A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

‘Neither did I.’ Gamache smiled. ‘Myrna Landers explained it to me. Ruth Zardo had a dog named Daisy. I met Daisy. The two were inseparable. Two stinky old ladies limping and growling through life. This past autumn Daisy grew weak and disoriented and finally the end was near. Ruth took her old friend on one last afternoon walk. It was five o’clock and they went into the woods where they’d gone each day. She took along a gun and when Daisy wasn’t looking, she shot her.’

‘But that’s awful.’

‘It’s called a beer walk because most farmers before they put their family pets down take a twelve pack with them, get just drunk enough, and do the deed. Ruth was sober. It was an act of love and mercy and formidable courage. Later Olivier and Gabri helped her bury Daisy under the bench here. And every day at five Ruth visits Daisy. Like Greyfriars Bobby.’

Lemieux didn’t understand the reference, but he understood he’d been wrong.

‘You must be careful,’ said Gamache. ‘I’m counting on you.’

‘I’m sorry sir. I’ll do better.’

At Sûreté headquarters the phone rang and the Superintendent picked it up quickly. It was the call he’d been waiting for. After listening for a few moments, he spoke.

‘You’ve done well.’

‘I don’t feel good about this, sir.’

‘And you think I do? It makes me sick. But it has to be done.’

And it was true. The Superintendent was heartsick about the position he found himself in. But he was the only person who could bring Gamache down.

‘Yes, sir. I understand.’

‘Good,’ said Michel Brébeuf. ‘We’re clear. I have another call. Keep me informed.’ He hung up on Agent Robert Lemieux and took the next call.

‘Bonjour, Superintendent.’ Gamache’s deep warm voice came down the line.

‘Bonne année, Armand,’ said Brébeuf. ‘What can I do for you, mon ami?’

‘We have a problem. I need to talk to you about Agent Nichol.’

At home again Yvette Nichol unpacked her suitcase, putting the dirty clothing into her drawers. Her father stood at the doorway, getting up his courage to speak. To start the New Year with the truth about fictional Uncle Saul.

‘Yvette.’

‘What is it?’ She turned round, a dull gray sweater bunched into a ball in her hands. Her voice was petulant, a tone he’d heard her use with others with some satisfaction, but never with himself. Now he noticed the smell of smoke. It seemed to get stronger as he approached her, as though his daughter had been scorched.

‘I’m proud of you,’ he said. She’d told him about the fire, of course. But hearing her on the phone describing it from Three Pines had seemed unreal. Now, actually smelling the smoke, imagining her that close to the flames, he felt overcome with terror. Had he really come that close to losing her? For a lie? A fictitious Uncle Saul?

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I told you everything already.’ She turned her back to him. For the first time. In one fluid, vicious, calculated move she changed his life for ever. She turned away from him.

Gutted, barely able to speak, Ari Nikolev tried to find the courage to tell his daughter she’d almost lost her life because of a lie he’d told. And retold. All her life.

She’d hate him, of course. Nikolev, staring at his daughter’s back, had a vision of his life stretching forward for years, bleak and cold. All the warmth and laughter and love turned to ice and buried beneath years of lies and regret. Was the truth worth it?

‘I want—’

‘What do you want?’ She turned back to him now, willing him to ask her again. To get her to open up. To get her to tell him again and again about the devastating fire until it became a part of the family lore, its jagged edges worn and softened by repetition.

Please, please, please, she silently begged him. Please ask me again.

‘I want to give you this.’ He reached into his pocket and dropped into her free hand a single butterscotch candy, its cellophane crackling as it landed, like the very beginning of a fire. As he walked down the gloomy corridor the smoke clung to him, in the way his daughter once did.

‘Who were you speaking to?’ Reine-Marie asked, getting into the car.

‘Michel Brébeuf.’ Gamache put the car into gear. The plan begins, he thought. As they drove out of Three Pines they passed a motorist who waved.

‘Was that Denis Fortin?’ asked Gamache, who knew the art dealer slightly.