A Great Reckoning (28 page)

“Monks did some of the first European maps,” said Charpentier. “Gathering information from mariners and merchants. They're sometimes called Beatine maps because some of the earliest were done by a monk called Beatus in the eighth century. They were for his work on the Apocalypse.”

“Not that again,” muttered Gamache.

Charpentier glanced at him, but returned to the paper on the table.

“Every map has a purpose,” he whispered. “What's yours?”

“Can you guess?”

“I can give you my educated and informed opinion from years of studying maps and tactics,” offered Charpentier.

“Fine,” said Gamache. “I'll take that instead.”

“This was done by a cartographer. A mapmaker. It's not the work of a hobbyist. Whoever drew this was probably a professional.”

“Is it the cow that gave it away, or the pyramid?” asked Gamache.

“Neither,” said Charpentier, missing the humor. “You can tell by the contours.” He pointed to the thin lines denoting elevation. Hills and valleys. “I suspect if we investigate, we'll find this is extremely accurate.”

“Not completely. The cow was rescued and the snowman would've melted a hundred years ago, and I can guarantee you there's no pyramid nearby.”

He pointed to the triangle in the upper-right quadrant.

“That's what makes this map especially interesting,” said Charpentier. “Old maps show history. Of settlement, of commerce, of conquest. This one seems to show a very personal history. It's a map meant for one person. One purpose.”

“And what is that purpose?” asked Gamache again, not expecting an answer. But this time he got one.

“I think it's an early orienteering map.”

“Orienteering? The sport?”

“But it didn't start out as that,” said Charpentier. “The soldier in the window is from the First World War, right? Orienteering was developed as a training tool to help soldiers find their way around battlefields.”

“So it is a battlefield map?” asked Gamache, losing his way.

“Of course not. There's a snowman in it with a hockey stick. This isn't Ypres. This is here. You wanted to know why this map was made?”

In the background, the fire sputtered as the last of the embers died. Henri snored on the floor at Gamache's feet, and little Gracie had stopped whimpering.

Gamache nodded.

“It was made for that young soldier as an
aide-mémoire
,” said Charpentier. “To remind him of home.”

Armand looked at the three young, playful pines.

“To bring him home,” said Charpentier.

But it hadn't worked. Not all maps, Gamache thought, were magic.

 

CHAPTER 23

Myrna sat up straight in bed. Awoken by what sounded like a gunshot. Still groggy from sleep, she listened, expecting it was just a dream.

But then there was another shot. And not a single one, but rapid fire. Unmistakable. Automatic weapons fire.

And then shouting. Screaming.

Tossing the duvet aside, she ran to the door of her bedroom and opened it. But even as she did, her dream state fell away and she knew what she'd find.

Jacques Laurin sat at the laptop, his face lit only by the flickering images on the screen.

It was two in the morning and Jacques had finally followed her advice and googled “Armand Gamache.”

And the link to this video had come up.

More shouts, commands. Controlled, forceful. The voice cut through any panic, cut through the gunfire, as the Sûreté agents moved deeper and deeper into the abandoned factory. Pushing the gunmen ahead of them. Engaging them.

But the gunmen were everywhere, swarming the agents.

It looked to be an ambush, a slaughter.

But still, on the man's urging, by voice and swift, decisive hand signals, they moved forward.

*   *   *

Huifen Cloutier sat up in bed.

This was the first quiet time she'd had since the death of Professor Leduc. The murder of the Duke.

That's what he'd be remembered for, she knew. The man would be erased by the murder. Serge Leduc no longer existed. He'd never lived. All he'd done was died.

She pulled the map onto her lap, and stared at it.

*   *   *

Cadet Laurin's face grew paler and paler.

He recognized this. It was their tactical exercise, in their mocked-up factory. The one where he'd been killed twice and taken hostage once. The one they never won.

But this was no exercise. It was real.

The video had been edited from the cameras the agents wore. The point of view changed from one agent to another. It was jerky, shaky. As they ran. And crouched behind concrete pillars that exploded as bullets hit.

