“Maybe, but I doubt it. These things are kept close to home. Is there a basement?”
“Not that we’ve found. The garage is too full of junk. They weren’t shot there.”
Gamache needed some fresh air, needed to try to clear his mind and slow his heart before going back into the living room to face those children. Knowing what had happened to them was one thing, seeing it was something else.
The air outside was bracing. He took several deep breaths and pulled his coat tighter around him. Flashlights were bobbing as officers searched the backyard. Calling one of the lights over, he saw it was Agent Beauvoir.
“What’ve you found?”
“No bricks.”
“Anything else?”
Beauvoir raised his brows. He’d only been looking for the murder weapon. He thought that was the purpose.
“Well”—he searched his mind—“there’s a lot of junk. Old tires. Boxes. Plastic containers. It’s basically a garbage dump. They just tossed the shit out the back door.”
“Show me, please.”
Gamache accompanied Beauvoir around the overgrown yard. It was indeed clogged with garbage. Including something interesting. Putting on gloves, Gamache yanked an unwieldy shipping box from the pile.
It was what the television had come in. Replacing it, he called over a senior agent and had a word with him before walking back to the house.
But his footsteps slowed as he approached the back door. Reluctant, he admitted, to return inside. He stood in the cold and dark and stared at the small house. It looked so plain. So much like all the other houses on the street, on so many Québec streets. Modest homes with decent men and women inside. And some who were not so decent.
How to tell them apart? It was impossible, from the outside. You had to go in, and even then, you had to look closely. And even then …
There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.
That was part of the horror, and the price, of his job. Paying close attention as warped minds tried to pass as normal.
Wondering, always wondering, what was really happening on all the quiet streets. In all those homes. In all those heads. And whether, despite looking and listening closely, he was still missing something.
Through a lit window he saw his IT specialist hunched over the computer keyboard.
Then his eyes dropped to the base of the house. Turning on his flashlight, he let it play over the cinder block foundation. Then he began to walk around the building, following his light.
He hadn’t gone far before he saw it. What so many of these older rural homes had. On so many roads just like this.
A root cellar. Accessed from the outside.
Calling several agents over, one of whom turned out to be Beauvoir, he instructed the Scene of Crime officer to video what was happening, and the forensics agent to swab the handle and check for prints. Then he nodded to Agent Beauvoir, who stepped forward and gave the door a mighty yank.
It opened so easily, he stumbled backward into the Chief, who held him upright in a grip far stronger than Beauvoir expected.
They stared at the opening. A black hole. This door had been opened often. And recently.
Gamache went in first. There was silence behind him as the agents followed. Alert. Watchful. Tense.
No one liked going into a dark, enclosed space, least of all cops.
Gamache instinctively held his flashlight away from him as he played it around the walls. If there was a gunman hiding there, he’d aim for the light. Best not to have it in front of his chest or face.
He saw cinder block walls, a dirt floor. The ceiling was beamed. At slightly taller than six feet, Gamache could just stand upright.
The cellar was colder than the outside. It smelled of dirt and decay. Something played against his face and he batted it away before realizing it was a string. Pulling it, a single bulb came on, revealing a cot shoved against the far wall.
There was nothing else in the open space.
No root vegetables were stored there for the winter. No mason jars of preserves. No wood stacked up for the woodstove. This was a space used for only one thing.
The lightbulb swung lazily, playing off their faces.
Beauvoir stood in the low, dark room and could feel the walls closing in. He’d never been fond of enclosed spaces, but now he could feel panic welling up. Unaware of what had been found on the computer, he still knew this was not a place he wanted to linger in.
But he also realized he would have to. He took a step forward, but Gamache stopped him and gestured to the dirt floor. When Beauvoir still didn’t see it, Gamache knelt and pointed his flashlight.
There were three small holes. The indents made by a tripod, which would have been pointed toward the cot.
“You know what you have to do,” he said to the officers, then turned to Beauvoir. “Come with me.”
While relieved to be leaving, Beauvoir was also miffed. The Chief Inspector didn’t seem to trust him to collect evidence.
And he was right.
Once back in the house, Gamache approached the head of his forensics team and instructed him to go into the root cellar. “Have the mattress wrapped and taken to the evidence locker at the detachment. Make sure it’s locked inside along with everything else, and keep all copies of the key.”
“Yessir,” he said. “All copies? What about the station commander?”
“All copies.”
Then he told Chernin what they’d found.
“I’ll look for the camera,” she said.
As Gamache and Beauvoir approached the living room, they could hear that the television was once again on but at a normal volume.
Agent Moel got to her feet, but Gamache waved her down. Then he looked at the children, who’d turned to him. Seeing his expression, they dropped their eyes.
They knew he knew.
Gamache sat on the footstool opposite Fiona and said to Sam, “Please, join us.”
The boy looked at Jean-Guy, who nodded. Then Sam went over and sat beside his sister on the sofa.
Fiona was trembling slightly. Agent Moel saw this and, knowing what was coming, she shot a glance at the Chief Inspector.
Is this necessary? she was clearly asking.
Apparently it was.
“I need to ask you some questions.”
Agent Moel took Fiona’s hand. It was cold to the touch. The children seemed shell-shocked as their world exploded around them, spewing their guts, their secrets, everywhere. For all these strangers to see.
“Did anyone come to the house after your mother disappeared?” Gamache asked.
It was obviously not the question they’d been expecting. They looked at each other, then shook their heads.
“Are you sure?” he pressed, gently.
“Yes,” said Fiona. “We’re sure.”
He waited. The show on the TV was now some crime drama. Cars were zooming through city streets. Shots were being fired.
And still, he waited.
“You can tell me,” he finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You’re safe now.”
He heard Sam snort.
He did not lean closer, as he would have with an adult, as he would have with any other children. Instead, he let them have their space.
“We opened your mother’s computer. And we found the basement. I know. Everything.”
But he was wrong. He didn’t yet know everything.
“No one came,” mumbled Fiona, staring at the patch of carpet between her running shoes.
Beauvoir, watching this, was just beginning to suspect what that tripod, what that soiled mattress and cot in the root cellar were for. But his mind stopped at the entrance to that dark place. Unwilling to enter.
“Patron? Désolé.”
Agent Gendron was standing at the door to the living room.