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?
They could see clearly now. Finally.
“I got here first. Those boot prints were mine. When she arrived, she got out of her car. She had her duffel bag over her shoulder. I was about to give her the money when she said she was pregnant. A girl. A daughter.”
Lysette looked down.
No one moved. No one breathed.
They were there now. At the end.
Lysette mumbled something, and Homer shouted, “What’s that? I can’t hear. What’re you saying?”
“She was so happy to tell me that. About the baby. I don’t know what came over me, Homer.” Lysette’s eyes and voice both rose. “I said something I shouldn’t have. I told her I hoped her daughter was kinder to her than she’d been to her mother.”
There was silence then, except for the Bella Bella rushing beneath them.
“She was standing about where you are,” said Lysette. “She got upset. Started yelling at me that I didn’t know. It just…” she searched for words. “It just all came out, of both of us. She started screaming that it was all her mother’s fault and how dare I…” She heaved and caught her breath. “And I shouted back. Defending Kathy, even though I knew, I knew Viv was right. Oh, God.”
They were frozen in place. A tableau. Waiting for the rest.
“She came at me, and I pushed her away. And…”
And.
Homer, perhaps in shock, maybe intentionally, loosened his grip on Carl Tracey.
And Tracey, coming to, flailed as he fell to the ground.
Kicking. Twisting.
Hitting Homer in the chest and sending him backward.
Gamache jumped forward, but Beauvoir got there first.
Homer’s arms pinwheeled as he stumbled. He reached behind him. Desperate for something to grab, to stop his fall.
But there was nothing there. Just air.
His eyes wide with terror, Homer Godin began to go over the edge. Beauvoir got a handful of Homer’s coat and for a moment the momentum stopped. But Homer was too far gone.
Beauvoir, still clinging to his coat, felt an almighty yank as Homer disappeared.
Dragging Jean-Guy with him.
Time seemed to stand still.
Jean-Guy felt, for a moment, as though he were hanging in midair. Neither flying nor falling.
He’d let go of Homer. The man was gone. Vivienne’s father was gone, into the river. And Jean-Guy was turned to the bridge. Reaching for it. But it was just beyond his grasp.
He was falling.
Annie. Annie. Honoré.
And then he fell.
It all happened so fast it seemed in slow motion.
Gamache leaped off after him. Following Beauvoir over the edge.
With one hand, he grasped the post. With the other, he reached out.
Reaching, reaching.
Jean-Guy’s hand was stretching out toward him. Jean-Guy’s eyes, pleading.
Then their hands touched, and gripped.
There was a yank, as Jean-Guy’s fall was stopped. But not for long, Gamache knew. His arm and shoulder had been wrenched. Slivers from the rotten wood were pushing into his palm. Making it slippery with blood. He was losing his grip, on the post. On Jean-Guy.
Jean-Guy was staring up at him. Eyes wide with terror.
Neither spoke. Neither could.
In a moment they’d both be in the river. The freezing water closing over them. Not able to breathe for the shock, the cold, the turbulence. The roiling. Turning them over and over. Their bodies hitting rocks and tree trunks.
Until all struggle left them. All breath left them. And finally all life left them, as their bodies bobbed and thumped down the Bella Bella. Past St. Thomas’s Chapel. Past Miss Jane Neal’s home. Past Clara’s. Past the old railway station.
Under the stone bridge they’d go. And come to rest at the bend in the river.
He held Jean-Guy’s frantic eyes and saw his lips move. Annie.
And Armand could see what Jean-Guy was about to do.
“Don’t,” he rasped. “You. Dare.”
But Jean-Guy did.
Knowing Armand could not hold him and keep a grip on the bridge, Jean-Guy opened his grip. Released his hand.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir let go.
But Armand did not. He closed his hand even tighter, even as he felt Jean-Guy’s fingers squeezing through his own.
All this took just moments but felt like an eternity.
Just as his hold slipped completely, Armand twisted and heaved. Throwing Jean-Guy as far as he could. Toward the shore.
The effort pulled his hand from the bridge and turned his body onto its back, so that for a moment Armand was looking up. At the sky. Into the April sunshine.
Reine-Marie. Reine-Marie.
He heard a splash as Jean-Guy hit the water.
Then his back arched and arms spread out, and he saw the river roiling below.
Armand had managed to throw Jean-Guy clear of the worst of the torrent, but still he’d splashed down in deep water. Arms flailing, trying to get his head above the bone-chilling water, he felt the current grab him, sweeping him out into the river.
Just as he was about to go under, hands gripped him. Water washing over him, retching and coughing, he felt himself pulled to shore.
He looked up, through the brilliant sunshine and cascading water, to where he’d come from.
Afraid to see a void where Armand had been.
Eyes screwed shut, Armand prepared to hit the water, then fight for his life.
But instead he was jerked to a stop.
The blood rushed to his head, mixing with the rush of the river below, until the sounds were indistinguishable. Water into blood. Blood into water.
Then he looked up, into the smashed face of Bob Cameron. The tackle. Penalized for holding, too often and too tight.
Holding on, tight.
As Armand hung there, suspended. Between the bridge and the water.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Reine-Marie hugged him.
And he held her.
Finally letting go, Armand asked, “Is he all right?”
She nodded. “Hot bath, warm clothing. He’s in the kitchen by the fire. Annie’s on her way down. Homer?”
Armand shook his head.
Reine-Marie sighed. “God.” Then she turned and embraced Isabelle.
When they entered the kitchen, Jean-Guy got to his feet. He was clutching a blue blanket around his shoulders and looked a little, though Armand would never ever say it to his face, like Ruth. From Clara’s portrait.
Jean-Guy would not appreciate being told he looked like the old poet. Never mind the Virgin Mary.
When he’d gotten to the rocky shore, gagging and heaving, Jean-Guy had first made sure Armand was safe. Only then did he focus on the person bending over him.
Wiping the Bella Bella from his eyes, Jean-Guy looked at Isabelle Lacoste.
Through chattering teeth he managed, “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said, putting her warm coat over Jean-Guy’s shoulders. “I just arrived. He got to you first.”
She pointed to the person collapsed next to him.
Soaking and shivering, there was Carl Tracey. He’d seen Beauvoir fall and had slithered quickly down the embankment to the river.
“You?” said Beauvoir.
“Yeah, well,” mumbled Tracey through blue lips, “sometimes ya gotta do something stupid.”
Hands trembling, Jean-Guy took off the warm coat and gave it to Carl Tracey.
Safe now, warm and dry in the familiar kitchen, Jean-Guy walked over to Armand and, without a word, embraced him, then took the bandaged hand.
“Merci.”
They’d said the word together.
“Homer?” Jean-Guy asked as they subsided with groans into comfortable chairs by the woodstove.