A Better Man
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #15
- Год: 2019
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781466873711
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «A Better Man». Краткое содержание книги:
It's Gamache's first day back as head of the homicide department, a job he temporarily shares with his previous second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Floodwaters are rising across the province. In the middle of the turmoil, a father approaches Gamache, pleading for help in finding his daughter.
As crisis piles upon crisis, Gamache tries to hold off the encroaching chaos, and realizes the search for Vivienne Godin should be abandoned. But with a daughter of his own, he finds himself developing a profound, and perhaps unwise, empathy for her distraught father.
Increasingly hounded by the question, how would you feel..., he resumes the search.
As the rivers rise, and the social media onslaught against Gamache becomes crueler, a body is discovered. And in the tumult, mistakes are made.
In the next novel in this constantly surprising series that deepens and darkens as it evolves (The New York Times Book Review), Gamache must face a horrific possibility, and a burning question.
What would you do if your child's killer walked free?
“I’m sorry,” she said, stopping at the door. “Is something wrong?”
“Non,” said Isabelle. “We were just chatting.”
Though that was clearly not true.
“I was going to make breakfast,” said Reine-Marie, going to the fridge. “Why don’t you continue your chat in the study?”
Isabelle Lacoste smiled and nodded. “Merci. I think we will.”
“Where’s Armand?”
“Out for a walk. He took the dogs. Is Monsieur Godin still asleep?”
“Yes,” said Reine-Marie. “I looked in but didn’t want to disturb him. Is Jean-Guy with Armand?”
“Non,” came the familiar voice.
Jean-Guy had gone to the study to print something and now returned to the kitchen holding the papers. “But I do need to find him. Be back soon. Don’t let Isabelle eat everything. You know what she’s like.”
Reine-Marie smiled and watched him go.
The home settled. The bacon sizzled and popped. The coffee perked. The fire in the woodstove roiled as the women went into the study to continue whatever they were talking about, and Jean-Guy left to find Armand.
A mist was rising from the thinning layer of snow. The air warmer now than the ground. Giving the pretty village an otherworldly feel. Except for the mud.
Beauvoir’s boots made a thucking sound as he walked quickly toward the bridge and the sandbags still in place against a threat no longer there.
The three huge pines, around which all life in the village revolved, stood in front of him now. Partly obscured by the mist. As though they existed in both this world and the other.
Whenever he and Annie visited with Honoré, Jean-Guy would bring him to the green to play. Sometimes, as he sat on the bench and watched his son, Jean-Guy had the oddest feeling that the little boy was playing not among the trees but with them.
He was almost at the bridge on his way to the incident room, where he expected Gamache had gone, when he noticed movement up on the ridge of the hill out of town.
Gamache and Cameron were standing, facing each other. It looked natural enough. But it was the posture of the dogs that alerted Beauvoir that this was not a pleasant discussion. For any of them.
And he knew what they must be talking about.
Picking up his pace, thuck, thuck, thuck, he headed up there. As he approached, he heard Cameron shout, “No. Never.”
He saw Gamache get right up into Cameron’s face.
While he couldn’t hear what the Chief Inspector said, he could hear Cameron’s reply. Another “No” blasted.
Cameron raised his hands.
Henri crouched.
Gracie barked.
And Armand braced.
When the blow landed, he staggered back.
Beauvoir shouted.
But neither heard.
They continued to stare. Cameron at the man accusing him of murder. Gamache at a man who could so easily be provoked into an act which, under different circumstances, would prove fatal.
“Are you going to lay charges?” Beauvoir asked as he and Gamache walked a dozen paces away from Agent Cameron.
Gamache looked behind him.
Cameron wasn’t watching them. Instead, he gazed, dazed, out over the village.
Gamache wondered what he saw. The forests and mountains, the shifting reds and purples of the sunrise, with the mist rising pink-tinged below?
Did he see Vivienne? As she hung between the bridge and the water.
Cameron’s huge hands were grasping the back of the bench. So that the words etched there now read “SURPRISED BY—”
The joy had disappeared.
“For assault? Non,” said Gamache. “We’re after bigger fish.”
“A whale, even?” asked Beauvoir. “Look at this.”
Gamache took the paper, then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and brought out his reading glasses. But they were broken.
Wordlessly, he replaced them and squinted to read the printout.
He made a guttural noise that sounded like “Huh.” Then his eyes focused on the man in front of him. “What do you think it means?”
“I have an idea, but I think we need to ask him.”
Homer Godin looked down at the printout.
He’d stared at it for a while, clearly trying to focus his mind.
They’d left Cloutier and Cameron in the kitchen while the senior officers met with Homer in Gamache’s study.
“Viv’s bank statements,” he finally said, raising his eyes to Lacoste, then over to Beauvoir.
“Yes. They show that every month since last July you transferred two thousand dollars into her account.”
“True.”
“Why?”
“She asked for it. Said they needed it to pay their mortgage. I didn’t want her to be homeless.”
“And yet, it just sat there, accumulating,” said Beauvoir. “There’s eighteen thousand dollars in that account.”
Homer shook his head. “Maybe she didn’t need it after all.”
“Then why did she keep taking it?” asked Beauvoir. When Homer didn’t answer, Jean-Guy went on. “I think she was saving up. To leave Tracey. I think that was her plan for a long time.”
“Could be,” said Homer.
“I think with a baby on the way, she decided now was the time to get out and start a new life, with the money you’d given her.”
“I hope so.” Homer seemed confused now. As though what Beauvoir described were still possible.
Beauvoir looked over at Gamache, then to Lacoste, all thinking the same thing.
Homer Godin was not a rich man. He’d labored all his life. Had a modest home he’d paid off. Lived a modest life in a small Québec town.
These sorts of sums would almost certainly clean him out. And then some.
He seemed to follow their thoughts. “She said she’d pay me back. She’d get a job when she could. What would you do?”
And there was that question again. Variations on the theme that had haunted them since this case had begun. How would they feel, if…?
What would they do, if…?
If Honoré came to his parents, in distress, and needed more money than they had?
If Annie went to her parents…?
If money would solve the problem?
They’d pay it. And more. To save their child? They’d give all they had. And more.
As Homer had.
“She called you on Saturday morning, telling you she was finally going to leave Tracey, is that right?” said Lacoste.
“Yes.”
“Think carefully, Monsieur Godin,” said Lacoste. “Did she say she was coming to you or going to someone else?”
“Me. Who else was there?”
“Tell us about your relationship with Lysette Cloutier,” said Lacoste.
Homer was shaking his head. “Vivienne wouldn’t go to Lysette. They barely knew each other.”
“No, I don’t mean that,” said Lacoste. “Your relationship with her.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“She told us.”
“She shouldn’t have. It was private.”
“She didn’t want to,” said Gamache. “She had to be pushed, hard. But she finally told us.”
“What did she say?”
“I think you need to tell us what happened,” said Beauvoir.
Homer raised his head and looked stubborn. Then relented. “Doesn’t much matter. We tried, and it didn’t work.”
“Why didn’t it work?” asked Gamache.
“It just didn’t. I thought of her as a friend. She wanted more, but I didn’t. Couldn’t.”
“Did you talk to Vivienne about it?” asked Lacoste.
Homer looked surprised. “About Lysette? No, why would I? There was nothing to talk about.”
Beauvoir looked at Gamache, then to Lacoste.