Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(71)

Now she paused. Considering. “Are you asking because you know the answer?”

“No, but I’m beginning to have an idea.”

“What?”

Beauvoir had grown very still, but his eyes darted and his mouth opened slightly.

“Tell me more about this chlorocodide.”

“Well, as far as I know, this is the first shipment into Québec, probably the first into Canada. Not sure about the States, but if it’s there it’s not yet in large quantities. Its street name is Russian Magic. Also known as krokodil.”

“So this would be like an amuse-bouche?”

She almost smiled. “You could say that. Something to get people started. To whet their appetite. They’re sophisticated, these traffickers.”

“They’re also brilliant marketers,” said Beauvoir. “Calling something krokodil. Appeals to kids. Sounds urban. Edgy.”

“It’s also called that because it makes their skin all scaly. Like a crocodile.”

“Oh, Christ,” he sighed.

He, better than Toussaint, better than most, knew the desperation of the junkie. And how detached from normal human behavior they became. They already felt and acted subhuman. Why not look it too?

They didn’t care.

But he did.

“This’s how it starts,” he said, taking off his glasses and tapping the paper, in an unconscious imitation of something Gamache often did. “They bring in a small amount, to prime the pump. Build up demand. The drug is all the more desirable because it’s hard to get.”

He knew the routine.

Dealers dealt in drugs, but also in human nature.

“So why leave it in a warehouse at Mirabel?” he asked. “What’re they waiting for?”

“For the big shipment of fentanyl to make it through?” Toussaint suggested.

“Yes, almost certainly. But it’s crossed the border. What’s stopping them now?”

They stared at each other, hoping the other might come up with an answer.

Then Beauvoir smiled. It was tiny, frail. But it was there.

“They’re waiting to see what happens at the trial,” he said.

And Madeleine Toussaint’s face opened in astonishment, then relaxed into a smile. “My God, I think you’re right.”

Beauvoir stood up and tilted the slip of paper toward her. “May I?”

She stood up too, and after hesitating for just a moment, she nodded.

Beauvoir folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

“What’re you going to do?” she asked as she followed him to the door.

“I’m going to show this to Chief Superintendent Gamache as soon as he gets out of court.”

“And what’ll he do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Push him, Jean-Guy. Make him act,” she said. “He has to give the word.”

“Look, no one has more at stake than he does,” said Beauvoir.

“That’s not true. He won’t lose a son or daughter to addiction. He almost certainly isn’t going to suffer a home invasion by some drug-addled crazy, or be shot on the street for drug money. You have a young son.”

“Honoré, oui.”

“I have a son in high school and two daughters heading there soon. We have more at stake. We have everything to lose. This cannot fail, Jean-Guy.”

“I know.”

And he did know.

“Wait.” She reached out and drew Beauvoir back into the office, and closed the door. “Did he do it?”

“What?”

“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Did Chief Superintendent Gamache commit perjury today? Did he lie about the bat and the hidden door in the church basement?”

“He did.”

She grew very still, then glanced at the pocket where the slip of paper now sat.

“Then we might have a chance. But what do I tell my agents?”

“You’ll think of something. This started with you, Madeleine. You can’t distance yourself, even if you want to.”

“You can’t possibly blame me for this,” she said, her defenses slamming back into place.

“I’m not blaming. One day you might even be given the award you deserve. You helped the Chief Superintendent come up with this plan. He kept the napkin, you know. From your lunch. It’s in his desk, below the notebook.”

Toussaint nodded. Beauvoir was right. This all began that afternoon months ago, over lunch, when she’d used a cliché. And Chief Superintendent Gamache had written it down on the only thing available.

The cliché was so common that she’d failed to consider what it really meant. And she sure hadn’t foreseen what it would mean to Gamache. And how he’d use it.

“Burn our ships,” she said, remembering that moment in the brasserie when Chief Superintendent Gamache had looked at her with a gleam. The ember of an idea.

“Burn our ships,” Beauvoir repeated. “Do you know where it comes from?”

She nodded. She’d looked it up, as the days and months had passed and things got worse and worse instead of better and better, and Madeleine Toussaint had begun to wonder what she’d done.