A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(4)

“I doubt there’s anything valuable,” said Olivier, returning to the Gamaches’ table after taking Ruth her breakfast of Irish coffee and bacon.

“How is that woman still alive?” asked Reine-Marie.

“Bile,” said Olivier. “She’s pure bile. It never dies.” He looked at Reine-Marie. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help her?”

“Well, who wouldn’t want to work with pure bile?” she said.

“Once she gets a few drinks in her, she becomes simply nasty, as you know,” said Olivier. “Please. Please. It’s taken Ruth two months to get the pile down an inch. The problem is, she doesn’t just scan, she reads everything. Yesterday she spent the whole day on one National Geographic from 1920.”

“I would too, mon beau,” said Reine-Marie. “But I tell you what. If Ruth accepts the help, I’d love to do it.”

After breakfast, she joined Ruth on the sofa and started on the blanket box, while Armand and Henri walked home.

“Armand,” shouted Olivier, and when Gamache turned he saw the owner of the bistro at the door waving something.

It was the dossier.

Armand jogged back to get it.

“Did you read it?” he asked. His voice was just sharp enough for Olivier to hesitate.

“Non.”

But under the steady stare, Olivier cracked.

“Maybe. Okay, yes. I glanced at it. Just her picture. And her name. And a bit about her background.”

“Merci,” said Armand, taking the file and turning away.

As he walked home, Armand wondered why he’d snapped at Olivier. The file was marked “Confidential” but he’d shown it to Reine-Marie, and it wasn’t exactly a state secret. And who wouldn’t be tempted to look at something marked “Confidential”?

If they knew anything about Olivier, it was that he had no immunity to temptation.

Gamache also wondered why he’d left it behind. Had he really forgotten it?

Was it a mistake, or was it on purpose?

*

The snow returned by early afternoon, blowing in over the hills and swirling around, trapped there. Turning Three Pines into a snow globe.

Reine-Marie called and said she was having lunch at the bistro. Clara and Myrna had joined the excavation of the blanket box, and they’d be spending the afternoon eating and reading.

It sounded to Armand pretty much perfect and he decided to do the same himself, at home.

He poked the birch log freshly tossed on the fire in their living room grate and watched as the bark caught and crackled and curled. Then he sat down with a sandwich, a book, and Henri curled up beside him on the sofa.

But Armand’s eyes kept drifting back to his study, crowded with impatient young men and women, cheek by jowl, staring at him. Waiting for the old man to decide what next for them, as old men had decided the fate of youth for millennia.

He wasn’t old, though he knew he’d look old, perhaps even ancient, to them. The young men and women would see a man in his late fifties. Just over six feet tall, he was substantial rather than heavy, or so he told himself. His hair was more gray than brown and it curled slightly around his ears. While he’d sometimes had a moustache and sometimes a beard, he was now clean-shaven, the lines of his face visible for all to see. It was a careworn face. But most of the lines, if followed back like a trail, would lead to happiness. To the faces a face made when laughing or smiling, or sitting quietly enjoying the day.

Though some of those lines led elsewhere. Into a wilderness, into the wild. Where terrible things had happened. Some of the lines of his face led to events inhuman and abominable. To horrific sights. To unspeakable acts.

Some of them his.

The lines of his face were the longitude and latitude of his life.

The young men and women would also see the deep scar at his temple. It would tell them how close he’d come to dying. But the best of them would see not just the wound, but the healing. And they’d see, deep in his eyes, beyond the scar, beyond the pain, beyond even the happiness, something unexpected.

Kindness.

And perhaps, when their own faces were mapped, kindness would be discovered there too.

That’s what he was looking for in the dossiers. In the photographs.

Anyone could be clever. Anyone could be smart. Anyone could be taught.

But not everyone was kind.

Armand Gamache looked into the study at the young men and women assembled there. Waiting.

He knew their faces, or at least their photographs. He knew their stories, or at least as much as they were willing to tell. He knew about their schooling, their grades, their interests.

Among the crowd he spotted her. Amelia. Waiting with the rest.

His heart lurched and he stood up.

Amelia Choquet.

He knew then why he was reacting as he was. Why he’d left her behind at the bistro, and why he’d gone back for her.

And why he felt so strongly about her.

He’d shown the dossier to Reine-Marie hoping she’d give him the permission he sought. To do what all reason told him to do. To reject this young woman. To turn his back. To walk away, while he still could.

And now he knew why.

Henri snored and drooled on the sofa, the fire murmured and crackled, the snow tapped the windowpanes.

It wasn’t her first name he was reacting to. It was her last. Her family name.