How the Light Gets In

THIRTY-FIVE

“I found something,” Chief Inspector Lambert said into the phone. “Better come down.”

Chief Superintendent Francoeur and Inspector Tessier arrived within minutes. Agents were crowded around Lambert’s monitor, watching, though they scattered when they saw who’d entered the room.

“Leave,” said Tessier, and they did. He closed the door and stood in front of it.

Charpentier was at another terminal in the office, his back to his boss, typing at lightning speed.

Francoeur leaned over Chief Inspector Lambert.

“Show me.”

“Jérôme!” Thérèse Brunel called, and joined Chief Inspector Gamache and Nichol.

“Show me,” said Gamache.

“When I brought up the old Aqueduct file, I must’ve set off an alarm,” said Nichol, her face white.

Jérôme arrived and scanned the monitor, then he reached in front of her.

“Hurry up,” he said, swiftly typing in a few short commands. “Get out of that file.” The error message disappeared.

“You didn’t just set off an alarm, you stepped on a landmine. Jesus.”

“Maybe they didn’t see the message,” said Nichol slowly, watching the screen.

They waited, and waited, staring at the static screen. Despite himself, Gamache realized he was looking for some being to actually appear. A shadow, a form.

“We have to go back into the Aqueduct file,” he said.

“You’re insane,” said Jérôme. “That’s where the alarm was tripped. It’s the one place we need to avoid.”

Gamache pulled a chair over and sat close to the elderly doctor. He looked him in the eyes.

“I know. That’s why we need to go back. Whatever they’re trying to hide is in that file.”

Jérôme opened his mouth, then closed it again. Trying to marshal a rational argument against the inconceivable. To knowingly walk back into a trap.

“I’m sorry, Jérôme, but it’s what we’ve been looking for. Their vulnerability. And we found it in Aqueduct. It’s in there somewhere.”

“But it’s a thirty-year-old document,” said Thérèse. “A company that doesn’t even exist anymore. What could possibly be in there?”

All four of them stared at the screen. The cursor pulsed there, like a heartbeat. Like something alive. And waiting.

Then Jérôme Brunel leaned forward and started typing.

“Aqueduct?” said Francoeur, stepping back as though slapped. “Erase the files.”

Chief Inspector Lambert looked at him, but one glance at the Chief Superintendent’s face was enough. She started erasing.

“Who is it?” Francoeur asked. “Do you know?”

“Look, I can either erase the files or chase the intruder, but I can’t do both,” said Lambert, her fingers flying over the keys.

“I’ll take the intruder,” said Charpentier, from across the office.

“Do it,” said Francoeur. “We need to know.”

“It’s Gamache,” said Tessier. “Has to be.”

“Chief Inspector Gamache can’t do this,” said Lambert as she worked. “Like all senior officers, he knows computers, but he’s not an expert. This isn’t him.”

“Besides,” said Tessier, watching the activity. “He’s in some village in the Townships. No Internet.”

“Whoever this is has high-speed and huge bandwidth.”

“Christ.” Francoeur turned to Tessier. “Gamache was a decoy.”

“So who is it?” asked Tessier.

“Shit,” said Nichol. “The files are being erased.”

She looked at Jérôme, who looked at Thérèse, who looked at Gamache.

“We need those files,” said Gamache. “Get them.”

“He’ll find us,” said Jérôme.

“He’s found us already,” said Gamache. “Get them.”

“She,” said Nichol, also reacting swiftly. “I know who that is. It’s Chief Inspector Lambert. Has to be.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Thérèse.

“Because she’s the best. She trained me.”

“The whole entry’s disappearing, Armand,” said Jérôme. “You lead them away.”

“Right,” said Nichol. “The encryption’s holding. I can see she’s confused. No, wait. Something’s changed. This isn’t Lambert anymore. It’s someone else. They’ve split up.”

Gamache moved to Jérôme.

“Can you save some files?”

