Page 204 of The Grey Wolf
Standing in his bathroom in Three Pines, knowing he might have the opportunity to make a switch, he’d looked at the aspirin bottle and the travel shampoo. He’d gambled and poured water into the aspirin bottle. He explained in his written report that by then he knew Commissioner Lavigne was behind the plot, and that he himself used aspirin. He’d instinctively trust it.
It gave Lacoste and Beauvoir, and everyone else familiar with what had happened, immense pleasure to know that instead of poison, the terrorists had poured pure Three Pines spring water into the system.
Sitting on the back terrasse of the home in Three Pines, Isabelle could see that Gamache was far from being able to resume his position as head of homicide. The Chief Inspector was on sick leave, at least until his hearing returned and he’d recovered from the concussion caused by the explosion right next to his head.
Armand spoke only to his doctor about his exhaustion. The shrieking cicadas in his head, caused by the damaged eardrum and not helped by the concussion, had barely diminished. It made sleep all but impossible. It also made clear thinking difficult.
When he did get to sleep, he often woke up shouting. He didn’t realize he’d done it and only knew because Reine-Marie would turn on the light and grab his arm and ask if he was all right. He’d look at her, dazed. Then hug her. Tight. Sometimes she saw he’d been crying.
Though Reine-Marie asked, Armand had yet to tell her what the night terrors were about.
One day, he assured his therapist, he would. But not quite yet.
In his dreams, so vivid, he was again kneeling, the gun to his head. David Lavigne wanted to know something. Was shouting at him. It was about Charles’s notebooks. He wanted to know where he’d hidden them.
In real life he hadn’t told him. In his dream he did.
Armand couldn’t quite figure out why telling Lavigne about the notebooks was his nightmare. Surely the images of the deputy commissioner following through with the threat to go to Three Pines and kill everyone was more nightmare-worthy.
Or putting the real poison into the system. Surely his nightmare should be seeing tens of thousands die because he’d failed.
Or actually being shot in the base of the skull and not just grazed. Yes, there were any number of nightmare scenarios.
Why would he keep dreaming about the damned notebooks?
His therapist suggested his subconscious was starting with the easiest part first. The others would follow. His nightmares would get worse.
It had not been his favorite session. He also wondered why, in real life, Lavigne hadn’t asked about the laptop or the map. The only explanation was that he didn’t know about them.
They hadn’t yet found the laptop, but would.
“Patron?” Isabelle had leaned forward and touched his knee.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. His voice was the same as ever. Almost. There was a vagueness to it, and occasionally it was too loud. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
He got up and returned a minute or so later with two pads of paper and pens.
Handing one to her, he wrote longhand,About the arrests. About those not arrested.
This was obviously a “conversation” he didn’t want anyone else to see. He held out his pad, and when she’d read it, she looked up.
Chief Inspector Gamache’s eyes were as bright, as thoughtful, as intelligent as ever. He was still there. The same unwavering gaze in the storm.
And there was still a storm.
CHAPTER47
The events at the LaSalle water-treatment plant had created a tsunami, with huge aftershocks.
On Jeanne Caron’s testimony and the evidence she’d gathered and saved in the satchel, the Deputy Prime Minister, Marcus Lauzon, had been arrested and charged with murder and high treason. He, of course, denied everything, though the evidence was overwhelming.
An investigation was ongoing into other prominent political figures. The RCMP was in crisis and chaos, with the undeniable involvement of their now dead second-in-command in a terrorist plot to murder tens of thousands and overthrow the government.
And the Sûreté had not emerged unscathed.
While Superintendent Toussaint was quickly cleared, as was the head of the Organized Crime division, charges were laid against Chief Inspector Goudreau, the head of the Sûreté’s Highways division.
