Chapter 13

C HAPTER 13

"Fucking hell."

Those were the first words out of the mouth of the first person they met at the entrance to The Mission. In a crescendo of irony, the founders had chosen to place the homeless shelter in an abandoned distillery in the old port.

" Pardon? " said Gamache, staring at the tiny woman blocking their way.

"Saw the video. Poor Charles. Talks to you and dies." She looked around as though expecting a vehicle to come crashing through the entrance.

"We're with the S?reté."

"I know."

"Armand Gamache. And these are—"

"I don't care."

The woman's grey hair was shooting off in all directions, including from her chin and upper lip. Her head looked like a Russian satellite. Her face, crisscrossed with deep lines like the earth after a drought, had a homemade tattoo between her eyes. A cross. Or an X . It was the sort made in prison.

She wore a sagging tracksuit over her thin frame.

"We're here to see the Executive Director, Monsieur Gagnon."

Armand stepped to his left to get around her, but she stepped to her right, and again they were face-to-face. Or face-to-chest.

"Is he here?" Gamache looked around, his view slightly obscured by her cloud of hair, to see if he could spot the Exec, or any employee. Anyone at all who could rescue them. But it was past dinnertime, and there was no one else around.

"I can take you to the office."

Her voice was slightly slurred, and when she turned around, she walked with a shuffle. Wet brain, Gamache thought, as they followed her. Or perhaps a stroke.

"Ruth's sister?" whispered Jean-Guy.

"I don't have a fucking sister."

"Could've fooled me," muttered Jean-Guy.

"Can't imagine that's difficult, Mrs. Fletcher."

"What's your name?" he asked, stepping forward to walk beside her.

"Claudine."

"You knew Charles Langlois?"

"We all did. Nice kid. He lived here for a while. We used to eat together. On spaghetti nights."

"I believe once he left he came back as a volunteer," volunteered Gamache.

"Is that so?" Somehow Gamache had the impression she was mocking him.

They passed a few people, all residents it seemed. Men and women off the streets who came to The Mission for a hot meal and a bed. A shower. Clean clothes. Someplace safe. Then left in the morning. But always returned. Or almost always. Some never quite made it back.

Claudine was clearly a regular. As she passed, everyone nodded at her and glared at the other three, so clearly cops.

"There," she said, indicating the office. "You can wait. The Exec will join you soon. Just making sure there're no knife fights over the last sausage."

She shuffled away.

"My money's on her starting that knife fight," said Beauvoir.

"And getting the last sausage," said Lacoste.

The cramped office seemed more like a storeroom. Clothing, dishes, cardboard boxes were piled high. The whole place smelled of mashed potatoes. Jean-Guy had expected something far worse.

Armand had been to The Mission a few times, and he and Reine-Marie made regular donations. Ever since Daniel… But he hadn't been back since the pandemic.

Claudine reappeared. "All good. No blood in the vegetables."

Which was not, Beauvoir thought, the same as no blood anywhere.

"Did you get the last sausage?" he asked.

"What's that to you, numbnuts?"

Lacoste couldn't quite stifle a snort and looked at the elderly woman as though in love.

Claudine took the seat behind the desk. "How can I help?"

Gamache winced and could have kicked himself. "You're the Exec?"

"I am. Sit."

There was only one chair, and she clearly meant the Chief Inspector. After his inexcusable gaffe, he did not feel like disobeying her.

Removing a pile of neatly folded white T-shirts from the chair, he sat. "What happened to Monsieur Gagnon?"

"It's complicated."

"Try me. Let's see if I can grasp it."

"The fucker took off during the pandemic. Never came back."

"Got it." Gagnon wasn't the only administrator to abandon vulnerable people during the lockdown. "You took over?"

"Someone had to. The board wanted to replace me when they realized the inmates were running the asylum, but then they couldn't find anyone crazy enough to want the job."

Gamache shot Beauvoir a warning look before turning back to Claudine.

"And Gagnon?"

"Given a nice pension, I heard." She didn't seem angry. "That's life. Worse things happen. Like being mowed down and dying in the middle of the road just when you've gotten your life together. I saw what you did."

Gamache thought she, like the vlogger, was about to accuse him of saving himself.

"You held his hand." Claudine held his eyes. "We all want that, don't we? At the end."

Gamache didn't turn to look at Lacoste, but he felt again her hand holding his, and knew Claudine was right. He also suspected that when her time came, she'd be surrounded by people who cared for her, as she cared for them.

"How can I help?" she asked.

"We don't have a warrant—"

"Now you're just being insulting," she snapped. "You think we'd only help if we had no choice?"

"I'm sorry," said Gamache. "I didn't mean that."

"Are you so sure?"

"We think Charles might've hidden something here."

"étoile!" she shouted so suddenly even Gamache jumped. "I know you're listening, you little shit. Get in here."

A young man, or woman, appeared at the door. They were clearly in transition.

"Show these cops whatever they want to see. Let them search anywhere they want."

"Yes, Auntie."

Lacoste and Beauvoir followed them out of the office while Gamache, not given permission to leave, stayed glued to his chair.

"They call me Auntie, for some reason."

"What's your full name?"

"Just Claudine will do."

"I'm afraid it won't."

They stared at each other for a moment.

"McGregor."

" Merci. "

It had not gone unnoticed that if Charles volunteered here, then Claudine McGregor could also be considered his boss. And while unlikely, she might have been the one he meant when he said he had to make sure he could trust his boss.

