The Madness of Crowds

CHAPTER 43

“Couldn’t sleep?” asked Armand.

Though it was almost three in the morning, the voice hadn’t surprised Jean-Guy. He’d heard the slippered feet approaching the kitchen and recognized the gait.

“I haven’t really slept since Honoré was born,” he said.

“Tea?” Armand turned around, kettle in hand.

Beauvoir was about to decline, then realized that yes, a nice cup of tea …

Dear God, he thought, I’ve been infected. “Yes, please. Did you hear that?”

Jean-Guy half rose. His face alert, his body tense. There’d been a sound from the front of the house.

“It’s okay,” said Armand, turning off the tap. “I was just about to tell you—”

“Is it morning already?” asked Isabelle. Her cheeks were red from the short walk from the B&B. She carried a plate covered with a checked dish towel and was wearing polka dot flannel pajamas under a plaid flannel robe.

“You look like something out of Dickens,” said Jean-Guy.

“I don’t think we want to get into what each of us looks like, do you?”

In sweats and unshaved, he looked like some bedraggled mess cops on an overnight shift brought in. And kept downwind.

Putting the plate on the counter, she greeted Gamache, who looked pretty much as he always did. Or at least a variation on the same theme.

A university professor woken up out of a deep sleep. Also unshaven, his beard would be almost completely gray, she saw, if he chose to grow one again. Unlike Jean-Guy, he’d at least made an effort to brush his hair, but one side still stood up.

“I saw Isabelle’s light on over at the B&B,” Armand explained, pouring milk into a jug, “and texted her to join us.”

It was 2:53.

Lacoste took off the towel to reveal an assortment of breakfast pastries. “Courtesy of Gabri and Olivier.”

“Do they know how generous they’re being?” asked Armand.

“Not yet.”

While the tea steeped, Armand went into the study and returned with the documents he’d brought from the Incident Room. Jean-Guy spread them out on the kitchen table. Mugs in front of them, the three Sûreté officers ate pain au chocolat and studied the pages.

It was like Jean-Paul Roberge’s jigsaw puzzle. Though, when correctly assembled, this would not show a basket of puppies.

The problem was, they seemed to have a few puzzles mixed together.

There was Vincent Gilbert’s involvement in Ewen Cameron’s experiments on innocent men and women. Including Abigail’s mother.

There was the question of Maria’s death.

There were the violent reactions to Abigail Robinson, and the people, including Gilbert and maybe the Chancellor, who’d do anything to stop her campaign for euthanasia.

And then there was the outlier. The puzzle that was their visitor. Haniya Daoud. Who talked of moral courage and committed murder under cover of darkness.

Were they separate puzzles, Gamache wondered, or all part of the same picture? One part forest, another sky, some water, some buildings? Appearing unconnected, spurious even, but combined they formed a single image.

Or maybe he had the analogy wrong. Not a puzzle, but what he’d thought earlier. One long thread. That started with Cameron and ended decades later with the body of Debbie Schneider.

The tug he’d given earlier had revealed Colette Roberge. The recipient of Paul Robinson’s oddly vague letter. And his eternal gratitude.

Had she earned it for looking after his daughter when the suicide note arrived, or was it more expected? Was the commitment ongoing?

Picking up his mug, Armand strolled over to the windows at the far end of the kitchen and gazed out. “Why was Paul Robinson so grateful to Colette?”

His words formed steam on the cold window.

Turning around, he looked back at Beauvoir and Lacoste. This was far from the first time they’d found themselves sleepless and poring over a homicide in their pajamas.

“He was grateful to her for looking after Abigail,” suggested Isabelle.

“Possible, but ‘eternal’ gratitude? That seems excessive.” After rekindling the fire in the woodstove, he returned to the table and brought the copy of the suicide note closer to him. “It’ll be interesting to get the handwriting and DNA analysis.”

“You think he didn’t write it?” Jean-Guy asked.

“I’m wondering, not thinking.”

“But if he didn’t, who did?”

“Abigail and Colette were both in Oxford when he died,” said Isabelle. “Who does that leave—” She stopped. “Debbie Schneider? Why would she?”