“Maybe, but I don’t know which ones are important.”

Gamache thought for a moment, his hand clutching the back of Jérôme’s wooden chair.

“Forget the files. It all started with Aqueduct thirty years ago or more. Somehow Arnot was involved. The company went under, but maybe it didn’t disappear. Maybe it just changed its name.”

Jérôme looked up at him. “If I leave, there’s no saving Aqueduct. They’ll dismantle it all until there’s no trace.”

“Go. Get out. Find out what became of Aqueduct.”

“They’re trying to save the files,” said Lambert. “They know what we’re doing.”

“This isn’t some outside hacker,” said Francoeur.

“I don’t know who it is,” said Lambert. “Charpentier?”

There was a pause before Charpentier spoke. “I can’t tell. It’s not registering properly. It’s like a ghost.”

“Stop saying that,” said Francoeur. “It’s not a ghost, it’s a person at a terminal somewhere.”

The Chief Superintendent took Tessier aside.

“I want you to find out who’s doing this.” He’d dropped his voice, but the words and ferocity were clear. “Find out where they are. If not Gamache, then who? Find them, stop them, and erase the evidence.”

Tessier left, in no doubt about what Francoeur had just ordered him to do.

“You OK?” Gamache asked Nichol.

Her face was strained, but she gave him a curt nod. For twenty minutes she’d led the hunter astray, dropping one false trail after another.

Gamache watched her for a moment, then returned to the other desk.

Aqueduct had gone bankrupt, but as so often happened, it was reborn under another name. One company morphed into another. From sewers and waterways, to roads, to construction materials.

The Chief Inspector took a seat and continued to read the screen, trying to figure out why the Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté was desperate to keep these files secret. So far they seemed not simply benign, but dull. All about construction materials, and soil samples, and rebar and stress tests.

And then he had an idea. A suspicion.

“Can you go back to where we tripped the first alarm?”

“But that’s nothing to do with this company,” Jérôme explained. “It was a schedule of repairs on Autoroute 20.”

But Gamache was staring at the screen, waiting for Dr. Brunel to comply. And he did. Or tried to.

“It’s gone, Armand. Not there anymore.”

“I have to get out, sir,” said Nichol, rattled into courtesy. “I’ve stayed too long. They’ll find me soon.”

“Almost there,” Charpentier reported. “Another few seconds. Come on, come on.” His fingers flew over the keys. “I’ve got you, you little shit.”

“Ninety percent of the files are destroyed,” said Lambert from across her office. “Not many places he can go. Do you have him?”

There was silence, except for the rapid clicking of keys.

“Do you have him, Charpentier?”

“Fuck.”

The clicking stopped. Lambert had her answer.

“I’m out,” said Nichol, and sat back in her chair for the first time in hours. “That was too close. They almost got me.”

“Are you sure they didn’t?” asked Jérôme.

Nichol lugged herself forward and hit a few keys, then took a deep breath. “No. Just missed. Christ.”

Dr. Brunel looked from his wife to Gamache to Nichol. Then back to Thérèse.

“Now what?”

“Now what?” Charpentier asked. He was pissed off. He hated being bested, and whoever was on the other end had done just that.

It’d been close. So close that for an instant Charpentier had thought he had him. But at the last moment, poof. Gone.

“Now we call in the others and look again,” said Chief Inspector Lambert.

“You think he’s still in the system?”

“He didn’t get what he came for.” She turned back to her monitor. “So yes, I think he’s still there.”

Charpentier got up to go into the main room. To tell the other agents, all specialists in cyber searches, to go back in. To find the person who’d hacked into their own system. Who’d violated their home.

As he closed the door, he wondered how Inspector Lambert knew what the intruder was looking for. And he wondered what could be so important to the intruder that he’d risk everything to find it.

“Now we take a break,” said Gamache, getting up. His muscles were sore and he realized he’d been tensing them for hours.

“But they’ll be searching for us even harder now,” said Nichol.

