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Technicians were putting in lines, computers, desks, chairs, boards.
It wasn’t quite chaos, but it was close kin.
“It smells like someone put Oka cheese in a sweaty sock, wrapped it in an old banana peel, then sat on it,” she said. “For ten years.”
“Oh,” said Gamache. “That.”
“I like it,” said Jean-Guy.
Armand laughed.
“Maybe there’s a less smelly place,” said Isabelle, looking around. “The bathroom for instance.”
Monsieur Viau had returned with a slip of paper on which he’d written the name and number of the man he’d met a week earlier.
“Merci,” said Lacoste. She glanced at it, then showed it to Gamache and Beauvoir.
Their faces betrayed nothing.
Édouard Tardif.
Their only surprise was that Tardif hadn’t even tried to hide his identity.
Gamache looked around. “Is there someplace quieter we can go?”
“I can put a table and chairs on the stage upstairs, if you like,” said the caretaker.
While Viau did that, the officers stepped outside into the fresh air. Isabelle took a long, long, deep breath.
Gamache squinted into the sun and pointed. “That’s where President Pascal has his office.”
It was a very old, very attractive fieldstone building with a bright red metal roof that had the ski-jump swoop particular to homes of the patrimoine québécois. It had been built centuries earlier and was almost certainly original to the property. It stood in stark contrast to the brutal gymnasium, built in the early sixties.
“He has a good view of the place,” said Lacoste.
“True, but he says he was only in his office briefly a few days ago. And he didn’t see anything.”
“Says?” asked Beauvoir. “You don’t believe him?”
“The President has a particular bent toward the make-believe, but”—Gamache considered—“I think he’s telling the truth.”
“He would have access to the gym, though,” said Beauvoir.
Gamache tried to imagine Otto Pascal sneaking over, letting himself in, and hiding a gun. But his imagination didn’t stretch that far.
The door behind them opened and Monsieur Viau said, “Ready when you are.”
Before going up onstage, Gamache ducked under the police tape and walked to the center of the room where charring marked where the firecrackers had been set off. And where the shots had come from.
He stood pretty much where Tardif had been. Why so far back? Why not right up at the stage, to guarantee a kill?
Was it possible he really didn’t want to hit her? And maybe, by standing there, Tardif thought he had a better chance of escaping.
Gamache looked at the exits. Yes. It would be a good vantage point from which to escape. Though not to succeed, if the plan really was to kill Professor Robinson.
He glanced at the floor. At the items that had been dropped in the rush to get out.
There, lying almost on top of the burned wood, was a Habs tuque. The unmistakable red knit cap with the large C, for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team, known affectionately as Les Habitants. The Habs.
