

She’d never been the officer in charge. That had always been Jacques. And it had always ended in disaster for the Sûreté. Hostage dead. Agents slain. Gunmen escaped. It was an impossible scenario, they knew. But Leduc had always told them, told Jacques, that he could do anything.

And every time Jacques failed and had to report that to the Duke, the revolver would come out. Not as punishment, Leduc explained. But as a consequence. A teaching tool. For their own good.

Now Huifen led her little team. The freshmen were baffled by her hand signals, so she kept it simple. And clear. And they moved carefully and swiftly forward.

Finally she stopped and they regrouped.

“I don’t think he’s here,” she said, looking around.

“But if not here,” said Amelia, “where?”

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Jean-Guy, walking slowly into the room.

He’d been going to Commander Gamache’s quarters, hoping to find him there, when he’d noticed that the Scene of Crime seal on Leduc’s door was broken.

With his foot, he’d gingerly pushed the door open. His pistol was still on his belt, not yet drawn.

There, in the middle of the room, stood Cadet Jacques Laurin. Holding a gun.

“The hours I spent here,” Jacques said, looking around almost casually, as though he didn’t see the Scene of Crime tape and evidence markers. And blood spray. “I sat there.” He gestured with the pistol. “And the Duke would sit there. Just the two of us. He gave me this, you know. For my birthday.”

Beauvoir looked at the automatic weapon. The same as the one on his belt. Police issue.

“He said I’d be great one day. He said I’d be running the whole Sûreté. And he’d help me. Be my mentor, my patron. He said all great men need a patron.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” said Jean-Guy, closing the door behind him. “You needed something else. Someone who genuinely cared. About you. And you thought you’d found it in Professor Leduc.”

“I did find it,” snapped Jacques. “He cared.”

“But then Commander Gamache arrived, and the world began to tilt,” said Jean-Guy. Not venturing forward, but staying where he was. “I understand.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do. The same thing happened to me, when I first met Monsieur Gamache. I thought I had the world figured out. Then everything I knew to be true, I started to question. And I hated him for it.”

Beauvoir kept his eyes on Jacques. The young man had moved his gaze out the window.

“But then the hate shifted,” said Beauvoir, speaking as though telling him a fable, a bedtime story. “I began to hate the very people I’d trusted. The ones who told me the world was filled with terrible people and that brutality was the same as strength. I’d learned to hit first, and hard, and fast.”

“He did care,” said Jacques quietly.

“On Professor Leduc’s orders, you joined Commander Gamache’s evening groups. To report back to the Duke. But there you learned something unexpected. People weren’t so bad after all.”

Jacques stood defiant.

“The world turned upside down,” Beauvoir continued. “It was at once more beautiful and more frightening than you’d been led to believe. And suddenly you didn’t know what to do. Who to trust. Where to turn. It’s terrifying. Being lost is so much worse than being on the wrong road. That’s why people stay on it so long. We’re too far gone, or so we think. We’re tired and we’re confused and we’re scared. And we think there’s no way back. I know.”

Jacques didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge the words.

Beauvoir searched his mind for something, anything, to say, to bring the boy back.

“You saw the video?” said Beauvoir.

There was a slight movement from Jacques, but still silence.

“Commander Gamache never, ever talks about that day with anyone, except trusted family and friends. And even then, it’s rare. But he talked about it with you. He opened that wound, for you.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched the young man, who had suffered for years at the hands of a madman and could no longer recognize goodness. Could no longer even see it. What Jacques saw in front of him, all day, every day, was a wasteland.

“When someone shoots at us, we return fire,” said Jean-Guy.

Now Jacques did nod.

“But it’s equally important that when someone is kind to us, we return that as well,” he said quietly. Careful. Careful not to scare the young man off.

“It took me a very long time to come to that. The hatred I felt for Monsieur Gamache, and then for the others, shifted again, and I began to loathe myself.”

“Do you still?” Jacques asked, finally turning from the window, from the wasteland. “Hate yourself?”

“Non. It took a long time, and a lot of help. Jacques, the world is a cruel place, but it’s also filled with more goodness than we ever realized. And you know what? Kindness beats cruelty. In the long run. It really does. Believe me.”

He held out his hand to the young man. Jacques stared at it.

“Believe me,” Jean-Guy whispered.

And Jacques did.

“How did you know it was me?”

“The fingerprints,” said Gamache.

“Huh,” grunted Brébeuf.

“I knew they weren’t mine, and yet there they were. Which meant they’d been placed there. Not many could reproduce prints well enough to fool even the forensics team. Hugo Charpentier was one. And his mentor was another. You. You had to smudge every other fingerprint, including Leduc’s own, and leave just partials. Including yours. A nice touch. You had to make the investigators work for it. That’s what a great tactician does. He suggests. He doesn’t lead, he herds. From behind.”

Michel Brébeuf didn’t disagree. Now it was his turn to be silent.

They’d returned to their seats, the pistol lying on the chair beside Brébeuf. A large Scotch in front of each of them, untouched.

“You say you killed Serge Leduc so that I didn’t have to. As a favor.”

“An amend,” said Brébeuf.

“And yet, you put my partial prints on the weapon. You implicated me.”

“No. Never. I used yours because I knew you were beyond suspicion.”

“And yet I was, I am, suspected.”

For the first time, Brébeuf looked baffled. “Yes. I could see that. The RCMP officer, Gélinas. Your own people wouldn’t, of course.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Gamache. “It’s a little humbling to realize the pedestal isn’t quite so high after all.”

Brébeuf chuckled. “Welcome to earth, Armand. It’s a little dirty down here.”

“And the map, Michel? The one in Leduc’s drawer? It also had my prints, and showed my village. You placed it there, didn’t you? More herding.”

