by Louise Penny
“Who was the brother who brought us here?” Gamache asked.
“Frère Luc,” said the abbot.
“He’s young,” said Gamache, as he followed the abbot across the small room.
“Yes.”
Dom Philippe was not being abrupt, Gamache believed. When men take a vow of silence a single word was a great offering. Dom Philippe was, in fact, being very generous.
The rainbows and prisms and cheerful light of the corridor didn’t penetrate to here. But far from being glum, this room managed to feel intimate, homely. The ceilings were lower and the windows here were little more than slits in the wall. But through the diamond mullions Gamache could see forest. It was a comforting counterpoint to the rambunctious light of the hallway.
The stone walls were lined with bookcases and one wall was taken up with a large, open fireplace. Two chairs with a footstool between them flanked the fire. A lamp added to the light.
So there is electricity here, thought Gamache. He’d been uncertain.
From that small room they passed into an even smaller one.
“That was my study,” the abbot nodded toward the room they’d just left. “This is my cell.”
“Your cell?” asked Beauvoir, adjusting the now almost unbearably heavy duffel bags hanging from his drooping shoulders.
“Bedroom,” said Dom Philippe.
The three Sûreté officers looked around. It was roughly six feet wide by ten feet long. With a narrow single bed and a small chest of drawers that seemed to double as a private altar. On it was a carving of the Virgin Mary and Christ Child. A tall, slender bookcase was against one wall and beside the bed was a tiny wooden table with books. There was no window.
The men turned around. And around.
“Forgive me, mon père,” said Gamache. “But where is the body?”
Without a word the abbot tugged on the bookcase. All three men put out their arms in alarm, to grab the bookcase as it fell, but instead of tumbling over, it swung open.
Bright sunshine poured through the unexpected hole in the stone wall. And beyond it the Chief could see green grass scattered with autumn leaves. And bushes in different stages of fall colors. And a single, great tree. A maple. In the middle of the garden.
But Gamache’s eyes went directly to the far end of the garden, and the figure crumpled there. And the two robed monks standing motionless a few feet from the body.
The Sûreté officers stepped through the last door. Into this unexpected garden.
* * *
“Holy Mary, mother of God,” the monks intoned, their voices low and melodic. “Pray for us sinners…”
“When did you find him?” Gamache asked as he carefully approached the body.
“My secretary found him after Lauds.” On seeing the look on Gamache’s face, the abbot explained. “Lauds ends at eight fifteen. Brother Mathiew was found at about twenty to nine. He went to find the doctor, but it was too late.”
Gamache nodded. Behind him he could hear Beauvoir and Charbonneau unpacking the Scene of Crime equipment. The Chief looked at the grass, then reached out and gently guided the abbot back a few paces.
“Désolé, Dom Philippe, but we need to be careful.”
“I’m sorry,” said the abbot, stepping away. He seemed lost, bewildered. Not just by the body, but by the sudden appearance of men he didn’t know.
Gamache caught Beauvoir’s eye and subtly gestured to the ground. Beauvoir nodded. He’d already noticed the slight difference between the grass here and the rest of the garden. Here the blades were bent. And pointed to the body.
Gamache turned back to the abbot. The man was tall and slender. Like the other monks, Dom Philippe was clean-shaven, and his head, while not shaved to the scalp, had just a bristle of gray hair.
The abbot’s eyes were deep blue and he held Gamache’s thoughtful gaze as though trying to find a way in. The Chief didn’t look away, but he did feel quietly ransacked.
The abbot again slipped his hands up the sleeves of his robe. It was the same pose as the other two monks who were standing not far from the body, eyes closed and praying.
“Hail Mary, full of grace…”
The rosary. Gamache recognized it. Could say it himself in his sleep.
“… the Lord is with thee.…”
“Who is he, Père Abbé?”
Gamache had placed himself so that he was facing the body, and the abbot was not. In some cases the Chief wanted the suspects to be unable to avoid seeing the dead person. The murdered person. He wanted the sight to fray and tear and rend.
But not in this case. He suspected this quiet man would never forget that sight. And that perhaps kindness would be a more rapid road to the truth.
“Mathieu. Brother Mathieu.”
“The choirmaster?” asked Gamache. “Oh.”
The Chief Inspector lowered his head slightly. Death always meant loss. Violent death tore the hole wider. The loss seemed greater. But to lose this man? Armand Gamache looked back at the body on the ground, curled into a ball. His knees as far up to his chin as he could get them. Before he died.
Frère Mathieu. The choir director of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. The man whose music Gamache had been listening to on the flight there.
Gamache felt as though he knew him. Not by sight, obviously. No one had seen him. There were no photographs, no portraits of Frère Mathieu. But millions, including Gamache, felt they knew him in ways far more intimate than physical appearance.
This was indeed a loss, and not just to this remote and cloistered community.
“The choirmaster,” the abbot confirmed. He turned around and looked at the man on the ground. Dom Philippe spoke softly. Almost whispering. “And our prior.” The abbot turned back to Gamache. “And my friend.”
He closed his eyes and became very still. Then he opened them again. They were very blue. The abbot took a deep breath. Gathering himself, thought Gamache.
