A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

Now Beauvoir watched his team work their computers and the phones, but his mind was on the chief. And Nichol. That rancid, wretched, petty little woman who’d almost ruined their last case, and had proved a deeply divisive element in a team that thrived and depended on harmony.

‘Explain yourself, please.’ Gamache stood in the small room, towering over the petite agent. Her short mousy hair was not only disheveled from taking off her tuque, but seemed to have been cut by a drunken gardener with tree shears. Her clothes were ill fitting and drab and Gamache thought he saw a bit of egg yolk clinging to her prickly wool sweater. Her face was scarred and purple from severe acne as a teen, and where it wasn’t purple it was pasty. The only spark her gray eyes held was fear. And something else, Gamache thought. Cunning. She’s afraid of someone, he thought, but not me.

‘I was assigned to you, sir.’ She watched him closely. ‘Superintendent Francoeur called this morning and told me I was to report to you. It surprised me as well.’ She tried to sound contrite and only succeeded in sounding whiny. ‘I read the field notes you and Inspector Beauvoir had written.’

‘How?’

‘Well, the Superintendent forwarded them to me at home. I noticed your note about the photographer and that you considered that the priority. I agreed—’

‘I’m relieved to hear it.’

‘I mean, I thought you were right. Well, of course you were.’ Now she was getting flustered. ‘Here.’ She thrust out her hand with a piece of paper. He took it and read.

Saul Petrov, 17 rue Tryhorn.

‘I looked it up on the map. See, here.’ She pulled a map from her jacket pocket and handed it to him. He didn’t take it. He simply stared at her.

‘I called about fifteen rental agencies in the area. No one knew him but finally I found a restaurant in St-Rémy, Le Sans Souci. People advertise chalets for rent there. I asked the owner and he remembered getting a similar call from a guy in Montreal a few days ago. Guy rented the place right away. So I called and sure enough, it’s this photographer. Saul Petrov.’

‘You spoke to him?’

‘Yes sir. Had to. To confirm his identity.’

‘And suppose he’s the murderer? Suppose at this moment he’s burning his pictures or loading up his car? How long ago did you call?’

‘About two hours.’ Yvette Nichol’s voice had faded to a whisper.

Gamache took a deep breath and stared at her for a moment, then strode out the door.

‘Inspector Beauvoir? Please take an agent and find out if this is the photographer we’re looking for. Agent Lemieux, stay here. I need to speak to you.’ He turned back to Nichol. ‘Sit down and wait for me.’

She plunked down on the chair as though her legs had been cut out from underneath her.

Beauvoir took the piece of paper, consulted the map on the wall and was out the door in a matter of minutes, but not before he’d gotten a look at Agent Nichol sitting in the tiny, cramped room, looking about as miserable as a person still alive could look. He surprised within himself a certain sympathy for her. Chief Inspector Gamache’s bad side was legend. Not because it was so bad, but because it was so well hidden. Hardly anyone had ever found it. But those that did never ever forgot.

‘I have an assignment for you,’ Gamache said to Lemieux. ‘I want you to go into Montreal and ask some questions for me. It’s about a woman named Elle. That’s not her real name. She was indigent and was murdered just before Christmas.’

‘Is this about the de Poitiers case?’

‘No.’

‘Have I done something wrong?’ Lemieux looked crestfallen.

‘Not at all. I need some questions asked about that case and it’ll be good training for you. You haven’t worked in Montreal?’

‘Barely visited,’ Lemieux admitted.

‘Now’s your chance.’ He could see the anxiety in Agent Lemieux’s face. ‘You’ll be fine. I wouldn’t send you if I didn’t think two things. First, that you can do it and second, that you need to do it.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

Gamache told him, and the two of them went to Gamache’s car where the chief took a cardboard evidence box from his trunk and handed it to Lemieux with instructions.

Gamache’s eyes followed Lemieux as his car drove slowly over the old stone bridge, onto the Commons and round the village green before mounting rue du Moulin and heading out of Three Pines. The chief stood in the steadily falling snow and his stare fell on the figures on the village green. Some carried bags of shopping from Sarah’s Boulangerie or Monsieur Béliveau’s general store. Some families were skating. Some walked dogs. One dog, a young shepherd, was rolling and digging and tossing something into the air.