Kingdom of the Blind

CHAPTER 21

“Your Benedict … Pouliot does not live in 3G, as it turns out,” said Isabelle Lacoste, picking up the burger with both hands and taking an almighty bite.

“But he does live in the building?” asked Gamache. “With his girlfriend?”

He had to wait while Isabelle chewed and chewed.

Beauvoir, who’d just joined them in the diner on rue Ste.-Catherine, waved at the server. “I’ll have one of those too, please, and a hot chocolate.”

It was difficult for a grown man to order a hot chocolate with authority, but he tried.

Armand smiled. But his amusement faded on catching the look Beauvoir gave him.

And Armand felt a slight chill, as though a locked door had opened, just a little.

“Oui,” said Lacoste, finally swallowing. It had been a while since she’d been this hungry. “Well, sort of. They used to live in … 3G, but she moved out a month or so ago, and he moved into a smaller apartment. Same building. Did you know he’s the … caretaker?”

She went to take another bite, but Gamache put his hand on her arm to stop her.

“I didn’t know that. So he has no girlfriend?”

“Not anymore. Not that the neighbors know. I spoke to half a dozen of them. They all said pretty much the same thing. They’d lived together for a couple of years. The parting seemed … amicable.”

She took another bite. The place might look like a dive, but the burger was freshly made, perfectly charbroiled, and delicious.

She did not mention that she’d hauled herself all the way up three flights of stairs, pausing at every second step to catch her breath. Only to discover that someone else now lived in 3G and the apartment she was looking for was actually just off the lobby.

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she’d mumbled with each careful step down.

“What do they think of Benedict?” Beauvoir asked.

“They said he’s polite. Nice. Trustworthy. There’re a lot of older people in the building, and they seem to have adopted Benedict.”

“He has that effect on people,” said Gamache. “He’s a good handyman?”

“Yes,” said Lacoste. “According to the other tenants, he seems to know … what he’s doing. But he hasn’t been around for a couple of days.”

This description of Benedict was far from conclusive. A handyman could fix a leaking faucet. He could not, necessarily, make a building collapse. At will.

Although a carpenter might. A builder. And that was Benedict’s other job.

“But if Benedict killed Anthony Baumgartner,” said Beauvoir, “he messed up. His plan couldn’t possibly have been to get trapped himself.”

“Probably not,” said Gamache.

“What do you mean ‘probably’?” snapped Beauvoir. “It’s obvious.”

Both Lacoste and Gamache stared at him in surprise.

“Is something bothering you, Jean-Guy?”

Beauvoir took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just hungry and tired.”

His sponsor in AA had warned him about H.A.L.T. Hungry, angry, lonely, and tired were triggers.

He’d readily admit to hungry and tired. And the meeting had angered him. But it was the lonely that was surprising and upsetting Beauvoir. Cournoyer’s final comment had left him feeling very alone.

Ask Gamache.

“It wasn’t too much for you, Isabelle?” Gamache asked. “Going to the apartment building?”

“Are you kidding, patron? The best … therapy I’ve had in months.”

She didn’t tell them that she’d slipped and fallen into a snowbank and had struggled to get back onto her feet. Then it had taken another ten minutes to flag down a taxi.

She’d arrived at the restaurant frozen through and bushed.

But it was the most fun she’d had in months. Since the shooting.

She’d been afraid she’d be sidelined forever. Treated by well-meaning colleagues as a charity case. Someone to be patronized, coddled, pitied. And finally ignored.

But Gamache had done none of those things. Instead he’d trusted her with this task, and she’d proven to herself and him that she could do it.

“I’ve arranged to meet Baumgartner’s brother, sister, and ex-wife at his home.” Beauvoir looked at his watch. “At three o’clock. I’d like you there if possible, patron.”

“Oui. Absolument,” said Gamache. “They know he’s dead, of course. But do they know he was murdered?”

“Not yet.”

Though it was possible one of them knew perfectly well.

After Gamache headed to the archives to look up some documents, Lacoste was left alone with Beauvoir.

“Okay, spill,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake, don’t make me drag it out of you. You’re angry at the Chief about something. What is it?”

He told her about the conversation with the man from the Ministère de la Justice.

As he described what had happened, it all sounded ludicrous. And it would seem silly if he hadn’t seen the look on Francis Cournoyer’s face.

What’s your endgame? Beauvoir had asked, the scent of disinfectant heavy in the air.

Ask Gamache.

With those two words, Cournoyer had thrown a bomb into Beauvoir’s world. Though it had been, really, more of a crumble than an explosion. As he’d stood there in the men’s toilet. Trying to grasp what was being said.

Cournoyer had more or less said that the person at the center of it all wasn’t some vindictive politician. Wasn’t some shadowy government operative.

It was Gamache. He wasn’t the target, he was the sharpshooter. He wasn’t the victim, he was the perpetrator. And he knew perfectly well what was happening. Why. And where it was leading.

And he was keeping Beauvoir in the dark.

And all of this—the investigation, the sneaking around, the threats—were meant to confuse, to dazzle. To misdirect. While something else was happening.

That’s what Francis Cournoyer had said. With those two words.

Ask Gamache.

Jean-Guy could feel a headache coming on. The distant throbbing at the base of his skull. Like heartbeats at the birth of dark thoughts.

“But it doesn’t mean that the Chief knows anything,” said Lacoste. “This Cournoyer man might’ve been messing with you. Probably not his first mindfuck in a public washroom.”

And despite himself Beauvoir snorted. Then heaved a heavy sigh.

He wanted to agree with her. But she hadn’t been there. Hadn’t seen Cournoyer’s triumph as he’d said it.

“Gamache knows way more than he’s saying,” said Jean-Guy.

