How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9)

How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) Page 73

Tall, substantial. Quiet and contained. As a professor he seemed endlessly patient with stupid questions and testosterone. Leading by example, not force. Here, Agent Brunel knew, was a born leader. Someone you’d choose to follow.

Had Arnot been alone at the front of the class, she would have been deeply impressed. But as his lecture went on, her eyes were drawn more and more to the quiet man off to the side. So intently listening. So at ease.

And slowly it dawned on Agent Brunel where the real authority lay.

Chief Superintendent Arnot might hold power, but Armand Gamache was the more powerful man.

She told Jérôme this. He thought for a moment before speaking.

“Did Arnot try to kill Armand?” he asked. “Or was it the other way around?”

*   *   *

The Movietone newsreel ended with the benign Dr. Bernard holding up one of the newborn Quints and flapping her arm at the camera.

“Bye-bye,” said the announcer, as though announcing the Great Depression. “I know we’ll be seeing a lot more of you and your sisters.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Gamache noticed Ruth raise one veined hand.

Bye-bye.

The screen went blank, but only for a moment before another image, familiar to Canadians, came on. The black and white stylized eye and then the stenciled words, with no attempt at creativity or beauty.

Just facts.

National Film Board of Canada. The NFB.

There was no grim voice-over. No cheerful music. It was just raw footage taken by an NFB cameraman.

They saw the exterior of a charming cottage in summer. A fairy-tale cottage, with fish-scale shingles and gingerbread woodwork. Flower boxes were planted at each window and cheery sunflowers and hollyhocks leaned against the sunny home.

The little garden was ringed by a white picket fence.

It was like a doll’s house.

The camera zoomed in on the closed front door, focused, then the door opened slightly and a woman’s head poked out, stared at the camera, mouthed something that looked like “Maintenant?” Now?

She backed up and the door closed. A moment later it opened again and a little girl appeared in a short, frilly dress with a bow in her dark hair. She wore ankle socks and loafers. She was five or six years of age now, Gamache guessed. He did a quick calculation. It would be the early forties. The war years.

A hand appeared and pushed her further out into the sunshine. Not a shove, exactly, but a push strong enough that she stumbled a little.

Then an identical girl was expelled from the home.

Then another.

And another.

And another.

The girls stood together, clasping each other as though they’d been born conjoined. And their expressions were identical too.

Terror. Confusion. Almost exactly the same expression their father had had when he’d first gazed down at them.

They turned to the door, then returned to the door, flocking around it. Trying to get back in. But it wouldn’t open for them.

The first little girl looked at the camera. Pleading. Crying.

The image flickered and went out. Then the pretty cottage reappeared. The girls were gone and the door was closed.

Again it opened and this time the little girl walked out on her own. Then her sister appeared, gripping her hand. And so on. Until the last one was out, and the door closed behind them.

As one, they stared back at it. A hand snaked through a crack in the door and waved them away, before disappearing.

The girls were rooted in place. Paralyzed.

The camera shook slightly and as one the girls turned to look into the lens. The cameraman, Gamache thought, must have called to them. Was perhaps holding up a teddy bear or candy. Something to draw their attention.

One of them began to cry, then the others disintegrated and the picture flickered and went to black.

Over and over, in Clara’s back room, they watched, the pâté and drinks forgotten.

Over and over the girls came out of the pretty little house, and were hauled back in, to try it again. Until finally the first one appeared, a big smile on her face, followed by her sister, happily holding her hand.

Then the next and the next.

And the next.

They left the cottage and walked around the garden, along the border of white picket fence, smiling and waving.

Five happy little girls.

Gamache looked at Myrna, Olivier, Clara, Gilles, Gabri. He looked at Ruth, her tears following the crevices in her face, grand canyons of grief.

On the television, the Ouellet Quints smiled identical smiles, and waved identical waves into the camera, before the screen went dead. It was, Gamache knew, the scene that had come to define the Quints as perfect little girls, leading fairy-tale lives. Plucked from poverty, far from any conflict. This bit of footage had been sold to agencies around the world and was still used today in retrospectives of their lives.