Claudine McGregor seemed the sort to notice a lot. To hear a lot. And, as he himself had shamefully demonstrated, to be vastly underestimated. A lot.

These were powerful assets if you were planning something horrific.

"Charles mentioned the tours you sometimes give to politicians."

"True. They like to be seen around the great unwashed. They seem to think it makes them look like they care. Like they're almost human. Dumbasses don't realize those shots of them in hairnets, scooping out soggy carrots for the homeless, just makes 'em look patronizing. I love giving them tours if only for that reason."

Her voice was getting more and more slurred, and Gamache realized it was late. She had probably been there since the morning and must be hungry and tired. But he needed to press on, and so did she.

"I'd like to see video of those tours," he said.

"All of them?"

" Non. Just the ones where Charles was present."

She reached for her agenda and flipped through it, making notes.

Lacoste and Beauvoir returned. "We searched his locker and the storeroom. Nothing, patron . But the place is huge, we'll need more help."

"What're you looking for?"

Gamache hesitated for a moment. Then made up his mind. "Charles's laptop and notebooks. And a map."

"Really? Well, that's easy. He kept them in my office for a while."

"He did?" Gamache's hopes were raised but muted by the "for a while."

"But he took them away a week ago or so."

The cops exchanged glances. While not ideal, this was nevertheless good news. It probably meant the people who'd ransacked his apartment didn't have them. Charles must've hidden them someplace no one would think to look. But that meant Gamache and his people probably wouldn't think of it either.

"He didn't say where he was taking them?" asked Beauvoir as they followed her out of the cramped office.

"Right. He said if anyone wants to know where I'm hiding this stuff, just tell them." She muttered, "Shit for brains."

"If you had to guess, where would you say he took them?"

"I don't know. Home, I guess. Where else?"

Madame McGregor took a few more steps. Then, without turning to Gamache, she said, "He volunteered every second Sunday."

Gamache was about to say, Yes, I know. But stopped himself. He wasn't going to underestimate her again. So he waited. And was rewarded.

"But he came here almost every night." She looked at him now. "He worked in my office. I promised I wouldn't tell. But…"

But he's dead.

" Merci ," said Gamache, recognizing that it still felt to Madame McGregor like violating Charles's trust. "Did he ever have any visitors?"

"Not that I know of. He came late at night and was gone by morning."

"Is there anything else you need to tell us?"

They were at a door marked Security .

"When I said he probably took the stuff home, it wasn't a wild guess. He told me that's what he was going to do."

Gamache stared at her. "He told you?"

" Oui. "

Gamache absorbed this. If true, it meant whoever broke into Charles's home had found what they were looking for.

But why would he do that? Why hide them here, then take them to the first place anyone would look? And why tell Madame McGregor where they were?

Was it possible he wanted her to be able to tell whoever came looking for them that he'd taken them to his home? While he hid them someplace else?

Gamache tiptoed from supposition to supposition, like someone fording a rushing river, from one stepstone to the next. Hoping not to slip. To slip up.

Which meant—Gamache took the next step—Charles must've known someone would come looking. Which meant the young man knew he was in danger. And if someone was asking, it meant something terrible had happened to him.

How frightened Charles must have been. And yet he'd kept up the investigation. He could have stopped. Could have handed over his files to the conspirators in hopes they'd leave him alone.

But instead, Charles Langlois, just emerging from the nightmare of addiction and homelessness, had entered another nightmare.

How terrible his secret must have been.

Why, why, why hadn't Charles told him? Just a name. As he lay dying, just a name. Something. Anything.

But now the one person who could tell them was gone, taking all he knew with him. And their only real hope was that Charles had once again lied, and had not taken his files home.

"If anyone else comes asking about Charles and his notebooks, let me know." He gave her his card.

Once the security videos were teed up, they went through them at double speed. Stopping now and then, slowing down occasionally.

There was the Premier of Québec, smiling and looking silly in his hairnet. Gamache knew him to be a decent individual, though they did not share the same politics.

They skipped ahead to other visits. Gamache recognized a number of provincial cabinet ministers, whose protection was part of the S?reté mandate, and lower-level federal, provincial, and municipal politicians.

The hairnets the pols were given never quite fit. They were either too tight, so they looked like they'd just come out of unsuccessful brain surgery, or much, much too large, so they looked like mushrooms.

Gamache suspected that was not an accident.

Then he tipped forward in his chair as though about to dive through the screen. He hit pause. Not tapped but slammed his finger down on it.

"It's Langlois," said Lacoste, leaning in.

Gamache sat very, very still. As though afraid to alert the people on the screen to his presence.

Charles Langlois stood in the background as some almost maniacally cheerful member of Parliament, whose hairnet made him look like a big toe, tried to make small talk with a homeless man who just wanted a slice of bacon.

Charles was talking to a woman. They clearly knew each other. This was no meet-and-greet casual chat. There was an urgency about their conversation.

The homeless man had raised his head and was looking at them. The date on the tape was the Sunday before last.

Beauvoir looked at the frozen image, then at Gamache. "What is it?"

The Chief zoomed in for a closer look.

The woman was older than when he'd last seen her. Her clothes were much more elegant, her hair perfectly coiffed. But there was no mistaking her.

It was the woman who'd called him, shattering the peace of their Sunday morning.

It was the one he'd told to go to hell.

"Christ." And with the word came a breath from deep down inside the Chief Inspector. One he'd held for decades.