How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,80

pop of the long-dry wood and he could smell the slight sweet scent of the smoke. Soon, if Thérèse Brunel tended it, the stove would be radiating heat and they could remove their coats and hats and mitts. But not just yet. The winter had taken hold of the old building and wouldn’t be easily evicted.

Gamache walked over to Thérèse.

“Can I help?”

She shoved another log in and poked it as embers flew up.

“You all right?” he asked.

She took her eyes off the stove and glared across the room. Jérôme was sitting at the desk, organizing a bank of monitors and keyboards and slim metal boxes. Agent Nichol’s bottom could be seen under the desk, as she made connections.

Her eyes flashed back to Gamache.

“No, I’m not all right. This is crazy, Armand,” Thérèse said under her breath. “Even if she doesn’t work for Francoeur, she’s unstable. You know that. She lies, she manipulates. She used to work for you and you fired her.”

“I transferred her, to that basement.”

“You should have fired her.”

“For what? Being arrogant and rude? There’d barely be any Sûreté agents left if that was a dismissible offense. Yes, she’s a piece of work, but look at her.”

They both looked over. All they could see was her bottom, in the air, like a terrier burying a bone.

“Well, maybe not the best moment to make a judgment,” said Gamache with a smile, but Thérèse saw nothing amusing. “I put her in the basement, monitoring communications, because I wanted her to learn how to listen.”

“And did it work?”

“Not perfectly,” he admitted. “But something else happened.” He looked over at Agent Nichol again. Now she was seated, cross-legged, under the desk, carefully dissecting a mass of cables. Disheveled, unkempt, in clothes that didn’t quite fit. The sweater was pilled and too tight, the jeans a bad cut for her body, her hair had a slightly greasy look. But her focus was intense.

“In the hours and hours of sitting there listening, Agent Nichol discovered a knack for communication,” Gamache continued. “Not verbal, but electronic. She spent hours and hours refining techniques for gathering information.”

“Spying.” Thérèse refined what he meant. “Hacking. You do know you’re making an argument for her collaborating with Francoeur.”

“Oui,” he said. “We’ll see. The Cyber Crimes division suspected her, you know.”

“What happened?”

“They rejected her for being unstable. I don’t believe Francoeur would work with someone he couldn’t control.”

“And so you brought her here?”

“Not as a witty companion, but because of that.”

He tipped a piece of wood in Nichol’s direction and Superintendent Brunel followed it. And saw, again, the awkward young agent sitting under the desk. Quietly, intently, turning the chaos of wires and cables and boxes into orderly connections.

Thérèse turned back to Gamache, her eyes unyielding. “Agent Yvette Nichol may be good at her job, but the question I have, and the one you seem to have failed to ask, is what is her job? Her real job?”

Chief Inspector Gamache had no answer for that.

“We both know she’s probably working for Francoeur. He gave the order and she did it. Found the video, edited it, and released it. To spite you. You’re not universally loved, you know.”

Gamache nodded. “I’m getting that impression.”

Again, Thérèse failed to smile. “The very qualities you see in her, Francoeur also sees. With one exception.” Superintendent Brunel leaned closer to the Chief Inspector and lowered her voice. He could smell her sophisticated eau de toilette, and the slight scent of mint on her breath. “He knows she’s a sociopath. Without conscience. She’ll do anything, if it amuses her. Or hurts someone else. Especially you. Sylvain Francoeur sees that. Cultivates that. Uses that. And what do you see?”

They both looked over at the pale young woman holding a cable up, with much the same expression as Ruth had when she held the flame the night before.

“You see another lost soul to be saved. You made your decision, you brought her here, without consulting us. Unilaterally. Your hubris has very likely cost us…”

Thérèse Brunel didn’t finish that sentence. She didn’t have to. They both knew what the price might be.

She slammed down the wrought-iron cover of the woodstove with such force the clank made Yvette Nichol jump and hit her head on the underside of the desk.

A series of filth exploded from under the teacher’s desk, such as the little schoolhouse had probably never heard before.

But Thérèse didn’t hear it. Neither did Gamache. The Superintendent had left the little building, slamming the door in Gamache’s face as he