A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15)(86)

Saw the narrowing of the eyes, the wincing at the terrible images.

The video had been edited to make it appear that Gamache was responsible for all of it.

The editing was rough. Not really designed to fool anyone. Except those who wanted to be fooled.

As Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched Gamache, he realized he’d never seen anyone actually gutted before. Until now.



* * *



Madeleine Toussaint sat at her desk with her second-in-command and watched the video.

Her email, her phone lines, had lit up. All guiding her to this travesty.

She watched it three or four times.

“What’re you going to do?” her second-in-command asked. “There has to be a response. The S?reté has to condemn—”

“I know what has to be done. Leave me.” After a moment she added, “Please.”

When alone, Chief Superintendent Toussaint got up and walked over to the wall map. It showed the current flooding. Of which there was a lot, and more to come.

But her eyes rested on the massive hydroelectric dams. Without her consent, without her knowledge, the floodgates had been opened.

And, more, the resources had been diverted south. Runoffs had been dug, were still being dug. River levels lowering. There was collateral damage, to farms and fields, but most farmers not only understood but had helped.

Toussaint accepted the congratulations from the Prime Minister for her handling of the situation. Smart enough not to acknowledge it hadn’t been her doing.

She herself had still been considering the options when she’d been told there were no more options. The decision had been made. An irreversible action had been taken.

And she suspected by whom.

She looked across her vast office, at the image on the screen. Of the former occupant. Gunning down black teens. Some, she realized with horror, not even that old. She felt sick. Physically ill.

They could be her own son.

Yes, something had to be done about Gamache. Something more than what she’d already done.

Madeleine Toussaint sat back down and composed her response. Then, before she could regret it, she hit send.



* * *



Reine-Marie was sitting in Myrna’s kitchen with a shot of scotch. Talking with Annie on the phone while the others huddled together. Conferring.

All except Ruth. Who’d returned to the computer. Drawn back, like a compass to magnetic north, to the unimaginable violence. Done to those children.

Done to Armand.

Reine-Marie, phone to her ear and listening to Annie vent, watched as Ruth clicked away on the keyboard. Her bony fingers thudding the keys as though punishing the computer for its complicity.

Then, with a final flourish, the old woman hit one last key and sat back. Smiling.

“Annie, I have to go,” said Reine-Marie.



* * *



“I need to call Reine-Marie,” said Armand, reaching for the phone.

“I’ll call Annie.”

Jean-Guy got through, but Armand did not. After trying home, then the bistro, he finally reached her at Myrna’s.

“I saw it,” said Reine-Marie before he’d even spoken. “Don’t worry. No one believes it. It’s crude.”

“It’s cruel,” came a voice shouted in the background. “But I fixed it.”

Ruth, Armand recognized. “How did she fix it?”

“Armand?”

It was Jean-Guy’s voice. He had Annie on the line and was sitting once again at his laptop.

“Hold on,” said Armand, and he turned to his son-in-law. “What is it?”

“Annie sent me a link. Just posted.”

“The same one…?” Armand began to ask as he walked around to the laptop.

But he stopped, walking. Talking. Breathing.

The image frozen on the screen was clearly from the same raid on the factory. But this was a different video. It was, he could see immediately, from the original recording. The true record of what had happened that day.

It was never meant to be made public. Never meant to be seen outside the S?reté and the official inquiry. But the video had been leaked and posted years ago, in a violation so profound it had taken Gamache, Beauvoir, the families, years to get over.

Scenes had obviously been taken from it to create the bastardized video that had gone up that morning.

Armand now knew how Ruth had “fixed” it.

Thinking she was helping a friend, she’d reposted the original. In hopes of showing the truth.

What the old poet didn’t realize, or had forgotten, was that social media was less about truth than perception. People believed what they chose to believe.

Neither did she appear to understand the damage she’d just done.

“I have to let you go,” Armand said into the phone.

When he hung up, he looked briefly at the clear image on the screen, taking one deep breath after another. Trying to control his outrage.

Then, reaching for the phone, he said to Jean-Guy, “Can you give me a few minutes?”

Jean-Guy stepped toward the door, paused, then turned around. He knew what Armand was about to do. “Non.”

“Non?”

“I’m staying with you.” He sat down. There would be no argument.

Jean-Guy did not leave his side as Armand called the families of the officers who’d been slain that day. Whose deaths, like some horrific snuff film, were once again played out in public.