“Let them. You need a break. Go for a walk, clear your head.”

Both Nichol and Jérôme looked unconvinced. Gamache glanced at Gilles, then back at them.

“You’re forcing me to do something I don’t want to do. Gilles here teaches yoga in his spare time. If you’re not up and headed for the door in thirty seconds, I’ll order you to take a class from him. His downward dog is spectacular, I hear.”

Gilles stood up, stretched, and walked forward.

“I could use some chakra work,” he admitted.

Jérôme and Nichol got up and made for their parkas and the door. Gilles joined Gamache by the woodstove.

“Thanks for playing along,” the Chief said.

“What ‘playing along’? I actually teach a yoga class. Want to see?”

Gilles stood on one foot and slowly moved his other leg around, lifting his arms.

Gamache raised his brows and approached Thérèse, who was also watching.

“I’m waiting for the downward dog,” she confided as she put on her coat. “You coming?”

“No. I’d like to read some more.”

Superintendent Brunel followed his gaze to the terminals.

“Be careful, Armand.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll try not to spill coffee into it. I just want to go back over some of what Jérôme found.”

She left, taking Henri with her, while Gamache pulled his chair up to the computer and started reading. Ten minutes later Gamache felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Jérôme.

“Can I get in?”

“You’re back.”

“We’ve been back for a few minutes, but didn’t want to disturb you. Find anything?”

“Why did they erase that file, Jérôme? Not Aqueduct, though that’s an interesting question too. But the first one you found. The construction schedule on the highway. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe they’re just erasing everything we looked at,” suggested Nichol.

“Why would they take the time to do that?” asked Thérèse.

Nichol shrugged. “Dunno.”

“You need to go back in,” Jérôme said to Nichol. “How close did they get to you? Did they get your address?”

“The school in Baie-des-Chaleurs?” Nichol asked. “I don’t think so, but I should change it anyway. There’s a zoo in Granby with a big archive. I’ll use that.”

“Bon,” said the Chief Inspector. “Ready?”

“Ready,” said Jérôme.

Nichol turned her attention to her terminal, and Gamache turned to Superintendent Brunel.

“I think that first file was important,” he said. “Maybe even vital, and when Jérôme found it, they panicked.”

“But it doesn’t make sense,” said Superintendent Brunel. “I know the mandate of the Sûreté. So do you. We patrol the roads and bridges, even the federal ones. But we don’t repair them. There’s no reason for a repair dossier to be in Sûreté files, and certainly not hidden.”

“And that makes it all the more likely the file had nothing to do with official, sanctioned Sûreté business.” Gamache had her attention now. “What happens when an autoroute needs to be repaired?”

“It goes to tender, I expect,” said Thérèse.

“And then what?”

“Companies bid,” said Thérèse. “Where’re you going with this, Armand?”

“You’re right,” said Gamache. “The Sûreté doesn’t repair roads, but it does do investigations into, among other things, bid rigging.”

The two senior Sûreté officers looked at each other.

The Sûreté du Québec investigated corruption. And there was no bigger target than the construction industry.

Just about every department of the Sûreté had been involved in investigating the Québec construction industry at one time or another. From allegations of kickbacks to bid rigging to organized crime involvement, from intimidation to homicide. Gamache himself had led investigations into the disappearance and presumed murder of a senior union official and a construction executive.

“Is that what this’s about?” Thérèse asked, still holding Gamache’s eyes. “Has Francoeur gotten himself involved with that filth?”

“Not just himself,” said Gamache. “But the Sûreté.”

The industry was huge, powerful, corrupt. And now, with the collusion of the Sûreté, unpoliced. Unstoppable.

Contracts worth billions were at stake. They stopped at nothing to win the contracts, to hold them, and to intimidate anyone who challenged them.

If there was an old sin and a long, dark shadow in Québec, it was the construction industry.

