A Great Reckoning (19 page)

“But the two aren't connected,” said Lacoste.

“No, but it puts the academy in a very bad light, wouldn't you say? When one of our own professors is murdered? How can the mayor now say it's safe for kids to come and use our pool or the hockey rink?”

“I see,” she said, and saw that Gamache was genuinely saddened. But not, she suspected, by the brutal murder of one of his colleagues. He was saddened that a good man like the mayor, and the children of the community, were being hurt, once again, by Serge Leduc.

“The chief of police was more sanguine,” he said. “Offering to help.”

Isabelle Lacoste straightened the crease in her slacks, then looked up at Armand Gamache.

“I had no idea this was such a hostile environment,
patron
.”

He smiled. “Nor did I, to be honest. I expected resistance when I first arrived, and God knows, I found it. I expected Serge Leduc to try to contaminate and control the feeling on campus. Which he did. I expected that the third-year students would be a lost generation. Which they are. Almost.”

He looked at her and considered for a moment.

“Do you know why the armed forces recruit eighteen-year-olds?”

“Because they're young and healthy?” she asked.

“Healthier than a twenty-three-year-old? No. It's because they're malleable. You can get an eighteen-year-old to believe almost anything. To do almost anything.”

“The same could be said for street gangs and terrorist organizations,” said Lacoste. “Get them young.”

The thought set her back. The words had come out casually, but their meaning took a moment to sink in. Serge Leduc had essentially turned the Sûreté Academy into a terrorist training ground.

Within a few short years, he'd soured a once fine institution. Not just the academy—from here his cadets would become Sûreté agents. And rise through the ranks. No, not would. Had. They were already inside the Sûreté.

And worst of all, these young men and women wouldn't see anything wrong with what they did. Or were about to do. Because they'd been told it was right.

Armand Gamache had chosen this post for a reason. To right the balance. And to do that he had to stop Serge Leduc.

She watched as Commander Gamache got up and walked to his desk.

An alertness stole over her. The sort that came to highly trained, finely attuned officers.

Serge Leduc had been stopped. Utterly and completely.

But it wasn't Monsieur Gamache's doing, she told herself. He had nothing to do with it. He had nothing to do with it. Nothing.

She watched as Gamache picked up a dossier and returned to his chair.

“You could've fired him,
patron
,” she said. “You might not have been able to arrest him for corruption, but at least that would stop him from doing more damage.”

“Firing Leduc would solve nothing. The problem would simply be shifted onto someone else. The Leducs of this world will always find fertile ground. If not with the Sûreté, then with another police force. Or a private security firm. No. Enough was enough. It had to end, and the people he'd already corrupted, here and in the Sûreté, had to see that his philosophy would no longer be tolerated.”

“And how did you intend to do that, sir?”

He looked at her closely now, quizzically. “Are you saying what I think you are? Are you suggesting I might have stopped him with a bullet in the small hours of this morning?”

“I need to ask,” she said. “And you need to answer. I'm not making small talk.”

“No, and neither am I,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “You think I'm capable of cold-blooded murder?”

She paused, holding his eyes. “I do.”

That sat between them for a very long moment.

“For what it's worth, I think I am too,” she said.

“Under the right circumstances,” Gamache said, nodding slowly.

“
Oui
.”

“The question is, what are the right circumstances?” said Gamache.

“It must have become clear to you,
patron
, that Serge Leduc was winning. He'd already polluted the third-year cadets. You yourself said they were beyond redemption—”

“I said almost beyond. I haven't given up on them.”

“Then why not teach a third-year class yourself? You only take the freshmen.”

“True. I gave the seniors someone better. Someone with more to teach them than I ever could.”

“Jean-Guy?” she asked, not even trying to disguise her doubt.

“Michel Brébeuf.”

Isabelle Lacoste sat very still. As though something horrible had entered the room and she didn't want to attract its notice.

Finally she spoke.

“A known traitor?”

“An example,” said Gamache. “A powerful example of what corruption will do. It robbed Michel Brébeuf of everything he cared about. His colleagues, his friends, his self-respect. His career. His family. He lost everything. Serge Leduc was promising the cadets power and rewards. Michel Brébeuf is the reality check. What really happens to corrupt Sûreté officers.”

“Does he know that?”

“He knows he's been given this chance to redeem himself. To close the gate.”

Isabelle Lacoste cocked her head slightly, missing the allusion.

“And suppose he doesn't try to redeem himself?” she asked. “Suppose he sees this as his chance to get back in? Suppose he's gone back to his old ways and has found his own fertile ground. Aren't you worried that putting Michel Brébeuf, Serge Leduc, and a school full of impressionable cadets together will be a disaster?”

“Of course I am,” he snapped, then quickly reined himself in. He looked at her, his eyes sharp and the anger just below the surface. “You can't possibly think I don't worry about that every moment of every day. But how do you put out a wildfire? With another fire.”

“A controlled burn,” said Isabelle Lacoste, then lowered her voice. “Controlled.”

“You think I've lost control?”

“There's a body being taken to a morgue, and you were heckled by the cadets.” She sighed. “I do think you've lost control. And please know, I say that with the greatest respect. If anyone could have solved this problem, it would've been you.”

“But you think I've made it worse?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

“I'm not going to sit here and tell you the murder of Serge Leduc was part of my plan,” said Gamache. “Or anything I thought remotely possible. But I won't back down. You've never run away, Isabelle. Even when you could have. Even when you should have, to save yourself.”

He smiled at her now, with those same deep brown eyes that had looked up at her as he lay dying on a factory floor and she was desperate to stanch the blood. As automatic weapons fire hissed overhead and the walls around them exploded with bullets and the air was thick with dust and shouting and the screams of mortally wounded men and women.

She'd stayed with him. Held his hand. Listened to what they both knew would be his last words.
Reine-Marie.

