The Nature of the Beast
She smelled his scent of sandalwood, mixed with a hint of rosewater. And for the first time, it didn’t comfort her. So overwhelming was the sorrow. So shattering was the wail.
Henri, covered in burrs and upset by the sounds, paced the dirt road, whining and looking up at them.
Reine-Marie pulled back and wiped her face with a handkerchief. Then, on seeing the gleam in Armand’s eyes, she grabbed him again. This time holding him, as he’d held her.
“I need to—” he said.
“Go,” she said. “I’m right behind you.”
She took Henri’s leash and started to run. Armand was already halfway to the corner. Sprinting, following the grief.
And then the wailing stopped.
* * *
As Armand rounded the corner, he saw Al Lepage at the bottom of the hill standing in the middle of the dirt road, staring into space.
Armand ran down the steep hill, skidding a little on the loose gravel. In the distance he saw Gabri and Olivier arriving from the opposite direction. Converging on the man.
From the underbrush he heard moaning and rhythmic rustling.
“Al?” Armand said, slowing down to stop a few paces from the large, immobile man.
Lepage gestured behind him but kept his face turned away.
Even before he looked, Gamache knew what he’d see.
Behind him he heard Reine-Marie’s footsteps slow to a stop. And then he heard her moan. As one mother looked at another’s nightmare. At every mother’s nightmare.
And Armand looked at Al. Every father’s nightmare.
In a swift, practiced glance, Armand took in the position of the bike, the ruts in the road, the broken bushes and bent grass. The placement of rocks. The stark detail imprinted itself forever in his mind.
Then Armand slid down the ditch, through the long grass and bushes that had hidden Laurent and his bike. Behind him he could hear Olivier and Gabri speaking to Al. Offering comfort.
But Laurent’s father was beyond comfort. Beyond hearing or seeing. He was senseless in a senseless world.
Evie was clinging to Laurent, her body enfolding his. Rocking him. Her mousy brown hair had escaped the elastic and fell in strands in front of her face, forming a veil. Hiding her face. Hiding his.
“Evie?” Armand whispered, kneeling beside her. “Evelyn?”
He gently, slowly, pulled back the curtain.
Gamache had been at the scene of enough accidents to know when someone was beyond help. But still he reached out and felt the boy’s cold neck.
Evie’s keening turned into a hum, and for a moment he thought it was Laurent. It was the same tune the boy had hummed two days earlier when Armand had driven him home.
Old man look at my life, twenty-four and there’s so much more.
From behind them, up the embankment and on the road, came a gasp so loud it drowned out the humming.
One gasp, then a heave. And another heave. As Al Lepage fought for breath through a throat clogged with grief.
Under the wretched sounds, Armand heard Olivier calling for an ambulance. Others had arrived, forming a semicircle around Al. Unsure what to do with such overwhelming grief.
And then Al dropped to his knees and slowly lowered his forehead to the dirt. He brought his thick arms up over his gray head and locked his hands together until he looked like a stone, a boulder in the road.
Armand turned back to Evie. The rocking had stopped. She too had petrified. She looked like one of the bodies excavated from the ruins of Pompeii, trapped forever in the moment of horror.
There was nothing Armand could do for either of them. So he did something for himself. He reached out and took Laurent’s hand, holding it in both of his, unconsciously trying to warm it. He stayed with them until the ambulance came. It arrived with haste and a siren. And drove off slowly. Silently.
A little while later Reine-Marie and Armand drew the curtains of their home, to keep out the sunshine. They unplugged the phone. They carefully took the burrs off a patient Henri. Then in the dark and quiet of their living room they sat down and wept.
* * *
“I’m sorry, patron,” said Jean-Guy. “I know how much you cared for him.”
“You didn’t have to come down,” said Gamache, turning from the front door to walk back into their home. “We could’ve spoken on the phone.”
“I wanted to bring you this personally, rather than email it.”
Gamache looked at what Jean-Guy held in his hand.
“Merci.”
Jean-Guy placed the manila file on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
“According to the local Sûreté, it was an accident. Laurent was riding his bike home, down the hill, and he hit a rut. You know what that road’s like. They figure he was going at a good clip and the impact must’ve thrown him over his handlebars and into the ditch. I’m not sure if you saw the rocks nearby.”