by Louise Penny
Dom Philippe paused before the large wooden cross and bowed deeply. He was alone now, on the raised altar. Except for the body of his prior. His friend.
The abbot held his bow.
Was it longer, Gamache wondered, than usual? Was the effort of getting back up, of turning around, of facing the evening, the next day, the next year, the rest of life too much? Was the gravity too much?
Slowly the abbot raised himself to a standing position. He even seemed to square his shoulders, standing as tall as he could.
Then he turned and saw something he’d never seen before.
People in the pews.
The abbot had no idea why there were even pews in the Blessed Chapel. They’d been there when he’d arrived, forty years earlier, and they’d be there long after he was buried.
He’d never questioned why a cloistered order needed pews.
In his pocket Dom Philippe felt the rosary beads, his fingers running over them without conscious thought. They offered a comfort that he also never questioned.
“Chief Inspector,” he said as he stepped off the altar and approached the men.
“Dom Philippe.” Gamache bowed slightly. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take him away now.” Gamache gestured toward the prior, then turned and nodded to Beauvoir.
“I understand,” said Dom Philippe, though he privately realized he understood none of this. “Follow me.”
Dom Philippe signaled Frère Luc, who hurried over, and the three men made for the corridor that led to the locked door. Beauvoir and Captain Charbonneau followed, carrying the stretcher with Frère Mathieu.
Beauvoir heard something behind him, a shuffling, and looked.
The monks had formed two rows and were following them like a long, black tail.
“We tried to find you earlier, Père Abbé,” said the Chief, “but couldn’t. Where were you?”
“In Chapter.”
“And where is Chapter?”
“It’s both a place and an event, Chief Inspector. The room is just over there,” the abbot waved toward the wall of the Blessed Chapel, just as they walked through the door and into the long corridor.
“I saw you coming out of there,” said Gamache, “but when we looked earlier we didn’t find a door.”
“No. It’s behind a plaque commemorating Saint Gilbert.”
“It’s a hidden door?”
The abbot, even in profile, looked puzzled and a little surprised by the question.
“Not from us,” he finally said. “Everyone knows it’s there. It’s no secret.”
“Then why not just have a door?”
“Because anyone who needs to know about it does,” he said, not looking at Gamache, but looking toward the closed door ahead of them. “And anyone who doesn’t need to know should not find it.”
“So it is meant to be hidden,” said Gamache, pressing the point.
“The option is meant to be there,” admitted the abbot. They’d arrived at the locked door to the outside world. He finally turned to look directly at Gamache. “If we need to hide, the room exists.”
“But why would you need to hide?”
The abbot smiled a little. It was just this side of condescending. “I’d have thought you of all people would know why, Chief Inspector. It’s because the world is not always kind. We all need a safe place, sometimes.”
“And yet the threat, finally, didn’t come from the world,” said Gamache.
“True.”
Gamache considered for a moment. “So you concealed the door to your Chapter room in the wall of the chapel?”
“I didn’t put it there. All this was done long before I came. The men who built the monastery did it. It was a different time. A brutal time. When monks really did need to hide.”
Gamache nodded, and looked at the thick wooden door in front of them. The gateway to the outside world. That was still locked, even after the passage of centuries.
He knew the abbot was right. Back when the massive tree was cut down for this door, hundreds of years ago, it wasn’t tradition but necessity that turned the key in the lock. The Reformation, the Inquisition, the internecine battles. It was a dangerous time to be a Catholic. And, as with recent events, the threat often came from within.
And so, in Europe priest’s holes were built into homes. Tunnels dug for escape.
Some had escaped so far they popped up in the New World. And even that wasn’t far enough. The Gilbertines had gone even further. They disappeared into the blank spot on the map.
Vanished.
To reappear more than three hundred years later. On the radio.
The voices of an order everyone had thought was extinct were heard first by a few, then by hundreds, then by thousands and hundreds of thousands. Then, thanks to the Internet, finally millions of people listened to the odd little recording.
Of monks chanting.
The recording had become a sensation. Suddenly their Gregorian chants were everywhere. De rigueur. Deemed a “must listen” by the intelligentsia, by the cognoscenti, and finally, by the masses.
While their voices were everywhere, the monks themselves were nowhere to be seen. Eventually they’d been found. Gamache remembered his own astonishment when it was discovered where the monks lived. He’d assumed it was some remote hilltop in Italy or France or Spain. Some tiny, ancient, crumbling monastery. But no. The recording was made by an order of monks living right there, in Québec. And it wasn’t just any order. The Trappists, the Benedictines, the Dominicans. No. Their discovery seemed to astonish even the Catholic Church. The recording had been made by an order of monks the Church seemed to think had died out. The Gilbertines.
But there they were, in the wilderness, on the shores of this far-flung lake. Very much alive, and singing chants so ancient and so beautiful they awakened something primal in millions worldwide.
The world had come calling. Some curious. Some desperate for the peace these men seemed to have found. But this “gate,” made from trees felled hundreds of years ago, held firm. It did not open for strangers.
Until today.
It had opened to let them in, and now it was about to open again, to let them out.
The portier came forward, the large black key in his hand. At a small sign from the abbot he inserted it in the lock. It turned easily, and the door swung open.
Through the rectangle the men saw the setting sun, its reds and oranges reflected in the calm, fresh lake. The forests now were dark, and birds swooped low over the water, calling to each other.
But by far the most glorious sight was the oil-stained boatman, smoking a cigarette and sitting on the dock. Fishing.
He waved as the door swung open, and the Chief Inspector waved back. Then the boatman struggled to his feet, his considerable bottom all but mooning the monks. Gamache motioned Beauvoir and Charbonneau, with the body, to leave first. Then he and the abbot followed them to the dock.
