While Gélinas reopened the file, Gamache drove, keeping his eyes on the road. Snow was drifting across the autoroute, leaving a thin layer beneath which there could be, he knew, ice.
Finally Gélinas looked up. There was silence for a moment as the RCMP officer thought.
“It doesn’t say this anywhere,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But I don’t think Leduc could have done all this himself, with lower-level accomplices. There must’ve been someone else. Someone smarter. Someone higher up. Maybe someone on the outside. And that’s what you think too.”
Far from being pleased that Deputy Commissioner Gélinas had come to the same conclusion, Gamache looked grim.
“Someone removed,” Gélinas continued, “who could act without fear of being caught because no one would be looking in his direction.”
Gamache was nodding. It was his thinking exactly, though there was no proof.
“Judging by this”—Gélinas looked down at the file—“Leduc was nothing if not shrewd. He must’ve known once the mess at the Sûreté was cleared up, the focus would turn to the academy. To him.” He looked at Gamache. “If you showed this to him, isn’t the wrong person dead?”
“You think it should have been me lying there?” asked Gamache.
“Don’t you? If what you’re describing is true, you were a threat. A man who’d already arrested or killed most of the others involved. From what I hear, those involved in the Sûreté scandal weren’t just corrupt. They beat and murdered at will. You were a clear threat to Leduc and his accomplice. They were facing ruin. Prison.”
He looked at Gamache’s face in profile as he drove.
“If they’ve threatened and killed before, why stop at you?”
“They were weakened. Most of the agents they could count on for support and protection had been rooted out of the Sûreté. No, I was never in danger. Murdering me would bring the full weight of scrutiny crashing down on them.”
“So you showed Leduc what you had,” said Gélinas, tapping the file. “To spook him. Did it work?”
“Perhaps better than I thought,” said Gamache.
“You think the accomplice killed Leduc? Because you were getting close?”
“It’s possible. Whoever the accomplice is, he must’ve worried that Leduc, when cornered, would try to cut a deal.”
“And so he shut him up. Then who is he? It would have to be someone in the academy now. One of the professors? Assuming for a moment it’s not you—”
“For a moment?”
“There is someone who fits. Michel Brébeuf.”
Gamache stared straight ahead. Then gave a curt nod.
Gélinas watched Gamache, the full implication dawning on him.
“You brought Brébeuf back. You put the two together, in the academy. Knowing that if Leduc was the Duke, Brébeuf was the king. You knew all this—”
“I suspected.”
“—and you did it anyway. What were you thinking, man? That’s lunacy.”
“It could prove to be.”
“What more proof do you need?” Gélinas all but shouted, then hauled himself back. “There’s been a murder in the Sûreté Academy. Because you put two criminals together and gave them the run of the place—”
“That’s not true.”
“Near enough. You’re just lucky one of the students wasn’t hurt or killed.”
They’d turned in to the parking lot, but when Gamache switched off the car Gélinas didn’t move.
“Why did you leave the academy, Commander Gamache?”
“Last night? I didn’t. I normally would have, but I stayed because I had late meetings.”
“No, today. One of your professors is murdered and you suspect another professor. Instead of staying and making sure everyone is safe, you jump ship.”
“You think I abandoned them?”
“I think it’s strange in the extreme that a man who is responsible for hundreds of young lives would leave them locked in a building with a killer while he goes home and enjoys sandwiches in his kitchen. What’s going on?”
CHAPTER 18
The body of Serge Leduc was removed, like a stain, from the Sûreté Academy. He’d arrived headstrong and left feet first.
On Commander Gamache’s order, the cadets and professors lined the long, long marble hallway and stood at attention as the body was wheeled out. They were quiet, respectful. And not a single tear was shed.
“True to his profit and his pride,” said Isabelle Lacoste, standing beside Gamache. “He made them weep before he died.”
“Jonathan Swift, again,” said Gamache.
“A poem on the death of a duke,” said Isabelle quietly as they watched Leduc’s final progress down the hallway. “You quoted it earlier today. I looked it up. Come hither, all ye empty things,/Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;/Who float upon the tide of state,/Come hither, and behold your fate.”
They saluted as the body was wheeled past.
“Let pride be taught by this rebuke,” said Gamache quietly. “How very mean a thing’s a Duke.”
“We need to talk,” said Lacoste.
“Oui.”
Professor Leduc’s body left the building, a dark spot in the bright sunshine that streamed in.
“But I have one more duty,” said Gamache.
Down the long hallway he walked, toward the open door through which Leduc’s body had exited and a fresh breeze entered. The students saluted the Commander. He knew better than to read any respect into the action. After all, they’d just saluted a dead man.
But he noticed that some looked at him with newfound deference. And Gamache knew why. He’d heard the rumors. They thought he was responsible for the body. There was a new tyrant in town.
Once outside, Gamache stood behind the morgue vehicle, watching them load the body.
“Making sure he really goes, Armand?”
Gamache turned to see Michel Brébeuf.
“I know it’s a shock, but it must also be a bit of a relief,” said Brébeuf.
“If you had anything to do with this, Michel, I’ll find out. You know I will.”
Brébeuf smiled. “And what will you do? Let me go again? Whoever did this cleaned up a mess, and you know it. Besides, if I had something to do with it, you were my accomplice. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. This time you were the one who opened the gate. You knew who I was, and you let me in.”
“Is that a confession?”
Brébeuf laughed and the morgue attendants looked over. It wasn’t often that hilarity accompanied a corpse.
“A reminder, that’s all. He was on his way out anyway, wasn’t he?” Brébeuf turned and contemplated the body bag. “He held no real power anymore, though he didn’t realize it. Strutting around like he was still in charge. I’ve known officers like that. Petty, officious, vicious. And not very bright. He was already gone. He just hadn’t left. No, that’s a waste of a good bullet.”
Gamache turned and walked back to the large open doors of the academy.
“Be careful, Armand.”
Gamache stopped and turned. Something in the voice had drawn his attention. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t hatred. It was the gentleness with which those words were uttered that stopped him. So much more arresting than rage.
Michel Brébeuf stood there, the vast prairie behind him.
“You did me a good turn a few years ago—”
“Did I?”
“You let me resign. Didn’t have me sent to prison, though on your evidence alone I would have been.”
“Are you telling me you haven’t been in prison all this time?” asked Armand, and saw Brébeuf blink. “If I did you a favor, Michel, it wasn’t years ago, it was months ago. Don’t stand here now and tell me I made a terrible mistake. Or if I did, at least admit it.”