“But I quit, remember?” Gamache continued. “Burned out.”
“And now you’re back. Risen from the ashes. With a vengeance.”
“Non.” Gamache shook his head. “Not a vengeance. Never that.”
“Service, Integrity, Justice,” said Charpentier. “Despite all that’s happened to you?”
“Because of it. A belief of convenience isn’t much use, is it?”
“Why are you here?” Charpentier asked.
“In this room? Just to talk.”
Hugo Charpentier looked toward the closed door and struggled to get up from the chair.
“What’s happening out there?”
“Nothing that concerns you, Hugo. Please, sit down.”
Charpentier glanced once more at the door, then sat.
“More misdirection, monsieur?” he asked warily, wearily.
“Depends where you were heading,” said Gamache. “But I’m not here to talk to you about Serge Leduc’s corruption. I’m here to talk about his murder.”
“The two are connected, non?”
“Serge Leduc’s corruption went far beyond simply his ethics. Far beyond money. His very being had become corrupt, twisted. Perverted.” Gamache leaned forward, into Charpentier’s personal space. And whispered, “He made them weep before he died. Someone knew. And someone killed him for it.”
“Do you think the Commander’s going to tell everyone?” Huifen asked. “What we did?”
“Would it matter?” asked Amelia.
“Maybe not to you,” said Huifen. “You’re already an outsider, but it would to Jacques.”
“Why?”
“You don’t understand,” said Huifen. “You can’t. Jacques’s whole thing is about being admired. The strong leader. The hero.”
“Head cadet,” said Nathaniel.
“Oui. But if it came out, what we allowed Leduc to do, he’d be humiliated. No one would understand. They’d think we were weak, stupid. They’d look at us like we were freaks. He’d rather die than have that happen.”
“You’re kidding, right?” said Nathaniel. “That’s just a figure of speech, right?”
“Fucking Leduc knew that about him,” said Huifen, walking rapidly out of the study hall as she spoke. “He used it against him. Feeding that need in Jacques. Until Jacques would do anything to stay on the pedestal. Contort into anything Leduc wanted.”
“You hated him,” said Amelia, almost running to keep up with Huifen. “Leduc.”
“Of course I did. And so did you. But Jacques’s feelings were more complicated.”
Nathaniel reached out and grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop. The corridors, now teeming with cadets getting from class to class, surged around them.
“What? Tell us.”
“You could see it, couldn’t you?” said Huifen. “Jacques and the Duke were close.”
“Yes, we know that.”
“No, very close. Like father and son. He believed everything the Duke told him. He accepted everything he said and did, believing Leduc when he said it was for his own good. Jacques trusted him completely.”
“What father does that to his son?” asked Nathaniel.
“Have him put a gun to his head and pull the trigger?” asked Huifen. “For Leduc, it was never about love. It was about control. You’ve had it for a few months, Jacques had it for three years.”
“So did you,” Amelia pointed out.
“Believe me, I’m fucked up, but nothing compared to Jacques. I never saw the Duke as anything other than crazy. I was trapped. But Jacques was there by choice. Not at first, but by second year Leduc could make him do anything. If he’d told Jacques to murder another cadet, he probably would’ve done it.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked Amelia.
Huifen compressed her lips and nodded.
“And now that Leduc is gone?” asked Amelia.
But she knew the answer.
Jacques was directionless, rudderless. The grip on the tiller was gone. And Jacques was lost.
“I wish you’d known him before. He was…” Huifen searched for the word. “Glorious. Smart and funny. Sweet. A natural leader. The Duke saw that, and ruined it. Because he could.”
Huifen spoke with such venom the other two exchanged glances.
CHAPTER 41
“Come in.” Brébeuf stepped back from the threshold.
“You don’t seem surprised, Michel,” said Gamache.
He’d come directly there after speaking with Charpentier, Michel Brébeuf’s protégé and perhaps his greatest success.
“I wasn’t exactly expecting you, but I’m not altogether surprised either,” said Brébeuf, waving toward the sitting area.
Armand Gamache glanced around the little room, swiftly taking in the details. In the months since Michel had arrived at the academy, Armand had never once been in his private quarters.
He was surprised by how many things he recognized. The framed photographs of family. A couple of paintings that had once hung in the Brébeuf home.
Michel had brought his favorite chair too. Which he was now offering to Armand. Gamache sat, and Brébeuf took the chair across from him.
“What can I do for you, Armand?”
“You must have known I’d figure it out.”
“Ah.” Brébeuf sighed. “So that’s it.”
He managed a small, almost wistful, smile and studied his guest.
“It’s possible I’ve always underestimated you, Armand. I’ve loved you and admired you, but maybe part of me has always seen you as a boy. Funny, isn’t it? All that we’ve been through. I saw you go off to Cambridge, saw you get married, have children, become a senior officer in the Sûreté, and yet part of me will always think of you as the boy who lost his parents. The boy I needed to protect.”
“You betrayed me, Michel, years ago. I was almost killed because of you.”
“I never meant that to happen.”
“Really? The master tactician never saw that coming?”
“It was a mistake,” admitted Brébeuf.
“And was killing Leduc also a mistake?”
Brébeuf slowly shook his head, holding Armand’s eyes the whole time. “Non. That was intended. I knew that would happen almost from the day I arrived. When I discovered two things.”
“Oui?”
Gamache knew he was being played, was being led. Guided or misguided, as Charpentier would have it. But he needed to know.
“Serge Leduc was a stupid man,” said Brébeuf. “A man driven by an infected ego. But he was also a powerful man, I’ll give him that. A charismatic personality. Stupidity and power. A dangerous combination, as we’ve found out many times, eh, Armand? Especially for anyone young and vulnerable. He’d have made a good cult leader, if he hadn’t joined the Sûreté and ended up here. In fact, he’d turned the academy into a sort of cult, hadn’t he?”
Gamache listened, but didn’t nod. Didn’t agree or disagree. He was bending much of his will to disengaging from Brébeuf, while still listening closely.
“After that party in your rooms the first night, Serge Leduc decided to make me his best friend. Bound by a shared loathing of you. He assumed we had that in common. He had no idea of my depth of feeling for you.”
Michel Brébeuf looked at Gamache with undisguised tenderness.
But what, Armand asked himself, did that tenderness itself disguise? What was lurking, swishing its tail, in those depths?
“And yet you spent quite a lot of time with Leduc. You said it was because you were lonely.”
“That was part of it,” Brébeuf admitted. “And perhaps I was attracted by his obvious respect for me. Something I hadn’t felt from anyone for a long time.”