Chapter 11

C HAPTER 11

"What are you saying?"

The woman, introduced to Beauvoir as Margaux Chalifoux, the Executive Director of Action Québec Bleu, was staring at him across her desk.

"I'm not sure how to put it more clearly, Madame. I'm afraid Charles Langlois is dead. He was killed by a car this afternoon."

He watched closely for her reaction. One of the last things Langlois had said was that he didn't know if his boss was involved in whatever was happening.

She was his boss.

And yet Charles had said "he" when talking about the boss. Was that a lie? Or did Charles not consider this woman his boss? There must be, might be, someone else.

Madame Chalifoux tilted her head. She was middle-aged, with thinning hair and a slight mustache, and a full face that now registered understanding, if not sorrow. "That's terrible. He was a nice young man." She paused. "Which department of the S?reté are you with?"

"Homicide."

She closed her eyes for a long moment. When they opened again, her gaze was sharp, intelligent. No-nonsense. "You think he was murdered."

"I know it. I was there."

"Someone actually wanted to kill him? On purpose? But why Charles?" Then she shook her head. "I'm sorry. Stupid question. That's what you're trying to find out."

"What did he do?"

"He was one of our biologists." On seeing his surprise, she said, "What exactly do you know about Charles?"

"Nothing," admitted Beauvoir. He took a seat without being asked. "Tell me."

It was clear to Chief Inspector Gamache, as he walked through the corridors of S?reté headquarters, that most of his colleagues had seen the video. Some stopped to ask if he was all right, others just smiled and nodded in a show of commiseration.

Though with each nod, each smile, he wondered how sincere these colleagues were.

With every step down the long corridor of SQ headquarters, he felt his left shoe pinching his bruised foot. When he made it to the elevator and the doors closed, he leaned against the wall, heaved a sigh, and lifted his foot.

"Come in, Chief Inspector," said Madeleine Toussaint a minute or so later, when her assistant announced him. "Sit. Coffee?"

" Non, merci. "

Toussaint came around her desk and sat in the chair beside him. "Tell me everything you know, Armand."

"Charles Langlois is, was, a marine biologist," said Madame Chalifoux.

"Marine? So he specialized in oceans? Salt water?"

"Well, yes, but when he came to us, it was to study the situation with fresh water." On seeing his puzzled expression, she smiled. "The truth is, Inspector, as you can probably see, we're a shoestring operation. We take what and who we can get. Charles needed a job, and we needed a biologist."

"What ‘situation' exactly was he working on?"

"What we are all working on. Water security."

He sat forward. "Did Charles think someone was threatening our water supply?"

"Well, yes, Inspector."

Beauvoir sat very still. He wondered if he was about to hear what Langlois could not tell Gamache.

"We're all threatening our drinking water, with development, pollutants, climate change, with unchecked industry. I can't imagine his work had anything to do with his death." She paused. "I hate to bring it up, but you're aware of his past?"

"We're looking into that too. But my questions right now are for you. I'd like to see anything he was working on."

Beauvoir followed her into the large open space. The eight other workers stared at them. It was clear they'd just found out what had happened. Some of the faces were blotchy from crying. Others looked stoic, stone-faced.

"This is Inspector Beauvoir. He's with the S?reté. He has some questions for us."

" Merci ," he said. "But first I want to look at Monsieur Langlois's desk."

Jean-Guy put on gloves and spent a few minutes going over the papers on top of and inside Langlois's desk.

"There's not much here. Would you expect more? Don't touch."

Madame Chalifoux withdrew her hand and just looked, her brows drawing together.

"He must've taken his laptop home. I'd have expected notebooks, but those might be at his place too."

"Did anyone else come by here today, asking about him?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Do you know which project he was working on specifically?"

"He was working mostly in the northern and central lakes. Testing for pollution." This from a young woman.

"Was he working alone?"

She nodded.

"Did he have a supervisor?" A man, thought Beauvoir. The "he" whom Charles had referred to.

"Margaux," said the young woman, nodding toward Madame Chalifoux.

"No one else?" They shook their heads. "Could Charles have found something in his testing that was dangerous?"

"Well, even up there, there's a lot of pollution that hurts biodiversity," an older man said. "Acid rain, PCBs. Mercury stirred up by the hydrodams. If even the algae is affected then—"

At the word "algae," Beauvoir lost interest. There was only so much he could care about, and that did not make the list.

"I meant for Monsieur Langlois, not pond scum." They shook their heads and stared at him as though he were a caveman. "How did Langlois come to work for you?"

