A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny [85]
“Does it work, do you think?” Beauvoir asked.
It took a moment for the Chief to figure out what his Inspector was talking about.
“AA?”
Beauvoir nodded. “Seems pretty self-indulgent to me. And why would spilling their secrets stop them from drinking? Wouldn’t it be better to just forget instead of dredging all that stuff up? And none of these people are trained. That Suzanne’s a mess. You can’t tell me she’s much help to anyone.”
The Chief stared at his haggard deputy. “I think AA works because no one, no matter how well-meaning, understands what an experience is like except someone who’s been through the same thing,” Gamache said, quietly. He was careful not to lean forward, not to get into his Inspector’s space. “Like the factory. The raid. No one knows what it was like except those of us who were there. The therapists help, a lot. But it’s not the same as talking to one of us.” Gamache looked at Beauvoir. Who seemed to be collapsing into himself. “Do you often think about what happened in the factory?”
Now it was Beauvoir’s turn to pause. “Sometimes.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“What good would it do? I’ve already told the investigators, the therapists. You and I’ve been over it. I think it’s time to stop talking about it and just get on with it, don’t you?”
Gamache cocked his head to one side and examined Jean Guy. “No, I don’t. I think we need to keep talking until it’s all out, until there’s no unfinished business.”
“What happened in the factory’s over,” snapped Beauvoir, then restrained himself. “I’m sorry. I just think it’s self-indulgent. I just want to get on with my life. The only unfinished business, the only thing still bothering me, if you really want to know, is who leaked the video of the raid. How’d it get onto the Internet?”
“The internal investigation said it was a hacker.”
“I know. I read the report. But you don’t really believe it, do you?”
“I have no choice,” said Gamache. “And neither do you.”
There was no mistaking the warning in the Chief’s voice. A warning Beauvoir chose not to hear, or to heed.
“It wasn’t a hacker,” he said. “No one even knows those tapes exist except other Sûreté officers. A hacker didn’t pirate that recording.”
“That’s enough, Jean Guy.” They’d been down this road before. The video of the raid on the factory had been uploaded onto the Internet, where it had gone viral. Millions around the world had watched the edited video.
Seen what had happened.
To them. And to others. Millions had watched as though it was a TV show. Entertainment.
The Sûreté, after months of investigation, had concluded it was a hacker.
“Why didn’t they find the guy?” Beauvoir persisted. “We have an entire department that only investigates cyber crime. And they couldn’t find an asshole who, by their own report, just got lucky?”
“Let it be, Jean Guy,” said Gamache, sternly.
“We have to find the truth, sir,” said Beauvoir, leaning forward.
“We know the truth,” said Gamache. “What we have to do is learn to live with it.”
“You’re not going to look further? You’re just going to accept it?”
“I am. And so are you. Promise me, Jean Guy. This is someone else’s problem. Not ours.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment until Beauvoir gave one curt nod.
“Bon,” said Gamache, emptying his glass and walking with it into the kitchen. “Time to go. We need to be back in Three Pines early.”
Armand Gamache said good night and walked slowly through the night streets. It was chilly and he was glad for his coat. He’d planned to wave down a cab, but found himself walking all the way up Ste-Urbain to avenue Laurier.
And as he walked he thought about AA, and Lillian, and Suzanne. About the Chief Justice. About the artists and dealers, asleep in their beds in Three Pines.
But mostly he thought about the corrosive effect of secrets. Including his own.
He’d lied to Beauvoir. It wasn’t over. And he hadn’t let it go.
* * *
Jean Guy Beauvoir washed the beer glass then headed toward his bedroom.
Keep going, just keep going, he begged