The needle work seemed fine, refined. No pictures. Just words, intertwined. All up and down her arm. Though he couldn’t read what was written, he could see that some words, phrases, were in Latin. Some in Greek. In French and English.
Her body, it seemed, was a Rosetta stone. A way to unlock, decode, Amelia.
He wished he could read what was actually written there.
But one thing did stand out. Something scrawled boldly on her skin. More like graffiti than the fine etchings of the other words.
He looked closer. Then sat back hoping that, as with paintings, distance would give him perspective. It didn’t.
He zoomed closer. Cursing his bleary vision.
D he could make out. At both ends. And then, with his finger, he traced the lines. Slowly. Having to back up when he realized he’d taken a wrong turn and was now deep into Latin or Greek.
V.
A.
DAVD.
“David,” he whispered.
And beside the name some numbers. “One. Four,” he mumbled.
He unfroze the image, and the now-familiar video rolled on. He watched as she once again used the move they’d taught her at the Sûreté Academy and dislocated the dealer’s shoulder.
Then Amelia and her followers left the frame. Along with his friends. Her entourage was getting larger and larger and now included young men.
Her influence was growing.
It hadn’t taken long. And he probably should have seen this coming, and maybe he had and just didn’t want to admit it.
He’d not only released a deadly narcotic onto the streets of Québec. He’d released Amelia.
And she was doing what Amelia always did. She was taking over.
“What are you up to?” he whispered. “And who’s David?”
The video continued to roll, but all that was left was the heap on the ground, like garbage.
And the whimpering.
Armand was about to turn it off when he noticed movement. A little girl in a bright red tuque. She walked out of the darkness and paused on the sidewalk. Alone. All alone. Then the girl turned and walked out of the frame. After Amelia.
He stared, his face pale. His mouth slightly open. Sickened to see a child alone on the streets.
He was so absorbed by what had just left the frame that he almost missed seeing what remained.
There was someone else, he now noticed. A man. On the very edge of the screen. He was leaning, almost casually, against the wall of the alley. His arms folded, he stared after Amelia. And appeared to be thinking. Then he made up his mind. Pushing off from the wall, he moved. But he didn’t follow the others. Instead he stepped over the writhing dealer and walked in the opposite direction.
Armand wondered if he’d just met David.
CHAPTER 27
By midmorning, when Armand and Benedict left for Montréal, Jean-Guy was long gone.
And because Armand wasn’t with him, he didn’t see Jean-Guy stop in back of the building and look around before being buzzed inside.
The large conference room was empty when he arrived.
Jean-Guy sat but soon got up. Restless, he paced back and forth in front of the windows. Then around the table. Pausing to look at a familiar painting. A copy of a classic Jean Paul Lemieux.
Then he paced again, looking out the window at Montréal, slightly obscured by ice fog. Like a veil of gauze.
He gripped his hands behind his back and puffed out his cheeks before exhaling.
I have a family now, he told himself, and need to put them first.
Yes. That was why he was there. Not for himself. Not because he was a chickenshit. Or just a chicken. Or just a shit.
The door opened, and he turned around to see the now-familiar men and women who’d interviewed him. Who’d made the offer just a few days earlier.
He’d declined to accept. Which did not make them at all happy. Apparently not many said no.
He’d explained that he was loyal to the Chief Superintendent. And they’d explained the advantages, and distinct disadvantages, of refusing their offer.
He was being worn down. Acting Chief Inspector Beauvoir recognized the technique, even as he recognized it was working.
But sitting in bed the night before, Annie asleep beside him, he’d gone back over the papers. Reading. Rereading. Would it really be so bad if he signed? Could anyone really blame him?
Ironically, it was the sort of thing he’d normally discuss with the Chief. But could not. Not this time. Not this deal.
He had, of course, discussed it at length with Annie. The options. The consequences.
And now here he was. About to do something he’d never have thought possible.
After shaking hands, they all sat. In the awkward silence, while an assistant brought coffee, Jean-Guy pointed to the Lemieux.
“I like it.”
“I’m glad,” the woman said.
“A numbered print?” he asked.
“The original.”
“Ah,” he said. “Chiaroscuro.”
A man next to her smiled. “I see you know your art. Yes. Not many realize that it’s the play of light and dark, of subtleties and extremes—”
Beauvoir nodded and smiled. But all he could think of, for some reason, was ice cream.
When the coffee arrived, rich and strong, he took a long, restorative gulp. He was ready for them.
And they for him, it seemed.
The woman in charge pushed a small stack of papers across the table, with a pen lying on top of them.
“We’re so glad you’ve changed your mind.”
He picked up the pen and signed quickly. He couldn’t afford to hesitate now. It was one of the early lessons in homicide from then–Chief Inspector Gamache.
Once an action has been entered, you cannot hesitate. Once committed, you cannot second-guess. Never look back.
This action, Beauvoir realized as he put the cap on the pen, had been entered months ago. When he and Gamache had been suspended. And the investigation had begun. When their own people had questioned not just their actions but their integrity, their commitment.
It had all led here. To this moment. In this room.
He pushed the document back across the table.
“Keep it,” said the woman, when Beauvoir went to hand the pen back. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”
She was smiling, they were all smiling. She put out her hand, and after a brief hesitation he shook it.
It was the schooner Hesperus, the deep voice came to him. That sailed the wintry sea.
That’s as far as it ever went, and Jean-Guy always laughed at the running joke. But now, as he looked out the window at the falling snow and felt the pen heavy in his breast pocket, he remembered the title.
And he wondered if, in his effort to get to safety, he wasn’t fleeing from a wreck but causing it.
Benedict proved a careful, though tense, driver.
He gripped the wheel at the ten and two positions and sat bolt upright, his eyes never wandering from the snowy road.
Car after car passed them on the autoroute. But Armand was in no hurry and preferred safety to recklessness. He also knew that it was his presence that was making the boy extra cautious. Tense, even.
He’ll relax soon enough, thought Gamache.
They talked about mundane things, like home ownership and Benedict’s job as caretaker and what could go wrong with buildings. Large and small.
Armand told him about renovations they were considering to their home.
“I hope you don’t mind my picking your brain,” said Armand. “There’re quite a few bedrooms, but when our son, Daniel, and his wife and two daughters come, along with Annie and Jean-Guy and their family … well, there won’t be enough room.”
“So you’d like an addition?”
They discussed possibilities. Benedict suggested going up instead of out and renovating the attic. And how to do it without making the whole place fall down.