How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,67
the cheery fire and aroma of fresh baking. And the rancid name hanging foul in the air.
Goddamned Pierre Arnot.
* * *
“Dr. Bernard is typically humble about his accomplishment,” said the newsreel announcer.
On the screen now, Dr. Bernard was out of his hospital whites and in a suit and narrow black tie. His gray hair was groomed, he was clean-shaven and wore glasses with heavy black frames.
He was standing in the Ouellet living room, alone, holding a cigarette.
“Of course, the mother did most of the work.” He spoke English with a soft Québécois accent and his voice was surprisingly high, especially compared to the cavern voice of the narrator. He looked at the camera and smiled at his little joke. The viewers were meant to believe only one thing. That Dr. Bernard was the hero of the moment. A man whose immense skill was only matched by his humility. And, thought Gamache with some admiration, he was perfectly cast for the role. Charming, whimsical even. Fatherly and confident.
“I was called out in the middle of a storm. Babies seem to prefer arriving in storms.” He smiled for the camera, inviting the viewers into his confidence. “This was a big one. A five-baby blizzard.”
Gamache glanced around and saw Gilles and Gabri and even Myrna smiling back. It was involuntary, almost impossible not to like this man.
But Ruth, at the far end of the sofa, was not smiling. Still, that was hardly telling.
“It must have been almost midnight,” Dr. Bernard continued. “I’d never met the family but it was an emergency, so I took my medical bag and got here as fast as I could.”
It was left vague as to how this man, who’d never been to the Ouellet farm, might have found it in the middle of the night, in the middle of a snowstorm, in the middle of nowhere. But perhaps that was part of the miracle.
“No one told me there were five babies.” He corrected himself, and his tense. “There would be five babies. But I set the father to boiling water and sterilizing equipment and finding clean linen. Fortunately Monsieur Ouellet is used to helping his farm animals calve and drop foals. He was remarkably helpful.”
The great man sharing credit, albeit by implying Madame Ouellet was no better than one of their sows. Gamache felt his admiration, if not his respect, grow. Whoever was behind this was brilliant. But, of course, Dr. Bernard was as much a pawn as the babies and the earnest, stunned Isidore Ouellet.
Dr. Bernard looked directly at the newsreel camera, and smiled.
* * *
“The Arnot case was in all the papers,” said Thérèse, lowering her own voice. “It was a sensation. You know it already. Everyone knows it.”
It was true. Pierre Arnot was as infamous as the Ouellet Quints were famous. He was their antithesis. Where the five girls brought delight, Pierre Arnot brought shame.
If they were an act of God, Pierre Arnot was the son of the morning. The fallen angel.
And still, he haunted them. And now he was back. And Thérèse Brunel would give almost anything not to resurrect that name, that case, that time.
“Oui, oui,” said Jérôme. He rarely showed his impatience, and almost never with his wife. But he did now. “It all happened a decade or so ago. I want to hear it again, and this time what didn’t make the papers. What you kept from the public.”
“I didn’t keep anything from the public, Jérôme.” Now she was herself impatient. Her voice was clipped and cold. “I was an entry-level agent at the time. Wouldn’t it be better to ask Armand? He knew the man well.”
They both, instinctively, turned to the group gathered around the door to the television.
“Do you really think that would be wise?” asked Jérôme.
Thérèse turned back to her husband. “Perhaps not.” She stared at him for a moment, searching his eyes. “You need to tell me, Jérôme. Why are you interested in Pierre Arnot?”
Jérôme’s breathing was labored, as though he’d been carrying something too heavy over too great a distance. Finally he spoke.
“His name came up in my search.”
Thérèse Brunel felt herself suddenly light-headed. Goddamned Pierre Arnot.
“Are you kidding?” But she could see he was not. “Was that the name that tripped the alarms? If it was, you need to tell us.”
“What I need, Thérèse, is to hear more about Arnot. His background. Please. You might have been entry-level then, but you’re a superintendent now. I know you know.”