The Madness of Crowds

“Yes. The idea wasn’t to spy on him, just to make sure he and his friends were safe. So I looked for him, but didn’t follow him.”

“And once they came inside?”

“He was safe. I was off duty and could enjoy myself. Sort of. It sure felt strange. Not the best party atmosphere. Between Madame Daoud being so unpleasant and then that professor who’s going around saying sick people should be put down, well…”

Well. Well, thought Gamache. How succinctly she’d just put it. He turned to the young man. “What did you do with the stick?”

“The one I touched her with?”

“Yes.”

“I threw it into the fire. Was that wrong?”

“Non, I don’t think it would’ve helped.” Then he thought of something. “The fire was still burning when you threw it in?”

“Yes.”

“Now listen closely.” Gamache leaned toward the boy. “Was it just embers, or were there flames?”

Taken aback by the cop’s intensity, Jacques thought before he answered. “Definitely flames.”

Gamache leaned back and nodded. “Merci.”

So the last time one of them went for beer or to pee, before Jacques found the body, was about ten minutes to midnight. And there was no body.

And at quarter past midnight, the alarm had been raised.

That meant the window for the murder had become a single pane. There were roughly twenty-five minutes between no body and the body.

After a few more interviews, they looked up to see Haniya Daoud standing at the door.

“I’m next.”

Gamache and Beauvoir suspected that might not be true, but chose the better part of valor. Jean-Guy indicated the sofa, and when she sat down, Gamache asked, “Are you all right?”

“Sorry?”

“This is upsetting for everyone, but you’ve been through more than most. A murder can trigger all sorts of things. I just want to know how you are.”

She stared at him as though he’d said something not just nonsensical but idiotic.

“Of course I’m all right. This’s nothing. A quiet evening in Darfur.”

But he didn’t believe it.

When those first fireworks had gone off, the three of them had all flinched. Ducking into a world no one else knew existed. One where it was reasonable to mistake a car backfire, a large book falling to the floor. Firecrackers. For gunshots.

Their nerves had been both shattered and strengthened by their experiences.

“Things are strongest where they’re broken,” he said to her.

And while the words seemed to come out of nowhere, he could see she understood.

He could also see that the scars on her face went far deeper than her skin.

She smiled. “I’m not quite as broken as you seem to think.” She studied him. “You’re trying to work out if I killed that woman, thinking she was Professor Robinson. Let me save you some time. I did not.”

“But you would have liked to,” said Gamache. “You told me as much the other night in the bistro.”

“I’m hardly alone. Millions feel as I do.”

“True, millions are appalled. But a growing number, it seems, are beginning to agree with her. Including people in a position to implement her suggestions. Unless, of course, she doesn’t make the meeting.”

“So you’re saying I decided to stop her from getting to meetings I knew nothing about?”

“You could have heard about her upcoming meeting with the Premier. It wasn’t a secret. That could have been the impetus.”

“A lot of could-haves, Chief Inspector. That’s a pretty shaky house you’re building. It’ll never stand the monsoons.”

“Then let’s move on to solid facts. Not only did you make it clear that you thought I should have let her be gunned down, you said, ‘Best to get out of my way.’”

“Now, while I think you’re a moral coward, I did believe, until now, that you were at least intelligent. Do you really think, if I had plans to kill Professor Robinson, that I’d challenge you to watch? And, as though that wasn’t stupid enough, I chose to do it at a party with fifty people present, then kill the wrong person?”

“Mistakes happen,” said Gamache. “It was dark, cold, the killer must have been in a hurry—”

“I don’t make mistakes,” she said. “Not when human lives are at stake. It’s true, I would have little trouble killing Professor Robinson, but I wouldn’t make such a shit show of it. That is the expression, no? Shit show, shit storm. You seem to like your merde around here.”

She leaned forward, and Gamache was reminded, yet again, how very young she was. Only in her early twenties. In which case, unlike Stephen, the threat of life in prison was very real.

But he suspected she was already in prison. Those scars her bars.

“I didn’t kill Madame Sch—whatever. On purpose or by mistake.”

“Schneider. And forgive me if I don’t take your word for it. I can’t remember seeing you at midnight. Nor did I see you at the fireworks.”

“You didn’t see me because you didn’t look.”

The words, said so plainly, held a plain truth.

No one, including himself, had turned to the Hero of the Sudan, the possible next recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, to wish her bonne année. To wish her health and happiness and long life.