A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(17)

“You asked why the map was made,” she called. “Isn’t the better question, why was it walled up?”

*

The next morning, Armand phoned Jean-Guy and asked if he would be his second-in-command at the academy.

“I’ve already sharpened my pencil, patron,” said Jean-Guy. “And I have new notebooks and fresh bullets for my gun.”

“You have no idea how that makes me feel,” said Gamache. “I’ve spoken to Chief Inspector Lacoste about this. Isabelle will put you on leave for a term. That’s all we have.”

“Right,” said Jean-Guy, all humor gone from his voice. “I’ll come down to Three Pines this afternoon and we can discuss your plans.”

When Jean-Guy arrived, shaking the snow from his hat and coat, he found Gamache in his study. After pouring himself a coffee, Beauvoir joined his father-in-law. Instead of studying the curriculum or staff CVs, or the list of the new cadets, Gamache was bent over an old map.

“Why did it take you so long to ask me to be your second-in-command?”

Gamache took off his reading glasses and studied the younger man. “Because I knew you’d agree, and I’m not sure I’ll be doing you any favors. The academy is a mess, Jean-Guy. You have your own career. I don’t think being my second-in-command at the academy will advance it.”

“And you think I’m that interested in advancement, patron?” There was an edge of anger in his voice. “Do you know me so little?”

“I care for you that much.”

Beauvoir inhaled and breathed out his annoyance. “Then why ask me now?”

“Because I need help. I need you. I can’t do this alone. I need someone there I can trust completely. And besides, if I fail I need someone to blame.”

Jean-Guy laughed. “Always glad to help.” He looked down at the map on the desk. “What’ve you got there? Is it a treasure map?”

“No, but there is a mystery about it.” He handed it to Jean-Guy. “See if you can figure out what’s strange about it.”

“I’m assuming you know the answer. Is this a test? If I solve it, the job’s mine?”

“The job is hardly a prize,” Gamache pointed out, and left Jean-Guy to study the worn and torn and dirty old thing. “And it’s yours now, like it or not.”

A while later, Jean-Guy joined Armand and Reine-Marie in the living room, only to find another worn, torn and dirty old thing on the sofa.

“Well, numbnuts, I hear Clouseau has finally asked you to be his second-in-command,” said Ruth. “I always knew you were a born number two.”

“Madame Zardo,” said Jean-Guy, making her sound like a Victorian medium. “As a matter of fact he has asked, and I’ve accepted.”

He sat beside her on the sofa and Rosa waddled onto his lap.

“Did you figure it out?” asked Gamache. “What’s strange about the map?”

“This. Three pines,” said Jean-Guy, circling his finger over the illustrated trees. “Three Pines. The village isn’t on any official map, but it’s here.”

He’d put his finger on it. And once seen, something else became obvious. All the roads, the paths, the walking trails led there. They might pass through other communities, but they ended at the three pines.

Armand nodded. Jean-Guy, with his sharp mind, had seen through the clutter to what was most extraordinary about it.

It wasn’t a map of Three Pines, but a map to it.

“How strange,” whispered Reine-Marie.

“What’s really strange isn’t that it’s on this map,” said Jean-Guy. “But that the village doesn’t appear on any other. Not even the official ones of Québec. Why is that? Why did it disappear?”

“Damnatio memoriae,” said Reine-Marie.

“Pardon?” said her son-in-law.

“It’s a phrase I came across only once,” she explained. “While going through some old documents. It was so extraordinary I remembered it, which is, of course, ironic.”

They looked at her, missing the irony.

“Damnatio memoriae means ‘banished from memory,’” she said. “Not simply forgotten, but banished.”

The four of them looked down at the first, and last, map to show their little community, before it vanished, before it was banished.





CHAPTER 6

Amelia Choquet folded her arms across her chest and leaned back at her desk. She was careful to make sure the sleeves of her uniform rode up, exposing her tattoos, and as she did she played with the stud in her tongue, shoving it up and down. Up and down. In an unmistakable display of boredom.

Then she slumped down and observed. It was what she did best. Never participating, but always watching. Closely.

At the moment she was watching the man at the front of the classroom. He was large, though not fat. More burly, she supposed. Substantial. And old enough to be her father, though her own father was even older than this man.

The professor wore a jacket and tie and flannels. He was neat, without being prissy.

He looked clean.

His voice as he spoke to the first-year students wasn’t at all lecturing, unlike many of the other professors. He was talking to them, and his attitude seemed to be that they were free to take in what he was saying, or not. It was their choice.