Chapter 46

C HAPTER 46

"He didn't," said Clara, laughing.

"He did, I swear it."

They were in the bistro in front of the fire, and Jean-Guy was regaling them with what had "happened" in the treatment plant. It was, Armand knew, mostly fiction.

He could have protested but was enjoying their laughter. Albeit at his expense.

"Now," Jean-Guy was saying, "you have to know that when he fell forward, he bit his lip and hit his nose on the floor."

"Klutz," said Ruth, and Rosa nodded. But then ducks often do.

The "he" was Armand. They all looked at him with amusement. It was not really funny. Certainly wasn't at the time, though somehow Jean-Guy was managing to make it funny.

Armand smiled back, though he was straining to understand what was being said. He couldn't actually hear the words, but in the weeks since the attack, he'd become very good at lipreading.

"All I could see was blood coming from his mouth and out his nose. I didn't realize he'd pretty much done it to himself. It looked far worse than it was."

Now, thought Armand, that was true. Jeanne Caron had shot the gunman at the very instant the man had pulled the trigger on Armand, jerking the gun millimeters away at the last instant so that the bullet just grazed him. But like most wounds to the head, though superficial, it had bled. A lot. He'd been stung by the bullet, but it was the explosion right next to his head that had done the damage.

The body of the gunman had propelled him forward, into the concrete floor, where he'd lain, stunned, semiconscious. Unsure what had happened. But sure he must be dying.

"So," Jean-Guy continued, "as I held him, Armand whispers, ‘Tell'… then he coughs… ‘that I love'… and he coughs again."

"Very dramatic," said Gabri, with approval. "A great death scene, only you forgot to actually die."

"I blame the writer," said Armand. His voice was unnaturally loud. He was having difficulty modulating it over the shriek of the hundreds of cicadas still nesting in his head.

Even Reine-Marie joined the laughter. Though hers was less robust than the others'.

"Because of the coughing, I couldn't hear whose name he said, but"—Jean-Guy lowered his voice to a confidential whisper—"I think his last words might've been, ‘Tell Ruth I love her.'"

That was met with a roar. Armand looked from one to the other, unsure what Jean-Guy had said.

Ruth nodded approval. "Not the first time."

"Actually," said Reine-Marie, taking her husband's hand and looking at him directly, enunciating slowly and clearly, "I know what you probably said. ‘Tell Gabri I love his steak frites.'"

This time he joined their laughter.

As the friends continued to talk, Armand's attention drifted. It was tiring, straining to follow conversations he couldn't actually hear.

He sipped his scotch and reached for a slice of fresh baguette, smeared thick with Saint André cheese, and looked out the window to the village green. It was twilight. The sky was tinged with red, so there was little to distinguish the sky from the forest, the red of dusk from the red of the bright autumn maple leaves. All seemed one.

He felt the hand on his arm and turned to look at Reine-Marie.

"Shall we?" she mouthed.

He nodded.

Reine-Marie, Armand, and Jean-Guy kicked the dried leaves ahead of them as they crossed the village green.

That morning, while in his study, Armand had seen Billy Williams raking them into a large, neat pile. Ruth and Rosa were on the bench. "Their" bench, as Ruth called it. Clara was walking out her front gate, through the crisp morning air, over to the bookstore to chat with Myrna. Woodsmoke was coming from the bistro chimney, as people began gathering for coffee and croissants.

An hour later, when he looked up from his reading, the leaves were scattered everywhere, thanks to the village children who'd leaped into the pile, laughing and rolling and throwing great handfuls at each other.

Florence and Zora, Honoré, and even little Idola came home for lunch with rosy cheeks and red-and-yellow and bright orange leaves stuck to their sweaters. And hair. And into their boots.

Summer vacation was over. It was back to school and back to the city for the family. But they still came out on weekends.

Armand watched Reine-Marie kick the leaves ahead of her in the twilight, as though she were ten years old. He was doing it too. As was Jean-Guy. They were kids, playing together. He couldn't hear the swish of the leaves, but he could remember it. And he could smell, more keenly than ever, their musky sweetness.

Fall had come early. The seasons were shifting, becoming unpredictable. The weather had become turbulent, unsettled. But as they walked through the dusk, past the three huge pine trees, to their home, all seemed right with the world. It might be an illusion, but Armand figured they could afford one, now and then.