But it was clear. As were the looks on the agents' faces. Determined. Resolute. As they moved forward. Even as they fell.

*   *   *

Amelia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

The duvet was warm around her as the cold, fresh air came in through the open window. The sheets smelled faintly of lavender. Not enough to be off-putting. Just enough to be calming.

And slowly, slowly, her mind slowed. Stopped its whirring. Stopped its worrying. She breathed in the lavender, and breathed out her anxiety.

The Duke was dead. Resting in peace, and now, finally, so could she.

*   *   *

The sounds were even more jarring than the images. Jacques flinched as the bullets struck all around. The walls, the floors. The agents. It was so much louder than in the exercise at the academy. His mind had gone numb, overwhelmed by the din, the chaos, the shouts and explosions, the screams of pain. His hands gripped the arms of the chair, holding tight.

All his senses were shutting down.

On the screen, an officer in tactical gear was moving forward. Then he suddenly stopped. And stood straight up. And in a grotesque parody of a ballet move, he spun gracefully. And fell.

A voice called, “Jean-Guy.”

Jacques watched as Professor Beauvoir was dragged to safety. Then the camera switched and he saw Commander Gamache, completely focused. Quickly assessing the wounded man, as gunfire sounded, pounded, around them.

Beauvoir stared up at Gamache as he tried to stanch the bleeding. Beauvoir was silent but his eyes were wide with terror. Pleading.

“I have to go,” said Gamache, putting a pressure bandage in the younger man's hands and holding it to the wound. Gamache paused for a moment. Then leaning forward, he kissed him gently on the forehead.

*   *   *

Ruth Zardo stood at the threshold and stared at the boy in the bed.

He slept soundly, deeply. She listened to the rhythm of his breathing. Then she closed the door and went downstairs.

The old poet didn't sleep much anymore. Didn't seem to need it. What she needed was time. She could see the shore ahead. A distance away still, she thought. But visible now.

The boy had left his copy of the map in the kitchen. Ruth made a cup of chamomile and sat in her usual seat next to Rosa, who was asleep in her rag bed beside the oven.

Rosa muttered in her sleep, exhaling, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Ruth stared at the map. She'd thought maybe she'd be moved to write a poem. To purge her feelings onto paper. As the person who'd made this map had so obviously done.

But now she felt there was no need. The map said it all.

In the fine contours. The roads and rivers. The stranded cow, the elated snowman.

The three small but vibrant pines.

And the smears. Of mud. Or blood.

Yes, the map said it all.

She looked up. Heavenward, but not all the way to the heavens. Her thoughts stopped at the second floor of her home. Where a young man, who just that morning had found one of his professors murdered, lay dead to the world.

A thing like that would scar a person. Invade his waking and sleeping mind.

And yet young Nathaniel slept, apparently undisturbed by what had happened.

*   *   *

Jacques Laurin's heart pounded in his chest, his temples, his throat.

The gunmen were dead. And Sûreté agents were also dead or wounded. But, incredibly, a few had escaped unhurt. Because of the calm and the tactics, on the fly, of their commander. Who'd led them through the factory and beaten the unbeatable scenario and now lay unconscious on the concrete floor. Paramedics working on him. Blood seeping from his head.

An agent, a woman, knelt beside him, holding his bloody hand.

Cadet Laurin turned off the laptop and pushed away from the desk.

 

CHAPTER 24

“Café?”

Mayor Florent tipped the carafe toward the two investigators.

Paul Gélinas, out of his RCMP uniform and into civilian clothing, shook his head but Isabelle Lacoste nodded.

The mayor's office in the town hall was infused with the scent of stale and slightly burnt coffee. She suspected the glass pot, stained with decades of caffeine, sat on the hotplate all day. If nothing else, this man could give his constituents a coffee.

At seven thirty on a cold March morning, it was no mean offering.

He added milk and sugar, at her request, and handed Lacoste the mug.

