Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) - Louise Penny Page 0,61

the living room in twenty minutes.

Yvette Nichol came down half an hour later. She’d decided to wear the ‘power’ outfit. Gamache didn’t look up from his reading when she walked in.

‘We have a problem.’ Gamache lowered his notebook and looked at her, cross-legged and cross-armed across from him. She was a station of the cross. ‘Actually, you have a problem. But it becomes my problem when it affects this investigation.’

‘Really, sir? And what would that be?’

‘You have a good brain, Agent.’

‘And that’s a problem?’

‘No. That’s the problem. You’re smug and you’re arrogant.’ The soft-spoken words hit her like an assault. No one had dared speak to her like this before. ‘I started off by saying you have a good brain. You showed fine deductive reasoning in the meeting this afternoon.’

Nichol sat up straighter, mollified, but alert.

‘But a good brain isn’t enough,’ continued Gamache. ‘You have to use it. And you don’t. You look, but you don’t see. You hear, but you don’t listen.’

Nichol was pretty sure she’d seen that written on a coffee cup in the traffic division. Poor Gamache lived by philosophies small enough to fit a mug.

‘I look and listen well enough to solve the case.’

‘Perhaps. We’ll see. As I said before, that was good work, and you have a good brain. But there’s something missing. Surely you can feel it. Do you ever feel lost, as though people are speaking a foreign language, as though there’s something going on which everyone else gets, but you don’t?’

Nichol hoped her face didn’t reflect her shock. How did he know?

‘The only thing I don’t get, sir, is how you can dress me down for solving a case.’

‘You lack discipline,’ he persevered, trying to get her to see. ‘For instance, before we went into the Croft home, what did I say?’

‘I can’t remember.’ Deep down a realisation began to dawn. She might actually be in trouble here.

‘I told you to listen and not to speak. And yet you spoke to Mrs Croft when she arrived in the kitchen.’

‘Well somebody had to be nice to her. You’d accused me of being unkind and that isn’t true.’ Dear lord, don’t let me cry, she thought, as the tears welled up. She put her fists into balls in her lap. ‘I am nice.’

‘And that’s what that was about? This is a murder investigation. You do as you’re told. There isn’t one set of rules for you and another set for everyone else. Understand? If you’re told to be quiet and take notes that is what you do.’ The last few words were said slowly, distinctly, coldly. He wondered whether she even knew how manipulative she was. He doubted it. ‘This morning I gave you three of the four sentences that can guide us to wisdom.’

‘You gave me all four this morning.’ Nichol seriously questioned his sanity now. He was looking at her sternly, without anger, but certainly without warmth.

‘Repeat them for me, please.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know, I need help and I forget.’

‘I forget? Where did you get that?’

‘From you this morning. You said, “I forget”.’

‘Are you seriously telling me you thought “I forget” could be a life lesson? I clearly meant that I had forgotten the last sentence. Yes, I’m sure I said, “I forget”. But think of the context. This is a perfect example of what’s wrong with that good brain of yours. You don’t use it. You don’t think. It’s not enough to hear the words.’

Here it comes, thought Nichol. Blah, blah, blah. You’ve got to listen.

‘You’ve got to listen. The words don’t just fall into some sterile bin to be regurgitated later. When Mrs Croft said there was nothing in the basement, did you notice how she spoke, the inflection, what went before, the body language, the hands and eyes? Do you remember previous investigations when suspects said the same thing?’

‘This is my first investigation,’ said Nichol, with triumph.

‘And why do you think I told you to just listen and take notes? Because you have no experience. Can you guess what the last sentence is?’

Nichol was now literally wrapped up in herself.

‘I was wrong.’ Gamache suspected he was talking to himself, though he had to try. All these things he was passing on to Nichol he’d heard as a 25-year-old rookie in homicide. Inspector Comeau had sat him down and told him all these things in one session, then never spoken of it again. It was a huge mountain of a gift, and one that Gamache continued to unwrap each