A Fatal Grace

‘I wanted to work with the Sûreté and I figured I’d have an advantage working here since I know so many people.’



Gamache watched him for a moment. An uncomfortable moment, then he turned back to look at the heat standard. Lemieux relaxed a little.



‘That must be electric. The electricity that killed Madame de Poitiers probably came from that. And yet she was so far from it when she collapsed. Could the heater have had a bad connection, and somehow Madame de Poitiers came in contact with it and managed to stagger a few paces before collapsing, I wonder? What do you think?’



‘Am I allowed to guess?’



Gamache laughed. ‘Yes, but don’t tell Inspector Beauvoir.’



‘People use generators all the time round here to make electricity. Everyone has one. I think it’s possible someone attached her to one.’



‘You mean used a jumper cable and clipped the two prongs onto her?’ He tried not to sound incredulous, but it was difficult. ‘Do you think she might have noticed?’



‘Not if she was watching the curling.’



It seemed young Agent Lemieux and Chief Inspector Gamache had different experiences with curling. Gamache liked it enough to watch the national finals on television. It was almost a Canadian requirement. But riveting it never was. And he’d certainly know if Reine-Marie suddenly started up a generator and attached a couple of huge alligator clips to his ears.



‘Any other ideas?’



Lemieux shook his head and tried to give the impression of massive thought.



Jean Guy Beauvoir had broken away from the CSI and joined Gamache, now standing near the heat lamp.



‘How was this powered, Jean Guy?’



‘Not a clue. We’ve dusted and photographed it so you can touch it if you like.’



The two men circled the lamp, alternately bowing and looking heavenward, like two monks on a very short pilgrimage.



‘Here’s the on switch.’ Gamache flipped it and, not surprisingly, nothing happened.



‘One more mystery.’ Beauvoir smiled.



‘Will it never end?’



Gamache looked toward Agent Lemieux sitting on the bleachers, blowing on his frozen hands, and writing in his notebook. The chief had asked him to put his notes in order.



‘What do you think of him?’



‘Lemieux?’ Beauvoir asked, his heart sinking. ‘He’s all right.’



‘But…’



How’d he know there was a but? Not for the first time Beauvoir hoped Gamache couldn’t actually read his mind. There was a lot of junk up there. As his grandfather used to say, ‘You don’t want to go into your head alone, mon petit. It’s a very scary place.’



The lesson had stuck. Beauvoir spent very little time looking around his own head, and even less looking into others’. He preferred facts, evidence, things he could see and touch and hold. He left the mind to braver men, like Gamache. But now he wondered whether the chief hadn’t discovered a way into his own mind. He’d find a lot of embarrassing stuff up there. More than a little pornography. A fantasy or two about Agent Isabelle Lacoste. Even a fantasy about Agent Yvette Nichol, the disastrous trainee from a year or so ago. That fantasy involved dismemberment. But if Gamache was ferreting around in Beauvoir’s mind, he’d only find respect for himself. And if he dug deep enough Gamache might eventually find the room Beauvoir tried to keep hidden even from himself. In that room waited Beauvoir’s fears, fetid and hungry. And slouching there, hidden below the fear of rejection and intimacy, sat the fear that someday Beauvoir would lose Gamache. And beside that fear, in that hidden room, sat something else. It was where Beauvoir’s love hid, curled into a tiny protective ball and rolled into the furthest corner of his mind.



‘I think he’s trying too hard. There’s something wrong. I don’t trust him.’



‘Is that because he defended the villagers who were trying to help Madame de Poitiers?’



‘Of course not,’ Beauvoir lied. He hated to be contradicted, especially by a kid. ‘He just seemed beyond his depth, and he shouldn’t be. Not for a Sûreté officer.’



‘But he’s not trained in homicide. He’s like a GP who suddenly has to operate on someone. Theoretically he should be able to do it, and he’s probably better trained than a bus conductor, but it’s not what he does. I’m not sure how well I’d do if I was suddenly transferred to narcotics or internal affairs. I suspect I’d make a few mistakes. No, I think Agent Lemieux hasn’t done badly.’