How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,128

contract files came up. Hundreds of millions of dollars in repair work for that year alone.

“Suppose this is all a lie?” he asked. “Suppose what we’re looking at was never done?”

“You mean the companies took the money but never did the repairs?” asked Thérèse. “You think Audrey Villeneuve worked for one of these companies, and realized what was happening? Maybe she was blackmailing them.”

“It’s worse than that,” said Gamache. His face was ashen. “The repair work hasn’t been done.” He paused to let that sink in. There materialized, in midair in the old schoolhouse, images. Of overpasses over the city, of tunnels under the city. Of the bridges. Huge great spans, carrying tens of thousands of cars every day.

None of it repaired, perhaps in decades. Instead, the money went into the pockets of the owners, of the union, of organized crime, and those who were entrusted to stop it. The Sûreté. Billions of dollars. Leaving kilometer after kilometer of roads and tunnels and bridges about to collapse.

* * *

“Got ’em,” said Lambert.

“Who are they?” Francoeur demanded. He’d returned to his office and was connected to the search on his own computer.

“I don’t know yet, but they got in through the Sûreté detachment in Schefferville.”

“They’re in Schefferville?”

“No. Tabarnac. They’re using the archives. The library grid.”

“Which means?”

“They could be anywhere in the province. But we have them now. It’s just a matter of time.”

“We have no more time,” said Francoeur.

“Well, you’ll have to find it.”

* * *

“Can we lose them?” Thérèse asked, and her husband shook his head.

“Then ignore them,” said Gamache. “We have to move forward. Get into the construction files. Dig as deep as you can. There’s something planned. Not just ongoing corruption, but a specific event.”

Jérôme threw away all caution and plunged into the files.

* * *

“Stop him,” yelled Francoeur into the phone.

On his computer a name had appeared, then in a flash it disappeared. But he’d seen it. And so had they.

Audrey Villeneuve.

He watched, aghast, as his screen filled with file after file. On construction. On repair contracts.

“I can’t stop him,” said Lambert. “Not until I find out where he is, where he’s coming from.”

Francoeur watched, powerless, as file after file was opened, tossed aside, and the intruder moved on. Ransacking, then racing ahead.

He looked at the clock. Almost ten in the morning. Almost there.

But so was the intruder.

And then, suddenly, the frantic online search stopped. The cursor throbbed on the screen, as though frozen there.

“Christ,” said Francoeur, his eyes wide.

* * *

Gamache and Thérèse stared at the screen. At the name that had come up. Buried at the deepest level. Below the legitimate dossiers. Below the doctored documents. Below the fixed and the fraud. Below the thick layer of merde. There was a name.

Chief Inspector Gamache turned to Jérôme Brunel, who also stared at the screen. Not with the astonishment his wife and his friend felt. But with another overwhelming emotion.

Guilt.

“You knew,” whispered Gamache, barely able to speak.

The blood had gone from Jérôme’s face and his breathing was shallow. His lips were almost white.

He knew. Had known for days. Since he’d tripped the alarm that had sent them into hiding. He’d brought this secret with him to Three Pines. Lugged the name around with him, from the schoolhouse to the bistro to bed.

“I knew.” The words were barely audible, but they filled the room.

“Jérôme?” asked Thérèse, not sure what was the greater shock. What they’d found, or what they’d found out about her husband.

“I’m sorry,” he said. With an effort he pushed his chair back and it squealed on the wooden floor, like chalk on a blackboard. “I should’ve told you.”

He looked into their faces and knew those words didn’t come close to describing what he should have done. And hadn’t. But their gaze had shifted from him back to the terminal, and the cursor blinking in front of the name.

Georges Renard. The Premier of Québec.

* * *

“They know,” said Francoeur. He was on the phone to his boss and had told him everything. “We have to move ahead with the plan. Now.”

There was a pause before Georges Renard spoke.

“We can’t move ahead,” he said at last. His voice was calm. “Your part isn’t the only element, you know. If Gamache is that close, then stop him.”

“We’re still working to find the intruder,” said Francoeur, trying to bring his own voice, and breathing, under control. To sound both persuasive and reasonable.

“The intruder isn’t critical anymore, Sylvain. He’s obviously working with Gamache. Feeding him the information. If the