He knew the feeling. When there was something deeply unpleasant, painful, to do. This was that instant, before the plunge.
On the exhale Dom Philippe did something unexpected. He smiled. It was subtle, almost not there. He looked at Armand Gamache with such warmth and openness the Chief Inspector found himself almost paralyzed.
“All shall be well,” said Dom Philippe, looking directly at Gamache. “All shall be well; and all manner of thing shall be well.”
It wasn’t at all what the Chief had expected the abbot to say and it took him a moment, looking into those startling eyes, to respond.
“Merci. I believe that, mon père,” said Gamache at last. “But do you?”
“Julian of Norwich wouldn’t lie,” said Dom Philippe, again with that slight smile.
“Probably not,” said Gamache. “But then Julian of Norwich wrote of divine love and probably never had a murder in her convent. You have, I’m afraid.”
The abbot continued to watch Gamache. Not, the Chief felt, in anger. Indeed, the same warmth was there. But the weariness had returned.
“That is true.”
“Would you excuse me, Père Abbé?”
The Chief stepped around the abbot and examined the ground, picking his way carefully across the grass and through the flower bed. To Frère Mathieu.
There he knelt.
He didn’t reach out. Didn’t touch. Armand Gamache just looked. Taking in the evidence, but also the impressions.
His impression was that Frère Mathieu had not gone gently. Many people he knelt beside had been killed so quickly they barely knew what happened.
Not the prior. He knew what had happened, and what was going to happen.
Gamache looked back to the grass. Then to the dead man. The side of Frère Mathieu’s head had been bashed in. The Chief Inspector leaned closer. It looked like at least two, perhaps three blows. Enough to mortally wound. But not enough to kill instantly.
The prior, Gamache thought, must have had a hard head.
He sensed, rather than saw, Beauv
oir kneel beside him. He looked over and saw Captain Charbonneau beside Beauvoir. They’d brought their evidence kits.
Gamache glanced back to the garden. Scene of Crime tape had been put up around the grass and outlined a trail to the flower bed.
The abbot had rejoined the other monks and together they were reciting the Hail Mary.
Beauvoir brought out his notebook. A fresh one for a fresh body.
Gamache himself did not take notes, but preferred to listen.
“What do you think?” the Chief asked, looking at Charbonneau.
The captain’s eyes widened. “Moi?”
Gamache nodded.
For a horrible moment Captain Charbonneau thought nothing. His mind went as blank as the dead man’s. He stared at Gamache. But far from being haughty or demanding the Chief Inspector was simply attentive. This was no trap, no trick.
Charbonneau felt his heart slow and his brain speed up.
Gamache smiled encouragingly. “Take your time. I’d rather have a thoughtful answer than a fast one.”
“… pray for us sinners…”
The three monks intoned while the three officers knelt.
Charbonneau looked around the garden. It was walled. The only entrance and exit through the bookcase. There was no ladder, no evidence anyone had climbed into or out of there. He looked up. The garden wasn’t overlooked. No one could have witnessed what had happened here.
What had happened here? Chief Inspector Gamache was asking for his opinion. His educated, thoughtful analysis.
Christ, he prayed. Christ, give me an opinion.
When Inspector Beauvoir had called and asked that one of the local Sûreté officers meet the plane and accompany them to the monastery, Captain Charbonneau had taken the job himself. As head of the detachment he could have assigned anyone. But that was never a consideration.
He wanted it for himself.
And not just to see the inside of the famous abbey.
Captain Charbonneau also wanted to meet Chief Inspector Gamache.
“There’s blood on the grass over there.” Charbonneau waved to a section cordoned off with crime scene tape. “And by the marks on the grass it looks as though he dragged himself a few feet, over here.”
“Or was dragged,” suggested Gamache, “by his killer.”
“Unlikely, patron. There’re no deep footprints on the grass or in the flower bed here.”
“Good,” said Gamache, looking around. “Now why would a dying man drag himself here?”
They all considered the body again. Frère Mathieu was curled into a fetal position, his knees up, his arms wrapped tightly around his stout stomach. His head tucked in. His back was against the stone wall of the garden.
“Was he trying to make himself small?” asked Beauvoir. “He looks like a ball.”
And he did. A quite large black ball that had come to rest against the wall.
“But why?” Gamache asked again. “Why not drag himself toward the monastery? Why move away from it?”
“Maybe he was disoriented,” said Charbonneau. “Was going more on instinct than thought. Maybe there was no reason.”
“Maybe,” said Gamache.
All three continued to stare at the body of Frère Mathieu. Captain Charbonneau glanced across at Gamache, who was deep in thought.
He was inches from the man. Could see all the lines of his face. Both natural and man-made. He could even smell the man. The slightest hint of sandalwood and something else. Rosewater.
He’d seen the Chief Inspector on television, of course. Charbonneau had even flown to Montréal to attend a police conference where Gamache was the keynote speaker. The topic was the Sûreté motto, “Service, Intégrité, Justice.”
That was always the keynote topic and over the years it had become a pep rally, an orgy of self-congratulations to end the annual Sûreté conference.
