The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

Finally Beauvoir broke the silence. “And yet there he was in your house. Dead. Why would a strange body be in your house?”

“You see?” Gilbert thrust his hand toward Beauvoir. “You see? That’s why I didn’t call the cops. Because I knew that’s what you’d think.” He put his head into his hands as though trying to contain his scrambling thoughts. “Dominique’s going to kill me. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.” His shoulders sagged and his head hung, heavy from the weight of what he’d done and what was still to come.

Just then the phone rang. Agent Morin reached for it. “Sûreté du Québec.”

The voice on the other end spoke hurriedly and was muffled.

“Désolé,” said Morin, feeling bad because he knew he was interrupting the interrogation. “I don’t understand.” Everyone was looking at him. He colored and tried to listen closely, but he still couldn’t make out what was being said. Then he heard and the color in his face changed. “Un instant.”

He covered the mouthpiece. “It’s Madame Gilbert. There’s a man on their land. She saw him in the woods at the back.” Morin listened again at the phone. “She says he’s approaching the house. What should she do?”

All three men stood up.

“Oh my God, he must have seen me leave and knows they’re alone,” said Marc.

Gamache took the phone. “Madame Gilbert, is the back door locked? Can you get to it now?” He waited. “Good. Where is he now?” He listened, then began striding to the door, Inspector Beauvoir and Marc Gilbert running beside him. “We’ll be there in two minutes. Take your mother-in-law and lock yourselves in an upstairs bathroom. That one you took me to. Yes, with the balcony. Lock the doors, close the curtains. Stay there until we come to get you.”

Beauvoir had started the car and Gamache slammed the door and handed the phone back to Morin. “Stay here. You too.”

“I’m coming,” said Gilbert, reaching for the passenger door.

“You’ll stay here and talk to your wife. Keep her calm. You’re delaying us, monsieur.”

Gamache’s voice was intense, angry.

Gilbert grabbed the phone from Morin as Beauvoir gunned the car and they took off over the stone bridge, around the common and up du Moulin, to stop short of the old Hadley house. They were there in less than a minute. They got quickly and quietly out of the car.

“Do you have a gun?” Beauvoir whispered as they ran, crouched, to the corner of the house. Gamache shook his head. Really, thought Beauvoir. There were times he just felt like shooting the Chief himself.

“They’re dangerous,” said Gamache.

“Which is why he,” Beauvoir jerked his head toward the back of the property, “probably has one.”

Gamache brought his hand up and Beauvoir was silent. The Chief motioned in one direction, then disappeared around the side of the house. Beauvoir ran past the front door and around the far side. Both making for the back, where Dominique had seen the man.

Hugging the wall and staying low Gamache edged along. There was a need for speed. The stranger had been here for at least five minutes, uninterrupted. He could be in the house by now. A lot can happen in a minute, never mind five.

He edged around a bush and got to the far end of the large old house. There he saw movement. A man. Large. In a hat and gloves and field coat. He was close to the house, close to the back door. If he got inside their job would be far more difficult. So many places to hide. So much closer to the women.

As the Chief Inspector watched the man looked around then made for the French doors into the kitchen.

Gamache stepped out from the wall.

“Hold it,” he commanded. “Sûreté du Québec.”

The man stopped. His back was to Gamache and he couldn’t see whether Gamache had a gun. But neither could Gamache see if he had one.

“I want to see your hands,” said Gamache.

There was no movement. That wasn’t good, Gamache knew. He prepared to dive sideways if the man swung around and shot. But both stood their ground. Then the man turned quickly.

Gamache, trained and experienced, felt time slow down and the world collapse, so that all that existed was the turning man in front of him. His body, his arms. His hands. And as the man’s body swung Gamache saw something gripped in his right hand.

Gamache ducked.

Then the man was on the ground, and Beauvoir was on top of him. Gamache raced forward, pinning the man’s hand to the ground.

“He had something in his hand, do you see it?” demanded Gamache.