"He walked in one day and offered his services," said Madame Chalifoux. "He started as a volunteer. When we got some money, I hired him."

"Did he say how he came to hear of you?"

" Non , and I didn't ask. We're just grateful for the help. We're a small organization, as you can see. We function mostly on goodwill. No one works full-time, everyone's paid minimum wage, and most donate at least some of their earnings back to the organization."

Beauvoir looked at those in the room. Men and women, young and old, from different cultural groups. "You must be very dedicated."

"Maybe even fanatical," said an elderly woman. "We do this for our grandchildren."

"Was Monsieur Langlois a fanatic?"

"No, that implies a sort of crazy." Madame Chalifoux shot a warning look to the others. "But he was dedicated. He understood that fresh water was soon going to become more and more scarce as the climate changed. We all understand that."

Beauvoir didn't. As a father, he was very worried what sort of world his children would inherit. The shifting food supply. Forest fires, disease, famines, catastrophic floods. The wars that scarcity provoked. Those were the effects of climate change that kept him awake at night.

Water, so abundant in Canada, wasn't one of them.

"Margaux," said a young woman, whose face was blotchy and streaked with tears.

"Yes, Debs?"

"There's a video…"

It was a risk, but Gamache had calculated it. How much to tell the Chief Superintendent. How to tell her. Armand watched closely, trying to read Toussaint's expression.

"A collaborator?" she said when he stopped. She'd skipped right over the part about the break-in at his home and landed on the most important point for her. "You really think that's what the young man was trying to tell you?"

"Not trying, he did."

"Who?"

Armand raised his brows in some amusement. "Don't you think I'd have led with that, if I knew?"

But his expression was such that the head of the S?reté stared at him. Unsure.

And that's what Gamache wanted.

Madeleine Toussaint, the Chief Superintendent, was nobody's fool. Which was, maddeningly, why he'd backed her to take over the top job. She was whip-smart, a good administrator, an inspired leader. Both rational and intuitive, she'd be able to spot a fraud. She'd be able to tell if he was lying.

It didn't help that she knew him well. But he also knew her.

He needed her off-balance. He needed this perceptive leader to believe him when he said he didn't know. But also to have a sneaking suspicion that he did.

He also needed her to think that was the only reason Langlois had needed to speak to him. Nothing else.

"And who is this collaborator supposedly collaborating with?"

"I don't know." That at least was the truth.

He secretly, privately feared the S?reté collaborator was the woman sitting across from him now.

Beauvoir had heard that a video had been posted and gone viral, but this was the first time he'd seen it.

It surprised him how upsetting it was. He'd been there, after all. Had seen it in person. But this was a different angle. Much more intimate.

He watched as the SUV grazed Armand, twisting him slightly as it raced by. He hadn't realized how close it came. Within centimeters…

So close that Armand's shoe had been torn from his foot.

Langlois's body landed with a thud. Not even a bounce. Just like a sack of sand. His shoes had also come off on impact and tumbled along the road, finally coming to rest.

Somehow the sight of empty shoes lying on the ground seemed almost worse than the body. It often happened in explosions, and sometimes when people were shot by an especially high-caliber gun. They were blown off their feet and out of their shoes.

Very few survived to put them back on.

When the video ended, there was silence. It had cut off before the part where Jean-Guy picked up Armand's shoe and handed it back to him.

Jean-Guy finally broke the silence in the room. "Did any of you ever visit Charles's apartment?"

They shook their heads. Except…

Jean-Guy looked at the young woman named Debs, who was more distressed than the others.

"Did you?" he asked her softly. And she nodded.

Everyone looked at her, surprised.

"We went out a few times."

"And you went back to his place?" When she nodded, he asked, "Can you tell me what he had on his walls?"

"Walls?"

Beauvoir waited.

She was thinking. "A map of Québec."

"Did he say why?"

"We weren't actually interested in the map."

"We all take work home, Inspector," said an older woman. "I suspect most of us have maps on our walls."

She looked around and others nodded in agreement.

"Did Charles take his laptop home at night?"

Debs nodded.

"We can't find it or any notebooks. Any idea where they might've gone?"

They shook their heads.

"Does this look familiar?" Beauvoir brought up a photo on his phone and they crowded around. And saw a list of herbs and spices.

"Are these plants, herbs, of particular concern to the environment?" he asked.

"Angelica stems? Nutmeg? If they are, it's not our environment. And not our mandate," said Madame Chalifoux.

"That's not even his handwriting," said Debs.

"No," said Beauvoir, slipping his phone back into his pocket. "Do you recognize it?"

