The fact the others had done it to amass fortunes, and Gamache had done it to bring the drug trade to its knees, did not really matter. The fact was, he’d proven himself no different from them.
Corruption starts small, often justifiable. A white lie. A minor law violated for the greater good. And then the corruption, like a virus, spreads.
“I hate to break it to you, Jean-Guy, but I crossed that line the first time I ordered that we step back and not make an arrest. I am being paid to uphold the law. It was an oath I’d taken, a duty entrusted to me. But I chose not to. Today, in court, I simply made my transgressions provable.”
“Does Judge Corriveau know? Is that why she called you into her chambers?”
“She suspects. She asked if the real murderer is still out there.”
“And what did you say?”
“I assured her that the defendant was the real murderer, but I’m not sure she believed it. She’s taking the night to think and will decide what to do about Monsieur Zalmanowitz and me in the morning.”
“But she let you go,” said Beauvoir, seeing what really mattered.
His brows drew together as he considered what the chief had said. He felt a heaviness in his chest. But then something occurred to him.
“If you crossed that line when you issued the orders, then I crossed it with you when I followed them.”
Gamache knew that was true, of course, but had chosen not to say anything. This night would be long enough, hard enough, without that weighing on Jean-Guy.
But the younger man had arrived there on his own. And now Gamache saw something unexpected. Far from adding to Beauvoir’s burden, he seemed lighter.
“I’m equally to blame,” Jean-Guy said, his face opening, the distress vanishing.
And Armand realized that the problem wasn’t so much that he’d fallen from grace in Beauvoir’s eyes, but that a chasm had opened up between them. But now they were at least in it together. The outhouse. The two-holer.
“We’re both in big shit.” Jean-Guy felt almost giddy with relief.
“Up to here.” Gamache lifted his hand over his head and returned to the bathroom to brush his hair, then came back, doing up his tie. “Everything’s ready?”
“Oui. Isabelle hasn’t called yet, but we need to be leaving now. The rest of the team’s getting their equipment together. I have your vest.”
“Merci.” Gamache went to his desk and, unlocking another drawer, he brought out his holster and gun and attached it to his belt before putting on his suit jacket. Rumpled, but dry at least.
The assault van would go down separately, and when it was dark the agents would get into position.
And wait.
He considered replacing the notebook and napkin in the drawer, and locking it. But realized it didn’t matter. And if something happened, and it all went south, the notebook would help investigators understand. If not agree.
The two men walked down the long corridor to the elevators. The gun felt uncomfortable, foreign, on the Chief Superintendent’s hip. He hated firearms. Their only purpose was to kill people. And he’d seen enough death to last many lifetimes.
“I should’ve stayed with you in the courtroom,” said Jean-Guy, as he punched the down button. Then he turned to Gamache. “Are we okay?”
“We were never not okay, Jean-Guy.” The elevator came and they got in. Just the two of them. “Did I ever tell you about my first tactical assault?”
“I don’t think so. You haven’t written a poem about it, have you?”
“An epic verse,” said Gamache, clearing his throat. Then he smiled. “Non. This is more prosaic. I was an agent, but not exactly a rookie. I’d been in the Sûreté for a couple of years. We were going after a street gang. Heavily armed. A full assault on their bunker.”
As he spoke, he clasped his hands behind his back and stared up at the floor numbers above the elevator door.
“I passed out.”
“Pardon?”
“As soon as the first shots were fired. Woke up with a medic slapping me.”
“Pardon?” Beauvoir repeated, turning to Gamache, who continued to stare at the numbers.
“I blamed it on heat stroke. The heavy equipment, the waiting, the sun beating down. But it wasn’t that. It was terror. I was so scared, I fainted.” He paused. “Though passed out sounds a little better.”
Now he turned to look at Jean-Guy, who was staring at him, incredulous.
“Only Reine-Marie knows that story. Knows the truth.”
Jean-Guy continued to stare, openmouthed.
“That episode forced me to take a hard look at myself,” said Gamache. “At whether I was really cut out for this, or if my fears would always get the better of me, and endanger those around me. But I loved the work and believed in it. And I realized I couldn’t be afraid and do what needed to be done. And so I worked on the fear.”
“Is it gone?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
Jean-Guy did.
It never went away completely. Not even for the Chief Superintendent.
As the elevator descended to the lowest level, Beauvoir remembered the predictions in the notebook, and the napkin laid so carefully on top of it.
The name of the restaurant was printed in cheerful red letters across the top.
Sans Souci. Without a care.
And below that, in black ink, Burn our ships.
He followed Gamache out of the elevator.
It wasn’t really, he knew, about less fear. It was about more courage.
CHAPTER 30
The bistro in Three Pines felt cool and calm to Isabelle Lacoste, compared to the throbbing heat of the terrasse, where patrons relaxed and sipped lemonade and beer.
She took off her sunglasses and waited for her eyes to adjust. She preferred to be inside, for any number of reasons.
“I’d love a good stiff drink,” Isabelle called to Olivier as she made her way across the bistro toward the long wooden bar. “A gin and tonic, I think. Oh, make that a double. I’m off duty.”
“Long day?” Olivier asked, as he poured Tanqueray over the ice cubes.
Isabelle reached the bar and nodded as she opened one of the candy jars and took out a licorice pipe. She bit off the red candied embers first, as her kids had taught her to do, and as Monsieur Gamache had taught them.
“How’s the trial going?” he asked.
Lacoste tipped her hand back and forth. Comme ci, comme ça.
Olivier shook his head as he cut the lemon, the fresh scent momentarily hanging in the air.
“So sad,” he said, pointing the paring knife toward St. Thomas’s chapel. “But at least there’s finally justice for Katie.”
Isabelle turned and looked through the bistro window, past the patrons on the frying pan patio, sipping their cold drinks. Past the children playing on the vivid village green, running in and out and around the three huge pine trees, as though the trees themselves were companions. Past the fieldstone and brick and clapboard cottages with their perennial beds of china blue delphiniums and old garden roses and mallow and lavender. Gardens planted by great-grandparents and tended with care.
Isabelle Lacoste’s eyes traveled over the old village and came to rest on the little white clapboard church on the hill. The scene of the murder of Katie Evans, and so much else.
All of which would come to a head that night.
Justice, she thought. A few months ago she knew exactly what that meant. Now she wasn’t so sure.