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Armand sat on the side of one bed, while Jean-Guy sat on the other. Facing each other.
“I was afraid if I told you I had anything to do with the job offer, that you’d think I wanted you to leave the Sûreté. That it was some sort of veiled message that you weren’t up to the job of Chief Inspector.”
“Was it?”
“Are you really asking that?” said Gamache. “You were a gifted Chief Inspector. A natural leader. At the time I believed I’d be fired, maybe even put on trial. My one consolation was that the homicide department was in good hands. Your hands. But the brutality of the situation weighed heavily on both of us. I could retire. I’d had a full life. A good life. Reine-Marie and I would live quietly in the country.
“You’re just beginning. You and your family. I wanted to give you a choice. That’s all. But I was wrong not to discuss it with you before approaching Stephen. I am sorry.”
“Is Stephen on the board of GHS?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. When I asked him to find you a job offer in private industry, I assumed it would be in Québec. Not Paris. And not specifically GHS.”
Jean-Guy nodded, rocking back and forth slightly on the bed.
“The offer was legitimate,” said Armand, reading his thoughts. “GHS would never have hired you for that position if they hadn’t known you were perfect for it.”
“Did Stephen approach Carole Gossette, my boss?”
“I honestly have no idea.” Armand hesitated before going on. “You leaving the Sûreté was painful for me. You and your family leaving Québec broke my heart.”
Jean-Guy nodded. He knew the truth of that.
“Still,” Armand went on, “it was a terrible mistake, not asking if you wanted the option to leave the service.”
His use of that word reminded Jean-Guy that Gamache almost never called the Sûreté a force. He called it a service.
Jean-Guy took a deep breath, then nodded.
Armand reached into his pocket and brought out the nickels. He looked at them, then handed them to Jean-Guy.
“Compensation?” asked Jean-Guy.
Armand gave a short laugh. “Non. If this really is Stephen’s good-luck charm, I know he’d want you to have it.”
Jean-Guy closed his fist around the fused coins. “We might need it.” He looked his father-in-law in the eyes. “Merci.”
He made to get up, but Armand motioned him back down.
“There is something else.”
“Oui?”
“When Reine-Marie and I found the body, we noticed a scent in the air. A man’s cologne. That’s how we knew someone was still in Stephen’s apartment.”
“It wasn’t the dead man’s or Stephen’s?”
“No. This was fresh.”
“What did it smell like?” asked Jean-Guy.
When Gamache paused, Beauvoir assumed it was to think about how best to describe a scent. But he was wrong.
Gamache’s answer not only surprised Beauvoir, it changed everything.
“It smelled like Claude Dussault.”
CHAPTER 12
