Page 34 of The Grey Wolf
“All you need to know is that Armand and Jean-Guy are all right,” said Olivier.
“She needs to know more than that.” Ruth’s querulous voice entered the room, followed by the rest of the old poet. Her rheumy blue eyes held Reine-Marie’s. “You need to see it. So your imagination won’t make it worse than it already is.”
And Reine-Marie knew two things.
The demented old woman was right. And that was why they were there. So that she wouldn’t be alone when she watched.
The curtains at the window billowed softly, like a breath, as fresh air wafted in from the village green. It brought with it the scent of grass, and the sound of children playing, and the soft murmur of bees bumbling in the intertwined honeysuckle and sweet pea growing up the trellis.
How nice it was, how peaceful, thought Reine-Marie, to live in a place where bumbling was a virtue. Even a necessity. And where lives were intertwined.
Then, as Clara took the chair beside her and held her hand, Reine-Marie watched.
Armand went back to their city apartment, where he showered and changed into a light blue shirt, a summer sweater, and slacks.
When he’d undressed, he was not surprised to see scrapes and bruises. Welts. Most not actually painful. What hurt the most was his left foot. It was swollen and bruised.
Armand put antiseptic on the cuts and scrapes.
The clothes he’d been in lay in a lump in the corner of the bedroom. They’d have to be thrown out. They were torn, and stained with dirt and blood. Beyond repair.
Beauvoir had found and given him the shoe that had flown off, and now Armand put it on, since he didn’t have another pair in that apartment.
He’d tried to clean it with a washcloth but couldn’t get the deep scuffing off.
It was the least of his concerns. That thought brought back what Charles had said. He’d made it clear that the Sûreté being compromised was the least of it.
But he hadn’t said what “it” was.
They now knew that his full name was Charles Langlois. He lived on rue Versailles, in the Petite-Bourgognequartierof Montréal. Theygot that much from the wallet they’d found on his body. There was also a house key and phone, but nothing else.
Gamache had gone directly from the crime scene to that address, not stopping to clean up or change. He needed to get to Charles’s family quickly, before they saw the video.
So far, a search of the database had not shown anything for a Charles Langlois. He had no police record. While Beauvoir drove, Gamache took a call from Chief Superintendent Toussaint.
“I’m watching a video, Armand. Is there something you’d like to tell me?”
“I was just about to call you.”
Beauvoir shot him a look and wondered how truthful that was.
Gamache told the Chief Superintendent what had happened, albeit a carefully curated version.
“You say this man, the dead man, asked to meet you? So this wasn’t a random act.”
“Definitely targeted.”
“You’re sure? There’s no further risk to the public?”
“Not from the SUV,non.”
If the Superintendent heard the implication, she did not follow up.
“The Mayor of Montréal will be holding a news conference. She wants us both there. The video’s already all over the internet.”
He muttered under his breath, and the Chief Super did not ask him to repeat it.
“Are you sure it wasn’t a terror attack?”
