A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(134)

“But if not here,” said Amelia, “where?”

*

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Jean-Guy, walking slowly into the room.

He’d been going to Commander Gamache’s quarters, hoping to find him there, when he’d noticed that the Scene of Crime seal on Leduc’s door was broken.

With his foot, he’d gingerly pushed the door open. His pistol was still on his belt, not yet drawn.

There, in the middle of the room, stood Cadet Jacques Laurin. Holding a gun.

“The hours I spent here,” Jacques said, looking around almost casually, as though he didn’t see the Scene of Crime tape and evidence markers. And blood spray. “I sat there.” He gestured with the pistol. “And the Duke would sit there. Just the two of us. He gave me this, you know. For my birthday.”

Beauvoir looked at the automatic weapon. The same as the one on his belt. Police issue.

“He said I’d be great one day. He said I’d be running the whole S?reté. And he’d help me. Be my mentor, my patron. He said all great men need a patron.”

“But you didn’t, did you?” said Jean-Guy, closing the door behind him. “You needed something else. Someone who genuinely cared. About you. And you thought you’d found it in Professor Leduc.”

“I did find it,” snapped Jacques. “He cared.”

“But then Commander Gamache arrived, and the world began to tilt,” said Jean-Guy. Not venturing forward, but staying where he was. “I understand.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do. The same thing happened to me, when I first met Monsieur Gamache. I thought I had the world figured out. Then everything I knew to be true, I started to question. And I hated him for it.”

Beauvoir kept his eyes on Jacques. The young man had moved his gaze out the window.

“But then the hate shifted,” said Beauvoir, speaking as though telling him a fable, a bedtime story. “I began to hate the very people I’d trusted. The ones who told me the world was filled with terrible people and that brutality was the same as strength. I’d learned to hit first, and hard, and fast.”

“He did care,” said Jacques quietly.

“On Professor Leduc’s orders, you joined Commander Gamache’s evening groups. To report back to the Duke. But there you learned something unexpected. People weren’t so bad after all.”

Jacques stood defiant.

“The world turned upside down,” Beauvoir continued. “It was at once more beautiful and more frightening than you’d been led to believe. And suddenly you didn’t know what to do. Who to trust. Where to turn. It’s terrifying. Being lost is so much worse than being on the wrong road. That’s why people stay on it so long. We’re too far gone, or so we think. We’re tired and we’re confused and we’re scared. And we think there’s no way back. I know.”

Jacques didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge the words.

Beauvoir searched his mind for something, anything, to say, to bring the boy back.

“You saw the video?” said Beauvoir.

There was a slight movement from Jacques, but still silence.

“Commander Gamache never, ever talks about that day with anyone, except trusted family and friends. And even then, it’s rare. But he talked about it with you. He opened that wound, for you.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched the young man, who had suffered for years at the hands of a madman and could no longer recognize goodness. Could no longer even see it. What Jacques saw in front of him, all day, every day, was a wasteland.

“When someone shoots at us, we return fire,” said Jean-Guy.

Now Jacques did nod.

“But it’s equally important that when someone is kind to us, we return that as well,” he said quietly. Careful. Careful not to scare the young man off.

“It took me a very long time to come to that. The hatred I felt for Monsieur Gamache, and then for the others, shifted again, and I began to loathe myself.”

“Do you still?” Jacques asked, finally turning from the window, from the wasteland. “Hate yourself?”

“Non. It took a long time, and a lot of help. Jacques, the world is a cruel place, but it’s also filled with more goodness than we ever realized. And you know what? Kindness beats cruelty. In the long run. It really does. Believe me.”

He held out his hand to the young man. Jacques stared at it.

“Believe me,” Jean-Guy whispered.

And Jacques did.

*

“How did you know it was me?”

“The fingerprints,” said Gamache.

“Huh,” grunted Brébeuf.

“I knew they weren’t mine, and yet there they were. Which meant they’d been placed there. Not many could reproduce prints well enough to fool even the forensics team. Hugo Charpentier was one. And his mentor was another. You. You had to smudge every other fingerprint, including Leduc’s own, and leave just partials. Including yours. A nice touch. You had to make the investigators work for it. That’s what a great tactician does. He suggests. He doesn’t lead, he herds. From behind.”

Michel Brébeuf didn’t disagree. Now it was his turn to be silent.

They’d returned to their seats, the pistol lying on the chair beside Brébeuf. A large Scotch in front of each of them, untouched.