‘Why? Don’t you have enough work through the year? Or maybe you’re desperate to get away from your family at Christmas.’
‘Well, you know if I could I’d move into my office and live off vending machine coffee. I have no life and my family despises me.’
‘I’ve heard that about you, Armand. In fact, I despise you.’
‘And I you.’
The two men smiled. ‘I would want someone to do this for me, Marc. It’s pretty simple and pretty selfish. If I was murdered I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort. How could I deny someone else that?’
It was simple. And it was right.
Marc Brault reached out and shook Gamache’s large hand. ‘Done, Armand, done.’
‘Done, Marc. And if anything happened to you, it wouldn’t remain unsolved.’ It was said with great simplicity and it surprised Brault how much it meant.
And so for the past few years the two men had met in the parking lot at Sûreté headquarters to exchange boxes, ironically, on Boxing Day. And each Boxing Day Armand and Reine-Marie opened the boxes and looked for murderers inside.
‘Now this is odd.’ Reine-Marie lowered her dossier and caught him staring at her. She smiled and continued. ‘Here’s a case from just a few days ago. I wonder how it made it into the pile.’
‘Christmas rush. Someone must have made a mistake. Here, give it to me and I’ll put it in the out tray.’ He held out his hand, but her eyes had dropped once again to the file and she was reading. After a moment he lowered his hand.
‘I’m sorry, Armand. It’s just that I knew this woman.’
‘No.’ Gamache set his own dossier aside and came beside Reine-Marie. ‘How? What’s the case?’
‘She wasn’t a friend or anything. You probably knew her too. That bag lady down by the Berri bus station. You know, the one with all the layers in all weather. She’d been there for years.’
Gamache nodded. ‘Still, it can’t be considered an unsolved case yet. You say she’s only been dead a few days?’
‘She was killed on the twenty-second. And this is strange. She wasn’t at the Berri bus station. She was over on de la Montagne, by Ogilvy’s. That’s a good, what? Ten, fifteen blocks away.’
Gamache resumed his seat and waited, watching Reine-Marie as she read, a few strands of her graying hair falling across her forehead. She was in her early fifties and lovelier than when they’d married. She wore little make-up, comfortable with the face she’d been given.
Gamache could sit all day watching her. He sometimes picked her up at her job at the Bibliothèque nationale, intentionally arriving early so he could watch her going over historic documents, taking notes, head down and eyes serious.
And then she’d look up and see him watching her and her face would break into a smile.
‘She was strangled.’ Reine-Marie lowered the file. ‘Says here her name was Elle. No last name. I can’t believe it. It’s an insult. They can’t even be bothered to find her real name so they call her She.’
‘These things are difficult,’ he said.
‘Which is probably why kindergarten children aren’t homicide detectives.’
He had to laugh as she said it.
‘They didn’t even try, Armand. Look at this.’ She held the dossier up. ‘It’s the thinnest file there. She was just a vagrant to them.’
‘Would you like me to try?’
‘Could you? Even if it’s just to find her name.’
He found the box for Elle’s case, stacked with the others from Brault against one wall of his office. Gamache put on gloves and removed the contents, spreading them on the floor of his office. Before long it was full of rancid, putrid clothing, and a smell that put their blue cheese to shame.
Old newspapers, curling and filthy, sat next to the clothing. Used for insulation, Gamache suspected, against the brutal Montreal winter. Words could do many things, he knew, but they couldn’t halt the weather. Reine-Marie joined him and together they sifted through the box.
‘She seems to have literally surrounded herself with words,’ said Reine-Marie, picking up a book. ‘Those papers for insulation and even a book.’
Opening it she started to read at random.
‘May I see that?’ Gamache took the book and looked at the cover. ‘I know this poet. I’ve met her. It’s Ruth Zardo.’ He looked at the cover. I’m FINE.
‘The one from that small village you liked so much? She’s one of your favorite poets, isn’t she?’
Gamache nodded and flipped to the beginning of the book. ‘It’s one I don’t have. Must be new. I don’t think Elle even read it.’ He looked up the publication date and noticed the inscription: ‘You stink, love Ruth.’
Gamache went to the phone and made a call.
‘Is this the Ogilvy bookstore? I’m calling to find out about – yes, I’ll hold.’ He cocked his head at Reine-Marie and smiled. She was putting on evidence gloves and reaching for a small wooden box that had also come out of the evidence box. It was simple and worn. Reine-Marie turned it over and found four letters stuck to the bottom.
‘What do you make of that?’ she asked, showing it to Armand.
B KLM
‘Does it open?’
She gently pried the top off and looked inside, and her face grew even more puzzled.
It was full of letters of the alphabet.
‘Why don’t you – yes, hello?’ He raised his eyebrows in apology. ‘I’m calling about Ruth Zardo’s latest book. That’s right. Many people? I understand. Well, merci.’ He hung up. Reine-Marie had turned the contents of the box onto his desk and was organizing the letters into neat piles.
Five of them. Bs, Cs, Ms, Ls and Ks.
‘The same as the bottom, except the Cs,’ she said. ‘Why these letters and why capitals?’
‘Do you think it’s significant they’re all capital letters?’ Gamache asked.
‘I don’t know, but I know from the documents I handle at work when a series of capital letters is used it’s because each letter represents a word.’
‘Like RCMP or DOA.’
‘Always a cop, but that’s the idea. For instance, I’m FINE,’ she pointed to Ruth’s book now on Gamache’s desk. ‘I bet that stands for something else. What did the bookstore say?’
‘Ruth Zardo launched this book a few days ago, at the Ogilvy store. December twenty-second.’
‘The day Elle died,’ said Reine-Marie.
Gamache nodded. Why would Ruth give a copy to a vagrant and sign it ‘love Ruth’? He knew the old woman well enough to know she didn’t toss around the word ‘love’. He reached for the phone again, but it rang just as he touched it.
‘Oui, allô? Gamache here.’
There was silence for a moment on the other end.
‘Oui, bonjour?’ He tried again.
‘Chief Inspector Gamache?’ A voice came down the line. ‘I didn’t think you’d answer your own phone.’
‘I’m a man of many parts.’ He laughed disarmingly. ‘How may I help you?’
‘My name is Robert Lemieux. I’m the duty officer at the Cowansville police station in the Eastern Townships.’
‘I remember. We met during the Jane Neal investigation.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘What can I do for you, son?’
‘There’s been a murder.’
After getting the information Gamache hung up and looked at his wife. She sat in the chair composed and calm.
‘Do you have your long underwear?’ she asked.
‘I do, madame.’ He slid open his top desk drawer to reveal a lump of deep blue silk.