Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(59)

“But it’s more than that for you, Armand. It’s as much about protecting the innocent as finding the guilty. It’s good to have a mission in life, a purpose. It’s not so good to have an obsession.”

He’d leaned forward then, and she’d felt the authority of the man. It wasn’t smothering or threatening. If anything, it was incredibly calming.

“This isn’t a hobby, this isn’t a pastime. It isn’t even a job. If I accept the position of Chief Superintendent of the S?reté, it must be with complete commitment. There’re big problems. Huge. I have to believe I can fix them, otherwise, why take on the task?”

He’d stared at her, his deep brown eyes thoughtful. There was no madness there. No fevered ego. But there was power there. And certainty.

The next day, he’d accepted the job. And now, months later, he was back investigating a crime. A murder. Right on his own doorstep.

Myrna sat side by side with Clara on the sofa, as though waiting for a bus, and considered.

Yes, there was reason for Armand’s anger. She was angry too. She was also afraid, and she wondered if Armand was too.

Myrna glanced down at the floor, where Leo was curled on the mangy piece of rug, with his chew toy. A more adorable image would be hard to find.

Then she looked at Clara’s painting of Leo. Of Gracie. Of the savagery they might be capable of. Might be hiding. And she knew that it wasn’t just a portrait of the puppies.

“Bonjour?”

The unfamiliar voice drifted into the studio. The two women struggled out of the low sofa, and walking into the kitchen, they saw a young man in a S?reté uniform standing there.

“There’s no doorbell,” he said, slightly defensively. “I did knock.”

“That’s okay, everyone just comes in,” said Clara. “You’re here about Katie. What can we do to help?”

“Jesus, is Gamache hiring fetuses now?”

The young agent turned to the tall, thin, old piece of work framed in the doorway. Holding a duck.

“Chief Inspector Lacoste told me to find a Ruth Zardo,” he said, looking down at the wet piece of paper in his hand. “She wasn’t at her home or in the bistro. Someone said she might be here. I was told to look for a crazy old woman.”

He examined all three. From the great distance of twenty-five, they all looked old. And more than a little crazy. But what could you expect? he thought. Poor things. Stuck in this backwoods village. He should count their fingers and see if there were any banjos lying around.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said the duck, while the three old women stood together and stared, as though he was the strange one.

*

Jean-Guy called Myrna’s bookshop and left a message, asking if she had a copy of Lord of the Flies.

Then he turned back to the synopsis online.

He read about schoolboys stranded on a deserted island. He read about happy, healthy, decent kids away from rules and authority, slowly turning into savages.

And he thought about his son, Honoré, and what he might do in a situation like that.

But mostly Jean-Guy remembered what Matheo Bissonette had said. That their first year at the Université de Montréal had been like Lord of the Flies.

With the cruel hunter, Jack. The rational, disciplined Ralph. The “littluns,” the youngest. Conjuring their fears. Creating beasts where none existed.

And Piggy, whose only value to the group was that his glasses made fire.

Beauvoir adjusted his own glasses and read on. Tensing, tightening up, the further he got.

He read about the boys’ growing certainty that there was a beast on the island. One they needed to hunt down and kill.

Taking off his glasses, Jean-Guy rubbed his eyes.

Matheo Bissonette had likened university to Lord of the Flies, but he’d made it sound like fun, a wild romp.

Had those four friends, five counting the unfortunate Edouard, turned into savages? Then, in the confines of the university, turned on each other?

And what about Three Pines? It was a sort of island.

And now one among them was dead. And one of them had done it.

And the Conscience was nowhere to be found.

Beauvoir took a deep breath, chuckling at his overactive imagination.

But he decided to put reading about Lord of the Flies on hold and, pulling up another search, he typed in the words he’d seen that afternoon on the napkin that had fallen from Gamache’s pocket.

Burn our ships.

*

“May I join you?” Armand asked, gesturing to the closed toilet seat as though it were an easy chair.

“Please,” said Reine-Marie, and accepted the glass of red wine he passed her, a stalactite of bubbles from the bath she was soaking in hanging from her arm. “Nothing for you?”

“I’m afraid I’m still working,” he said, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.

“Any closer to finding out what happened?”

“Isabelle’s doing interviews. She’ll join us later for dinner. I’ve asked her and Jean-Guy to stay overnight.”

“I should get things ready.” Reine-Marie put the glass down and made to get out of the tub, but Armand waved her to stop.

“Olivier will bring something over for dinner, and I’ve checked. The beds are already made and towels out.”