Chapter 30

C HAPTER 30

After hanging up, Lacoste called Claude Dussault and asked the retired Prefect of the Paris police to organize a helicopter.

He was not surprised. "I've already looked into it. You can pick me up on the way. I'll send you the details."

Lacoste turned back to the immediate problem. The nun.

"My chief has instructed me to go to Grande Chartreuse and to take you."

Irene took a step back. Lacoste took a step forward.

"I'll scream."

"Interesting that you haven't already. Look, sister." Like Jean-Guy earlier, she realized she sounded like a gangster. If there had been a half grapefruit handy, she might've shoved it into Irene's face. "We need to know exactly what's going to happen."

"I don't know."

Now Lacoste was angry. "For God's sake, don't mess with me. I'm tired and frightened, and you, who should be helping, are not." Then she stopped and stared at Sister Irene. And for the first time, Isabelle Lacoste thought that maybe, maybe Sister Irene really didn't know.

"Brother Robert," said Lacoste. "He knows. That's why he's hiding. That's why you have to protect him. He's the only one of you who knows what's going to happen, and who's behind this."

Now, Sister Irene closed her eyes and raised her hand to the cross on her white robe. And prayed. Again. Prayed harder.

The time had come. The thing she'd dreaded was upon her, in the form of a young Québécoise who looked so sincere. But then, wasn't that the guise evil always took?

Isabelle Lacoste whispered, "I think you know."

Irene's eyes remained closed. "I don't know anything."

"You do. You know everything that matters. In here."

Isabelle touched her cross. Sister Irene opened her eyes, staring into Isabelle's, just inches away.

"You know that I'm the help you've been praying for."

His guest was already there when Gamache arrived at Chez Mama.

"Monsieur Gamache."

"Madame Dorion." The woman did not stand up to greet him, and he did not offer a handshake.

She never, ever called him by his S?reté rank. It was a minor insult, meant to graze, to annoy. To belittle.

She was barely twenty-three and unmarried, but he'd given her what was considered the honorific of "Madame," not "Mademoiselle," which tended to diminish a grown woman.

Shona Dorion looked younger than her years. She dressed younger too, like a schoolgirl. Though it was a "look," a role. Dressing like a child was a challenge to those around her. Her veneer, her public face, was meant to be ironic. A finger to those who'd dismiss her for being young and Black and female.

This was the vlogger of the hostile questions. Made, and meant to be, all the more shocking for apparently coming from a schoolchild.

They were almost always directed at Gamache. If he didn't know why she targeted him, had made it her professional raison d'être to take him down, he would never have asked her here.

But he knew. And he had. And she'd accepted.

She'd already ordered breakfast and a huge pile of pancakes arrived along with maple-smoked bacon and a sticky jug of syrup with an ant stuck to the base.

"I'm glad you came."

"Almost didn't, but I was curious. And who could turn down breakfast on the S?reté at such a great place?" She looked around. "Bring your wife here, do you?"

Gamache bristled at the mention of his wife, but didn't show it. He'd chosen this dive not far from The Mission for the very reason that no one he knew would voluntarily come here. Indeed, the place was completely empty, except for the server making her slow way over, her feet making a Velcro sound as she walked across the linoleum.

"What do you want?" the server asked.

" Café, s'il vous pla?t. "

"That's it?"

"And a croissant."

"Fine."

When it came, he pushed the pastry away. He could see bits of green mold on some of the flakes, and what looked like nibble marks on one end. He also decided not to drink the coffee. He was hungry and badly needed caffeine. And was deeply regretting his choice of restaurant.

"Why're we here? Are you going to threaten me?" Shona looked at him with undisguised scorn.

Gamache glanced at the phone on the table and knew they were being recorded.

" Non. And I never have."

"You arrested my mother. She was put in prison, where she hanged herself. You don't think that was threatening? I was eight years old."

" Oui. "

It was the part of his job he hated and would have to face one day, when he retired. The damage his investigations did to innocent people. They were lined up behind him, along with the ghosts. Ready for a "chat." But it would have to wait.

He'd first looked into Shona's eyes when he'd knocked at their door, a warrant in hand. The girl was clinging to her mother and staring at him. Not in anger or fear, but in curiosity. Then, on hearing his words, he could see in the child a growing realization that people could be mean. And adults could be wrong.

Shona was raised in a crack house. Her mother was an addict and prostitute. But also a loving and protective mother. She'd poured all her goodness, all her considerable love, into the child.

She'd shielded her daughter from an often cruel world.

But the world had knocked on their door that day in the form of Armand Gamache, and had removed the only love the child knew.

Shona never saw her mother again.

He tried to justify the damage by saying he was not the one who did it. Shona's mother had, when she'd killed her dealer. But she was herself so badly damaged, she was not responsible either.

"I need your help."

