“Because finding Champlain in our basement would have killed the Anglo community. It would have been the final blow.”
“Most Québécois wouldn’t have blamed you.”
“You think not? It doesn’t take much to stir anti-Anglo sentiment, even among the most reasonable. There’s always a suspicion the Anglos are up to no good.”
“I don’t agree,” said Gamache. “But what I think doesn’t matter, does it. It’s what you believe.”
“Someone had to protect them.”
“And that was your job.” It was a statement, not a question. Gamache had seen that in the minister from the first time he’d met him. Not a fanaticism, but a firm belief that he was the shepherd and they his flock. And if the Francophones harbored a secret certainty the Anglos were up to no good, the Anglos harbored the certainty the French were out to get them. It was, in many ways, a perfect little walled society.
And the Reverend Tom Hancock’s job was to protect his people. It was a sentiment Gamache could understand.
But to the point of killing?
Gamache remembered stepping forward, raising his gun, having the man in his sights. And shooting.
He’d killed to protect his own. And he’d do it again, if need be.
“What are you going to do?” Hancock asked, getting to his feet.
“Depends. What are you going to do?” Gamache also rose stiffly, rousing Henri.
“I think you know why I came here tonight, to the Plains of Abraham.”
And Gamache did. As soon as he knew it was Tom Hancock in the parka he’d known why he was there.
“There would at least be a symmetry about it,” said Hancock. “The Anglo, slipping back down the cliff, two hundred and fifty years later.”
“You know I won’t let you do that.”
“I know you haven’t a hope of stopping me.”
“That’s probably true and, it must be admitted, this one won’t be any help,” he indicated Henri. “Unless the sight of a dog whimpering frightens you into surrendering.”
Hancock smiled. “This is the final ice floe. I have no choice. It’s what’s been handed me.”
“No, it isn’t. Why do you think I’m here?”
“Because you’re so wrapped up in your own sorrow you can barely think straight. Because you can’t sleep and came here to get away, from yourself.”
“Well, that too, perhaps,” smiled Gamache. “But what are the chances we’d meet in the middle of the storm? Had I come ten minutes earlier or later, had we walked ten feet apart, we’d have missed each other. Walked right by without seeing, blinded by the blizzard.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, what are the chances?”
“Does it matter? It happened. We met.”
“You saw the video,” Gamache said, lowering his voice. “You saw what happened. How close it came.”
“How close you came to dying? I did.”
“Maybe this is why I didn’t.”
Hancock regarded Gamache. “Are you saying you were spared to stop me from jumping over the cliff?”
“Maybe. I know how precious life is. You had no right to take Renaud’s and you have no right to take your own now. Not over this. Too much death. It needs to stop.”
Gamache stared at the young man beside him. A man, he knew, drawn to seawalls and jagged cliff faces and to the Anglos of Québec, standing just off shore where the ice was thinnest.
“You’re wrong you know,” Gamache finally said. “The English of Québec aren’t weak, aren’t frail. Elizabeth MacWhirter and Winnie and Ken and Mr. Blake, and yes, even Porter, couldn’t kill Augustin Renaud, not because they’re weak but because they know there’s no need. He was no threat. Not really. They’ve adapted to the new reality, to the new world. You’re the only one who couldn’t. There’ll be Anglos here for centuries to come, as there should be. It’s their home. You should have had more faith.”
Hancock walked up to Gamache.
“I could walk right by you.”
“Probably. I’d try to stop you, but I suspect you’d get by. But you know I’d follow you, I’d have to. And then what? A middle-aged Francophone and a young Anglo, lost in a storm on the Plains of Abraham, wandering, one in search of a cliff, the other in search of him. I wonder when they’d find us? In the spring, you think? Frozen? Two more corpses, unburied? Is that how this ends?”