And he was. Finally.
Gamache could see the piles of garbage, the sewage, the rot and decay and filth. The hatred and jealousy, the loathing. The madness.
And the fissure of doubt that had let him in.
He could see Fleming’s mind working. Going over and over what he had spent years planning. Building. Was it possible, he was asking himself, that there was some detail, some miniscule item he’d forgotten?
The sort of tiny mistake that could derail a train, collapse a building.
Bring an entire bridge falling into the St. Lawrence. One small miscalculation. One tiny, missed calculation. And catastrophe.
“His files,” said Sam. “In the basement. The ones Fiona told us about. There must be something in them. Something he found. He knows even if we kill him, his people will find it.”
“That’s impossible. There is nothing.”
“Then why does he keep it locked?” demanded Sam, his own voice rising with anxiety.
Gamache could see Fleming’s doubt growing by the second. He was tempted to push in further, but resisted. He knew that his silence only made it worse. It spoke of confidence.
Which he did not actually feel.
Though the Chief Inspector was confident of one thing. His days, months, years as an investigator had proved that everyone had secrets. Things they kept from the world. Often from themselves. But they were there. Buried deep. Festering.
Even a psychopath had things he never wanted to admit, even to himself. Secrets that might be locked in the room in the basement.
“You’re fucking with us,” snarled Fleming.
“You’re right. There is nothing there.”
Fleming glared at him, his eyes scanning, digging, tunneling deeper. Trying to find the truth. And the beauty was, Armand had just told the truth.
There was nothing.
“Tie them up,” said Fleming, and Sam quickly bound Reine-Marie’s and Armand’s hands behind their backs.
“You stay here,” he said to Sam, handing him the gun again and taking the huge hunting knife, always his weapon of choice. “If we aren’t back in three minutes, shoot them.”
As he pushed Gamache toward the basement door, Fleming looked out the window. Still no sign of cops. No signal from Fiona. He had a moment of doubt, but then he saw her standing on the front lawn, looking up the road out of the village.
Gamache saw her too. Still, he clung to hope. Though he knew that when the clock on the mantel struck the half hour, no power on earth could save them.
Fleming flicked on the lights and Armand started down, his mind racing. He’d managed to separate Fleming and Sam, but he was far from certain that was an improvement.
As he walked down the stairs, his eyes traveled around the familiar space, for something, anything, he might use. This must have been, he realized, where Sam had hidden. He’d obviously gone through the box of Christmas ornaments. Finding the tinsel to tie them up with. A big glass ball lay shattered in the dirt.
Daniel, just a child at the time, had bought it with his allowance to celebrate the millennium. It was now a curiosity. And a family treasure.
Was that the sound he’d heard earlier in the evening? Not Fred, but Daniel’s ornament breaking? Could all of this have ended then had he only looked closer when he’d come down?
He thought of his grandchildren, his children, at the cabin, and what would happen if this lunatic and his apprentices escaped.
“Hurry.” Fleming gave him a shove, and Gamache lost his footing, tumbling the last few steps. Unable to reach out to cushion the fall, he twisted and landed on his shoulder, then rolled a few times, ending up on his back, winded. Gasping for breath.
“Get up,” Fleming commanded. “You have two minutes now to open that door, get the files, and get back upstairs before Sam starts.”
Gamache rolled onto his knees and knelt there for a moment, head down, gasping for breath. Then he struggled to his feet and staggered to the metal door to the room where all the secrets were kept.
Amelia and Harriet were almost at the stone bridge over the Bella Bella when a voice came out of the darkness.
“Stop. Wait.”
Not a shout, but an urgent plea.
Amelia drew her gun. She recognized the voice. It was Fiona Arsenault. She was running toward them, waving her arms.
“They’re in the house. Quick. We’re almost out of time.”
Amelia hesitated. This could be, probably was, a trick.
Gamache’s phone was in the Incident Room. There was every reason to believe he was too, and Fiona Arsenault, John Fleming’s daughter, was luring them away.
“For God’s sake,” pleaded Fiona. “You have to believe me.”
Amelia Choquet, who’d seen terrible people do terrible things on the streets, had also seen acts of immense, immeasurable courage.
But which one was this? She stared at Fiona. Stared. Stared.
Then she changed direction and ran after Fiona, Harriet hard on her heels. The three young women raced across the village green, past the pines, toward the house.
“What’s the code?”
Fleming was standing in front of the keypad.
“Zero, zero, zero, zero.”
Fleming turned and glared at him. “You’re lying.”
Armand’s head was lowered as he struggled for breath, his shoulders heaving. Raising his eyes, he met Fleming’s.
“Would you have ever guessed it?”
Fleming smiled, shook his head, then punched in the numbers. There was a clunk. Fleming reached out and turned the door handle. But it didn’t move.
“You dumb f—”
That’s as far as he got. Armand launched himself forward, knocking Fleming against the wall.
Hearing the struggle in the basement, Sam lifted the gun to Reine-Marie’s head.
“Stop,” Jean-Guy screamed. “No!!”
Amelia skidded around the corner of the house and onto the back patio.
In a flash she could see what was happening.
Armand heard the shot.
The shard of glass he’d picked up from Daniel’s broken ornament had cut the tinsel almost all the way through. Now, with all his might, Armand wrenched his wrists free.
There was a second shot.
He yelled, a roar of rage and anguish, even as he crushed Fleming against the wall. His hand shot up and grabbed Fleming’s wrist just before the knife could reach him.
It flew away as both men fell to the ground. Gamache’s hand closed around something, and he lashed out, hitting Fleming squarely on the skull. Once. Twice.
He heard a cracking but didn’t stop to check. He knew the man was down. And wasn’t getting up.
Grabbing the knife, he ran up the stairs, two at a time.
At the top he rammed into someone, knocking both of them to the floor. Gamache scrambled to his feet, his eyes wild. Brandishing the knife.
“Chief,” shouted Amelia, her hands up in front of her.
He took her in, then looked around. Around. A—
And there she was. Coming toward him.
He dropped the knife and went to Reine-Marie. They clung to each other. Rocking and sobbing. Then Armand reached out and grabbed Jean-Guy, bringing him into the embrace, as Amelia and Harriet looked on.
And Fiona knelt by her brother.
CHAPTER 39
“Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” said Harriet, as she greeted the month of July.
She got up, stretched, then went for her early-morning run before the day got too hot.
By the time she got back, the villagers had gathered on the bistro terrasse for a late breakfast.
“Happy Canada Day,” said Harriet, kissing her Auntie Myrna on the top of her head.
“You stink,” said Ruth when the young woman sat down beside her.