“Are you asking if she’s pregnant?”
“Of course not,” snapped the Chief. “How could you think such a thing?” He picked up the paperweight on the coffee table, put it down, then picked up a book and fiddled with it as though he’d never held one before. “That’s none of my business.” He hiked himself up in the chair. “Do you think I think only a pregnancy would make her happy? What sort of man do you think I am? What sort of father?” He glared at the younger man across from him.
Jean-Guy simply stared back, watching the uncharacteristic bluster.
“It’s all right to ask.”
“Is she?” asked Gamache, leaning forward.
“No. She had a glass of wine at dinner. Didn’t you notice? Some detective.”
“Not anymore, I’m not.” He caught Jean-Guy’s eyes and they both smiled. “I really wasn’t asking, you know,” said Gamache truthfully. “I just want her to be happy. And you too.”
“I am, patron.”
The two men looked at each other, searching for wounds only they could see. Searching for signs of healing only they would know were genuine.
“And you, sir? Are you happy?”
“I am.”
Beauvoir didn’t need to probe. Having spent his career listening to lies, he recognized the truth when he heard it.
“And how’s Isabelle doing?” asked Gamache.
“Acting Chief Inspector Lacoste?” asked Beauvoir with a smile. His protégée had taken over as head of homicide for the Sûreté, a job everyone had once assumed would be his on the Chief’s retirement. Though Jean-Guy knew it wasn’t accurate to describe what had happened as a retirement. That made it sound predictable. No one could have predicted the events that had caused the head of homicide to quit the Sûreté and buy a home in a village so small and obscure it didn’t appear on any map.
“Isabelle’s doing fine.”
“You mean Ruth Zardo ‘fine’?” asked Gamache.
“Pretty much. With a little work she’ll get there. She had you as a role model, sir.”
Ruth had called her latest slim volume of poetry I’m FINE. Only people who read it realized that FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.
Isabelle Lacoste called Gamache at least once a week, and they met for lunch in Montréal a couple times a month. Always away from Sûreté headquarters. He insisted on that, so he wouldn’t undermine the new Chief Inspector’s authority.
Lacoste had questions only the former Chief could answer. Sometimes procedural issues, but often questions that were more complex and human. About uncertainties, about insecurities. About her fears.
Gamache listened and sometimes talked about his own experiences. Reassuring her that what she felt was natural, and normal, and healthy. He’d felt all those things almost every day of his career. Not that he was a fraud, but that he was afraid. When the phone rang, or there was a knock on the door, he worried there would be a life-and-death issue he could not resolve.
“I have a new trainee, patron,” Isabelle had told him over their lunch at Le Paris earlier in the week.
“Ah, oui?”
“A young agent just out of the academy. Adam Cohen. I think you know him.”
The Chief had smiled. “Merci, Isabelle.”
Young Monsieur Cohen had flunked out on his first try and had taken a job as a guard at a penitentiary. Gamache had met Cohen months ago, when almost everyone else was attacking the Chief. Professionally. Personally. And finally, physically. But Adam Cohen had stood beside him. Hadn’t run away, despite having every reason to. Including to save his own skin.
The Chief hadn’t forgotten. And when the crisis had passed, Gamache had approached the head of the Sûreté academy and asked that Cohen be given a rare second chance. And then he’d tutored the young man, guided him. Encouraged him. And had stood at the back of the hall, during graduation, and applauded him.
Gamache had asked Isabelle to take Cohen on. To, essentially, take him under her wing. He could not imagine a better mentor for the young man.
“Agent Cohen started this morning,” said Lacoste, taking a forkful of quinoa, feta, and pomegranate salad. “I called him into the office and told him that there were four statements that lead to wisdom. I said I was only going to recite them once, and he could do with them as he wished.”
Armand Gamache lowered his fork to his plate and listened.
“I don’t know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Lacoste recited them slowly, lifting a finger to count them off.