“Maybe Paul Robinson found evidence that she’d killed Maria,” said Jean-Guy. “The evidence Abigail might have found among his things a few weeks ago.”

“You’re saying he confronted Debbie,” said Isabelle, “and she killed him? How? Then she writes a suicide note and mails it with a book to someone she doesn’t even know exists?”

“Do you see a problem with that?” Armand asked, and smiled. “I suspect if she had done that, she’d have made the supposed confession a lot clearer. I also think if the letter wasn’t in his handwriting, Colette or Abigail would have known. So Paul Robinson wrote that letter to Colette and his daughter, then took his life. But”—he looked down at it again—“it seems an unnecessarily cruel letter, and he doesn’t seem like a cruel man. Just the opposite really. By all accounts, he had a loving relationship with Abigail.”

“And with Maria,” said Isabelle. “We know where that ended.”

As one, the three of them looked at the photograph of Debbie, Abigail, Paul, and Maria, with the vast Pacific stretching out behind them, sparkling in the sunlight.

The last one.

That photograph, Armand knew, must have been precious to Paul Robinson, so what was it doing locked in Debbie Schneider’s desk?

Armand sat slowly back in his chair and stared into the distance. Trying to see something just beyond his grasp.

If he pulled the thread, gently, maybe. Maybe …

Unexpectedly, Reine-Marie’s elderly mother appeared.

He sat forward and turned to them. “You haven’t lost a parent yet, have you?”

They shook their heads, surprised by what seemed a non sequitur.

“Then you haven’t had to clear out their home, go through their things. It’s a terrible job. We did it after Reine-Marie’s mother died a couple of years ago. It’s sad and exhausting and incredibly tedious at times. All the things they didn’t know what to do with, they just put in closets and piled in the basement. Every paper and photograph needs to be gone through, and decisions made. We were lucky, we had Reine-Marie’s seventy-eight siblings to help.”

Isabelle and Jean-Guy smiled. Each time the Chief mentioned Madame Gamache’s enormous family, the number went up. They actually had no idea how many brothers and sisters there were. It was unclear if Reine-Marie even knew.

“But what happens when you’re an only child?” he asked. “Or there are too many things and not enough time?”

“You get help?” suggested Isabelle. “Like what Reine-Marie does for people.”

“Exactly. That’s what I should have seen.”

He was animated, annoyance at himself replaced by excitement at finally seeing clearly.

“You get someone in who isn’t as emotionally attached to help sort things out. So when faced with a deadline, and loads of her father’s things to go through, who would Abigail turn to?”

“Debbie Schneider,” said Jean-Guy. “Merde.”

“Debbie found the photograph. Not Abigail,” said Isabelle, her eyes gleaming. “That’s why it was in her desk. That’s why Abby was surprised. She hadn’t seen it in years.”

“But why lock it away?” asked Jean-Guy. “What’s in it that we can’t see?”

He leaned over and once again saw the devotion on Debbie’s face as she looked at Abigail. And saw the devotion on Abigail’s face as she looked at Maria.

Paul Robinson was looking at Maria. He appeared calm. Content. Happy.

Then Jean-Guy looked at her.

The little girl, her body twisted, had her mouth open, joining in some joke. Her hair gleamed in the sunshine. Her complexion was pink and healthy. Her clothes were clean, and covered with cheery daisies.

But mostly it was her eyes that Jean-Guy noticed. They were bright, amused. Alert and aware.

There was no pain. No despair. No sign Maria was failing. This was not a little girl with no quality of life and this was not a family struggling to keep their heads above water.

“Is that what was hidden in full view?” he said. “A happy family?”

“Non,” said Armand, his voice certain. He too had been staring at the photo, and what he’d seen wasn’t a happy family. “Did the evidence box from Madame Schneider’s home arrive?”

Isabelle checked the tracking on her phone and shook her head in frustration. “Yes and no. They sent it to Sûreté headquarters. Not here. It’s sitting in my office.”

“Get one of the agents on duty to drive it down. Right now.”