He'd placed those words into Isabelle Lacoste. And with them all his heart and soul. All his happiness, and an apology.
Reine-Marie.

Gamache had survived, of course. And Isabelle had not had to deliver that final message.

“And I won't run away now,” he said. “We stay the course.”

“
Oui
,” she said.

“We've seen worse, haven't we, Isabelle?” he said.

She smiled. “We have. At least the cadets aren't armed and shooting at us. Yet.”

Gamache gave a single gruff laugh. “I've asked the chief of police to quietly take all the ammunition from the armory. The weapons will stay, but there'll be nothing to fire.”

Her smile disappeared. “I was joking. But you're seriously expecting trouble on that scale?”

“I was not expecting a murder,” he said. His face as serious as she'd ever seen. “The cadets must be safe. The only thing more dangerous than a killer is a killer trapped. He is now trapped inside the academy. Best not to have an armory at his disposal.”

“Or an army,” said Lacoste, remembering the reaction in the auditorium. “Serge Leduc had a lot of supporters.”

“Yes, but did you see any grief?”

That set Lacoste back, and after thinking for a moment she shook her head. “No.”

“No,” said Gamache. “The problem with the breath of kings.”

“The breath of kings?”

“Who float upon the tide of state,” said Gamache. “I only wish Jean-Guy was here to appreciate this.”

“Another poem?” she asked, knowing full well it must be.

“Hmmm, Jonathan Swift.”

He handed her the dossier he'd retrieved off his desk.

“What's this?”

“The gun I held to Serge Leduc's head,” said Gamache. “Read it and tell me what you think.”

She took it and got up. “
Merci
. I will. Is there an office I can use?”

“There's a boardroom across the hall.”

“Perfect.”

Though she was on her feet, Gamache himself had not risen. And so, taking the cue, Lacoste sat back down.

“There's more?”

“Of a political nature, nothing that will help solve the murder, I'm afraid,” said Gamache. “There are some considerations in running a department. Especially one with as high a profile as homicide.”

“Yes?”

“Justice must be seen to be done.”

“I agree.”

It was an old adage, a cliché even, and Gamache was not given to spouting clichés. So when he did, it must be particularly apropos.

“‘Not only must justice be done,'” she quoted, “‘it must also be seen to be done.' What are you saying? That I need to hold a news conference?”

“Well, that might not be a bad idea, but my thoughts run to something more nuanced. This is the Sûreté Academy. The professors are all former officers or those on leave, like Inspector Beauvoir, or people who do contract work with the Sûreté. I'm the former head of homicide. Your former boss.”

Chief Inspector Lacoste got it then.

“In effect, it's the Sûreté investigating the Sûreté.”

“In a murder case,” said Gamache.

She nodded, considering. “You think I should call Chief Superintendent Brunel and ask that an outside agency take over?”

“
Non
,” he shook his head. “Not take over. You must fight against that. Simply ask that an outside investigator be sent. Someone who can vouch for the fairness of your investigation.”

She sat thinking. Her thoughts were not happy ones. “Have you ever had to do that?”

“Twice. It was not pleasant. But it had to be done. And better to have it come from you than be imposed. I suspect Chief Superintendent Brunel is contemplating it even now.”

Lacoste pulled out her iPhone and punched in the number for the head of the Sûreté. “Is there someone I should ask for specifically?”

“No,” he said, getting to his feet. “That would taint it. You have to take what comes. I'll leave you to it.”

Gamache stepped into his outer office just as Jean-Guy arrived.

“They're heading down to Three Pines,
patron
.”

“Good.
Merci
.”

Now, close up, Beauvoir could see how stressed Gamache really was.

“There is something,” said Jean-Guy. “One of their maps is missing.”

“Whose?”

“The Goth Girl's.”

“Amelia?”

Beauvoir raised his brows at the familiarity.

“Cadet Choquet, yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She seemed surprised. She denied there was any special relationship with Professor Leduc, aside from taking him coffee in the morning and gathering for the odd meeting with others in his rooms.”

“So it's true,” said Gamache. “She was one of them.”

Gamache took a deep, deep breath, then on the exhale he looked out the door and down the empty hallway that had once teemed with cadets and was now completely devoid of life.

He muttered so quietly as to be almost inaudible, “What have I done?”

 

CHAPTER 15

“You've kidnapped us.”

“That's a little harsh, wouldn't you say?” said Armand Gamache later that day as he stood in the bistro and looked at the four cadets. “Hardly a prison.”

“You know what I mean,” said Jacques.

“Oh yes, Cadet Laurin. I heard you.”

Amelia wondered if Jacques had picked up on what the Commander was really saying. But he seemed too intent on his own message to hear anyone else's.

“Why're we here?” Huifen Cloutier asked, her tone more polite, though the edge was still noticeable.

It was midafternoon and the bistro was filling up, but their table was private. At Gamache's request, Olivier had given them a place in the corner, tucked between the wall and the window. When Commander Gamache walked in, they'd stood up, but now he waved them to their seats and grabbed a chair for himself from another table.

Amelia found herself at home in the faintly familiar surroundings. It didn't smell of urine and cigarettes, like the rooming house. It didn't sound hollow, like the academy. Instead, it smelt of wood smoke and coffee, and she could hear the fire crackle in the grate and the murmur of muffled conversation nearby, spiced by laughter. Not the loud, often jarring, bursts of laughter that reverberated down the halls of the academy. This was a low rumble. An undertone of good humor.

After being marched out of the academy, she'd been taken to an unmarked Sûreté vehicle, already running, with Nathaniel waiting in the backseat and two plainclothes agents in the front seat. As they'd been driven deeper and deeper into the wilderness, away from the academy and way away from Sûreté headquarters, her disquiet had grown.