Dead Cold (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #2)(87)

‘No, the owners are away in Florida. I asked the neighbor.’

‘She’s wrong,’ Gamache shouted. ‘We were here earlier today. It’s rented to a man named Saul Petrov.’

Now he had Ruth’s complete attention.

‘We need to get him out.’ She turned to look at the home. ‘Gabri, call an ambulance.’

‘Already have. It’s on its way. Ruth, the house is almost gone.’

The implication was clear.

‘We need to try.’ Ruth looked around. ‘We can’t leave him in that.’ She gestured to the house. Gabri was right. Half of it was engulfed, the flames hissing and roaring as though the firefighters were using holy water on a home possessed. Gamache didn’t think ice and fire could live together, but now he saw it. An ice house burning.

The firefighters were losing.

‘Where’s Nichol?’ Beauvoir shouted into Gamache’s ear. The noise was almost deafening. Gamache swung round. She couldn’t have wandered off. She couldn’t be that stupid.

‘I saw her go over there,’ Monsieur Béliveau, the grocer, his face covered with ice from the spray, yelled.

‘Find her,’ said Gamache to Beauvoir, who took off in the direction Monsieur Béliveau pointed, his heart pounding. Don’t be that stupid, please, dear Lord, don’t be that stupid.

But she was.

Beauvoir ran, following the footsteps in the snow. Fuck her, his mind screamed. The prints went directly into the back door of the house. Fuck, f*ck, f*ck. He turned round twice, desperately hoping he’d see her outside. He shouted her name into the house, and heard nothing back.

Fuck, his mind shrieked.

‘Where is she?’ Gamache was at his elbow, calling into his ear. It was a little quieter round this side, but not much. Beauvoir pointed to the door and saw Gamache’s face harden. Beauvoir thought he heard the chief whisper ‘Reine-Marie,’ but decided it was a trick of the scene, the turmoil creating its own conversation.

‘Stay here.’ Gamache left, returning a minute later with Ruth.

‘I see what you mean,’ Ruth said. The elderly woman was limping badly and her words were muffled, her face frozen. Beauvoir’s own face was numb and his hands were getting there. He looked at the firefighters, the baker, the grocer, the handyman, and wondered how they did it. They were covered in ice, and squinting into the spray and flames, their faces black from the smoke. Every minute or so they’d sweep their huge gloved hands in front of their faces to knock the icicles from their helmets.

‘Gabri, get half a dozen hoses over here. Concentrate on this part of the house.’ Ruth waved at the quarter of the structure that wasn’t yet in flames.

Gabri understood immediately and took off, disappearing into the smoke or spray, Beauvoir could no longer tell them apart.

‘Here,’ she turned to Gamache, ‘take this.’ She handed him an axe.

Gamache took it gratefully and tried to smile but his face was frozen. His eyes were watering furiously from the smoke and extreme cold and every time he blinked he had to struggle to get his eyes open again. His breath came in rasps and he could no longer feel his feet. His clothing, damp from the sweat of the adrenalin rush, was now cold and clammy and clinging to his body.

‘Damn her,’ he said under his breath, and advanced on the house.

‘What’re you doing?’ Beauvoir grabbed his arm.

‘What do you think, Jean Guy?’

‘But you can’t.’ Beauvoir thought his mind would explode. What was happening was inconceivable and moving at lightning speed. Too fast for him to keep up.

‘I can’t not,’ said Gamache, staring at Beauvoir, and the frantic noise seemed to recede for a moment. Beauvoir dropped his grip on Gamache.

‘Here.’ He took the heavy axe from the chief’s hand. ‘You’ll put someone’s eye out with that. Come on.’

Beauvoir felt as though he’d just walked off a cliff. Still, like Gamache, he had no choice. He wasn’t capable of seeing the chief walk into a burning building alone. Not alone.

Inside, the house was eerily quiet. Not silent, but it seemed like a cloistered monastery compared to the tumult outside. The electricity was off and both men turned on their flashlights. It was at least warm though the reason didn’t bear thinking of. They were in the kitchen and Beauvoir knocked against something, sending a wooden box of cutlery clattering to the floor. So ingrained was his upbringing he actually considered stooping to clean it up.

‘Nichol,’ Gamache shouted.

Silence.

‘Petrov,’ he tried again. Silence, except for the dull roar that sounded like a hungry thing growling. Both men turned and looked behind them. The door into the next room was closed, but beneath it they could see a flickering light.

The fire was approaching.

‘The stairs to the second floor are through there.’ Beauvoir pointed to the door. Gamache didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Outside they could hear Ruth issuing orders in her slurred, frozen voice.

‘This way.’ Gamache led Beauvoir away from the flames.

‘Here, I found something.’ Beauvoir yanked open a trap door in the kitchen floor and shone his light down. ‘Nichol?’

Nothing.

He could see a ladder and handed his light to Gamache, hardly believing he was about to do this. But he knew one thing: the sooner this was over, the better. He swung his legs into the hole, found the ladder and climbed down quickly. Gamache gave him his flashlight and shone his own down as well.