A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(45)

Commander Gamache had spoken those words to each and every cadet, including herself. But his eyes had lingered on one young man. And that was when his expression had changed. And that look of almost aching caring had settled there.

He knew exactly who had shouted those words, shot those words, at him. And Gamache had spoken directly to the young man. Be careful.

“Huh,” she murmured.

“What?” said the cadet beside her.

“Screw off,” she said, though her heart wasn’t in it. She was thinking.

*

Chief Inspector Isabelle Lacoste, standing at the back of the room with Jean-Guy Beauvoir, inhaled sharply.

“Don’t they know?” she whispered.

“Who he is?” asked Beauvoir. “They either don’t know or don’t care. Serge Leduc successfully poisoned the well before Gamache arrived, and added shit for the past couple of months.”

“And he couldn’t fight it?” asked Lacoste.

Around them the room had erupted in speculation. About the murderer, and about the words hurled at the Commander.

“He chose not to,” said Beauvoir. “He said it was a deliberate distraction and there was too much to do to waste time waging war on the Duke.”

“They’re fools.”

“Not all of them.”

While it looked, quite understandably to Lacoste, as if Gamache might have lost control of the academy, Jean-Guy Beauvoir saw something else in that room.

Like her, he’d heard the open insults to Gamache. But Beauvoir now saw pockets of quiet as some of the cadets contemplated what had just happened. And began to evolve their thinking.

*

“You’re a fool,” hissed Huifen.

“What? Everyone was thinking it,” said Jacques.

“Not everyone. Not anymore anyway.”

Her keen eyes took in the activity around them. And in some cases, the inactivity. The quiet that had come over more than a few of her fellow cadets.

Then she studied him. So handsome. Fine, intelligent features. Muscular. From rock climbing and rowing and hockey. His body contained a strapping energy she found almost irresistible. She dreamed of running her hands over those taut muscles, even as she was doing it. She dreamed of wrapping her arms and legs around him, even as she was doing it.

But now, and not for the first time, she wondered what else was contained in that fine body. In that mind. And what would happen if those straps ever broke.

*

When Huifen got back to her room, she found a woman waiting for her and an agent searching her belongings.

“Cadet Cloutier?”

“Oui.”

“I’m Chief Inspector Lacoste, of homicide. Have a seat, please.”

Huifen sat on the edge of her bed and watched the agent go through the dresser drawers.

Lacoste took the desk chair and crossed her legs, comfortably.

“Where were you last night, between ten and two in the morning?”

“Here. In bed.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get up at all, to go to the bathroom? Get a drink?”

“No, I was asleep. Between classes and all the activities and sports, it’s pretty exhausting.”

Lacoste smiled. “I remember. What was your relationship with Professor Leduc?”

“I was one of his students. And I suppose you could call him a mentor.”

“Did he choose you, or did you choose him?”

Huifen regarded the Chief Inspector. It was an insightful and uncomfortable question.

“He chose me. When I was a freshman, he invited me to bring him his morning coffee. Then, after a while, he began inviting me to his rooms in the evening.”

“What for?”

“Talks. We weren’t alone,” Huifen hurried to reassure her, “if that’s what you think. It wasn’t like that. He just spoke to us, about policing, about the S?reté. He took an interest in certain cadets.”

“His death must be a shock.”

And yet it was clear to Lacoste that this young woman wasn’t at all shocked. And certainly not saddened. But she was nervous.

“It is,” said Huifen.

“You’re just a few months away from graduating and becoming an agent in the S?reté. You know how this works. Any idea who did this?”

“I think you should ask the Commander.”

“Really? Why?”

“They hated each other. It was obvious.”

“How so?”

“By what they said about each other.”

“What did Professor Leduc say about Commander Gamache?”

“That he was weak, and was weakening the academy and the S?reté. That he was a coward.”

Lacoste pressed her lips together for a moment before she could speak again.

“And what did Commander Gamache say about Professor Leduc?”

Huifen opened her mouth, then slowly shut it again as she racked her brain. What had she heard him say about the Duke?

She looked at Chief Inspector Lacoste, who was nodding.

“Nothing, right?”

Huifen nodded.

“You won’t make a very good agent if you take gossip as fact, Cadet Cloutier.”

The agent searching the small room leaned down and spoke into Lacoste’s ear and handed her something. She looked at it and thanked him.