Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(30)

Only one thing, Judge Corriveau knew.

Silence.

He could keep some secret.

Judge Corriveau looked from the defendant to the Chief Superintendent. And wondered if a deal had been struck. Something she knew nothing about.

Again, the photo of the cobrador on the village green was put up on the screen. And there it would stay, throughout the trial.

It appeared to be watching them.

“You understand you’re still under oath, Chief Superintendent?” she asked.

“I do understand, Your Honor.”

“Bon,” said the Crown. “You told us yesterday afternoon, before we broke for the day, that you’d concluded someone in the village of Three Pines had done something so hideous that that thing”—the Crown pointed to the cobrador—“had to be called. Who did you think it was?”

“I honestly didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t know, I asked who you thought it might be. Did you have any suspicions?”

“Objection,” said the defense attorney.

Judge Corriveau sustained it, with regret. She’d have loved to hear the answer.

*

“A conscience?” said Ruth. Behind her on this dreary November evening, cold rain hit the window and slid down, not quite liquid, not quite solid. “So that’s what it is. I wonder who he’s come for.”

She surveyed them from her seat in one of the deep armchairs in the Gamaches’ living room. Once in, she couldn’t possibly get out without help. It was how her neighbors preferred her. Comfortable and confined.

Rosa sat on her lap, her head swiveling toward whoever was speaking. Like a duck possessed.

“Who made this?” asked Olivier, standing at the door between their kitchen and the living room. Holding a baguette.

“Jacqueline,” said Clara. “Sorry. It was all that was left at the bakery. She hasn’t improved?”

In his other hand, Olivier lifted the bread knife, its teeth askew. He went to the back door and tossed the baton of bread out, for some beaver to sharpen its teeth on. Though he suspected it would still be lying there when some future archeologist found it. It would become like Stonehenge. A mystery.

Myrna got up and, taking her red wine to the window, looked out into the dusk.

“A peace above all earthly dignities,” she quoted. Then turned back to the room. “A still and quiet conscience.”

“Shakespeare,” said Reine-Marie. “But it doesn’t feel very peaceful.”

“That’s because we’re not there yet,” said Myrna. “That thing is here because someone in the village doesn’t have a quiet conscience.”

“It’s just a man in a costume,” said Armand. “He’s playing a mind game with someone.”

“But not us,” said Gabri.

“Really?” asked Ruth. “Not us? We’re immune? Is your conscience really so still and quiet?”

Gabri squirmed.

“Is anyone’s?” Ruth asked, looking at them all before coming to rest on Armand.

In that instant he found himself standing before the door he kept closed, deep in his memory.

He reached out. A very slight tremor in his right hand.

And opened it.

It wasn’t locked. He couldn’t lock it though, God help him, he’d tried. Sometimes it swung open on its own, revealing the thing inside.

Not some fetid, sordid shame.

Before him stood a young man, barely more than a boy. Smiling. Filled with hope, and laughter, with ambition tempered by kindness. He was slender, spindly even, so that his S?reté uniform looked like a costume.

“He’ll grow into it,” Chief Inspector Gamache had assured his mother at a reception honoring new recruits.

But, of course, he hadn’t.

The boy stood there now, smiling at Armand. Awaiting the day’s orders. Trusting him, completely.

I’ll find you. It’ll be all right.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

Go away, was what Armand wanted to say. Leave me in peace. I’m so sorry about what happened, but I can’t undo it.

But he never said it. And Armand Gamache knew that if the young man ever did leave, he’d miss him. Not the almost unbearable pain he always felt when that door swung open, but his company.

This was one special young man.

And Armand had killed him.

It had been an honest mistake, he’d told himself. A wrong decision made in a crisis.

It had not been deliberate.

But it was a stupid mistake. Avoidable.

Had he turned right instead of left, in that horrible moment, the young man would be alive. Married. Children probably, by now.

May your days be good and long upon this earth.

But, of course, they weren’t.

Armand’s conscience rose up now. Not a dark thing at all, but a skinny young man who never accused, he just smiled.

Armand brought his hand to his temple and absently followed the line of the scar. Like a mark of Cain.

Ruth tilted her head, watching Armand. Knowing, as they all probably did, what he was thinking about. Who he was thinking about.

The old woman looked at her empty glass of scotch, then down at Rosa, as though accusing the duck of drinking it.

It would not be the first time. Rosa was a mean drunk. But then, she was pretty mean sober as well. It was very hard to tell, they’d realized, if a duck was drunk.