Those same eyes stared at him now. Well, almost. Now the wonderment was gone, contempt in its place.

"I'm going to tell you something," he said. "I have, in a safe in the basement of my home, files on people I've investigated."

He saw her eyes light up, and she moved her phone closer to him. But like any good investigator, she did not interrupt. She let him talk.

And he did. Slowly, clearly. Without ambiguity. For the recording. For the record.

"These are people who were witnesses, some suspects, but found to be not responsible for the crime we were investigating. Mostly murders, of course. Before you ask, I don't have a file on you."

She did not look convinced.

He couldn't blame her.

She was so attached to the narrative that Chief Inspector Gamache was a horrific human being, misusing his considerable power, that she could not see beyond it.

"The files contain things people have told me over the years, and sometimes things we found out in the course of our investigation. Things that turned out not to have a bearing on the murder itself. Some petty crimes. Shoplifting. Some drug offenses. Mostly, though, they were mistakes, lapses in judgment. Acts and events they were ashamed of. Bullying. Affairs. Lies. Acts of moral or physical cowardice. But still, things that could do considerable damage to their personal and professional lives."

Gamache looked down at his hands, then up into those gleaming brown eyes.

"A few people know about those files, but not many. These're not classified. They're not illegal. Though a case could be made that a senior officer keeping files at home on individual citizens is not only unethical, but frightening. A case could be made by you."

He held her eyes. She looked, in that moment, like the wolf in the woods at the monastery. Preparing to rip his throat out.

"If the public finds out and it's spun a certain way, I'll be fired and probably sued. The case would not stand up, but I would be ruined."

He took a deep breath. There was no going back now. He could see she was excited by this, but also perplexed. Why had he just handed her weapons-grade information?

"If they're so dangerous, why do you have them?"

"Well, another question could be, why files on those particular people and not others?"

"Okay, if you prefer, that question."

"These are people who, while not guilty of the crime we were investigating, are far from innocent. I think, I believe, I feel they'll do something terrible one day. Perhaps already have. I saw it in them."

"You're compiling information on innocent citizens to use as blackmail."

" Non. Not blackmail. Evidence. Insight. That's the point. I have no files on those who really are innocent."

"In your opinion."

"In my judgment, yes. If I'm wrong, they'll never be used." He leaned toward her. His hands rested for a moment on the table before he quickly raised them when they stuck. "If I'm right, then when they do commit a crime, we'll have a huge advantage. I'd be a fool not to keep that information."

"You're a fool to tell me all this. You know I'm recording what you say."

" Oui. I presumed."

"Then why are you doing it?"

"So that we're even. In doing my job, I altered your life, hurt you deeply. Now, in doing your job, you can do the same to me."

"Right, but why give me that ability?"

"So that you know that what I'm about to ask is important, vital. It's worth my career. Perhaps more."

She sat back and considered him.

She'd tried many times to ruin Gamache, but despite all her efforts to find something on him, and, when that failed, to belittle, mock, insult him in public, he'd remained unmoved. Even courteous in her company. Which had enraged her even further and made her redouble her efforts.

But, finally, now she had what she needed.

"You're giving me this information as a kind of mortgage. I own your ass."

"More than just my ass, but yes." She reached for the croissant. "I wouldn't eat that. I need someone on the outside to ask questions, to quietly dig."

"Outside the S?reté?" Her eyes were bright with the implication. "Why me?"

"Why do you think?"

It didn't take much thought. "Because I so clearly hate you. No one would think we were working together."

"And because you're very good at what you do."

She turned her phone off and placed it in her pocket, then pulled out a notebook and a pen. "Okay, Gamache. Tell me."

"The federal government has given a waiver to various companies in Québec, perhaps elsewhere in Canada, to exceed the pollution limits by up to thirty times."

"Percent?"

"Times."

"Shit."

"On top of that, the federal government has agreed to sell controlling interest in certain resource-based companies to Americans."

Instead of pointing out that it was illegal, which she clearly knew, she just shook her head and continued to take notes.

"I'll need names."

"I can get you that."

"Jesus, someone's on the take." She sat back and considered him. "How does this interest the head of homicide for the S?reté?"

"Charles Langlois, the young man killed in the hit-and-run, was a biologist at an environmental agency called Action Québec Bleu. He was visiting lakes that would be affected. I think he found out about this, and that was one of the reasons he was killed."

"One of the reasons?"

"We're looking into others, but that's the one I'm asking you to pursue."

As he looked beyond Shona to the thin, bone-weary server, he wanted to shout, Leave. Take those you love and get out of the city. Something awful's about to happen here.

He'd thought that as he had driven into Montréal, passing schools and hospitals, men and women flooding out of the Métro stations on their way to work. Mothers and fathers holding the hands of their children at corners, waiting to cross.

He thought about the LaPierres and their other close friends.