“On it.”

As she put in the call, Armand turned to Jean-Guy. “It was there all the time, for us to see. And we did. We even talked about it, but didn’t pursue it.”

“What?” said Jean-Guy.

“That.” Armand pointed at the photograph.

They’d been so focused on the picture of the four people that they’d failed to notice they were actually looking at a screen shot of Debbie Schneider’s desk.

The picture of the happy people, the last one, was sitting on top of the other things that had been locked in the drawer. The ink, the cards, the staples …

“The agenda,” said Jean-Guy.

“Yes,” said Gamache. “The agenda. That’s what Debbie found. That’s what Debbie hid.”

The evidence box arrived at the Auberge within the hour.

By then they’d showered and changed into warm clothes. Armand had wound a bright red cashmere scarf around his neck and tucked it into his parka, to better protect himself against the biting cold.

The night was impossibly clear, the sky awash with stars.

It was preternaturally quiet. Still. Peaceful.

The only sound was the rhythmic crunching of their boots on the snow-covered road as they made their way past St. Thomas’s, past the New Forest. Toward the only light visible. Toward the Old Hadley House, at the top of the hill.

It was like a beacon, thought Gamache. A lighthouse.

Except a lighthouse was a warning, of shoals, of rocks. It was not a destination. No mariner would steer toward one, he knew, as their steps took them closer and closer.

Once there, they found the agent sitting on a straight-backed chair in the lobby, the box on her knee and her arms around it.

“Agent Lavigne, isn’t it?” said the Chief Inspector.

“Oui, patron.” She stood up so quickly the box almost fell to the floor. When Inspector Lacoste took it, the young agent turned to Gamache.

“If you don’t mind…” She was holding out a receipt.

Beauvoir pressed his lips together and made a mental note to buy her a coffee. If not for good sense, then for valor.

She left with a receipt signed, Armand Gamache. And they were left with the box.

Putting it on the conference table in the Incident Room, Beauvoir handed around sterile gloves. Gamache put them on, trying not to show the nausea he still felt as the memories came flooding back, carried on the scent of latex.

Lacoste brought out her phone to record the proceedings.

Breaking the seal, Beauvoir picked up the various items, dictating as he went. All went into bags and were labeled.

The last three items he placed on the desk.

“Four birthday cards.”

Isabelle opened them. “For Abigail’s sixteenth to nineteenth birthdays. All signed, Love, Debbie. So now we know exactly when the falling-out happened.”

“Not long after Maria died,” said Gamache.

“Here’s the photograph,” said Beauvoir. Turning it over he saw, neatly written, The last one. It was the same handwriting as the suicide note.

There was only one item left, sitting all alone at the bottom of the box.

“An agenda,” he said, for the recording. But it was, they all knew, far more than that.

He opened the front cover to reveal the name and year. Then he handed it to Chief Inspector Gamache. “Paul Robinson’s.”

Gamache closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled. He’d thought maybe, but until Jean-Guy had said that, he hadn’t been sure.

“From the year Maria died?” asked Isabelle.

“Non,” said Jean-Guy. “From the year he died.”

Armand sat down, put on his reading glasses, and opened it.

“Debbie Schneider found it when they were going through his things,” said Isabelle.

“Just weeks ago,” said Armand, looking up. “Oui. I think that was the catalyst.”

They’d come around and now hung over his shoulder as he turned to the day Paul Robinson died.

“It’s blank,” said Isabelle. Though disappointed, she knew he was hardly likely to put in a reminder to kill himself.

“I think when Debbie found it, this picture”—Gamache held it up—“was in that page. You can just see where some of the resin from the gloss has come off. We’ll get it analyzed.”

Armand turned the pages. All the ones going forward were blank.

Then he turned back. One page. Two. And there was the entry. The last one.

Letter to Colette. Copy.

And there it was. So matter-of-fact. Not the word “letter,” but the other one.

“Copy,” said Armand, nodding. “You said it, Isabelle. You even did it.” He looked over at the scanner. “You made a copy of the letter. So why wouldn’t he? It’s been bothering me. Everyone describes Paul Robinson as a methodical scientist. Wouldn’t he make a copy of something so important?”

