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They were getting a picture of Vivienne Godin’s life, and what they saw was not good.
A woman isolated in a remote farmhouse. It was, they knew, one of the warning signs of extreme abuse. Control.
“Any gossip?” Cloutier asked.
“You mean an affair?” asked Cameron. “Again, if there was, I never heard it.”
“And Tracey, does he have any friends?”
“Drinking buddies,” said Cameron. “But even they seem to have disappeared. Last time I saw him in town, he was drinking alone at the joint on the edge of town.”
“Name?” asked Cloutier. She was getting the hang of this.
“Le Lapin Grossier.”
“The Dirty Rabbit?” she asked as he wrote.
“More like filthy,” said Cameron.
“The Obscene Rabbit,” said Flaubert. “It’s a strip joint.”
The interview was winding down.
“Thank you for your help,” said Gamache as he stood and took his coat off the back of the chair.
“What’re you going to do now, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Cameron.
“We’re going to visit Monsieur Tracey,” said Gamache.
“Would you like me there?”
Gamache paused. He’d been about to decline, given Cameron’s last encounter with Carl Tracey, but now wondered if it mightn’t work in their favor. While Cameron’s threat to beat Tracey was wrong, it was done. Gamache, the realist, knew that showing up with this agent might just shake some truth loose.
“If you don’t mind,” he asked the commander, who nodded, “that would be helpful. You can show us the way.”
“I’ll get my coat,” said Cameron.
After he left, the commander said, “I’m sorry he threatened Tracey. I didn’t know about that.”
“Are you? Sorry?”
Commander Flaubert reddened. “I understand why he did it.”
Gamache thought for a moment, looking at the closed door through which the large man had disappeared.
“The scars on his face?” he said. “Not from football.”
“Non. Those are thanks to his father.”
Gamache took a deep breath and shook his head. Had Bob Cameron turned that hurt, that pain, that betrayal, into something useful? Into sport? And now into protecting others?
Or had he learned something else from his father?
That day in the bitterly cold stands in Montréal again came to mind. Wrapped in blankets with Reine-Marie and their son, Daniel, watching the Grey Cup final. Hearing the crashes and grunts and shouts from the field.
The brutality. As the massive left tackle found his quarry. And decked him. Standing over the body and opening his arms in a primal display of domination.
To wild applause. To approval.
