A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(110)

“Oui,” said Gamache, curious where this was going.

“The difficulty is telling them apart,” said Gélinas. “A person can look one way, but behave in another. They can say one thing, but be thinking something else entirely. Most of the real monsters I’ve encountered look like saints. They have to. Otherwise someone would’ve stopped them years ago.”

“Is this a confession?” asked Gamache, and heard laughter in the darkness.

“I was hoping you’d confess, sir. It would make my job easier. It would make your family’s life easier. Stop this charade. We both know what happened, and why.”

Gamache glared at Gélinas.

“If you’re going to arrest me, do it now. But don’t you dare bring my family into it.”

“It’s too late. Your family is all over this case, isn’t it? I know who Amelia Choquet is.”

“You know nothing.”

“I know everything.”

Gamache took a small step toward him, but stopped.

Gélinas did not recoil. He stood erect, almost daring the man.

“Another happy opportunity?” Gélinas whispered. “Will I be, what’s that English expression, pushing up daisies in your pretty garden, monsieur? Does it get easier to kill?”

“I think dinner must be ready,” said Gamache, saying one thing but thinking something else entirely. He stepped away from the RCMP officer. “We should go inside. Come along, Gracie. Henri!”

He scooped up the puppy, turned and walked back to his home, the shepherd bounding after them. Through the kitchen window, Armand could see Reine-Marie moving about the kitchen. Pushing her hair back from her face. Muttering to herself as she always did when figuring out a large meal.

And he longed to tell her something he should have admitted years ago, certainly months ago. When he first saw the name Amelia Choquet.

*

“How long have I been asleep?” asked Ruth, looking down at her plate.

“Victoria is no longer on the throne, if that’s what you’re wondering,” said Myrna.

“The good news is, we do have another queen,” said Olivier, glancing at Gabri.

“I heard that,” said Gabri. “A nasty stereotype. Oooh, crumpets.”

“What time is it?” Ruth persisted.

Each had an omelette in front of them, with fresh tarragon and oozing melted Camembert.

A platter of back bacon sat on the pine table, along with a basket of golden toasted crumpets, butter melting into the crannies.

“Breakfast?” asked Ruth, looking more confused than normal.

“Dinner,” said Reine-Marie. “I’m sorry, it’s all we had.”

“It’s delicious,” said Myrna, taking three pieces of maple-smoked bacon.

“Some might even call it delightful,” said Reine-Marie, catching Armand’s eye and smiling.

They all knew why they were there, except perhaps Ruth. They were human shields between the Gamaches and the RCMP officer.

And yet they noticed that Armand had placed himself right across from Gélinas.

Perhaps, Clara thought, to show he wasn’t intimidated.

Perhaps, Myrna thought, to act as a shield himself, for Reine-Marie, who was shooting unpleasant glances his way.

Perhaps, Olivier thought, to keep an eye on his accuser.

Perhaps, Ruth thought, because evil really was, in the words of Auden, unspectacular and always human.

“And shares our bed,” she murmured. “And eats at our own table.”

Gamache, who was beside her, turned slightly to the old poet.

“And we are introduced to Goodness every day,” he whispered back. “Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults.”

She held his steady gaze while conversation flowed around and past them.

“Do you know how it ends?” she asked quietly

“This?” he whispered, nodding toward Gélinas.

“No, the poem, you moron.”

He grimaced and thought for a moment.

“It is the Evil that is helpless like a lover,” he said haltingly, struggling to remember. “And has to pick a quarrel and succeeds—”

“And both are openly destroyed before our eyes.” Ruth finished the poem. “That’s how it ends.”

There was a long pause while they locked eyes.

“I know what I’m doing,” said Armand.

“And I know an epitaph when I hear it.”

“You said that the cadets are a crowd of faults. You think so?”

“Don’t know about them,” said Ruth. “But I know for sure you are. Bacon?”

Gamache took the platter, which was empty. She was demanding, not offering.

“I have a question for you, Ruth,” said Reine-Marie from down the table. “I can’t find anything in the archives from the First World War. Any idea what happened to all that material? There must have been a lot.”

“Why does everyone think I know everything?”

“We don’t,” said Gabri.

“Well, I knew about Roof Trusses. No one else here did.”

“What do you know about it?” asked Paul Gélinas.

But Ruth was ignoring him, except to mumble something that sounded like “shithead.” So Myrna jumped into the cavernous silence that had opened up.