“And he did,” said Isabelle. “So where is it?”

Smiling, Armand turned the book upside down and shook, waiting for the letter to flutter out.

But it did not. Nothing came out.

“Sometimes the magic works,” he said with a sigh.

Jean-Guy smiled, recognizing the quote from Little Big Man.

“Okay,” said Isabelle, “let’s say Debbie found the copy of the suicide letter among his things. Where is it? And how could it matter? She already knew what was in it. She’d read the original when Colette showed it to them. I agree that what started this all off was something they found when going through Paul Robinson’s things, but I don’t think it’s that.” She pointed to the agenda. “That was the ninety-ninth monkey.”

“And the hundredth?” asked Jean-Guy, also taking a seat.

“Was something Abigail found. The letter from Gilbert, demanding payment for torturing her mother. That’s what started all this.”

Gamache removed his reading glasses, the better to study her. “Go on.”

“That letter from Gilbert must’ve been explosive. It changed everything for Abigail, but it also explained everything. Cameron’s experiments led to the deaths of her mother, her sister, and her father.”

Isabelle leaned forward, her arms outstretched on the table, trying to get them to embrace her scenario.

“Abigail is smart. She realizes that it’s a personal tragedy, but also a professional opportunity. Vincent Gilbert, the great humanitarian, was involved in the most shameful event in Canadian medicine. What would he do to hush that up? She was in the middle of a shit storm of controversy. She needed allies. She admits she came to Québec to try to blackmail Gilbert into an endorsement. But suppose it’s more than that?”

“You’re saying she came here to kill him,” said Gamache.

“We talked about that, yes. Doesn’t that make the most sense? Maybe she didn’t start off with that idea, maybe it did start as only blackmail, but when she came face-to-face with him at the party, it changed. He was smug, arrogant. Mocking. She snapped. This wasn’t a murder with a whole lot of thought. A whole lot of planning.”

“So how does Debbie Schneider end up dead?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Because Gilbert gets there first. He had a whole lot of motives.” Isabelle ticked them off on her fingers. “To protect his reputation.” One tick. “To make up for what he didn’t do before.” Another. “In self-defense when he realizes what she probably has in mind for him.” A third. “He just made one mistake.”

“He killed the wrong person?” said Beauvoir.

“Did he? Maybe he knew, or suspected, that Debbie Schneider had the letter from Cameron, the proof. He had to get it back. And there was something only he could do.”

Isabelle looked from one to the other. It all seemed so obvious. Couldn’t they see it?

To his credit, she thought, the Chief Inspector did seem to be trying. There were deep creases across his forehead and his eyes had the thoughtful, slightly unfocused look of someone struggling to see something in the distance.

“The firewood,” she finally said. “Vincent Gilbert was alone in the library on New Year’s Eve. He was just about the only one who could pick up a log and—”

“Come on, Isabelle,” said Jean-Guy. “This’s all circumstantial. You have no evidence that Gilbert did it. But there is evidence that Debbie Schneider—”

Like a man warding off an attack, Gamache put up his hands and turned his head away, dropping his gaze. Asking them to give him a moment.

Instead of pulling on the thread, now he was trying to follow it. The answer was right there. He was sure of it. Gently, carefully, quietly, he traced it back.

From Debbie’s body. To Abigail’s confrontation with Vincent Gilbert at the party. To the attack in the gym.

From Abigail’s controversial research into the pandemic. To clearing out her father’s home, and finding Ewen Cameron lurking there. And, by association, Vincent Gilbert.

The agenda. The photograph. And, maybe, the copy of the strangely but carefully worded suicide note.

And finally, again and always, he came face-to-face with Abby Maria.

He stood up. “We won’t find the truth sitting here. We need to go back to the Roberge home. I think Paul Robinson trusted the Chancellor to keep his secret. To help him hide the truth. I think that was his eternal gratitude.”

“You know what that is?” asked Lacoste, getting up too. “The truth?”

“No. But I think Colette Roberge does.”