“Isn’t that a good thing?” asked Isabelle. “You’re just pissed off that he didn’t tell you.”

“Just?” demanded Beauvoir. “Just? I’m being grilled. My career possibly ruined. And he knows why all this is happening, and he’s not telling me?” Jean-Guy’s voice rose as he wound himself up. “Yes, I’m fucking angry.”

There was silence for a long moment.

“You do know,” she said, leaning across the table toward him, her voice so quiet he had to also lean in, “that he’s the head of the entire Sûreté? Of course he knows more than you. Or me. Or anyone else in the force. He’d better. He’s in charge. He’s had to navigate these waters for years. So yes he knows more, sees more, than you, or me. And thank God he does.”

“He’s keeping secrets.”

“And that surprises you, Jean-Guy?”

“He’s playing me.”

“Or maybe he’s protecting you. Have you thought of that? Can’t you see it?”

“Of course I can’t see it,” snapped Beauvoir. “He’s keeping me in the dark. Letting me just waltz into these interrogations like an idiot. I’m tired, Isabelle. Just … tired.”

And now he looked it. With an index finger, he pushed a fry around on his plate. Then looked up at her. And sighed. “You know?”

She nodded.

“I’m tired of playing catch-up,” Jean-Guy said. “Of wondering what monster is around the next corner. Not the murderers. Them I can handle. It’s the other stuff. The political games that aren’t games at all.” He shook his head, then looked down and spoke quietly. “I’m not good at it.”

“You don’t have to be. He is.” She smiled then. “And you’re far better at it than you let on. I know that. He knows that.”

“But he’s better.”

“Monsieur Gamache is twenty years older than you. He’s been at it a lot longer, at a much higher level. But you’re up there now. He trusts you. And, more than that, he cares very deeply about you. For you. If you don’t know that by now, you never will.”

She flagged down the server again.

“I think we need some tea, don’t you?”

She smiled at Beauvoir, who couldn’t help but smile back.

Tea.

The Anglos in Three Pines were always pressing tea on each other in times of stress. Even Ruth. Though her “tea,” while looking like it, was actually scotch.

He’d thought it vile at first. The tea. But then, somewhere along the line, he found he looked for it. Hoped they’d offer it. And drank it with pleasure, though he didn’t show it.

He found now that just the aroma of Red Rose calmed him. He didn’t even have to drink it.

The waitress returned, and the scent of the tea enveloped him. Strong. Fragrant. Calming. And yet Jean-Guy could still feel the throbbing radiating from the base of his skull, until it covered his head like a membrane that kept tightening.

He had to think. To be clear. To try to see what was really happening and not what others wanted him to see.

But all that kept coming to mind was Matthew 10:36.

His first day on the job, Chief Inspector Gamache had called him into his office.

The two men were alone, for the first time. And Agent Beauvoir took in two things immediately.

The sense of calm that came from the man behind the desk. It was unusual. Most senior officers Beauvoir knew gave off a “fuck you” energy. Something Agent Beauvoir had learned to copy.

The other thing he noticed was the look in the Chief Inspector’s eyes.

Smart, bright. Thoughtful. None of that was particularly unusual in a senior Sûreté officer. But it was something else, in those eyes, that had taken Agent Beauvoir by surprise.

Kindness. Clear enough for a rattled young man to see.

“Have a seat,” the Chief had said. And had proceeded to outline, quickly, clearly, what would be expected of Jean-Guy Beauvoir. It amounted to a code of conduct. It started with the four statements that lead to wisdom: I don’t know. I need help. I was wrong. I’m sorry. And ended with him saying, simply, “Matthew 10:36.”

“You can take all of what I’ve said to heart,” the Chief had said, leading the young agent to the door. “Or none. It’s your choice. As are the consequences, of course.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir was used to being told what to do. Ordered around. By his father. His teachers. His superiors.

The concept of choice was new. And more than a little baffling. As was the Chief’s habit of tossing what appeared to be random quotes into conversations.

It wasn’t until a few years later, and many experiences with the Chief in horrific investigations, that Agent Beauvoir had looked it up.

Matthew 10:36.

Jean-Guy had expected some inspirational biblical saying. From St. Francis, perhaps. Or something from one of those long letters to those poor, and almost certainly illiterate, Corinthians.

Instead what he read struck dread into his heart.

And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Far from inspirational, it was a harsh warning in a gentle voice. A whisper out of the darkness.

Be careful.

“I’m tired, Isabelle. Tired of all this.” He waved his hand, to indicate not the dingy diner but a world that couldn’t be seen. The world of suspicions. Of constant questioning. Of ground shifting.

He just wanted to rest. No, he wanted more than that. He wanted to curl up on his own sofa, in front of the fireplace. With Annie and Honoré in his arms.

And he wanted it all to go away.

He drove her home. At the door she hugged him and whispered, “Be careful.”

It was so close to what he’d been privately thinking a few minutes earlier that he felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck.

“I’ve got Cournoyer’s number now,” he said. “Not to worry.”

“Not of Cournoyer.”

“Gamache,” said Beauvoir.

“No. You.”

As he drove back through Montréal, to pick up Gamache, he could smell a familiar, very, very faint scent. Of rose water and sandalwood.

And he could see, again, those kind eyes. Intelligent. Thoughtful. Trying to communicate something to a hardheaded young agent who was radiating “fuck you.”

He watched as pedestrians leaped away from the wall of slush splashed up by cars. As elderly men and women clung to each other to keep from falling. As people, neutered by the bitter cold, scuttled from shops.

And Jean-Guy imagined walking along the Seine with his family. Taking them to the galleries and cathedrals and parks of Paris. Weekend trips to Provence. To the Riviera. Where sun gleamed off the Mediterranean and not off snow.