Except when Chief Inspector Gamache had given the talk, just a few months earlier. At first Gamache had shocked the thousand officers in the audience by talking about his own failings in each of those areas. Where he could have done better. Where he’d failed to do anything at all.
And he made clear the failures of the Sûreté itself. Bringing home with precision and clarity where the police force had let down, even betrayed the trust of the people of Québec. Time and again. It was a merciless indictment of a force Gamache believed in.
And that’s what became clear.
Armand Gamache believed in them. He believed in the Sûreté and in Service and Integrity and Justice.
He could do better.
They could do better.
As individuals and as a force.
By the end of the talk the thousand officers were on their feet, cheering. Revitalized. Inspired.
Except, Captain Charbonneau had noticed, a small cadre. In the front row. They too stood. They too clapped. How could they not? But from his position off to the side, Charbonneau could see their hearts were not in it. And God only knew where their heads were at.
These were the superintendents of the Sûreté. The leadership. And the Minister of Justice.
He wanted now to lean forward. Over the body. To lower his voice and say, “I don’t know why this man crawled away. But I do know something you should hear. You might not have as many friends in the force as you think. As you believe.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again on looking into the Chief’s face. At the scars, and the deep, intelligent eyes.
This man knows, Charbonneau realized. Chief Inspector Gamache knows his days on the force might be numbered.
“What do you think?” Gamache asked again.
“I think he knew exactly what was going to happen to him.”
“Go on,” said the Chief.
“I think he did his best, but it was too late. He couldn’t get away.”
“No,” agreed Gamache. “There was nowhere to go.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment. Understanding each other.
“But why didn’t he leave a message?” asked Beauvoir.
“I’m sorry?” Charbonneau turned to the younger man.
“Well, he’d seen his killer, he knew he was dying. He had the strength to crawl all this way. Why didn’t he use some of that last energy to leave us a message?” Beauvoir asked.
They looked around, but the earth had been trampled. Not by them, but by a bunch of monks, well meaning or otherwise.
“Maybe it’s simpler than that,” said Charbonneau. “Maybe he was like an animal. Curling up to die alone.”
Gamache felt an overwhelming sympathy for the dead man. To die alone. Almost certainly struck down by someone he knew and trusted. Was that the alarm on this man’s face? Not that he was dying, but that it was at the hands of a brother. Was that how Abel had looked, as he fell to the earth?
They bent over the monk again.
Frère Mathieu was in late middle age, and rotund. A man who didn’t appear to deny himself much. If he mortified his flesh it was with food. And maybe drink. Though he didn’t have the ruddy, bloated complexion of the dissolute.
The prior simply looked well satisfied with his life, though clearly more than a little disappointed by his death.
“Could there have been another blow?” asked the Chief. “To his abdomen, perhaps?”
“… and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…”
Beauvoir also leaned closer and nodded. “His arms are wrapped around his stomach. Do you think he was in pain?”
Gamache stood up and absently brushed dirt from his knees.
“I’ll leave him to you, Inspector. Captain.”
The Chief Inspector retraced his steps, careful not to wander from the path he’d already created.
“Holy Mary, mother of God…”
The monks continued to repeat the Hail Mary.
How did they know when to stop, Gamache wondered. When was it enough?
He knew what his goal was. To find whoever had killed Frère Ma
thieu.
“… pray for us sinners…”
But what was theirs, these three black-robed figures?
“… now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
FIVE
The Chief watched the monks for a few moments, then he turned and watched Beauvoir.
He’d put on weight, and while still lean he was no longer gaunt. Jean-Guy’s face had filled out and the shadows under his eyes had disappeared.
But more than the physical change, Beauvoir now seemed happy. Indeed, happier than Gamache had ever seen him. Not the feverish, giddy highs of the addict, but a settled calm. Gamache knew it was a long and treacherous road back, but Beauvoir was at least on it.
Gone were the mood swings, the irrational outbursts. The rage and the whining.
Gone were the pills. The OxyContin and Percocet. It was one of the terrible ironies that medications meant to relieve pain would finally cause so much.
God knew, thought Gamache as he watched his Inspector, Beauvoir had had genuine pain. Had needed those pills. But then he’d needed to stop.
And he had. With help. Gamache hoped it wasn’t too soon for his Inspector to be back on the job, but suspected what Beauvoir needed now was normalcy. To not be treated as though he was handicapped.
Still, Gamache knew Jean-Guy needed watching. For any cracks in the calm.
For now, though, Gamache turned away from the agents, knowing they had a job to do. And he turned away from the monks, knowing they also had their job.
And he had his.
Gamache looked around the garden.
It was the first chance he’d had to really take it in.
It was square. Roughly forty feet by forty. Not meant for sports or large gatherings. The monks would not be playing soccer here.
Gamache noticed a wicker basket with gardening implements dropped on the ground. There was also a black medical bag, close to the praying monks.
He began to wander, looking at the perennials, at the herbs all marked and named.
Echinacea, meadowsweet, St. John’s wort, chamomile.
Gamache was no gardener, but he suspected these weren’t just herbs or flowers, but medicinal. He looked around again.
Everything here seemed to have a purpose. To be thought out.
