It was cold comfort at best.
Agent Beauvoir was not in as much of a hurry to get to the door. With each step forward, the realization of what was about to happen dawned. What had started as a career opportunity was mutating into a human tragedy.
The Chief Inspector had barely raised his fist to knock when the door opened.
“Oui?”
The girl stood there, small for her age, thin, her eyes wide and filled with a plea.
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
And yet, thought Beauvoir, she’d opened the door. She could have hidden. Pretended they weren’t home. She could have lived in blissful, or semi-blissful, ignorance for a little while longer.
But instead, the girl had chosen to face the truth.
He wanted to grab the Chief Inspector’s arm and drag him away, muttering apologies to the girl. They had the wrong home. The wrong person.
Never mind …
But he didn’t, of course.
“Fiona?” said Gamache, his voice gentle and steady. “My name is Armand Gamache. I’m with the Sûreté. This is my colleague Jean-Guy Beauvoir.” He paused. “We have news.” Pause. “May we come in?”
She didn’t ask why. She didn’t say anything, just nodded and backed up.
The home was barely more than a trailer. Single-story, with junk on the front yard and a rusty wreck of a car on blocks in the drive. Shingles had blown off the roof, and the siding was chipped and dirty, with green mold growing in places. Some rotted boards had pulled away, some had fallen off. It could barely be described as a structure. It was the bricks-and-mortar version of Clotilde Arsenault.
And yet, it was not, Beauvoir noted, made of brick. In fact, there wasn’t a brick in sight.
His face opened in realization. That’s what the Chief had meant when he said it was clear that Clotilde had been killed somewhere else and dumped. Had she been killed at the lake, it would have been with a rock. Or a knife. Or a gun. Or a scarf. Or a piece of petrified driftwood. Not a brick.
No. She was murdered where her killer could grab a brick and smash her with it.
As he followed the Chief Inspector through the door, he picked up a scent. It wasn’t the odor Jean-Guy had expected. He’d braced for the reek of sweat and decay. Of cheap drugstore perfume and stale makeup.
The ghost of Clotilde Arsenault.
Instead, what met them was the familiar and soothing scent of lemon cleaner.
But the most obvious sensation was noise. There were bells and applause and people shouting. It was a game show on a television turned up full blast.
Gamache looked around, quickly taking in his surroundings. The sounds. The smells. The feel.
The walls were covered in faux-wood paneling. There were scratches and dents and holes the size and shape of fists in the walls.
To their left was an opening into the living room, where the sound was coming from.
Straight ahead, down a short, dim corridor, Gamache could see a sink and a stove. The counters uncluttered.
While dreary, the home was neat and tidy. And clean. Almost sparkling. Given how Clotilde looked after herself, he’d expected her home, her children, to be in the same state of neglect.
And Gamache was reminded, yet again, of the folly of expectation. Especially in his job. How easy it was to go down the wrong road and turn his back on the real threat escaping down another path. Or creeping up behind.
The girl’s sweater and jeans were worn but washed. Her hair, no longer in pigtails, was long and blond and shiny. Not with grease but from a recent shampoo. Fiona Arsenault was about the same age as Annie, his daughter. Slightly younger, but close.
He wished he were anywhere else but here. Doing anything but this. But here he was, and there was no turning back.
Fiona paused in the hallway, uncertain.
“May we go into your living room?” Gamache asked, his deep voice kind but still firm.
Don’t do it, thought Beauvoir. How can you do this to her?
To them.
A boy was in the living room watching a huge television. He turned to them but didn’t stand up. He just stared.
Beauvoir almost gasped. He’d never seen such a handsome child. Like his sister, he was small for his age. His eyes were large and deep brown and thoughtful, almost soulful. His hair was light brown, thick and wavy around his face. His features looked like something an artist would draw, of a perfect waif.
Given what was about to happen, Beauvoir felt himself suddenly light-headed. To destroy such innocence seemed itself a murder.
“Are you Samuel?” Gamache asked.
“Sam. Oui.” The boy now looked suspicious.
Gamache again introduced himself. “May we sit down?”
Fiona indicated chairs.
“Not there!” Sam shouted. Beauvoir twisted away, a split second before his bottom hit the seat cushion.
While neither child said anything, it was clear that had been their mother’s chair. It still had her outline in it. And that sheen where her unwashed head had rested.
“Do you mind?” Gamache nodded toward the television.
He’d had to raise his voice to be heard. This was difficult enough without having to shout the news of their mother’s death, her murder, at the children.
“No!” snapped Sam when Fiona went to turn the TV off.
She stared at him, then relented, putting the remote down on a table. Sam snatched it up and held it tight to his chest. It reminded Beauvoir a little of the Chief Inspector’s white-knuckle grip on the phone when talking to the captain.
He glanced out the window, hoping to see another vehicle draw up. Someone who would stay with these children and absorb their grief and anger. So he didn’t have to.
But all he saw was his own reflection in the window, and darkness outside. Where the hell were they?
Gamache waited to see if Sam would turn down the TV. But nothing happened. The game show continued, with its cheering and applause and cheerful music when a contestant got an answer right. It was macabre, but probably necessary.
The child might need, Gamache suspected, some sense of control over something, if only the television.
He let it go.
While her brother stared at the TV, Fiona continued to stare at the senior cop.
As Gamache began to speak, Sam slid a glance his way. Where there was fear in Fiona’s face, there was something else in the boy’s. It was unmistakable.
It was, Beauvoir could see, loathing. And why not, he thought as he watched the riveting child. He loathed himself and the Chief at that moment too.
“You’re alone here?” Gamache asked, and when Fiona nodded, he went on, “Is there someone you can call? A friend of the family? One of your friend’s mothers? A neighbor? Someone who can come over?”
She shook her head. “We’re all right.”
He held her eyes. “I’m afraid I have news of your mother.”
As he spoke, the sound on the television increased. The cheering became manic, the applause an assault. The walls of the small room almost shook.
Beauvoir’s ears began to buzz. He wondered if maybe they were bleeding.
“She was found a few hours ago,” Gamache said, having to raise his voice, but trying, trying, to keep his tone steady. Gentle. Even as his ears also began to ring.
And still the sound increased. The game show host was shouting a question. There was a pause, while the contestant considered and the live audience fell silent. There was just the loud ticktock of the game show clock counting down.
Gamache took advantage of the near silence to say, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you that your mother is dead.”
The contestant answered.
Please, please, thought Beauvoir. Let it be the wrong answer. But it was not.
The audience, the television, exploded with cheering and applause. Canned celebratory music filled the tiny living room.