“Merde,” said Superintendent Brunel under her breath. She knew it wasn’t just a piece of shit they’d stepped on, but an empire of it.

“Go back in, please, Jérôme,” said Gamache, quietly. He sat forward, his elbows on his knees. They finally had an idea what they were looking for.

“Where to?”

“Construction contracts. Big ones, recently awarded.”

“Right.” Dr. Brunel swung around and began typing. Beside him, at the other terminal, Nichol was also typing away.

“No, wait,” said Gamache, putting a hand on Jérôme’s arm. “Not new construction.” He thought for a moment before speaking. “Look for repair contracts.”

“D’accord,” said Jérôme, and began to search.

“Hello, I’m sorry to disturb you. Have I woken you up?”

“Who is this?” asked the groggy voice at the other end of the phone.

“My name’s Martin Tessier, I’m with the Sûreté du Québec.”

“Is this about my mother?” The woman’s voice was suddenly alert. “It’s five in the morning here. What’s happened?”

“You think this might be about your mother?” Tessier asked, his voice friendly and reasonable.

“Well, she does work for the Sûreté,” said the woman, fully awake. “When she arrived she said someone might call.”

“So Superintendent Brunel’s there with you, in Vancouver?” asked Tessier.

“Isn’t that why you’re calling? Do you work with Chief Inspector Gamache?”

Tessier didn’t quite know how to answer that, didn’t know what Superintendent Brunel might have told her daughter.

“Yes. He asked me to call. May I speak with her, please?”

“She said she didn’t want to talk to him. Leave us alone. They were exhausted when they arrived. Tell your boss to stop bothering them.”

Monique Brunel hung up, but continued to clutch the phone.

Martin Tessier looked at the receiver in his hand.

What to make of that? He needed to know if the Brunels had in fact traveled to Vancouver. Their cell phones had.

He’d had their phones monitored and traced. They’d flown to Vancouver and gone to their daughter’s home. In the last couple days they’d driven around Vancouver to shops and restaurants. To the symphony.

But was it the people, or just their phones?

Tessier had been convinced they were in Vancouver, but now he wasn’t so sure.

The Brunels had parted ways with their former friend and colleague, calling Gamache delusional. But someone had picked up the cyber search where Jérôme Brunel had left off. Or maybe he hadn’t left off at all.

When the Brunel daughter had first answered the phone, he could hear the concern in her voice.

“Is this about my mother?” she’d asked.

Not “What’s this about?” Not “Do you need to speak to my mother?”

No. They were the words of someone worried that something had happened to her mother. And you don’t ask that when your parents are asleep a few feet away.

Tessier called his counterpart in Vancouver.

“Wait,” said Gamache. He was leaning forward, his reading glasses on, looking at the screen. “Go back, please.”

Jérôme did.

“What is it, Armand?” Thérèse Brunel asked.

He looked white. She’d never seen him like that. She’d seen him angry, hurt, surprised. But never, in the years they’d worked together, had she ever seen him so shocked.

“Jesus,” Gamache whispered. “It’s not possible.”

He had Jérôme bring up other files, apparently unrelated. Some very old, some very recent. Some based in the far north, some in downtown Montréal.

But all to do with construction of some sort. Repair work. On roads and bridges and tunnels.

Finally the Chief Inspector sat back and stared ahead of him. On the screen was a report on recent road repair contracts, but he seemed to be staring right through the words. Trying to grasp a deeper meaning.

“There was a woman,” he finally said. “She killed herself a few days ago. Jumped from the Champlain Bridge. Can you find her? Marc Brault was investigating for the Montréal police.”

Jérôme didn’t ask why Gamache wanted to know. He went to work and found it quickly in the Montréal police files.

“Her name’s Audrey Villeneuve. Age thirty-eight. Body found below the bridge. Dossier closed two days ago. Suicide.”

“Personal information?” asked Gamache, searching the screen.

“Husband’s a teacher. Two daughters. They live on Papineau, in east-end Montréal.”

