A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12)(97)

“But it’s disrespectful,” Professor Godbut had protested at a staff meeting.

“How so?” asked Gamache.

That had flummoxed the professor, until Leduc had said, in a drawl, “Because it’s not just a uniform. It’s a symbol of the institution. Would you have allowed your S?reté agents to dye their uniforms, or wear smiley-face buttons, or do up their slacks with their ties?”

“Never,” admitted Gamache. “But if the agents wanted to do that, they were clearly in the wrong job. You’re right, the uniform is a symbol of the institution. And if they have so little respect for the institution, then they need to leave. Here, at the academy, is where we earn their respect. We don’t teach it. We don’t impose it. We model it, we work for it. We’re asking these young men and women to be willing to die in that uniform. The least we can do is earn that sacrifice. Let them wear the uniform inside out if they want to, now. If at the end of the year they still are, then we know we haven’t done our jobs.”

“Bet that shut them up,” said Lacoste, when Beauvoir related the story.

“It did, though I don’t think it convinced them of anything other than that Commander Gamache was soft.”

“And Cadet Choquet’s uniform?”

“Spotless. Absolutely perfect.”

“Where’s she from? Her background?”

“Montréal. She lived in a rooming house in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve before coming here. According to notes Monsieur Gamache attached to her application, it seemed there was some question of prostitution and drug use. He doesn’t say it outright, but if you know him, you know the shorthand.”

“A drugged-up whore?” said Lacoste. “Excellent.”

And yet, it wasn’t a complete surprise. She suspected if they looked in Gamache’s bedside table, they’d find all sorts of lost souls he put there for safekeeping. And maybe a baguette.

“Her high school marks were mixed. She barely scraped by, though she did well, but erratically, in history, languages and literature.”

“She only did what interested her,” said Lacoste. “Lazy?”

“Looks like it. Or at least, not motivated.”

“Now, why would someone like that apply to the S?reté Academy?” asked Lacoste.

“A dare, maybe? A joke. And then when she was accepted, she decided to try it out.”

“Does she strike you as the joking kind?”

“No.” He drove in silence, thinking of the dark girl with the pale face. The contradictory girl.

“She sounds like she can take care of herself,” said Lacoste. “Doesn’t sound like the sort Leduc could take advantage of.”

Beauvoir opened his mouth to say something, taking in a breath, but then changed his mind.

“Go on. Say it,” said Isabelle.

Their headlights picked up the snowbanks on either side of the road, and the leafless, lifeless, trees.

“Imagine being nineteen or twenty and on the streets,” he said. “Prostituting yourself. Numbing yourself with drugs. And ahead all you see is more of the same. And you know, at nineteen, that life is not going to get better. What would you do?”

The two agents stared at the distorted, grotesque shadows of the bare trees, thrown onto the snow by the harsh headlights.

“Put a bullet in your brain?” he asked quietly. “OD? Or would you make one last mighty leap for the lifeboat?”

“You think the academy is her lifeboat?” asked Lacoste.

“I don’t know, I’m just guessing. But I do think Monsieur Gamache thought so, and he rowed out to get her. She’d been turned down, you know, by Leduc.”

“I’d have thought Leduc would want someone so broken.”

“No. I think he preferred to do the breaking.”

“Goddamned Leduc,” said Lacoste. “He’d know her background, and he’d know she’d have no choice but to submit and be quiet about it. You think she killed him? You think she couldn’t take it anymore and shot him with his own gun?”

“It’s possible,” said Beauvoir.

“But?”

“I think Leduc had more on his mind than sexual gratification. I think he was even more devious.”

“Go on,” said Lacoste.

“Who was the biggest threat to Serge Leduc?”

“That’s easy. Monsieur Gamache.”

“Exactly. He knew Monsieur Gamache was coming after him. He must’ve felt him getting closer and closer. And he wasn’t facing just losing his job. If that’s all it was, Gamache would’ve fired him months ago. No, once Gamache had the proof of his criminal activities, Leduc would be arrested. And this time there’d be no one there to save him. He must’ve grown more and more desperate.”

“Yes,” said Lacoste, getting a better idea of where this might be heading and not liking it at all.

“There’re two ways Leduc could stop Monsieur Gamache,” said Beauvoir. “Kill him, or completely undermine his credibility.”

Lacoste’s mind raced ahead, seeing the scenario unfold.

“The map,” she said. “Leduc didn’t take it for himself. He took it to plant in Gamache’s bedside table as proof the Commander was having an affair with one of the students. Amelia Choquet.”