Again, they all shook their heads.

He had not shown them the other side of the list, where the word Water was written.

Before he left, Beauvoir got Langlois's schedule. When and where he had traveled.

Once back in his car, Jean-Guy applied for a search warrant for Action Québec Bleu and the home of its Executive Director. Langlois's boss. Although in the meeting with Gamache the young man had described his boss as a man, that almost guaranteed it was a woman.

A news conference had been called by the Mayor to reassure the population of Montréal that there was no threat. This was a random act by a madman, not a terrorist attack.

And the murderer had been found dead. Shot. Not by police.

The implication being it was suicide.

Gamache looked into the bright lights of the cameras. His body was aching from the scrapes and bruises, especially his foot.

He knew that most of the journalists, most of the cameras, were trained on him, and he was not going to show any discomfort.

After the Mayor, the Chief Superintendent spoke. She made a brief statement, again reassuring the public, and then it was Gamache's turn. He'd been given a prepared statement, which he needed to read. But they could not dictate or control his pauses, his tone. His facial expression. Or his answers to questions.

Whoever had ordered the hit at the café would be watching.

When it came time for reporters' questions, they were hurled at him and only him.

Describe what happened, Chief Inspector.

How did it feel?

You and the dead man were seen together in the café. Do you know him?

Why were you meeting?

Who was the driver? Why did he run his vehicle into that café? Did he have a grudge against you? Against the café?

What did Charles Langlois say to you as he was dying?

Armand answered all the questions as truthfully as he could.

He was interviewing Monsieur Langlois in connection with (pause) a possible crime. One he could not discuss. Non , Charles Langlois was not a suspect in that crime.

In terms of what Langlois had said when he lay dying on the road—Gamache looked into the cameras—that was (pause) private.

An online vlogger stood up and asked if Langlois had been the target.

Gamache turned to her. He knew her well. She had pretty much devoted her site to tearing down the S?reté in general and Gamache in particular. And now she had him in the crosshairs.

"We're looking into that possibility," said Gamache.

"But it seems obvious it was either him or you."

"Do you have a question?"

"He must've been important, to bring you out."

It was not said with respect. But Gamache hadn't expected it to be. Though he also had not expected her to be at this hastily called news conference. But there she was.

"Again, do you have a question?"

"We've all seen the video, Monsieur Gamache. It's clear that you saw the vehicle approaching before anyone else. You could've saved Monsieur Langlois, but you chose to save yourself. Why is that?"

Gamache was silent, and into that beat, she demanded, "How can the public feel safe when the S?reté protects itself first?"

While the word "coward" was not actually said, not yet anyway, it hung in the air.

The seasoned journalists looked from the Chief Inspector to the vlogger and back.

Gamache stared at her, assessing. Not an answer, but a sudden thought. An idea.

He opened his mouth to answer, but the Chief Superintendent stepped in front of the microphone.

Madeleine Toussaint launched into a blistering defense of her head of homicide, pointing out that he'd saved two people, at considerable risk to himself. That was clear to anyone who watched that video.

"It might've been clear to you," said the vlogger. "But I saw a man who saved himself and just happened to fall into an elderly man and a little girl. Injuring them in the process. I saw no evidence it was a deliberate act to save them."

It was difficult to shock seasoned journalists, many of whom had been on the crime beat for years, but this very personal attack on Gamache did.

Most in the room knew him well. They'd all watched the video, over and over. It was clear that the Chief Inspector had made a choice and, yes, managed to save himself, but that hadn't been the goal. His only aim had been to push the child out of the way of the speeding vehicle.

"Chief Inspector Gamache faced a split-second decision," said Toussaint, her voice glacial. "I hope I'd have made the same one." She stared at the vlogger. "Or would you have let the child die?"

The vlogger colored and glared at the two of them. Trapped without an answer.

Standing beside Toussaint, Armand muttered, " Merci. " And felt a slight pang of guilt that he had suspected her of betraying not just the S?reté, but also the citizens of Québec. And him.

But he also knew that if the Chief Superintendent was the collaborator, she'd have done exactly what she just did. And his racing mind went one step further.

Toussaint might have even set up the question, or at the very least predicted it. She might have made sure this vlogger was invited to the news conference, knowing she would attack Gamache. Because she always did.

And that would give Toussaint the opportunity to defend him. Reassuring Gamache that she was on his side.

It was, he recognized, a catch-22. Toussaint was damned if she defended him, damned if she did not. But he didn't care. He just wanted to get at the truth.