A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(121)

The worst, perhaps, were the number of missing, presumed dead. The ones lost and never, ever found.

There were plenty of those. Lots of those.

But none of them bore the name Turcotte.

Had he survived?

In his gut Gamache knew the young soldier in the window, with the map, had not come home.

He replaced the lid and sat there, his hand resting on top of the box. He looked over at Olivier and the mute television.

In the background, the Banks children were being warned by Bert, the chimney sweep, that what Uncle Albert suffered from was serious and contagious.

Uncle Albert was giggling, then, unable to contain it any longer, he burst out laughing.

“I love to laugh,” Uncle Albert sang, long and loud and clear.

While on Olivier’s screen, Robert De Niro, filthy and emaciated, spun the barrel of the revolver, then held the gun to his head. His eyes crazed, his mouth open in what must have been a scream, but all Armand heard was Uncle Albert’s laughter, bubbling in from the other room.

De Niro pulled the trigger.

Armand fell back in his chair, his eyes wide, his mouth open, his breathing shallow.

Staring at the gun in Robert De Niro’s hand.

A revolver. A revolver.

Gripping the chair for support, Armand slowly rose. And looked from Olivier’s movie through the door and into the living room. At Jacques, and Huifen, and Nathaniel. And Amelia. Laughing along with Uncle Albert.

And he knew.





CHAPTER 38

When the movies ended, their guests left. Gélinas stayed up for a final drink by the fireplace, then went to bed while Reine-Marie and Armand cleaned up.

“It was pretty bad?” she asked. Thinking his pallor must have come from the shoe box, still sitting on the kitchen table. She was wrong.

“Young lives wasted,” he said. “The Hell where youth and laughter go.”

“Armand?” she asked, having rarely seen him so upset.

“Désolé. I was just thinking about what they were made to do.”

She thought he was talking about the boys in the box. She was wrong.

“Did you find the young Turcottes?” she asked.

He took a deep breath and brought himself out of it. “Non. Those telegrams might’ve been lost. It’s surprising so many were kept.”

He looked at her and forced a smile. “Did you enjoy the movie?”

“I must’ve seen it a hundred times, and I still love it.”

She hummed “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” while handing him warm, wet dishes.

“Coming?” she asked, when the kitchen was clean and in order.

“No, I think I’ll stay up for a bit.”

She kissed him. “You okay?” When he nodded, she said, “Don’t be late.”

Reine-Marie climbed the stairs to bed while he sat by the fireplace in the living room, Henri’s head on his lap.

Their home creaked and then was quiet again, except for the sleet scratching the windows. He just needed a few quiet minutes to himself. To think.

Then Armand got up and began turning off lights. As he approached the front door to lock up, the handle began to turn. It was midnight. Everyone had gone home. Everyone else was in bed.

Gamache gestured Henri to his side, then the two moved swiftly to stand behind the slowly opening door. Henri’s ears were pointed forward, his hackles up, a snarl coming from him.

But he stood slightly behind Gamache. In case.

Armand motioned with his hand, and Henri’s growling stopped. But he remained alert. Ready to run away at any moment.

Gamache watched the door push open. And his racing mind remembered the car at the top of the hill, looking down into the village. And then withdrawing. Backing up. Waiting, perhaps, for a better time.

And this, he thought, was it.

The intruder was almost certainly armed, and Gamache was not. But he had the great advantage of surprise. And surprised he was, when he saw who appeared.

“What’re you doing here?”

“Holy shit, Armand, you scared me to death.”

Henri gave a little yelp of pleasure, and relief. His tail wagging furiously, he looked from Jean-Guy Beauvoir to the bowl of treats by the door, then back again. A dog with an agenda. A big one, with only one entry.

As Jean-Guy gave Henri a biscuit, Armand hung up his coat and reflected that it was the first time, ever, that Jean-Guy had called him Armand. He’d asked his son-in-law many times, since the marriage, to do that in private, but the younger man had never quite managed it. Settling on patron as a compromise.

But the shock had jarred loose an “Armand.”

“Why are you here? Annie’s all right, isn’t she?”

“If she wasn’t, I’d call,” Jean-Guy pointed out. “Not drive all this way through a fucking awful night. Pardon my English.”

He took off his boots and put on the slippers he kept by the door.

“Then what is it? Not that I’m unhappy to see you.”

“Annie told me to come.”

“Why?”

“Because I told her about Gélinas’s suspicions and she’s worried.”

Armand was on the verge of asking why Beauvoir would do such a thing when he remembered that he told Reine-Marie everything. Or nearly everything.