‘That’s all right. What I expected, actually.’
And it was. But he’d hoped for something else. In his daydreams he’d seen that familiar face stunned and hurt. Had even imagined Gamache phoning his best friend for support and advice. And what advice had Michel Brébeuf prepared and practiced?
‘Don’t let them win, Armand. Focus on the investigation and leave the rest to me.’
And Armand Gamache would relax, knowing his friend would protect him. He’d turn his attention fully to finding the killer, and not see what was creeping up behind him. Out of the long, dark shadow he himself created.
So far Gamache had peered into the attic, shining his light and scaring a few bats, and himself. He’d glanced around all the bedrooms and bathrooms and closets. He’d stridden purposefully through the cobwebbed living room with its heavy mantelpiece and moldings and into the dining room.
A strange thing happened in there. He could suddenly smell the appetizing aroma of a well-prepared dinner. It smelled of a Sunday roast, with warm gravy and potatoes and sweet parsnips. He could smell the caramelized onions and fresh, steaming bread, and even the red wine.
And he could hear laughter and conversation. He stood, mesmerized, in the dark dining room. Was the house trying to seduce him, he wondered? Make him lower his guard? Dangerous house that knew food would do that to him. But still the strange impression remained, of a dinner served long ago to people long dead and buried. People who’d been happy here, once. It was his imagination, he knew. Just imagination.
Gamache had left the dining room. If there was someone, or something, hiding in this house he knew where he’d find it.
The basement.
He reached out for the doorknob. It was ceramic and cold to the touch. The door creaked open.
‘You’re back.’ Agent Lacoste greeted Beauvoir with a wave, ignoring Nichol. ‘How’d it go?’
‘Brought this back.’ He tossed the yearbook onto the conference table then told Lacoste about his interviews with Hazel and Sophie.
‘What’d you think?’ Lacoste asked after reflecting on what she’d heard. ‘Did Sophie love Madeleine or hate her?’
‘Don’t know. It seems confused. Might be either.’
Lacoste nodded. ‘Lots of girls get crushes on older women. Teachers, writers, athletes. I had a crush on Helen Keller.’
Beauvoir had never heard of Helen Keller, but the idea of Lacoste in a steamy relationship with this Helen gave him pause as he took off his coat. He could see their glistening bodies, intertwined –
‘She was blind and deaf,’ said Lacoste, knowing him enough to guess his reaction. ‘And dead.’
That certainly changed the image in his mind. He blinked to blank it out.
‘What a catch.’
‘She was also brilliant.’
‘But dead.’
‘True. It crippled the relationship, I’m afraid. But I still adore her. Amazing woman. She said, “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence.”’ Lacoste remembered herself. ‘What were we talking about?’
‘Crushes,’ said Nichol and could have kicked herself. She wanted them to forget she was there.
Beauvoir and Lacoste turned to look at her, surprised she was there and surprised she’d said something helpful.
‘So you really had a crush on Helen Keller?’ said Nichol. ‘She was nuts, you know. I saw the movie.’
Lacoste shot her a look of complete dismissal. Not even disdain. She made Nichol disappear.
Darkness and silence, thought Nichol. It’s not always wonderful.
She watched as Inspector Beauvoir and Agent Lacoste turned their backs to her and walked away.
‘You say it’s natural for a girl Sophie’s age to be confused?’ Beauvoir asked Lacoste.
‘Lots are. Emotions are all over the place. It’d be normal for her to love Madeleine Favreau and then hate her. Then adore her again. Look at the relationships most girls have with their mothers. I called the lab,’ said Lacoste. ‘The report from the break-in won’t be ready until the morning but the coroner emailed her preliminary report and said she’d drop by on her way home. Wants to meet the chief in the bistro in about an hour.’
‘Where is he?’ Beauvoir asked.
‘Still at the old Hadley house.’
‘Alone?’
‘No. Lemieux’s there too. I need to talk to you about something.’ She shot a look at Nichol, now sitting at her desk, staring at her screen. Playing free cell, Lacoste guessed.
‘Why don’t we walk? Get some air before the storm,’ said Beauvoir.
‘What storm?’
She’d followed him to the door. He opened it and nodded.
Lacoste could only see blue sky and the odd cloud. It was a beautiful day. She looked at him in profile, staring at the sky as well, his face grim. Lacoste looked more closely. And there, just above the dark pine forest on the ridge of the hill, behind the old Hadley house, she saw it.
A black slash rising, as though the sky was a dome, cheerful and bright, and artificial. And someone was opening that dome.
‘What is that?’
‘Just a storm. They look more dramatic in the country. In the city with the buildings we can’t see all that.’ He waved casually toward the slash as though all storms looked like something wicked approaching.
Beauvoir put his coat back on, and once out the door turned to walk over the stone bridge into Three Pines but Lacoste hesitated.
‘Do you mind if we walk this way?’ She pointed in the opposite direction, away from the village. He looked and saw an attractive dirt road winding into the woods. The mature trees arched overhead, almost touching. In the summer it would be gently shaded but now, in early spring, the branches held only buds, like tiny green flares, and the sun shot through easily. They walked in silence into a world of sweet aromas and birdsong. Beauvoir remembered Gilles Sandon’s claim. That trees spoke. And maybe, sometimes, they sang.
Finally Lacoste was certain no one, especially Nichol, could overhear.
‘Tell me about the Arnot case.’
Gamache looked into the darkness and silence. He’d been in the basement once before. He’d opened this same door in the middle of a fierce storm, in the dark, desperate to find a kidnapped woman. And he’d stepped into a void. It was like every nightmare coming true. He’d crossed a threshold into nothingness. No light, no stairs.
And he’d fallen. As had the others with him. Into a wounded and bloody heap on the floor below.
The old Hadley house protected itself. It seemed to tolerate, with ill grace, minor intrusions. But it grew more and more malevolent the deeper you went. Instinctively his hand went into his pants pocket, then came out again, empty.
But he remembered the Bible in his jacket and felt a little better. Though he didn’t himself go to church, he knew the power of belief. And symbols. But then he thought about the other book he’d found and brought with him from the murder scene and whatever comfort he’d felt evaporated, seemed to be pulled from him and disappear into the void in front of him.
He shone the flashlight down the stairs. At least this time there were stairs. Putting his large foot tentatively on the first rung he felt it take his weight. Then he took a deep breath, and started down.
‘I’m sorry?’ said Beauvoir.
‘I need to know about the Arnot case,’ said Lacoste.
‘Why?’ He stopped in the middle of the country road and turned to look at her. She faced him squarely.
‘I’m no fool. Something’s going on and I want to know.’
‘You must have followed it on TV or in the papers,’ said Beauvoir.
‘I did. And in police college it was all anyone was talking about.’
Beauvoir’s mind went back to that dark time, when the Sûreté was rent. When the loyal and cohesive organization started making war on itself. It put its wagons in a circle and shot inwards. It was horrible. Every officer knew the strength of the Sûreté lay in loyalty. Their very lives depended on it. But the Arnot case changed everything.