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He reached for Homer and braced himself but was still propelled backward as Vivienne’s father exploded forward. Toward Tracey.
There was sudden mayhem as chairs and benches were knocked over. Guards ran to yank the judge off the dais and into the back room.
People fell over, and others joined the fight to stop an inconsolable, uncontainable father.
Gamache felt his feet go out from under him and fell backward, dragging Homer down with him. They landed in a pile on the marble floor.
There was an eerie silence. Then the squealing of overturned chairs being shoved aside as arms and legs reassembled themselves into individual people.
There were moans and groans. Orders issued by guards and cops.
Beauvoir, who’d leaped over the railing to try to stop Homer, now rolled off the man’s back. And tried to get air back into his own lungs.
“Armand?” he gasped.
“Okay. You?”
“Oui.”
Gamache freed his legs and, scrambling to his knees, bent over Homer’s inert body. So still was the man that Gamache felt for a pulse, then laid down, his cheek on the cold marble floor. Face-to-face. Their noses almost touching.
“Homer?”
His eyes were closed, and Armand noticed blood on the floor. “Get an ambulance.”
A court officer ran to make the call.
Beauvoir was keeping the guards away, explaining the man wasn’t armed. Wasn’t a danger.
Homer’s eyes fluttered, then opened. And focused on Armand.
“You promised,” he whispered.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Vivienne’s father was taken by ambulance to the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.
Gamache had wanted to go with him but sent Cloutier and Cameron instead.
It had been Bob Cameron who’d finally brought Godin down. He’d come into the courtroom late, standing unnoticed at the back, as the judge had given her reasoning and conclusion.
And when Homer had burst forward, Cameron had instantly seen what was happening. And what needed to be done.
The left tackle did what he’d been trained to do.
He’d run into the fray, diving at the last minute, using his body to sweep Godin’s legs out from under him. And, in so doing, also tackling Gamache. And Beauvoir. And Cloutier. And anyone else hanging on to Vivienne’s father.
“Give me a few minutes,” Zalmanowitz, the prosecutor, said to the Sûreté officers once the ambulance had left and order had been restored. “I’ll speak to the judge. Then we can talk.”
Judge Pelletier had decided not to charge Monsieur Godin. Clearly sympathizing with the man. The father.
“Merde, merde, merde,” muttered Beauvoir.
“Merde,” added Lacoste.
She’d been in another interview, to possibly take over command of Public Security, when word had reached her about what had happened in the courthouse.
She’d hurried over, and now the three of them walked along the slushy cobblestoned streets outside the courthouse. In need of fresh air and to try to clear their heads.
