Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(32)

“Don’t leave me here.”

But they had.

And once again she saw the hand of her mother, plunging into the icy water. Reaching out. Desperate. Straining.

For her cousin.

But Ruth had gripped that hand instead, and risen. Unwanted.

Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again / or will it be, as always was, / too late?

“Alas,” she muttered.

“Come on, you old crone.”

Clara had returned, and now she reached out. Ruth looked at the hand for a moment, then gripped it.

And she was hauled out.

They rushed down the path and to the village green.





CHAPTER 9

“You fucker,” a large man was shouting.

He stood in the center of the circle and held up an iron rod, ready to swing.

“Stop,” Gamache shouted, breaking through the crowd and coming to a halt a few feet from the man.

He recognized him as a new member of Billy Williams’s road crew, but didn’t know his name.

The man either didn’t hear or didn’t care, so focused was he on his target. The cobrador. Who just stood there. Didn’t step away. Didn’t cringe. Didn’t brace itself.

“Do it,” someone yelled.

The crowd had turned into a mob.

Armand had run out of the house without sweater or coat, and now he stood, in shirtsleeves, in the cold drizzle. While surrounding him, surrounding the cobrador, were young parents. Grandparents. Neighbors. Men and women he recognized. Not any he’d call hooligans or troublemakers. But who had been infected by fear. Warped by it.

Gamache approached the man from the side. Carefully. Edging his way into the bell jar.

He didn’t want to surprise him, make him react. Lash out at the cobrador, easily within swinging distance.

“Get the fuck outta here,” the man screamed at the cobrador. “Or I’ll beat the crap out of you. I swear to God I will.”

The mob was egging him on, and the man tightened his grip and lifted what Armand could now see was a fireplace poker even higher.

The rod had a nasty hook, used to move logs about in the flames. It would kill someone, easily.

“Don’t, don’t,” Gamache said, moving forward, his voice calm but firm. “Don’t you do it.”

And then he saw movement. Someone else had come out from the crowd.

It was Lea Roux. And within a moment she’d stepped between the cobrador and the man.

The attacker, surprised, hesitated.

Gamache quickly stepped beside Lea, and in front of the cobrador.

The man pointed the rod at them and waved it. “Get out of my way. He doesn’t belong here.”

“And why not?” ask Lea. “He’s doing no harm.”

“Are you kidding,” another man shouted. “Look at him.”

“He’s terrified my kids,” someone else shouted. “That’s harm.”

“And whose fault is that?” asked Lea, turning around to look at them all. “You taught them to be afraid. He’s done nothing. He’s stood here for two days and nothing bad’s happened. Except this.”

“You’re not even from here,” a man shouted. “This isn’t your home. Get out of the way.”

“So you can beat the shit out of him?” Lea looked at the mob. “You want your children playing on bloodstained grass?”

“Better stained with his blood than theirs,” said a woman. But her voice was no longer so loud, so certain.

“Well, they’ll have to play in my blood too,” said Lea.

“And mine,” said Armand.

“And mine.”

Someone else detached from the crowd. It was the dishwasher, Anton. He looked frightened as he took his place beside Armand and glared at the large man with the fire iron.

Clara, Myrna, Gabri and Olivier joined them. Ruth handed Rosa to a bystander and stepped forward.

“Aren’t we on the wrong side?” she whispered to Clara.

“Be quiet and look resolute.”

But the best the old poet could manage was crazed.

Armand stepped forward and held out a hand for the fireplace poker.

The man lifted it again.

Behind him he heard Reine-Marie whisper, “Armand.”

But he just stood there, his hand out. Staring at the man. Whose eyes were locked on the cobrador. Then he slowly lowered the weapon, until Gamache could take it from him.

“If anything happens,” shouted someone in the crowd, “it’s on you.”

But the mob had turned back into a crowd, and while unhappy, unsatisfied, they at least dispersed.

“Not you,” said Gamache, grabbing at the man’s arm as he started to walk away. “What’s your name?”

“Paul Marchand.”

“Well, Monsieur Marchand”—Gamache patted him down for other weapons and noticed a S?reté vehicle coming down the hill—“you’re in some trouble.”

Armand brought a small pouch out of Marchand’s pocket. It had two pills in it.

Gamache recognized them.

“Where did you get these?” He held up the pouch.

“They’re medicine.”

“They’re fentanyl.”

“Right. For pain.”