When dinner was over, Armand and Reine-Marie bathed the grandchildren and read them a bedtime story.

It was difficult. The children didn't understand what was wrong with Papa. Why he didn't talk as much. Why he stared at them so intensely when they spoke. Why he didn't seem to always understand. Why he sometimes raised his voice to them.

They didn't understand why he was different.

It scared them, and he could see it. And it broke his heart. But each night he read them a story, glancing at Reine-Marie to make sure his voice wasn't too loud. Then he hugged and kissed them, and let them know he loved them.

Armand and Reine-Marie took their mugs of tea to the chairs at the bottom of the garden.

In the light from the house, he could just see her lips move. Those lips that had formed so many wonderful words over the years. Beginning with the first time he'd heard her say, "I love you."

While he'd become quite good at reading those lips, he missed hearing her voice. Missed terribly, and more and more each day, not being able to just chat. Missed the easy communication. The mundane observances.

And though she tried to hide it, Armand knew that Reine-Marie missed it too. Missed it terribly.

He still went to the bistro and to Clara and Myrna's homes with the others, for drinks or dinner. They still had informal gatherings at their home. But he sat quietly. Trying to follow. For the first few minutes they'd speak directly to him, saying the words slowly and distinctly.

But after a while they naturally lapsed into normal conversation. And he lapsed into his own world.

The funeral for Dom Philippe had been held at the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

The funeral for Yves Rousseau was held in the small chapel overlooking the harbor of Blanc-Sablon. Then his ashes were spread over his favorite rock. The one jutting out into the water, where young Yves had sat and contemplated the great mystery. A mystery the elderly Yves had now solved.

Dom Philippe, Yves Rousseau, had come home.

Armand could not make either funeral. He wanted to, but his doctors said with his damaged eardrum and serious concussion, he could not fly. But Jean-Guy and Isabelle went to both, and Armand and Reine-Marie watched online as Father David spoke of his friend: "We will feel him in the rain, in the wind, in the bite of snow, in the scent of autumn leaves, and in deep and penetrating silence. We might miss him terribly but will never be away from him. Yves returns to joy. As we all will, one day."

Armand had leaned closer to the laptop and watched as Jeanne Caron limped forward and helped spread her uncle's ashes over his favorite rock and into the water, to join her mother, his sister. She said something. Armand had to ask what it was.

"I think she said, ‘Forgive me,'" said Reine-Marie.

Isabelle had gone down to Three Pines to brief the Chief Inspector in person. He'd read her official report but wanted to hear the unofficial. Though they both quickly realized speech was just frustrating. So they'd sat together in the garden and texted.

It felt ridiculous at first. Cumbersome and even rude. But eventually they fell into a rhythm. Chief Inspector Gamache asking questions, Lacoste answering.

What was Sébastien's role in this?

He isn't talking. As you know, the French police have him in custody, charged with the murder of Brother Robert. Canada has applied to have him extradited, but so far the French authorities are reluctant. A murder at the famous Grande Chartreuse, of one of the monks who held the recipe, has become a cause célèbre.

Gamache nodded. Frère Sébastien's silence was inevitable if unfortunate.

You have a theory?

I think this might be nuts, but I suspect he was the one in the confessional.

Gamache raised his brows. In DC? The confession Brother Robert took?

Oui. Sébastien didn't realize it was his friend on the other side of the confessional, but Robert knew who it was confessing his part in a terrorist attack. I think that's why Robert never sent for him, but asked Sister Irene to come to Rome instead. Robert only ran off to Grande Chartreuse when Sébastien arrived in Rome. He was running from Sébastien.

Gamache nodded. That made sense.

So he knew that Sébastien was involved in the plot. But how did Sébastien know it was Robert who'd heard his confession? Robert would never have told him.

I think Sister Irene did, inadvertently. She told him that Robert heard something in a confession when he'd stood in for a priest. Sébastien must've been in a panic when he realized what that meant , wrote Isabelle.

Something had to be done to shut Robert up. Fast. So Sébastien followed him to Grande Chartreuse, acting as a lay monk, supposedly to protect Robert but really to watch him and, if necessary, kill him.

It must've come as a terrible shock to Brother Robert, when he saw Sébastien there.

Oui. The one person he needed to avoid was locked in the remote monastery with him. Sébastien must've also told his co-conspirators back here, and they executed his aunt and that stranger. As a warning.

