“Excusez-moi.”
Gamache got up and took the IT agent aside. “What is it, Pierre?”
“Someone tried to wipe files from the hard drive. They got most of it, but some images, while corrupted, remained. Only a few frames. Here’s a screen grab.”
Armand Gamache stared at the photograph and knew he had now seen the worst.
But still he was wrong.
He was right, though, in one respect. He knew it was no longer possible to separate his feelings from his thoughts.
Seeing the look on the Chief’s face, Agent Gendron asked, “Do you know this man, patron?”
Gamache didn’t answer. His hand hung loose at his side, the photo still in it, as he searched the horizon. Putting pieces together.
The children’s lying. The brick. The computer images. The big box behind the house. The hikers. The fact no one had been found to look after Clotilde’s children.
This photograph.
“Get everything you can off that hard drive. I want it all emailed back to Sûreté headquarters and copied to my address. Then secure the computer.”
“I’ll send it to the evidence room.”
“No. Keep everything here for now. Prepare to fly back to Montréal with it.”
“D’accord, patron.” The order contradicted what they’d been told earlier. Before the screen grab.
“Bon. Alors, there must be records too. Either on the hard drive or a notebook. Names, addresses. Accounts. Dates and times. Look for it. Take this place apart if you have to.”
Though Gamache suspected they wouldn’t find it. It would be the first thing destroyed by the killer. He adjusted that. The second thing destroyed. The video was the first.
“Someone tried to erase or destroy at least one, maybe more, of the videos, but others he left untouched,” said Gamache.
“Looks like he only tried to erase his own.”
“Yes. I want to know if he tried to destroy any others.”
“Yessir.” Gendron left.
Folding up the picture, Gamache placed it in his jacket pocket. He thought for a moment, then had a word with the head of forensics, who looked at him, astonished, but nodded assent.
As he headed back down the hall toward the living room, Gamache saw Fiona staring at her feet. But her brother was staring at him.
It was a look the Chief Inspector had seen before. Rarely, but it was unmistakable. It was the look of someone who’d done something spectacularly wrong and would keep doing it until stopped.
It was the look of someone who knew they would not be stopped.
It was the look of someone unhinged.
CHAPTER 7
“Fiona Arsenault.”
The name was read out, and a woman, older than most of the other graduates, walked across the stage to accept her degree.
Armand and Reine-Marie beamed and clapped, while Jean-Guy recorded the moment. The video showed a tall, slender young woman with long, loose blond hair walking with poise across the stage.
She looked like every other student graduating that day from the École Polytechnique. But anyone watching closely might notice a difference, and quite a significant one.
Behind Fiona on the stage, it was possible to see Nathalie Provost clapping, albeit barely, but none of the faculty were. They just sat there. Watching.
That could be put down to the fact that Fiona Arsenault had not actually attended classes at the École Polytechnique and was only allowed to accept her engineering degree that day because Armand Gamache had interceded on her behalf.
He’d asked the board of governors, the Chancellor, the President, and, most important, the survivors and families of the victims of the shootings years before Fiona had been born for their approval.
It was given. Though reluctantly. And the École had only approved because the families and survivors had.
Fiona Arsenault put out her hand to shake the Chancellor’s, as the grads had been instructed. There was a moment, a pause. He took it, briefly, and gave her the scroll. Then moved the tassel on her hat from one side to the other. The signal that she was now a graduate.
Finally, he gave her the little box. She stared down at it, then thanked him. Inside the box was a symbol that would tell anyone familiar with the code that she was an engineer.
Before leaving the stage, Fiona looked out at the audience. Scanning. Her eyes stopped at the Gamaches. She smiled. But then moved on. And found who she was really looking for.
Her brother, Sam.
Reine-Marie squeezed Armand’s hand but said nothing.
The ceremony continued, ending with Nathalie Provost approaching the podium.
The audience, as one, rose to their feet. The applause was sustained and heartfelt. When it died down, she spoke. About that terrible day, a little. But mostly about the consequences. The fight, ongoing, against misogyny. Against all hate crimes. The fight, ongoing, for gun control.
But mostly Nathalie Provost talked about hope. About perseverance. About change.
About courage. About the future.
Then, picking up the bouquet of white roses, she named the young women murdered that day in 1989. There were sobs scattered around the auditorium. As though sinkholes had opened.
And then, Nathalie Provost announced another name. A woman she described as the future. A reason for hope, for optimism. The woman engineering student who had been awarded that year’s Order of the White Rose scholarship, for graduate work.
This’s it, this’s it, this’s it. Shit.
Standing in the wings, Harriet felt her hands grow numb, her legs become weak. She felt herself leave her body and thought she might pass out. Waves of panic washed over her. Blinding her. She looked behind her, into the darkness, for the exit.
Run! Run! Get out.
She gasped for breath. Her heart pounded, her face flushed.
And then she heard her name. Heard the applause. She wanted to scream, to scream. To run. Run!
Now Madame Provost was looking offstage, at her.
Harriet took a deep breath. Then another.
Reine-Marie looked at Myrna. Her face was alert, staring at the side of the stage. Others were beginning to as well. There was a slight murmur.
Myrna started to rise, then sat back down.
Harriet closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped off the cliff and onto the stage.
There was ringing in her ears that was probably applause but sounded like an assault. The lights were blinding. She focused on Madame Provost, who stared, then walked toward her.
Nathalie put her arm protectively around Harriet’s waist and whispered, “Ça va bien aller.”
Myrna was crying. Great tears of joy.
Not because of the scholarship, but because Harriet was walking across the stage. She’d made it this far. She’d made it so far.
Myrna knew how close Harriet had come to turning down the scholarship. Because she could not face this moment.
But here she was, facing it.
Myrna rose to her feet, followed closely by Armand and Reine-Marie, Jean-Guy. Clara and Olivier and Gabri. And then the rest of the auditorium.
Ruth Zardo was not there. She’d stayed behind saying someone had to look after the village. They expected to return to cinders. Still, worth it.
Myrna wiped her sleeve across her eyes so she could better see the girl she’d helped raise. Who’d stayed with her for weeks every summer.
When Harriet had first visited, it was all Myrna could do to get her out the door. And now, here she was.
Harriet accepted the bouquet, and turned to face the standing ovation, and knew she was a fraud. The scholarship was created in honor of the young women who’d dared and who’d died. She was as far from them as it was possible to be. Barely the same species.