A Trick of the Light

TWENTY-TWO

Thérèse led them back into the apartment, away from the door, and away from the open French windows. Into the dim center of the room.

“There was an internal investigation,” she said, her voice low and angry. “You know that, Armand. They discovered it was a hacker. Some kid who found the file and probably didn’t even know what it was. That’s all.”

“If it was some kid with dumb luck why haven’t they found him?” Gamache asked.

“Leave it for the investigators,” she said, her voice softer now.

Gamache considered the two people in front of him. An older man and woman. Creased, worn.

But then, so was he.

Which was why he’d warned Beauvoir away from looking further. Why he hadn’t quietly assigned this to any of his other hundred agents. Any one of them would have gladly dug deeper.

But what would they find buried there?

No, best to do it himself. With the help of two people he trusted. And the Brunels had one other, outstanding, qualification. They were nearer the end than the beginning. As was he. The end of all their careers. The end of all their lives. If they lost either now, they’d still have lived fully.

Gamache would not put a young agent on this case. He would not lose another one, not if he had a choice.

“I waited for the report of the internal investigation,” he said. “I read it, and spent two months studying it, thinking about it.”

Superintendent Brunel considered carefully before asking the question she really didn’t want the answer to. “And what did you conclude?”

“That the investigation was flawed, perhaps even intentionally. In fact, almost certainly intentionally. Someone inside the Sûreté is trying to cover up the truth.”

There was no use pretending otherwise. That was what he believed.

“What makes you say that?” Jérôme asked.

“Because it would be nearly impossible for a hacker to find the video file. And if one had, the investigators would have found him. That’s what they do. There’s a whole department that only investigates cyber crime. They’d have found him.”

Thérèse and Jérôme were quiet. Then Jérôme turned to his wife.

“What do you think?” he asked.

She looked from her husband to her guest.

“You say someone inside the Sûreté is trying to cover up the truth. What do you think is the truth?”

“That it was an internal leak,” said Gamache. “Someone inside the Sûreté released the video, deliberately.”

Even as he spoke he realized he wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know, or suspect.

“But why?” she asked. It was clearly a question she’d been asking herself.

“I think the ‘why’ depends on the ‘who,’” said the Chief. He watched her closely. “This is no surprise to you, is it?”

Thérèse Brunel hesitated then shook her head. “I also read the report, as did all the other superintendents. I don’t know what they thought, but I came to the same conclusion you did. Not necessarily that it was an inside job,” she looked at him with warning, “but that for some strange reason, the investigation was inconclusive. Given that it involved the deaths of four officers and the betrayal of their families and the service, I’d have expected the investigation to be rigorous. I’d have thought they’d throw everything they had at it. And they claimed to. And yet the conclusion, under all the rhetoric, was shockingly thin. The tape was stolen by an unknown hacker.”

She shook her head and took a deep breath, exhaling before she spoke again.

“We have a problem, Armand.”

He nodded, looking at both of them. “We have a big problem.”

Superintendent Brunel sat and indicated chairs for the other two, who joined her. She paused, about to cross the Rubicon. “Who do you think did it?”

Gamache held her intelligent, bright eyes. “You know who I think.”

“I do, but I need you to say it.”

“Chief Superintendent Sylvain Francoeur.”

Outside they could hear the shrieks of children chasing each other, running and laughing.

“This’ll be fun,” Jérôme Brunel said, rubbing his hands together at the thought of a thorny puzzle.

“Jérôme!” said his wife. “Haven’t you been listening? The head of the Sûreté du Québec may very well have done something not only illegal, but deeply cruel. An attack on officers dead and alive. And their families. For his own ends.”

Thérèse turned back to Gamache. “If it was Francoeur, why would he do it?”

“I don’t know. But I know he’s been trying to get rid of me for years. He might have thought this would be the final shove.”

“But the video didn’t make you look bad, Armand,” said Jérôme. “Just the opposite. It made you look very good.”

“And what would cripple you, Jérôme?” Gamache looked with affection at the man across from him. “Being falsely accused or being falsely praised? Especially when there was so much pain and so little to praise.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Jérôme, looking his friend square in the face.

“Merci,” Gamache inclined his head, “but it wasn’t my finest hour either.”

Jérôme nodded. The spotlight could be a tricky thing. It could send a person rushing for someplace dim to hide. Away from the crippling glare of public approval.

Gamache hadn’t run, but both Jérôme and Thérèse knew he’d been sorely tempted. Had come within a breath of handing in his warrant and retiring. And no one would have blamed him. Just as no one blamed him for the deaths of those young agents. No one, except Gamache himself.

But instead of retiring, retreating, the Chief Inspector had stayed.

And Jérôme wondered if this was why. If there was one more thing Chief Inspector Gamache needed to do. His final duty, to both the living and the dead.

To find the truth.

Agent Isabelle Lacoste wiped her face with her hands and looked at her watch.

Seven thirty-five in the evening.

The Chief had called earlier with what seemed a strange request. A suggestion really. It had meant extra work, but she’d assigned another agent to the search. Now five of them were going over the files in the morgue of the Montréal daily La Presse.

It was going much more quickly, but not knowing when the review had been published, not the year, not even the decade, was difficult. And Chief Inspector Gamache had just made it more difficult still.

“Look at this,” one of the junior agents said, turning to Lacoste. “I think I’ve found it.”

“Oh, thank God,” moaned another.

The other three agents crowded around the microfiche.

“Can you magnify it?” Lacoste asked and the agent clicked a dial. The screen leapt closer, and clearer.

There, in bold type, were the words “A Deeply Moving Exhibit.” And what followed was not so much a review or critique but a comedy routine, a riff on the word “move,” as in “movement.” As in “bodily function.”

Even the drained agents chuckled as they read.

It was juvenile, immature. But still, quite funny. Like watching someone slip on a banana peel. And fall. Nothing subtle about it. But for some reason laughable.

Isabelle Lacoste did not laugh.

Unlike the others, she’d seen how this review concluded. Not with the period on the page, but with the body sprawled in the late spring garden.

It started with a joke, and it ended in murder.

Agent Lacoste had copies of the review printed out, making sure the date was clear. Then she thanked and dismissed the other agents and got into her car for the drive back to Three Pines. Convinced that in her car she carried a conviction.