A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(107)

“I’ve been sitting here thinking of my mother and father, but not really how much I miss them. I was wondering what it must’ve been like for the parents of those boys. It’s one thing to lose a mother or father, but can you imagine?” He paused to gather himself, to say the unthinkable. “Losing Daniel. Or Annie?”

He looked over to the stained-glass boys.

“Have you noticed their names? Not Robert, but Rob. Not Albert, but Bert. There’s even a fellow named Giddy. Their real names, the ones their parents shouted when it was dinnertime. The names their friends screamed while playing hockey. Some would’ve been lost. Missing. They’d have gone over the top and disappeared. Forever. And their parents would never have known what happened to them. They’d have waited, forever.”

He took another deep breath.

“Losing Maman and Papa was devastating, but I’ve been sitting here thinking how lucky I am that I at least knew what happened, and I could stop waiting. But some of these parents never did.”

Reine-Marie dropped her eyes to his large hand and gathered her courage to ask the question.

“Armand?”

“Oui?”

“Who’s the cadet? Who’s Amelia? There’s something special about her, isn’t there?”

Reine-Marie’s heart began to pound. But having gone this far, there was no going back. She knew she had to move forward.

Armand looked at her with such sadness that she wished she hadn’t asked. Not for his sake now, but for her own.

Armand would never … Amelia couldn’t possibly be—

“Patron?”

She felt like a woman saved from the gallows, but not grateful. Having finally found the courage to get there, who knew if she’d find it again?

Reine-Marie felt a flash of rage that was incandescent.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said Olivier.

He could see the backs of their heads, but neither turned to him, and he hesitated in the aisle.

Reine-Marie dropped her eyes from her husband’s face and counted.

Un, deux, trois …

Until she felt she could look at Olivier without screaming at him to go away.

… quatre, cinq …

Olivier stopped a few pews away. Uncertain what to do. Neither of them had turned. Neither had acknowledged him.

“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning forward. They were so still, like wax figures.

“Yes, we’re fine,” said Reine-Marie, and for the first time truly understood that the title of Ruth’s poetry book, I’m FINE, wasn’t purely a joke.

“Are you sure?” he asked, edging forward.

Armand turned around and smiled. “We were just talking about the soldiers.”

Olivier glanced at the window, then took a seat across the aisle.

“I wasn’t sure if I should follow you, but, well, that was strange. In the bistro. How the RCMP officer treated you. What he said.”

Armand raised his brow and smiled. “I’ve been treated worse. It’s nothing. Just part of the cop culture.”

“It’s more than that,” said Olivier. “And I think you know it. You’re a suspect. He said it himself.”

“It’s his job to suspect everyone, but I’m not worried.”

“You should be,” said Olivier. “He means to prove you killed that man. I could see it in his face.”

Gamache shook his head. “Whether he thinks it or not, there’s no proof. And besides, I didn’t do it.”

“So innocent people are never arrested?” demanded Olivier. “Never tried and convicted? For a crime they didn’t commit? That never happens, right?” He glared at Gamache. “You should be afraid, monsieur. Only a fool wouldn’t be.”

“Armand?” asked Reine-Marie. “Could that happen? Could Gélinas arrest you?”

“I doubt it.”

“Doubt?” asked Reine-Marie. “Doubt? Then there is a possibility? He can’t seriously believe you murdered a man.”

“He does,” said Olivier. “I’ve seen that look before. On your husband’s face, just before the arrest.”

“We have to do something,” said Reine-Marie, looking around as though proof of her husband’s innocence could be found in the chapel.

“Here you are,” came the familiar voice of Jean-Guy from the door. “We’ve interviewed the cadets—”

“Do you think Armand killed that professor?” Reine-Marie stood, turned and faced her son-in-law, who stopped in his tracks.

“No, of course not.”

Lacoste had entered behind him, and Reine-Marie saw her look away, unwilling to meet Reine-Marie’s eyes.

“Isabelle, do you?”

Reine-Marie was in full flight now. Pounding at the gates. Demanding the truth. Demanding to know who were allies and who were enemies.

This was another world war. Her world. Her war.

“I don’t think Monsieur Gamache killed Serge Leduc,” said Isabelle.

“Reine-Marie,” said Armand, getting up and putting an arm around his wife’s waist.

She stepped away.

“But you’re not sure, are you, Isabelle?”

The two women stared at each other.