“What’s so interesting over there?” Ruth asked him.
Olivier had tried to stop her from going outside, but when Ruth saw Beauvoir sit on the bench alone, she put on her coat, picked up her duck, and left, saying, “Don’t you think he’d find it strange if the village was completely deserted? I won’t tell him anything. What do you think I am? Crazy?”
“As a matter of—”
But it was too late. The old poet had left the building. Olivier watched with trepidation. Myrna and Clara watched from the window of the bookstore. In the loft, Gabri, Nichol, and the Brunels watched as Ruth crossed the road and joined Beauvoir on the cold bench.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Thérèse asked Gabri.
“Oh, no. It’ll be fine,” said Gabri, and grimaced.
“I have a clear shot,” said Nichol, her voice hopeful.
“I think Nichol and the crazy poet might be related,” Jérôme said to Thérèse.
Down below, Ruth, Rosa and Jean-Guy sat side by side, watching the activity at the schoolhouse.
“Who hurt you once,” Ruth whispered to the young man, “so far beyond repair?”
Jean-Guy roused, as though finally noticing he wasn’t alone. He looked at her.
“Am I, Ruth?” he asked, using her first name for the first time. “Beyond repair?”
“What do you think?” She stroked Rosa, but looked at him.
“I think maybe I am,” he said softly.
Beauvoir stared at the old schoolhouse. Instead of taking the computers out, new equipment was being brought in from the van. Boxes and wires and cables. It looked familiar, but Beauvoir couldn’t be bothered to dig through his memory for the information.
Ruth sat quietly beside him, then she lifted Rosa from her lap, feeling it warm where the duck had been. She carefully placed Rosa on Jean-Guy’s lap.
He seemed not to notice, but after a few moments he brought his hand up and stroked Rosa. Softly, softly.
“I could wring her neck, you know,” he said.
“I know,” said Ruth. “Please don’t.”
She watched Rosa, holding her dark duck eyes. And Rosa looked at Ruth, as Jean-Guy’s hand caressed the feathers of Rosa’s back, coming closer and closer to the long neck.Ruth held fast to Rosa’s eyes.
Finally Jean-Guy’s hand stopped, and rested.
“Rosa came back,” he said.
Ruth nodded.
“I’m glad,” he said.
“She took the long way home,” said Ruth. “Some do, you know. They seem lost. Sometimes they might even head off in the wrong direction. Lots of people give up, say they’re gone forever, but I don’t believe that. Some make it home, eventually.”
Jean-Guy lifted Rosa from his lap and attempted to return her to Ruth. But the old woman held up her hand.
“No. You keep her now.”
Jean-Guy stared at Ruth, uncomprehending. He tried again to give Rosa back, and again Ruth gently, firmly declined.
“She’ll have a good home with you,” she said, now not looking at Rosa at all.
“But I don’t know how to look after a duck,” he said. “What would I do with her?”
“Isn’t the question more what’ll she do with you?” asked Ruth. She got up and fished in her pocket. “These are the keys to my car.” She gave them to Beauvoir and nodded toward an old beat-up Civic. “I think Rosa would be better off away from here, don’t you?”
Beauvoir stared at the keys in his hand, then at the thin, wrinkled, wretched old face. And the rheumy eyes that, in the bright sunshine, seemed to be leaking light.
“Leave here,” she said. “Take Rosa. Please.”
She bent down slowly, as though each inch was agony, and kissed Rosa on the top of her head. Then she looked into Rosa’s bright eyes and whispered, “I love you.”
Ruth Zardo turned her back on them and limped away. Her head erect, she walked slowly forward. Toward the bistro and whatever was coming next.
* * *
“It’s a joke, right?” the fat cop on the other side of the counter said to Isabelle Lacoste. “Someone’s gonna blow this up?”
He waved at his monitors and all but called her “little lady.”
Lacoste didn’t have time for diplomacy. She’d shown him her Sûreté ID and told him what was about to happen. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t been eager to close the bridge.
Now she walked around the counter and stuck her Glock under his chin. “It’s no joke,” she said, and saw his eyes widen in terror.