“Any ideas who could have done this?”
“He was a divisive figure,” said Gamache, after considering for a moment. “Admired by some. Most of the professors who admired him are gone. A lot of the senior class looked up to him. But that, I think, was more fear than respect. This room might look like it belonged to a Victorian gentleman, but the Duke was really from the Dark Ages. He believed in swift and brutal punishment and that you could shape young people by battering away at them, as though they were horseshoes.”
Isabelle Lacoste turned her full attention to Gamache. A man who was the antithesis of what he’d just described.
“You didn’t like him?”
“No, I did not. You’re not thinking…” He waved toward the body.
“I’m just asking. The thinking will come later.”
He smiled at that. “I neither liked nor trusted him.”
“Then why—”
“Did I keep him on? You’re far from the first to ask.”
“And the answer?”
“To keep an eye on him. You’re aware of the rumors of bribery and price fixing and even money laundering associated with the awarding of the contracts for this building?”
“Yes, but not in detail.”
“That’s because there are no details. Just a whole lot of suspicions. Circumstantial, but no hard evidence.”
“You were trying to gather it?” she asked. “Did he know?”
“Yes, I made sure he knew. When I met with him before term started, I showed him what I had.”
“Why?” both Lacoste and Beauvoir asked, astonished.
“To shock him.”
“Well, it just shocked me,” said Beauvoir to Lacoste.
“While looking for corruption in the Sûreté, I kept coming across references to strange dealings at the academy,” said Gamache, his voice low so that no one else could hear. “But even more disconcerting than suggestions of corruption in the academy was the behavior of the recent graduates. You must have noticed.”
Both Lacoste and Beauvoir nodded.
“There’s a brutality about them,” she said. “I won’t have any in my department.”
“Reconsider that, please, Isabelle,” said Gamache. “They need decent role models.”
“Indecent,” she said. “That’s the word for them. And I’ll consider it. That’s why you came here?”
He nodded. “As goes the academy, so goes the Sûreté. I wanted to find out why it was graduating so many cadets steeped in cruelty. And to stop it.”
“And have you?”
He sighed. “Non. Not yet. But I knew Serge Leduc was at the center of whatever was happening.”
“You called him the Duke,” said Lacoste. “Why?”
“A nickname the cadets gave him,” said Beauvoir. “From his name, obviously. He seemed to like it.”
“Not surprised,” said Lacoste. “So you showed the Duke what you had on him?”
“Yes. I needed to shake him up. Show him how close I was. Make him do something stupid.”
“And did he?”
“I think he did,” said Gamache, glancing down at the body. “And so did someone else.”
Isabelle Lacoste’s eyes shifted over to the gun. “A strange choice of weapon. I can see now that it wouldn’t be from the armory. You wouldn’t have a handgun like this there, would you?”
Gamache shook his head. “Not even for history class. We only have weapons the cadets need to train on. Ones they’ll use in their jobs. No Sûreté agent would have used a gun like that in decades.”
Lacoste bent down and took a closer look. “I’ve never seen one close up. A revolver. Used to be called a six-shooter, didn’t it?”
“Oui,” said Beauvoir, joining her.
She bent closer. “Still five bullets in the chambers.”
Lacoste looked across the room, where some of her team were following the spray of blood. Trying to find the sixth.
“On the way down, I was trying to work out why no one heard the shot. Now I know.” She used a pencil to point. “It has a silencer.”
Lacoste stood back up, but Beauvoir remained on his haunches.
“I didn’t think revolvers could have silencers,” he said.
“Silencers can be fitted onto anything but they’re not usually effective on revolvers,” said Gamache.
“The cadet who found the body,” said Lacoste. “Where is he?”
“In my rooms,” said Gamache. “With one of the professors. He’s a freshman. Nathaniel Smythe. Would you like to speak to him?”
“I would.” She turned to Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who was still looking at the gun. Then he stood and turned to her.
“Trying to decide whether to invite me along?” he asked. “Am I a suspect?”
“Oui. As is Commander Gamache. For now.”
Gamache seemed completely unfazed by her statement. He’d come to that conclusion early on.
He was still in his dressing gown and slippers, his hair mussed from sleep, stubble on his face, waiting to be shaved off.
Lacoste wondered if he realized he was in that state. But it didn’t seem to matter.
“I’d like you with me, Inspector,” she said, then turned to Gamache. “Can you take us to him, please?”
“Of course, Chief Inspector,” said Gamache, ushering her out of the room, followed by Beauvoir. Once in the hall, their manner became less formal.
As they walked down the corridor, Isabelle Lacoste had the odd sensation they were not actually making any progress. Each corner they turned led them to a hallway that looked exactly like the one they’d just left.
The old academy, where she’d trained, had been a confusion of narrow corridors, with portraits and pennants and sporting trophies going back generations, with dark wooden staircases and worn carpets muffling the shouts and laughter and conversation of the cadets. The rumor among the students was that the building had once been an asylum. She could believe it. It either housed the insane or drove them there.
It had taken almost the entire three years for her to confidently make her way to the women’s toilet, and she privately suspected they moved the women’s bathroom every now and then, in protest at even having to have one.
But the new academy was just as confusing, in its own way, because of its utter lack of character and landmarks.
“Did Professor Leduc have any family?” she asked Gamache.
“Not that I know of, but I’ll look at his personnel file. If there is family, will you contact them, or shall I?”
They’d arrived at the Commander’s rooms, though the door looked like any of the other twenty or so they’d already passed. It struck her as interesting that Gamache’s suite was about as far from Professor Leduc’s as possible.
And she wondered whose decision that had been.
“Do you have a preference?” she asked.
“I’ll do it, if you don’t mind,” said Gamache. “He was in my employ and was my responsibility.”
She nodded.
“You have no idea who might’ve killed him?” Lacoste pressed, looking from one man to the other.
“Non,” they both said, but when Gamache reached for the door handle, she stopped him.
“But there is something,” she said, studying him.
How well she knew that face, those mannerisms. His ability to hide his thoughts and feelings behind a wall of calm. Even now. It wasn’t what was written on his face that had given her pause, but rather his earlier actions.
“Why did you stay in the room?” she asked. “Why not leave and lock the door, once the doctor had confirmed death?”
Jean-Guy had been wondering the same thing and was waiting until they were alone to question Gamache. But Isabelle had gotten there first. He felt a wave of both pride and annoyance.
He’d helped train her. And now he wondered if he’d done too good a job.