“And where did she work?”

Jérôme scrolled down, then up. “It doesn’t say.”

“It must,” said Gamache, pushing forward, nudging Jérôme out of the way. He scrolled up and down. Scanning the police report.

“Maybe she didn’t work,” said Jérôme.

“It would say that,” said Thérèse, leaning in herself, searching the report.

“She worked in transportation,” said Gamache. “Marc Brault told me that. It was in the report and now it’s gone. Someone erased it.”

“She jumped from the bridge?” asked Thérèse.

“Suppose Audrey Villeneuve didn’t jump.” Gamache turned from the screen to look at them. “Suppose she was pushed.”

“Why?”

“Why was her job erased from her file?” he asked. “She found something out.”

“What?” asked Jérôme. “That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? From some despondent woman to murder?”

“Can you go back?” Gamache ignored his comment. “To what we were looking at before?”

The construction contract files came up. Hundreds of millions of dollars in repair work for that year alone.

“Suppose this is all a lie?” he asked. “Suppose what we’re looking at was never done?”

“You mean the companies took the money but never did the repairs?” asked Thérèse. “You think Audrey Villeneuve worked for one of these companies, and realized what was happening? Maybe she was blackmailing them.”

“It’s worse than that,” said Gamache. His face was ashen. “The repair work hasn’t been done.” He paused to let that sink in. There materialized, in midair in the old schoolhouse, images. Of overpasses over the city, of tunnels under the city. Of the bridges. Huge great spans, carrying tens of thousands of cars every day.

None of it repaired, perhaps in decades. Instead, the money went into the pockets of the owners, of the union, of organized crime, and those who were entrusted to stop it. The Sûreté. Billions of dollars. Leaving kilometer after kilometer of roads and tunnels and bridges about to collapse.

“Got ’em,” said Lambert.

“Who are they?” Francoeur demanded. He’d returned to his office and was connected to the search on his own computer.

“I don’t know yet, but they got in through the Sûreté detachment in Schefferville.”

“They’re in Schefferville?”

“No. Tabarnac. They’re using the archives. The library grid.”

“Which means?”

“They could be anywhere in the province. But we have them now. It’s just a matter of time.”

“We have no more time,” said Francoeur.

“Well, you’ll have to find it.”

“Can we lose them?” Thérèse asked, and her husband shook his head.

“Then ignore them,” said Gamache. “We have to move forward. Get into the construction files. Dig as deep as you can. There’s something planned. Not just ongoing corruption, but a specific event.”

Jérôme threw away all caution and plunged into the files.

“Stop him,” yelled Francoeur into the phone.

On his computer a name had appeared, then in a flash it disappeared. But he’d seen it. And so had they.

Audrey Villeneuve.

He watched, aghast, as his screen filled with file after file. On construction. On repair contracts.

“I can’t stop him,” said Lambert. “Not until I find out where he is, where he’s coming from.”

Francoeur watched, powerless, as file after file was opened, tossed aside, and the intruder moved on. Ransacking, then racing ahead.

He looked at the clock. Almost ten in the morning. Almost there.

But so was the intruder.

And then, suddenly, the frantic online search stopped. The cursor throbbed on the screen, as though frozen there.

“Christ,” said Francoeur, his eyes wide.

Gamache and Thérèse stared at the screen. At the name that had come up. Buried at the deepest level. Below the legitimate dossiers. Below the doctored documents. Below the fixed and the fraud. Below the thick layer of merde. There was a name.

Chief Inspector Gamache turned to Jérôme Brunel, who also stared at the screen. Not with the astonishment his wife and his friend felt. But with another overwhelming emotion.

Guilt.

“You knew,” whispered Gamache, barely able to speak.

The blood had gone from Jérôme’s face and his breathing was shallow. His lips were almost white.

