A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,73
crawled out of, not all that long ago.
Madame Fleury glanced at her watch. “I’m leaving. My hairdresser doesn’t like it when I’m late. If you need anything else, you know how to reach me.”
And leave she did. Armand did not offer her his hand, and she did not offer him hers.
But Beauvoir did. As a sort of peace offering.
Simone Fleury looked at it and walked away.
“She thinks every man’s an abuser,” said Beauvoir, dropping his hand to his side. “That’s unfair.”
“She was beaten by two men she trusted. That’s unfair. She works with abused women every day. She’s surrounded by it. It’s incredible she can even bring herself to look at us, never mind talk to us in anything close to a civil manner.” Gamache nodded toward Beauvoir’s hand, which was at his side, his fingers relaxed into a loose fist. “What would you do if a weapon were thrust at you?”
Beauvoir looked down. He saw a hand. One that wrote notes, and chopped vegetables, and bathed his son. But Madame Fleury saw something else.
Twenty-six thousand calls a year, he thought.
As they stepped into the sunshine and the unseasonably warm April day, Beauvoir instinctively scanned the faces and realized with some amazement why he always did that.
He was unconsciously looking for danger. Always. He saw potential threats everywhere. In everyone. In the elderly man across the way, with that bag. In the kids laughing and shoving each other. In the SUV heading a little too quickly down the main street.
Suppose …
It had become second nature. Hardwired into him.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew that every person had a killer inside them.
And Madame Fleury knew that every man had an abuser inside of him.
Both were unfair. But such was their experience. And conditioning.
That was one of the many reasons he had to leave. Had to escape the Sûreté and get far, far away. From a world filled with threats. He longed to see a kinder world.
He realized it might be too late. Too much damage might’ve already been done. But Jean-Guy Beauvoir had to try to break free.
As they walked by the window of the café, he glanced in and saw the young waitress clearing their mugs and picking up the money they’d left.
She looked at him and quickly dropped her eyes.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir returned his gaze to the road ahead. Scanning it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MyrnaLanders: I love ClaraMorrow works. They’re genius.
ClaraMorrow: Thanks MyrnaLanders, but you sent this to me privately. Did you mean to? I’m sitting with you in the bistro. Oh, oh. Here comes Ruth. Look busy!
MyrnaLanders: #ClaraSucks Merde.
ClaraMorrow: MyrnaLanders That one you put out on the public twitter feed. You just agreed with everyone who says my art is shit.
MyrnaLanders: #ClaraSucks Did I? Fuck
ClaraMorrow: MyrnaLanders Please stop.
The incident room in Three Pines was filled with the aroma of wet socks, sweat, cilantro, and lime.
Olivier and Gabri moved aside the firefighting equipment and set out the ginger-garlic chicken soup, sandwiches, and drinks.
Along with the senior officers, there were the more junior agents. Cloutier and the big guy. Cameron. They suspected he’d eat lots.
“Any news on the flooding?” Isabelle Lacoste asked.
“Here?” asked Olivier. “The Bella Bella’s gone down. Thank God.”
“Across the province,” said Isabelle.
“Only what we see on the news,” said Gabri. “You probably know more than we do.”
“Maybe not,” she said. “We’ve been busy.”
“Well, according to CBC, they’re digging huge trenches to divert some rivers,” said Gabri. “That must’ve been where you got the idea from, Armand.”
“Good,” said Gamache, and exhaled. “Good news.”
“Did you see the Deputy Premier in the scrum when that reporter asked about it?” said Olivier.
Gabri and Olivier reenacted, with some exaggeration, Gamache suspected, the Deputy Premier’s face as it went from bafflement to anger to confidence when he was told it seemed to be working.
“And then, just as he’d said he was in the meeting where it’d been decided to dig, another journalist asked about the angry farmers whose fields were now flooded,” said Gabri.
His face fell into an expression somehow combining annoyance and obsequiousness.
“Poor man,” said Olivier, putting linen napkins on the table. Beauvoir watched all this and wondered if they’d pull a candelabra out of the hamper next. “Can’t win.”
While food was being organized, Gamache picked up a landline and went into the storage room. No need for the others to hear this call.
“Alouette Organization,” came the cheery voice.
“The general manager, please.”
“I’m afraid he’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?”
“If you could ask him to step out for a moment, this won’t take long.”