A Great Reckoning (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #12) - Louise Penny Page 0,134
comes from?”
He smoothed his fingers over the deep scar by his temple. Three of the cadets shook their heads, but Jacques just glared.
“There was a raid I led, on a factory. A young agent, not much older than you, was being held hostage and time was running out. We gathered as much intelligence as possible on the terrain and the hostage takers. Their number, their weapons, where they were likely to be positioned. And then we went in. Inspector Beauvoir here was critically injured, shot in the abdomen.”
The cadets turned in their seats to look back at Inspector Beauvoir.
“Three agents lost their lives,” Gamache continued. “I went to their funerals. Walked behind the caskets. Spent time with their mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and children. And then I went into therapy. Because I was broken. I still see a counselor when I feel overwhelmed. It’s human. It’s our humanity that allows us to find criminals. But it also means we care, and get hurt in places that don’t bleed. Every day, when I see this scar in the mirror,” this time he didn’t touch it, “it reminds me of the pain. Mine. But mostly theirs. But it also reminds me, every day, of the healing. Of the kindness that exists. We are introduced to Goodness every day. Even in drawing-rooms among a crowd of faults. It’s so easy to get mired in the all too obvious cruelty of the world. It’s natural. But to really heal, we need to recognize the goodness too.”
“It wasn’t our fault,” said Jacques.
“That’s not what I mean. I think you know that.”
“Why should we trust you?” demanded Jacques. “Three agents lost their lives because of you. I saw the recording. I saw what happened. And I also saw that somehow you came out of it a hero.”
Gamache’s jaw clamped shut, the muscles working.
Beauvoir stirred but said nothing.
“It’s a trick,” said Jacques, turning to the others. “He’s just trying to get us to say things that will look bad. We have to stick together. Don’t tell him anything.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything,” agreed Gamache. “Only if you want to.”
He paused, to let them think, before going on.
“When did it start?”
He asked Jacques and Huifen. Who said nothing.
Then he turned to the other two.
Nathaniel opened his mouth, but a sound from Huifen made him close it. It was Amelia who finally spoke.
“When I refused to have sex with him, he decided to fuck with me in every other way,” she said, hurrying on before she changed her mind. “I had to do it, he said, or be expelled. He said you never wanted me there, and he was the one fighting to keep me. But if I refused, he’d let you throw me out.”
Gamache listened and nodded.
“You believed him, of course. Why wouldn’t you?”
“I didn’t believe him,” said Amelia. “I knew he was a shit. And you seemed so,” she searched for the word, “kind.”
They looked at each other, in a moment of intimacy that was almost painful. Jean-Guy felt he should look away, but did not.
He knew what was in that box. And he knew what was in Gamache’s stare. And he also knew that Amelia Choquet almost certainly had no idea who she was.
And who Armand Gamache was.
“But I didn’t think you could stand up to him,” she admitted. “I couldn’t take that chance. You’d let him stay, after all.”
It wasn’t meant as a mortal blow, just as an explanation. But Jean-Guy could see the internal bleeding those words produced. Gamache was reduced to silence.
“We trusted you, sir,” said Huifen. “We thought when you arrived it would end, but it only got worse.”
Jean-Guy thought he could hear Gamache’s heart pounding in his chest, and expected it to explode at any moment.
“I made a terrible mistake,” he said. “And you all paid for it. I’ll do all I can to make it up to you.”
And then there was another sound. Completely unexpected.
Laughter.
“The Duke was right,” said Jacques. “You are weak.”
His laughter was replaced by a sneer.
“Leduc made me stronger. I arrived a kid. Spoiled, soft. But he toughened me up. Got me ready for my job as a Sûreté agent. He said nothing would scare me again, and he was right. He chose the most promising agents and made them even tougher.”
“You’re wrong,” said Huifen. “He chose the biggest threats to him. The independent-minded. Those who’d one day have the backbone to stand up to what he was teaching. Do you remember