Then they sent the clippings to Sébastien to give to Robert. But why send for Dom Philippe?

I asked Irene about that. Turns out she was the one pressuring Sébastien to send for the Abbot. I think he did so partly to allay any suspicions Irene might've had, but also to find out if Robert would talk. If there was anyone he'd open up to, it would be the Abbot.

So the Abbot arrives , Armand wrote, and Robert does tell him about the terrorist plot to poison the water. But he didn't say that Sébastien was involved. He was too afraid. He made the Abbot promise not to say anything to Irene and Sébastien. The Abbot thought it was to protect his friends.

It was to protect himself.

Gamache paused, his gaze drifting over to the forest behind Isabelle.

It lasted so long that Isabelle wondered if his mind had drifted off. He tended to do that these days. It worried her, though she said nothing.

Still, she also knew the man should never be underestimated. He was wily. Cunning even. In the hands of others, those qualities would be dangerous. In Gamache, they came in handy, as witnessed by his decision on the day of the attack to fill a small aspirin bottle with water. In case the opportunity came to switch.

Which it did. Gamache couldn't have known what the actual poison was put in, but he gambled that the terrorists would not know either. Just that it would be a small plastic container that would pass security at the plant.

The only ones who knew had been locked in Pump Room One.

Standing in his bathroom in Three Pines, knowing he might have the opportunity to make a switch, he'd looked at the aspirin bottle and the travel shampoo. He'd gambled and poured water into the aspirin bottle. He explained in his written report that by then he knew Commissioner Lavigne was behind the plot, and that he himself used aspirin. He'd instinctively trust it.

It gave Lacoste and Beauvoir, and everyone else familiar with what had happened, immense pleasure to know that instead of poison, the terrorists had poured pure Three Pines spring water into the system.

Sitting on the back terrasse of the home in Three Pines, Isabelle could see that Gamache was far from being able to resume his position as head of homicide. The Chief Inspector was on sick leave, at least until his hearing returned and he'd recovered from the concussion caused by the explosion right next to his head.

Armand spoke only to his doctor about his exhaustion. The shrieking cicadas in his head, caused by the damaged eardrum and not helped by the concussion, had barely diminished. It made sleep all but impossible. It also made clear thinking difficult.

When he did get to sleep, he often woke up shouting. He didn't realize he'd done it and only knew because Reine-Marie would turn on the light and grab his arm and ask if he was all right. He'd look at her, dazed. Then hug her. Tight. Sometimes she saw he'd been crying.

Though Reine-Marie asked, Armand had yet to tell her what the night terrors were about.

One day, he assured his therapist, he would. But not quite yet.

In his dreams, so vivid, he was again kneeling, the gun to his head. David Lavigne wanted to know something. Was shouting at him. It was about Charles's notebooks. He wanted to know where he'd hidden them.

In real life he hadn't told him. In his dream he did.

Armand couldn't quite figure out why telling Lavigne about the notebooks was his nightmare. Surely the images of the deputy commissioner following through with the threat to go to Three Pines and kill everyone was more nightmare-worthy.

Or putting the real poison into the system. Surely his nightmare should be seeing tens of thousands die because he'd failed.

Or actually being shot in the base of the skull and not just grazed. Yes, there were any number of nightmare scenarios.

Why would he keep dreaming about the damned notebooks?

His therapist suggested his subconscious was starting with the easiest part first. The others would follow. His nightmares would get worse.

It had not been his favorite session. He also wondered why, in real life, Lavigne hadn't asked about the laptop or the map. The only explanation was that he didn't know about them.

They hadn't yet found the laptop, but would.

" Patron? " Isabelle had leaned forward and touched his knee.

"I'm sorry," he said, smiling. His voice was the same as ever. Almost. There was a vagueness to it, and occasionally it was too loud. "I was just thinking."

"About?"

He got up and returned a minute or so later with two pads of paper and pens.

Handing one to her, he wrote longhand, About the arrests. About those not arrested.

This was obviously a "conversation" he didn't want anyone else to see. He held out his pad, and when she'd read it, she looked up.

Chief Inspector Gamache's eyes were as bright, as thoughtful, as intelligent as ever. He was still there. The same unwavering gaze in the storm.

And there was still a storm.