Safe and sound.
Until the dark thing had appeared. And refused to disappear.
*
“Did you speak to him again?” the Crown attorney asked.
“And say what?” asked Chief Superintendent Gamache, in the witness box. From there he could see people in the gallery fanning themselves with sheets of paper, desperate to create even the slightest of breezes to cut the stifling heat.
“Well, you might’ve asked what he was doing there.”
“I already had. And in any other circumstance, you’d be asking me why I, a police officer, was harassing a citizen who was just standing in a park, minding his own business.”
“A masked citizen,” said the Crown.
“Again,” said Gamache. “Being masked is not a crime. It’s strange, absolutely. And I’m not going to tell you I was happy about it. I wasn’t. But there was nothing I could do.”
That brought a murmur from those listening. Some in agreement. Some feeling that they’d have acted differently. And certainly the head of the S?reté should have done something.
Gamache recognized the censure in the mumbling, and understood where it came from. But they were sitting in a courtroom now, with full knowledge of what had happened.
And still he knew there was nothing he could have done to stop it.
It was very hard to stop Death, once that Horseman had left the stables.
“What did you do that night?”
“We had dinner, stayed up and watched television, then Madame Gamache went to bed.”
“And you?”
“I poured a coffee and took it into my study.”
“To work?”
“I didn’t turn on the lights. I sat in the darkness, and watched.”
*
One dark figure watching another.
As he’d sat there, Armand Gamache had the impression something had changed.
The dark figure had moved, shifted slightly.
And was now watching him.
*
“How long did you stay there?”
“An hour, maybe more. It was difficult to see. He was a dark figure in the darkness. When I took the dogs out for a last walk, he was gone.”
“So he could have left at any time? Even shortly after you sat down. You didn’t actually see him leave?”
“No.”
“Is it possible you drifted off to sleep?”
“It’s possible, but I’m used to surveillance.”
“Watching others. You and he had that in common,” said Zalmanowitz.
The comment surprised Chief Superintendent Gamache and he raised his brows, but nodded. “I suppose so.”
“And the next morning?”
“He was back.”
CHAPTER 3
Judge Corriveau decided it was a good time to break for lunch.
The Chief Superintendent would be in the witness box for many days. Being examined and cross-examined.
It was now stifling in the courtroom, and as she left she asked the guard to turn the AC on, just for the break.
When she’d sat down that morning, Maureen Corriveau had been grateful that her first murder case as a judge would be fairly straightforward. But now she was beginning to wonder.
Not that she couldn’t follow the law involved. That was easy. Even the appearance of the robed figure in the village, while strange, was easily covered by clear laws.
What was making her perspire even more than just the overbearing heat was the inexplicable antagonism that had so quickly developed between the Crown and his own witness.
And not just any witness. Not just any arresting officer. The head of the whole damned S?reté.
The Chief Crown wasn’t just getting in the Chief Superintendent’s face, he was getting up the man’s nose. And Monsieur Gamache did not like it.
She wasn’t an experienced judge, but as a defense attorney she was an experienced judge of human actions and reactions. And nature.
There was something else happening in her courtroom, and Judge Corriveau was determined to figure it out.
*
“Is it just me, or is this trial going a bit off the rails already?” asked Jean-Guy Beauvoir as he joined his boss in the corridor of the Palais de Justice.
“Not at all,” said Gamache, wiping his face with his handkerchief. “Everything’s perfect.”
Beauvoir laughed. “And by that you mean everything’s merde.”
“Exactly. Where’s Isabelle?”
“She’s gone ahead,” said Beauvoir. “Organizing things back at the office.”
“Good.”
Isabelle Lacoste was the head of homicide, personally selected for the job by Gamache when he’d left. There’d been grumbles when the announcement of Gamache’s successor had been made. Complaints of favoritism.
They all knew the story. Gamache had hired Lacoste a few years earlier, at the very moment she was about to be let go from the S?reté. For being different. For not taking part in the bravado of crime scenes. For trying to understand suspects and not just break them.
For kneeling down beside the corpse of a recently dead woman and promising, within earshot of other agents, to help her find peace.
Agent Lacoste had been ridiculed, pilloried, subtly disciplined, and finally called into her supervisor’s office, where she came face-to-face with Chief Inspector Gamache. He’d heard of the odd young agent everyone was laughing at, and had gone there to meet her.
Instead of being thrown away, she was taken away by Gamache and placed in the most prestigious division in the S?reté du Québec. Much to the chagrin of her former colleagues.
And that rancor had only escalated when she’d risen through the ranks to become Chief Inspector. But instead of responding to the critics, as some within her division had begged her to do, Lacoste had simply gone about her job.
And that job, she knew with crystalline clarity, was indeed simple though not easy.
Find murderers.
The rest was just noise.
When the day was done, Chief Inspector Lacoste went home to her husband and young children. But she always took part of her job with her, worrying about the victims and the killers still out there. Just as she always took part of her family with her when she went to work. Worrying about what sort of community, society, they would find when they left the safety of home.
“I just got a text,” said Beauvoir. “Isabelle has everyone in the conference room. She’s ordered sandwiches.”
He seemed to give both pieces of information equal importance.
“Merci,” said Gamache.
The corridors were crowded with clerks and witnesses and spectators, as the courtrooms in the Palais de Justice emptied for the lunch break.
Every now and then there appeared a figure in black robes.
Barristers, Gamache knew. Or judges. Also hurrying to grab something to eat.
But still, a sight that should have been familiar now gave him a start.
Inspector Beauvoir said nothing else about the morning’s testimony. The frozen look of efficiency on his boss’s face told him all he needed to know about whether it was going according to plan. Or not.
Chief Superintendent Gamache’s guard was up. A tall, thick wall of civility that even his son-in-law couldn’t penetrate.