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She knew that other senior Sûreté officers had once mocked Chief Inspector Gamache. Claiming he was soft. Weak. Deluded. Because he picked up their garbage.
He brought into homicide all the litter, the agents no one else wanted. The men and women who’d been tossed aside because they were troublemakers like Beauvoir. Or eccentric, unusual, like herself.
He hired the oddballs. The unconventional. The difficult to manage and tame. He rescued them from the garbage heap, and gave them clear direction, purpose, pride. A team. A home.
He gave them a second chance.
Chief Inspector Gamache knew that things were indeed strongest where they were broken. He put shattered lives back together and, in the process, formed a strong bond, a strong unit.
Which did not mean that they, or he, were perfect. Clearly they, he, were not.
Though now that she thought about it, she realized that since the Comeau debacle, whenever Gamache did give an agent another chance, he made sure he was beside them when it was put to the test.
Should anything go wrong, Gamache, and only Gamache, would pay the price.
How had she not seen that before?
She stood up, to join him. To stand beside him. To be there should anything go wrong. But just as she did, he mounted the steps and entered the B&B.
Gaston Comeau stood up and turned to face the door.
He’d seen Gamache coming and, obeying his first instinct, had looked for someplace to hide. Then stopped himself.
I have nothing to fear. I’m the one with all the cards, all the power now. He needs me. I don’t need him.
Still, he wished he’d gone to the bathroom before this.
“Monsieur Comeau.”
“Monsieur Gamache.”
“Sit.” Gamache waved toward the sofa.
Comeau chose an armchair, so Armand simply sat on the sofa. As he did, Armand experienced a very brief disconnect. When he looked at Comeau, just for an instant, he saw the cadet. He saw both a luminous young man and a coward.
It produced a momentary frisson, a cognitive dissonance.
He knew people had different strengths. And weaknesses. He himself was afraid of heights. To the point where Reine-Marie had to put the star on the top of the Christmas tree every year, while he stood under her, arms out. In case.
Jean-Guy was afraid of enclosed spaces.
Isabelle was afraid someone would find out she was dyslexic. Her insecurity a holdover from being humiliated in grade school and later in her first Sûreté department, before homicide. It was, ironically, what made her so brilliant and valuable. Her discipline, her attention to detail. To getting it right.
But, if need be, if it would save lives, Jean-Guy would crawl through a tight tunnel.
If need be, Isabelle would read a speech in front of thousands.
If need be, Armand would scale a cliff.
Each and every person was afraid of something. Every one of Gamache’s agents was afraid of something. It was normal. It was not, Chief Inspector Gamache told them, that they needed to banish that fear. He didn’t want to be around someone who was fearless.
What made a coward wasn’t the degree of fear, it was the lack of courage.
“This is a kidnapping,” said Comeau. “I will, of course, be reporting you and speaking to my lawyer.”
He’d rehearsed this, and it came out sounding even more confident than he’d dared hope.
Gamache sighed. “I don’t really care. In fact, once this interview is over, you’re free to leave. But just know at least one person, perhaps more, has been killed. For reasons we don’t yet know. But I do know, as do you, that it has something to do with Réunion. I also know, as do you, that by now they’ve seen the security tapes, and if someone there is involved, they know we’re together.”
