But while a brave man, he wasn’t quite brave enough to go there. But he did wonder how, and when, it had happened. That he’d gone from clever, young, whip-smart Jean-Guy Beauvoir, the enfant terrible of homicide, to Inspector Beauvoir. Sir.
Not all transformations were miracles or magical. Or improvements.
“We’d like to speak to your station chief.”
The young agent looked at him, then behind him to the others who were crammed into the entrance of the small Sûreté detachment.
And then her eyes widened.
Standing at the back, patiently waiting, was a man she recognized.
She stood up, then sat down. Then stood up again.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir suppressed a grin. He was used to this reaction and had been expecting it. Waiting for it.
“Chief Inspector,” the agent said, practically bowing.
“Armand Gamache.” He stepped forward and, squeezing his arm between Clara and Chartrand, offered his hand.
“Agent Pagé,” she said, feeling his grip. “Beatrice Pagé.”
She could have cursed. Why’d she give him her first name? He doesn’t care. He’s the Chief Inspector of fucking Homicide. Or was. Until that whole rotten business. Until he retired.
Agent Pagé had joined the Sûreté months before it all blew up. And she knew that while she’d spend most of her career with other superiors, this man would always be, in her mind, the Chief Inspector of homicide.
“I just started,” she said, and her eyes widened. Stop talking, stop talking. He doesn’t care. Shut the fuck up. “My shift, I mean. And in the Sûreté.”
Oh, dear God. Take me now.
“This is my first posting.”
She stared at him.
“And where are you from?” Gamache asked.
He looked interested.
“Baie-Comeau, up the coast.”
Merde, merde, merde, she thought. He knows where it is. Merde.
Gamache nodded. “They’ve cleaned up the bay there. A beautiful place.”
He smiled.
“Yes, sir. It is. My family’s been working in the mills for a long time.”
“Are you the first of your family in the Sûreté?” he asked.
“Oui. They didn’t want me to join. Said it wasn’t respectable.”
Maudit tabarnac, she thought, and looked around for a gun to stick in her mouth.
But the large man in front of her, with the scar by his temple, just laughed and lines radiated from his kind brown eyes. “And do they still feel that way?”
“No, sir, they don’t.” And now all her nerves calmed and she met his gaze. “Not after what you did. Now they’re proud of me.”
Gamache held her eyes and smiled. “They’re proud of you, and they should be. It has nothing to do with me.”
By now other agents and inspectors had heard Chief Inspector Gamache was there, and they drifted by. Some said hello. Some just stared and moved on.
“Chief Inspector.” A middle-aged woman in uniform came out of an office, her hand outstretched. “Jeanne Nadeau. I’m the station chief.”
She led them into her office. It was an even tighter squeeze than the reception area.
“This isn’t, of course, official business,” he said. “We’re trying to find a friend of ours and he was last seen in your area in late spring.”
“He’s my husband,” Clara said, and showed Captain Nadeau a picture of Peter and described him.
“Can we make copies?” Nadeau asked, and when Clara agreed she made the arrangements.
“How can I help?”
“I take it no one matching his description has come to your attention lately?” Gamache asked, and they all recognized the code. Nadeau shook her head and her intelligent eyes went from Gamache to Clara.
“Why was he here?”
Clara explained it, succinctly.
“So you think he was looking for this Professor Norman,” Nadeau said. She turned from Clara to Chartrand. “You say he was known as No Man when he lived here?”
“Well, that’s what he called himself.”
Nadeau barely reacted. It was clear that this was not the first oddity she’d run into in Baie-Saint-Paul. Artists were not, perhaps, best known for conventional behavior.
“Did you know him?” Clara asked.
“No Man?” Nadeau shook her head. “Before my time.” She walked over to the wall, where a detailed map of the area was pinned.
“Where was this art colony of his?”