A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

‘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.

It was a root cellar. Cases of Molson beer, wine, boxes of potatoes and turnips and parsnips. It smelled of dirt and spiders and smoke. Beauvoir shone his light to the far end and saw a wave of smoke rolling its slow motion way toward him. It was almost mesmerizing. Almost.

‘Nichol? Petrov?’ he shouted, for form’s sake, backing toward the ladder. He knew they weren’t there.

‘Quickly, Jean Guy.’ Gamache’s voice was urgent. Beauvoir poked his head out of the trap door, noticing the door to the next room was smoking. Soon, they both knew, it would burst into flames.

Gamache hauled him out of the hole.

The noise was mounting as the flames approached. Outside the shouts were growing ever more frantic.

‘These old houses almost always have a second stairway up,’ said Gamache, sending his flashlight beam around the kitchen. ‘It’ll be small and maybe boarded up.’

Beauvoir yanked open cupboards while Gamache pounded on the tongue-in-groove walls. Beauvoir had forgotten the home of his grand-mère in Charlevoix, with its tiny secret staircase off the kitchen. He hadn’t thought of it in years. Hadn’t wanted to. Had buried it deep and covered it over, but here he was in a strange house, on fire, and now the memory decided to come back. Like that smoke in the basement it rolled inexorably toward him, slowly engulfing him, and suddenly he was back in that house, in that secret stairway. Hiding from his brother. Or so he thought until he’d grown bored and tried to leave. The door had been locked from the outside. He had no light and suddenly he had no air. The walls closed in, crushing him. The stairs moaned. The house, so comforting and familiar, had turned on him. His brother had said it was an accident when the hysterical child had been found and removed but Jean Guy had never believed it, and had never forgiven him.

Jean Guy Beauvoir had learned at the age of six that nowhere was safe and no one could be trusted.

‘Here,’ he shouted, staring into the half doorway. He’d taken it for a broom closet, but now his flashlight showed a set of steep, narrow steps leading up. Shining his light to the top he saw the trap door was closed. Please God, not locked.

‘Let’s go.’ Gamache moved ahead of Beauvoir into the stairway. ‘Come on.’ He looked back, puzzled, as Beauvoir hesitated then entered the dark, narrow space.

The stairs were built for tiny people from a century ago, undernourished Québecois farmers, not the well-fed Sûreté officers of today, wearing outsized winter firefighting clothing. There was barely enough room to crawl. Gamache took off his helmet, and Beauvoir did the same, relieved to be free of the cumbersome piece of equipment. Gamache edged up the narrow steps, his coat scraping the walls. It was black up ahead and their flashing lights played on the closed trap door. Beauvoir’s heart was pounding and his breathing fast and shallow. Was the smoke getting thicker? It was. He was sure he could feel flames at his back and turned to stare behind him, but saw only darkness. It wasn’t much of a comfort. Please, let’s just get out of here. Even if the entire second floor was in flames, that was better than being entombed in the stairway.