A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(95)

There was laughter down the line. “Oh, I am sorry. You’d think I’d know better than to assume, especially after all these years in public affairs and being the head of a department myself. Désolé.”

“You speak French?” asked Lacoste, still in English.

“I do. Your English is better than my French, but we can switch if you like.”

Oddly, Lacoste could understand this woman’s English perfectly. Perhaps her clipped tones made it closer to the mid-Atlantic accent she was used to in Canada.

“English is fine,” said Lacoste. “I’d like to send you a photograph. It’s a revolver.”

She hit send.

“I’ve already seen it. Your colleague emailed it to me this morning,” said Elizabeth Coldbrook. “Oh, wait a minute. This isn’t the same picture. What is it?”

“It’s a detail of a stained-glass window.”

Lacoste hit send on another picture and she heard the click as Madame Coldbrook opened it as well.

“I see. A memorial window. Striking image.”

“Oui. The sidearm the soldier is carrying, can you tell the make?”

“I can. It’s definitely one of ours. The styling is distinctive. A McDermot .45. They were issued to most of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War.”

“This was a Canadian soldier.”

“I believe many of them were also issued that revolver. At least, the officers were. He looks so young.”

Both women, both mothers, looked at the boy, with the rifle and the revolver and the frightened, determined, forgiving expression.

“This is the same make but not the same gun used in your crime,” said Madame Coldbrook. “That revolver was new. Sold to the man just a few years ago.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“You think there’s a connection between a man who died and a soldier of the Great War?”

“We’re really just tying up details.”

“I see. Well, if there’s nothing more I can do…”

“Merci. Oh, there is one other little thing. Just curious, but do you go by the name Elizabeth Coldbrook, or Clairton, or Coldbrook-Clairton? For our report.”

“Elizabeth Coldbrook is fine.”

“But you signed your email Coldbrook-Clairton. And I notice the Clairton is in a slightly different font. Is there a reason for that?”

“It’s a mistake.”

Chief Inspector Lacoste let that statement sit there. How, she wondered, did someone mistake their own name? Misspell, perhaps. Her best friend had, out of nerves, signed her first driver’s license Lousie instead of Louise. That had haunted her well beyond the expiry date, as her friends resurrected the error every time they had a few drinks.

But perhaps Madame Coldbrook had been married and was recently divorced. And reverted to her maiden name. That would explain the disappearing hyphen and the mistake, on all sorts of levels. And her guarded tone when asked about it.

“Thank you for your time,” said Lacoste.

“I hope you find out what happened,” said Madame Coldbrook, before hanging up.

Isabelle put the receiver down but remained unsettled by the conversation. Madame Coldbrook has been polite and helpful, readily volunteering information. But something didn’t fit.

It wasn’t until she and Beauvoir were driving down to Three Pines later in the afternoon that it struck her.

If Madame Coldbrook had once used her husband’s name, hyphenated, then surely the receptionist would have recognized it.

“Unless the receptionist was new,” said Jean-Guy, when she brought up the issue. “The one I spoke to sounded young.”

“True.”

It was just past six in the evening, but the sun was already touching the horizon. After turning off the autoroute onto the secondary road, Beauvoir spoke again.

“You’re still not sure?”

“If her separation or divorce was so new that she still mistakenly signed her name that way, then the receptionist must have only just started. She sounded young, but experienced.”

“How do you know? Did you understand a word she said?”

“I understood the tone,” said Lacoste in a mock-defensive voice.

“I don’t see how it matters,” said Beauvoir. “What name she uses, or even the gun and the map and the stained-glass window.”

“I’m not sure either,” admitted Lacoste. “And it wouldn’t, except for one thing.”

“Serge Leduc had a copy of the map in his drawer.”

“And the soldier boy had the map in his knapsack.”

“And both died violent deaths,” said Beauvoir. “But not because of the map.”

“At least not the boy,” agreed Lacoste. “But why in the world would Leduc have the map and keep it so close to him? Not in his desk, not in his office, but in his bedside table. What do you keep there?”

“Now that’s a little personal.”

“Let me guess.” Lacoste thought for a moment. “A package of mints. Some very old condoms, because you can’t be bothered to throw them out. No, wait. You keep them because they remind you of your wild yout.”

“What’s a yout?” he asked, and she laughed at their running joke, quoting the famous line from My Cousin Vinny.