He knew. Had known for days. Since he’d tripped the alarm that had sent them into hiding. He’d brought this secret with him to Three Pines. Lugged the name around with him, from the schoolhouse to the bistro to bed.

“I knew.” The words were barely audible, but they filled the room.

“Jérôme?” asked Thérèse, not sure what was the greater shock. What they’d found, or what they’d found out about her husband.

“I’m sorry,” he said. With an effort he pushed his chair back and it squealed on the wooden floor, like chalk on a blackboard. “I should’ve told you.”

He looked into their faces and knew those words didn’t come close to describing what he should have done. And hadn’t. But their gaze had shifted from him back to the terminal, and the cursor blinking in front of the name.

Georges Renard. The Premier of Québec.

“They know,” said Francoeur. He was on the phone to his boss and had told him everything. “We have to move ahead with the plan. Now.”

There was a pause before Georges Renard spoke.

“We can’t move ahead,” he said at last. His voice was calm. “Your part isn’t the only element, you know. If Gamache is that close, then stop him.”

“We’re still working to find the intruder,” said Francoeur, trying to bring his own voice, and breathing, under control. To sound both persuasive and reasonable.

“The intruder isn’t critical anymore, Sylvain. He’s obviously working with Gamache. Feeding him the information. If the Chief Inspector’s the only one who can put it all together, then ignore the intruder and go after him. Plenty of time later to deal with the others. You said he’s in some village in the Eastern Townships?”

“Three Pines, yes.”

“Get him.”

“How long before they find us?” Gamache asked as he walked toward the door. Gilles brought his chair down as the Chief approached, so that the front legs thumped onto the floor. He stood up and pulled the chair aside.

“An hour, maybe two,” said Jérôme. “Armand…”

“I know, Jérôme.” Gamache took his coat off the peg by the door. “None of us is blameless in this. I doubt it would have mattered. We have to focus now, and move forward.”

“Should we leave?” Thérèse asked, watching as Gamache put on his coat.

“There’s nowhere to go.”

He spoke gently, but firmly, so that they could harbor no false hope. If there was a stand to be taken, it would have to be here.

“We now know who’s involved,” said the Chief. “But we still don’t know what they have planned.”

“You think it’s more than covering up hundreds of millions of dollars in graft?” asked Thérèse.

“I do,” said Gamache. “That’s a happy by-product. Something to keep their partners quiet. But the real goal is something else. Something they’ve been working on for years. It started with Pierre Arnot and ends with the Premier.”

“We’ll see what we can find on Renard,” said Jérôme.

“No. Leave Renard,” said Gamache. “The key now is Audrey Villeneuve. She found something and was killed. Find out everything you can about her. Where she worked, what she was working on. What she might’ve found.”

“Can’t we just call Marc Brault?” asked Jérôme. “He investigated her death. He’d have it in his notes.”

“And someone edited his report,” said Thérèse, shaking her head. “We don’t know who to trust.”

Gamache pulled his car keys out of his coat pocket.

“Where’re you going?” Thérèse asked. “You’re not leaving us?”

Gamache saw the look in her eyes. Much the same look he’d seen in Beauvoir’s eyes that day in the factory. When Gamache had left him.

“I need to go.”

He reached under his jacket and brought out his gun, holding it out to them.

Thérèse Brunel shook her head. “I brought my own weapon—”

“You did?” asked Jérôme.

“Did you think I worked in the cafeteria at the Sûreté?” asked Thérèse. “I’ve never used it, and I hope not to, but I will if I have to.”

Gamache looked at the far end of the room, and Agent Nichol working on her terminal.

“Agent Nichol, walk with me to the car, please.”

Her back remained turned to them.

“Agent Nichol.”

Far from raising his voice, Chief Inspector Gamache had lowered it. It moved across the schoolroom, and lodged in that small back. They could see her tense.

And then she got up.

Gamache rubbed Henri’s ears, then opened the door.

“Wait, Armand,” said Thérèse. “Where’re you going?”