“But not toward you.”

Gamache studied Brébeuf, searching the nooks, the crannies, the crevices of his face. The geography and history created by time and worry and loneliness. By too much drink and not enough peace.

And there, finally, he found the truth.

“You said that the first night here you made two discoveries. One was the game of Russian roulette. What was the other?”

Brébeuf stared back at Armand. Studying the roads radiating from his eyes and mouth. Some made by stress and sorrow, but most created by laughter. By contentment. By sitting beside a fireplace, watching his family and friends, and smiling.

That could have been his face. Had he turned left instead of right. Had he stepped forward instead of stepping aside. Had he locked the gate, instead of opening it.

Michel Brébeuf had long hated Armand. But he had loved him even longer.

“I think you know what it was,” said Michel.

“Tell me.”

“Amelia Choquet.”

And there it was. There she was.

“When Leduc was talking about the pathetic new crop of cadets, he mentioned her specifically. The name was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her. But when Leduc told me that he’d rejected her application, and that you’d reversed the decision and accepted her, it fell into place. I knew who she was and I knew why she was here.”

“Why?”

“Service. Integrity. Justice. You were handed the means, finally, for justice.”

“You think I meant to hurt her?”

“Didn’t you? Why else bring her here? Why else admit a girl so clearly unsuited to police work?”

“Unsuited? Why? Because she’s different? Non, Michel. The purpose wasn’t revenge or even justice. It wasn’t to hurt her. It was to save her.”

Michel Brébeuf stared. Blank. Uncomprehending.

“And to save myself,” admitted Armand. “The only way I could really be free wasn’t to add hurt to hurt, but to do something decent. I won’t say it was easy. You have no idea how many times I returned her dossier to the rejected pile. Knowing what it would mean for her. A life of despair. And finally Amelia Choquet would be found in an alley or gutter or rooming house. Dead.”

Armand looked down at his hands, at the tiny scar on the one finger.

“You did it to save her?” asked Michel, dumbfounded. “Her?”

“Oui. And you know what, Michel? She’s the brightest, the most remarkable young woman. She’ll be running the Sûreté one day.”

And still Michel stared.

Gamache leaned in. “You put her partial prints on the gun, knowing she’d be suspected. You stole her copy of the map and placed it in Leduc’s bedside table. And that was the other reason I knew it was you. The scene was so beautifully set. Everything subtle, suggestive. No glaring finger pointing her way. Just tiny crumbs through a forest of evidence. Leading to Amelia Choquet. With me as a temporary way station. But they’d have gotten to her eventually.”

Michel Brébeuf moved his hand to the gun, slowly closing it around the grip.

“And that was your plan. You wanted her charged and found guilty of the murder of Serge Leduc.”

“I did it so that you didn’t have to.”

He stood up and raised the gun.

Armand got to his feet and held out his hand.

“The gun, please, Michel.”

Brébeuf stepped back and, tightening his grip on the weapon, he put it to his temple.

“Non,” said Gamache, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, trying to bring reason into a situation that was spinning out of control.

The look on Michel’s face was the same one he’d had when Armand had pressed the handkerchief to his bleeding knee. Such pain.

And once again, Armand was desperate to stanch the wound.

His hand, still held out, had begun to tremble, and he forced himself to steady it. “Do you remember at my parents’ funeral, the gathering in my home after? With the finger food and the silence. All the adults moving about like zombies. Avoiding me because they had nothing to say.” He spoke quickly, urgently, trying to form a bridge with his words, to bring Michel back. “I just sat there. You came over and sat beside me, and then you whispered so that no one else heard. Do you remember what you said?”

The gun lowered just a little.

“You’re a dirty rascal,” Michel whispered.

Armand nodded. “You made me smile. I didn’t think I’d ever do that again, but you showed me I could. You gave me hope that it would get better.”

The gun lowered a little more.

“It seems hopeless now, I know,” said Armand. “It feels like there’s no way out. I understand. You know I do.”

Michel nodded.

“But it will get better. Even this. I promise.”

“I followed you home, you know, one night,” said Michel. “To your village.”

“That was you?”

“I wanted to see where you lived.” He paused. “It was so peaceful. I sat in the car and longed to drive down and join you. To maybe buy a little cottage and have drinks every evening in that brasserie. Maybe join a book club.”

This was the worst ghost story yet. The phantom life that might have been.

“I’ll die in prison. You know that. Of old age. Or someone, one night, will beat me to death. Someone who knows who I used to be. How is it better to die there than here?”

The gun was raised again, and now Armand brought up both hands. Not reaching for the gun, but for the man, just out of reach.

“Give me your hand,” he pleaded. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay. Come with me. Please, Michel.”

Michel dropped his eyes to the outstretched hands, then raised his gaze to Armand’s eyes as he pressed the gun to his temple.

“For God’s sake,” Armand whispered. “Don’t. I’m begging you. Please.” He searched his mind for something, anything, to say. To stop this. “Would you condemn me to seeing this for the rest of my life?”

“Then turn your back, Armand.”

At the sound of the shot, Jean-Guy Beauvoir leapt up.

He and Jacques had gone to Commander Gamache’s rooms, where Jacques splashed water on his face while Beauvoir secured the gun and poured them each a Coke. They’d just sat down when the shot rang out.

“Stay here.”

Jean-Guy was out the door and into the corridor, where the sound was still reverberating. He skidded to a stop in front of Brébeuf’s rooms and yanked the door open.

Armand Gamache stood in the middle of the little room. Specks of blood on his face. A figure crumpled at his feet. Gamache squeezed his eyes shut then. But it was too late.

He had not turned his back on Michel.