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“I am. As far as I know, he’d never visited a lake in his life. If he didn’t have asphalt under his feet, he got nervous. His family?”
“Has been told.” Lacoste studied the older woman, who had once held so much power, and was now just another former civil servant living on a pension.
And she made up her mind.
“Chief Inspector Gamache and I went to Ottawa to talk to the Prime Minister. To warn him. Just like you did, when you went there with Charles Langlois not long before he was killed.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“No. At least, not now. We needed it to be secret at the time so that Lauzon wouldn’t find out. Even then I had my suspicions.”
“Did you pass them on to the PM?”
“About his Deputy PM? Not in so many words, but he’s a smart man, he probably figured it out. After all, why would the Deputy PM’s Chief of Staff go to him, and not Lauzon himself?”
“And Woodford didn’t ask about Lauzon?”
“No. And even if he had, we had no proof of anything. It was a mutually frustrating meeting.”
Not unlike the one they’d had with the PM, thought Lacoste.
“Still, I think he knew. Woodford’s often underestimated,” Caron was saying. “I think he likes it that way. And I think it’s why the electorate like him. No chaos, no drama. He’s like the college prof you always wanted. Someone who’d round your grade up.”
It was, thought Lacoste, an interesting character study.
What had made Jeanne Caron so effective as the Deputy PM’s Chief of Staff, and chief fixer, was her ability to accurately read people. And, as a result, see their weaknesses, their disappointments, their dreams and fantasies and fragile delusions.
It meant she could manipulate them. And did. And, if necessary, break them. And did. The only one she’d gotten wrong was Gamache, when she thought, more than a decade ago, that she could break him. That mistake, that effort, had repercussions to this day.
“Thank you for telling me in person about Frederick. He was a little shit, but he was my little shit. I liked him.” She nodded, and the stuffing seemed to go out of her.
“That’s not the only reason I asked you here. Why didn’t you tell us about Frederick’s friendship with Charles Langlois?”
“It didn’t seem to matter. And they weren’t really friends. They just met up again recently. Does it matter?”
Lacoste’s phone dinged with a message from the Chief. She glanced down. “Excusez-moi.”
While Caron watched, slightly annoyed by the interruption, Isabelle scrolled through the photos the Chief had sent. Her brows had drawn together, then she shot off a reply. Hesitating for a moment, she decided to close her phone and put it on the table between them.
“You met Charles on one of your official visits to The Mission in Montréal.”
Caron nodded and Isabelle continued.
“With Frederick’s help you recruited him as a biologist, to look into your growing suspicion that your boss, Lauzon, was into something even worse than his normal payoffs and intimidation. Something to do with water security and Montréal.”
“Yes, yes. I told you that at the time, and it came out in the trials.”
“But without consulting you, Charles decided to volunteer at a nonprofit environmental group in Montréal, Action Québec Bleu, whose mandate is water security. Why didn’t he tell you about that?”
“I guess because it was just a personal interest. That little group had nothing to do with the attacks. Why’re you asking now? That’s all in the past.”
“As part of his work with AQB, he visited some remote lakes and took water samples.”
“So?” But Jeanne Caron’s clever mind did not let her down. “Lakes? One in particular?” When Lacoste was silent, she took the next leap. “Was that where Frederick’s body was found? He was murdered at a lake Charles Langlois had visited?” It was said almost to herself. “So there must be something important about that lake.”
“Your boss was paid tens of millions by major American corporations,” said Lacoste, “to give them controlling interest in some Canadian primary industries. Logging. Mining. It was illegal. You helped with the deals and to launder that money.”