Leave. Leave! For God's sake, get out of this city, before…

But he said nothing. He'd stayed silent and drove deeper into the city, pursued by the words of Dr. King: In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Though, of course, they would not remember his silence. They would be dead. Because he'd said nothing.

Please God, let this work.

"I want you to find out who's behind it. What the endgame is."

"Profit, what else?"

"Perhaps."

She looked down at her notes, then up at him. Her focus was no longer on Gamache, but on the assignment. And with that switch came a realization.

"Wait a minute. Both these events, loosening the federal environmental limits and the sale of companies, are controlled by the same man. Marcus Lauzon. The Deputy Prime Minister."

" Oui. "

He watched her take a deep breath. Her exhale fluttered the paper napkin stuck to the tabletop.

"You think the Deputy Prime Minister, maybe even the PM, are up to something."

"If they are, we need to know, and we need to know quickly. But remember, if I'm right, then this is dangerous. At least one person who found out has been killed."

"Can't be more dangerous than eating here."

"Consider this boot camp. And that's"—he pointed to the croissant—"a live grenade."

He smiled at her.

She looked at him in amazement and realized she'd never seen Gamache smile. When scrummed by reporters, it was always to talk about a terrible crime. Or, in her case, to absorb the abuse she was hurling at him.

As he smiled, the lines of his face deepened. And she knew if she followed them, she'd come to his most private place. His home. His heart. But Shona didn't want to see that. Not yet. She wasn't ready to stop thinking of him as heartless.

"You can refuse," Gamache said. "You have what you've wanted since you were a child. Enough to ruin me. You can take that recording and go. I won't stop you."

" Non. I'm in. Plenty of time to ruin you later."

He got up. "One more question. Who invited you to the news conference?"

"No reason you shouldn't know. It was your boss."

"Chief Superintendent Toussaint?"

"Got it in one. You have lots of friends, Monsieur Gamache," she said as she packed up. "But turns out you have a lot of enemies too. Powerful ones."

"Including you, Madame Dorion." He offered his hand. It hovered in the air between them.

"We're not there."

He nodded and walked to the till where the server was waiting. Armand didn't dare use his credit card, knowing every dollar was needed to pay Lacoste's expenses. Instead, he brought out cash. Holding the five-dollar bill, he stared at it, then returned it to his pocket.

"Would you like me to pay?" asked Shona.

He expected to see her laughing at him. Instead, as he turned, he saw she was serious.

" Non, merci. Next time."

"Yeah, right. If there is a next time, it won't be in this shithole. And you're still paying, cheap bastard."

"What're you doing here?"

Sister Joan had arrived for work at the seminary in DC to find Jean-Guy Beauvoir sitting on the hard bench in the hallway.

"Waiting for you." He stood and swung his backpack over his shoulder. "I'm on my way to the airport, but I needed to speak to you first."

"I have nothing more to say to you." She unlocked her door.

"Brother Robert. Sister Irene."

"What about them?"

"They're the other two, in the trio of singers." He held out the newspaper clipping.

"I've seen it. And now you know everything I do."

"Is lying a sin?"

She turned and looked at him.

"My colleague from the S?reté has found Sister Irene, in the Curia. But it's Brother Robert we need to talk to."

Sister Joan sat behind her desk and stared at Jean-Guy Beauvoir. At his weary, anxious face.

"I don't know how to contact him. All I know is that he left here to take up a position in Rome."

"Were you surprised?"

"A little. He seemed happy here."

"So, you were here then."

Now she looked embarrassed. "Yes. But I never met the other one. Brother Sébastien. The one you were asking about yesterday."

"And Sister Irene? You must've known her."

"Yes. She left soon after Brother Robert."

"What's his background? Where's he from? I know he's a Carthusian."

"I can't give you his personal information."

"Can you at least tell me what he taught? That can't be a secret."

"Chemistry and biology. He also, of course, has a degree in theology."

"Of course." There was another person Jean-Guy hoped never to sit beside at a dinner party. "And Sister Irene? What did she teach?"

"History."

"They must've been good friends to have gone along with the idea of singing karaoke in a bar in their robes. They must've known it was not the best idea."

She shrugged. "That was years ago. They were young. We all do things we regret."

Jean-Guy was tempted to ask about her regrets, but instead said, "The seminary found out because of the article?"

"I wasn't here then, but yes, I think that's a good bet."

"Then all three must've been disciplined, but only Sébastien was fired. Why only him?"

"I can't tell you that. I can say it has no bearing on your investigation."

Now he cocked his head. "How do you know that? I haven't told you what it is."

"True. But you said it was extremely serious. I'm guessing you aren't looking into an old episode where two monks and a nun took to singing in a bar."

It sounded like a bad joke.

"Am I the only one who's asked about them?"

"Yes." She stood up and offered him her hand. "Good luck. I wish I could help you."

And this time Jean-Guy Beauvoir believed her.