* * *
“Let me ask you this,” said Thérèse Brunel. “What’s the surest way to destroy someone?”
Jérôme shook his head.
“First you win their trust,” she said, holding his stare. “Then you betray it.”
“The Cree trusted Pierre Arnot?” asked Jérôme.
“He helped restore order. He treated them with respect.”
“And then?”
“And then, when plans for the new hydroelectric dam were unveiled, and it became clear it would destroy what was left of the Cree territory, he convinced them to accept it.”
“How’d he do that?” asked Jérôme. As a Québécois, he’d always seen the great dams as a point of pride. Yes, he was aware of the damage up north, but it seemed a small price. A price he himself didn’t actually have to pay.
“They trusted him. He’d spent years convincing them he was their friend and ally. Later, those who doubted him, questioned his motives, disappeared.”
Jérôme’s stomach churned. “He did that?”
Thérèse nodded. “I don’t know if he started out so corrupt, or if he was corrupted, but that’s what he did.”
Jérôme lowered his eyes and thought about the name he’d found. The one buried below Arnot. If Arnot had fallen, this other man had fallen further. Only to be dug up, years later, by Jérôme Brunel.
“When did Armand get involved?” asked Jérôme.
“A Cree elder, a woman, was selected to travel to Quebec City, to ask for help. She wanted to tell someone in authority that young men and women were disappearing. Dying. They were found hanged and shot and drowned. The Sûreté detachment had dismissed the deaths as accidents or suicides. Some young Cree had disappeared completely. The Sûreté concluded they’d run away. Probably down south. They’d be found in some crack house or drunk tank in Trois-Rivières or Montréal.”
“She came to Quebec City to ask for help in finding them?” asked Jérôme.
“No, she wanted to tell someone in authority that it was lies. Her own son was among the missing. She knew they hadn’t run away, and the deaths weren’t accidents or suicides.”
Jérôme could see how dredging up these memories was affecting Thérèse. As a senior Sûreté officer. As a woman. As a mother. And it sickened him too, but they’d gone too far. They couldn’t stop in the middle of this quagmire. They had to keep going.
“No one believed her,” said Thérèse. “She was dismissed as demented. Another drunk native. It didn’t help that she didn’t know where to find the National Assembly, so she stopped people going into and out of the Château Frontenac.”
“The hotel?” asked Jérôme.
Thérèse nodded. “It’s such an imposing building, she thought it was where the leaders must be.”
“But how did Armand get involved?”
“He was in Quebec City for a conference at the Château and saw her sitting on a bench, distraught. He asked her what was wrong.”
“She told him?” asked Jérôme.
“Everything. Armand asked why she hadn’t gone to the Sûreté with that information.” Thérèse lowered her eyes to her manicured hands.
Out of the corner of his eye Jérôme could see the gathering in the TV room breaking up, but he didn’t hurry his wife. They’d come to the bottom of the swamp at last, to the final words that needed to be dredged up. She was clearly struggling to speak the unspeakable.
“The Cree elder said she hadn’t reported it to the Sûreté because the Sûreté were doing it. They were killing the young Cree. Including, probably, her own son.”
Jérôme stared at his wife. Holding on to those familiar eyes. Not wanting to let go and slide into a world where such a thing was possible. He could tell that Thérèse was almost relieved. Believing she was near the end now. That the worst was over.
But Jérôme knew they were very far from the worst. And nowhere near the end.
“What did Armand do?”
He could see Clara heading to the kitchen and Olivier was making his way toward them. But still he held his wife’s eyes.
She leaned toward him and whispered, just before Olivier arrived.
“He believed her.”