“To the SHU. To speak to Pierre Arnot.”

Thérèse opened her mouth to object, but realized it didn’t matter. They were out in the open now. All that mattered was speed.

Gamache waited for Nichol outside, standing on the stoop of the schoolhouse.

Gabri walked across to the bistro and waved, but didn’t approach. It was almost eleven in the morning, and the sun was gleaming on the snow. It looked as though the village was covered in jewels.

“What do you want?” asked Nichol, when she finally came out and the door was closed behind her.

She looked to Gamache not unlike the first Quint, shoved into the world against her will. He walked down the steps and along the path to his car and didn’t look at her as he spoke.

“I want to know what you were doing in the B and B the other day.”

“I told you.”

“You lied to me. We haven’t much time.” Now he did look at her. “I made a choice that day in the woods to trust you, even though I knew you’d lied. Do you know why?”

She glared at him, her tiny face turning red. “Because you had no choice?”

“Because despite your behavior I think you have a good heart. A strange head,” he smiled, “but a good heart. But I need to know now. Why were you there?”

She walked beside him, her head down, watching her boots on the snow.

They stopped beside his car.

“I followed you there to tell you something. But then you were so angry. You slammed the door in my face, and I couldn’t.”

“Tell me now,” he asked, his voice quiet.

“I leaked the video.”

The puffs of her words were barely visible before they disappeared.

The Chief’s eyes widened and he took a moment to absorb the information.

“Why?” he finally asked.

Tears made warm tracks down her face, and the more she tried to stop them the more they came. “I’m sorry. I didn’t do it to hurt. I felt so bad…”

She couldn’t talk. Her throat closed around the words.

“… my fault…” she managed. “… I told you there were six. I only heard…”

And now she sobbed.

Armand Gamache took her in his arms and held her. She heaved, and shook. And sobbed. She cried and cried, until there was nothing left. No sound, no tears, no words. Until she could barely stand. And still he held her and held her up.

When she pulled away, her face was streaked and her nose thick with slime. Gamache opened his parka and handed her his handkerchief.

“I told you there were only six gunmen in the factory,” she finally managed, the words coming in hiccups and gasps. “I only heard four, but I added some. In case. You taught me that. To be careful. I thought I was. But there were…” The tears began again, but this time they flowed freely, with no effort to stop them. “… more.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Yvette,” said Gamache. “You weren’t to blame for what happened.”

And he knew that was true. He remembered the moments in that factory. But not anything any video could capture. Armand Gamache remembered not the sights, nor the sounds. But how it felt. Seeing his young agents gunned down.

Holding Jean-Guy. Calling for the medics. Kissing him good-bye.

I love you, he’d whispered in Jean-Guy’s ear, before leaving him on the cold, bloody concrete floor.

The images might one day fade, but the feelings would live forever.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated.

“And it wasn’t yours, sir,” she said. “I wanted people to know. But I never stopped to think … The families … the other officers. I wanted to do it…”

She looked at him, her eyes begging him to understand.

“For me?” asked the Chief.

She nodded. “I was afraid you’d be blamed. I wanted them to know it wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry.”

He took her slimy hands and looked at her little face, blotched and wet with tears and mucus.

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “We all make mistakes. And yours might not have been a mistake at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you hadn’t released that video we never would’ve found out what Superintendent Francoeur was doing. It might turn out to be a blessing.”

“Some fucking blessing,” she said. “Sir.”

“Yes.” He smiled and got into his car. “While I’m gone I want you to research Premier Renard. His background, his history. See if you can find anything linking him with Pierre Arnot or Chief Superintendent Francoeur.”

“Yessir. You know they’re probably tracking your car and your cell. Shouldn’t you leave your phone here and use someone else’s car?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Let me know what you find.”

“If you get a message from the zoo, you’ll know who it is.”

It seemed about right to the Chief. He drove out of the village, aware that he’d be detected as soon as he left, and counting on it.