This was not an office made to impress. Once, perhaps, but not anymore. The laminate wood paneling on the walls was coming loose in spots and there was more than one dark mark on the acoustic tiles of the ceiling. The carpet had seen better days, and God only knew what else it had seen.

And yet, for all that, the room was cheerful, with mismatched fabric on the chairs and a desk recycled from some old convent school, Lacoste suspected. The walls were crammed with photographs of local sports teams, smiling and holding up pennants proclaiming they'd come in third, or second, or fifth in some tournament.

Among the young athletes was the mayor. Beaming proudly from each picture.

Some of the photos were quite faded, and as they progressed around the office walls, the mayor had grown more and more rotund, as his hair had thinned. And grayed.

Many of these girls and boys would have children of their own now.

On Mayor Florent's desk were smaller framed pictures of his own family. Children, grandchildren. Hugging dogs and cats and a horse.

The mayor took his seat and leaned toward them, a look of concern on his face.

He was not at all what Chief Inspector Lacoste had expected. Given Monsieur Gamache's description, she was prepared to meet some wiry whip of a man, worn thin by disappointment and worry and the north wind.

But as she looked into those mild, expectant eyes, the eyes of her grandfather, she realized that Monsieur Gamache had never described him physically, but had only said the mayor had a keen sense of right and wrong. And held on to resentments.

She had filled in the rest.

He'd also said he liked the man. And Lacoste could see why. She liked him too. Beside her, the RCMP officer had relaxed and crossed his legs.

Mayor Florent might very well have murdered Serge Leduc, but he did not seem a threat to anyone else.

Isabelle Lacoste decided to take a tack she rarely used.

“Did you kill Serge Leduc, Your Honor?”

Mostly because it was almost never successful.

His bushy gray eyebrows rose in surprise, and Deputy Commissioner Gélinas turned in his seat to stare at her.

Then the mayor laughed. Not long, not loud, but with what seemed genuine amusement.

“Oh my dear, I can understand why you'd think that.”

Not many could get away with calling Chief Inspector Lacoste “my dear,” but she felt absolutely no annoyance with him. It was so obviously said without wanting to belittle her.

“I'd think that too,” he went on. “If I was you. I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. You weren't joking. A man's been killed, and I should be sad. Upset. But I'm not.”

The mayor interlocked his fingers. His jovial eyes grew sharp.

“I despised Serge Leduc. If I was ever going to commit murder, it would be him. If anyone deserved to be killed, it was him. I go to church every Sunday. Sometimes I go there on weekdays, to pray for a citizen in trouble or distress. And I always pray for Serge Leduc.”

“For his soul,” said Gélinas.

“For his death.”

“You hated him that much?” Lacoste asked.

Mayor Florent leaned back in his chair and was quiet for a moment, and in the silence Isabelle Lacoste thought she heard the distant shouts and happy screams of children at play.

“You're here because you know the story. Because Commander Gamache has told you what happened with your academy.”

Lacoste was about to say it wasn't her academy, but decided to let it pass. She understood what he meant.

“I won't repeat the details then, but I will tell you that this is a small community. We don't have much. Our wealth is our children. We worked for years to raise money to build them a proper place to play. Where they could have social clubs and do sports all year round. So that they could grow up strong and healthy. And then they'd almost certainly move away. There isn't much here anymore for young people. But we could give them their childhoods. And send them into the world sturdy and happy. Serge Leduc stole all that. Could I have killed him? Yes. Did I? No.”

But as he spoke, he throbbed. With rage suppressed.

Here was a bomb, Lacoste knew. Wrapped in flesh. Human, certainly. But that only made him more likely to explode.

“I understand Commander Gamache and you have worked out a plan where the local children can use the academy's facilities,” said Lacoste. “Surely that helps.”

“You think?”

The mayor stared at her with shrewd eyes, and she stared back with an equally penetrating gaze.

“Where were you two nights ago, sir?”

He pulled his agenda toward him and turned back a page.

“I had a Lion's Club dinner that night. It ended at about nine.” He looked up at them and smiled again. “We're all getting quite old. Nine is about as late as we can manage.”