A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,81
face a few moments ago was gone, replaced by a smile.
“You’ve done a good job. It’s only because of you we’ve found Madame Vachon and the pictures. And the damning messages. Chief Inspector Beauvoir feels we have enough, and I agree with him. Now the job will be to turn her. Pay attention to Superintendent Lacoste. Learn from her. She’ll lead the interrogation. You’ll be there to support.”
It wasn’t lost on either Cloutier or Cameron that he’d said “interrogation.” Not “interview.”
They were almost there. They could see the finish line. It was just a matter now of dashing across it. Without falling.
“And Homer?”
“Let Monsieur Godin know he’ll be released soon. Agent Cameron, I’ll come with you after all. Chief Inspector Beauvoir will meet us there.”
“Oui, patron.”
As they made for the door, Cameron reached behind him, to double-check that he had his gun. He knew he did, but best to be certain. Besides, touching it was a comfort.
But he noticed, as he followed Gamache, that the Chief Inspector was not carrying a weapon.
He wondered if he should say something. Remind him that drug dealers were dangerous. But then he remembered who this man was and what he’d seen. And what he’d done.
Chief Inspector Gamache did not need to be schooled. He was the principal.
* * *
Beauvoir stood at his desk in the incident room in Three Pines and checked his belt.
The gun, as always, was there.
He wondered if he’d feel naked going into work every day as a senior executive at the engineering firm in Paris without this accessory.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir quite liked the feel of it. The heft. The ability to just pull back his jacket and expose it. To see people’s eyes widen.
The gun on his belt meant not simply safety but power. Though just lately, something odd had begun to happen.
It had felt heavier. More awkward. Less natural. The gun had begun to feel foreign.
Was this how it had started with Gamache? Surely as a young agent, as an inspector, even, he’d worn a gun? At what stage had he taken it off?
When does a cucumber become a pickle? It was the question Gamache sometimes asked when contemplating human behavior. And now Jean-Guy asked himself that.
When does change occur? Change that is irreversible.
At some point guns had become, for Armand Gamache, a necessary evil. But still, and undoubtedly, evil.
Gamache had knelt beside too many corpses. Had made too many.
Had reached behind him and pulled the weapon from its holster. Had swung it up, steadied his hand. Pointed. And Armand Gamache had fired. Into another human being.
Felt the recoil. Smelled the discharge. Seen the body drop. The person drop.
Someone’s son, daughter, husband, father.
It was a terrible, terrible thing to have to do.
Seeing the bullet strike was almost as bad as feeling it hit, as Jean-Guy knew too well. Being lifted into the air by the impact. The shock. The pain. The terror.
That was almost as bad as seeing colleagues go down. Gunned down.
Seeing Gamache himself hit. Lifted off the ground. And collapse.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir pushed that image, that memory, away. Unable still to really face it. Face the fact he himself had done it once. Had seen Gamache through his sights and fired. Felt the report. Smelled the discharge.
Seen him rise and watched him fall.
It was the worst moment of Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s life. And it had changed his life.
His hand now closed briefly over the holster, but instead of feeling the usual reassurance, he felt a wave of revulsion.
And he knew, in his gut, it was time to leave. He’d done his bit, done his best.
Time to take a job where the only weapon was his mind. Where there were no victims, only clients. And no suspects, only competitors. Where everyone who started the day with a heartbeat ended the day with one.
Or, if not, it wasn’t his doing.
But he wasn’t there yet. Soon. Just this one, last case. Jean-Guy Beauvoir just had to get across the finish line.
* * *
Instead of answering Clara’s question, why she’d never reviewed her shows, Dominica Oddly had hauled herself out of the sofa and was wandering around the studio. Nodding as she took in the collection of stuff.
A jumble of old works. Failed and abandoned pieces sat beside finished and lauded portraits. There were stones and twisted tree roots. Feathers and sticks and assorted broken eggs, fallen from nests. It was as though Clara had left the door to her studio wide open and the wilderness had blown in.