The rest of the monks stayed inside, clustered around the open door. Craning to see out.
The abbot tipped his head to the red-streaked sky and closed his eyes. Not in prayer, Gamache thought, but in a sort of bliss. Enjoying the meager light on his pale face. Enjoying the pine-scented air. Enjoying his feet on the uneven, unpredictable ground.
Then his eyes opened.
“Thank you for not interrupting Vespers,” he said, not looking at Gamache, but continuing to soak in the natural world around him.
“You’re welcome.”
They took a few more steps.
“Thank you too for bringing Mathieu to the altar.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I don’t know if you realized it, but it gave us a chance to offer special prayers. For the dead.”
“I wasn’t sure,” admitted the Chief Inspector, also looking ahead at the mirror lake. “But I thought I heard Dies irae.”
The abbot nodded, “And Dies illa.”
Day of wrath. Day of mourning.
“Are the monks
mourning?” asked Gamache. Their gait had slowed almost to a halt.
The Chief had expected an immediate answer, a shocked reply. But instead the abbot seemed to consider.
“Mathieu wasn’t always an easy man.” He smiled a little as he spoke. “No one is, I suppose. One thing we learn early when committing to a monastic life is that we have to accept each other.”
“And what happens if you don’t?”
The abbot paused again. It had been a simple question, but Gamache could see the answer wasn’t simple.
“That can be very bad,” said the abbot. He didn’t meet Gamache’s eyes. “It happens. But we learn to set aside our own feelings for the greater good. We learn to get along.”
“But not necessarily to like each other,” said Gamache. It wasn’t a question. He knew the Sûreté was much the same. There were a few colleagues he didn’t like, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Indeed, “didn’t like” was a euphemism. The feeling had gone from disagreement, to dislike, to distrust. And was growing still. It had settled, for now, on mutual loathing. Gamache didn’t know where it would stop, but he could imagine. The fact these people were his superiors made it simply more uncomfortable. It meant, at least for now, they had to figure out how to exist together. Either that, or tear each other and the service apart. And Gamache, as he tilted his own face to the glorious sunset, knew that was a possibility. In the calm of the early evening it seemed far away, but he knew this peaceful time wouldn’t last. Night was coming. And it was a fool who met it unprepared.
“Who could have done this, mon père?”
Now they were stopped on the dock, watching as the boatman and the officers secured Frère Mathieu’s covered body to the boat, beside the catch of bass and trout and the writhing worms.
Again the abbot considered. “I don’t know. I should know, but I don’t.”
He looked behind him. The monks had ventured out and were standing in a semi-circle, watching them. Frère Simon, the abbot’s secretary, was standing a step or two forward.
“Poor one,” said Dom Philippe under his breath.
“Who do you mean?”
“Pardon?”
“You said, ‘Poor one.’ Who did you mean?” asked Gamache.
“Whoever did this.”
“And who is that, Dom Philippe?” He’d had the impression the abbot had been looking at one monk as he’d spoken. Brother Simon. The sad monk. The one who’d separated himself from the rest.
There was a moment’s tense silence as the abbot looked at his community, and Gamache looked at the abbot. Finally the abbot turned back to the Chief Inspector.
“I don’t know who killed Mathieu.”
He shook his head. A weary smile appeared on the abbot’s face. “I actually believed I could look at them just now and tell. That there’d be something different about him. Or me. That I’d just know.”
The abbot gave a small grunt of laughter. “Ego. Hubris.”
“And?” asked Gamache.
“It didn’t work.”
“Don’t feel badly, I do the same thing. I have yet to look at anyone and know immediately that they’re the killer, but I still try.”
“And what would you do if it worked?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Suppose you did look at someone, and just knew?”
Gamache smiled. “I’m not sure I’d trust myself. Probably think it was all in my imagination. Besides, it wouldn’t impress a judge if on the stand I said, ‘I just knew.’”
“That’s the difference between us, Chief Inspector. You need proof in your line of work. I don’t.”
The abbot glanced behind them again and Gamache wondered if this was idle conversation, or something more. The semi-circle of monks continued to watch.
One of them had killed Brother Mathieu.
“What’re you looking for, mon père? You might not need proof, but you need a sign. What sign in their faces are you looking for? Guilt?”
The abbot shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for guilt. I was looking for pain. Can you imagine the pain he must have been in, to do this? And the pain he still feels?”
The Chief scanned their faces again, and finally came to rest on the man right beside him. Gamache did see pain in the face of one of the monks. Dom Philippe. The abbot.
“Do you know who did this?” Gamache asked again, quietly. So that it was only audible to the abbot and the sweet autumn air around them. “If you do, you must tell me. I’ll find him eventually, you know. It’s what I do. But it’s a terrible, terrible process. You have no idea what’s about to be unleashed. And once it starts, it won’t stop until the murderer is found. If you can spare the innocent, I’m begging you to do it. Tell me who did this, if you know.”
That brought the abbot’s full attention back to the large, quiet man in front of him. The slight breeze tugged at the graying hair just curling by the Chief Inspector’s ears. But the rest of the man was still. Firm.
And his eyes, deep brown like the earth, were thoughtful.
And kind.
And Dom Philippe believed Armand Gamache. The Chief Inspector had been brought to the monastery, admitted to their abbey, to find the murderer. It was what this man was always meant to do. And he was almost certainly very good at it.
“I would tell you if I knew.”
“We’re ready,” Beauvoir called from the boat.
“Bon.” Gamache held the abbot’s eyes for another moment then turned to see the boatman’s large hand resting on the outboard motor, ready to pull the cord.
“Captain Charbonneau?” Gamache invited the Sûreté inspector to take a seat.
“Is it possible to keep this quiet?” asked Dom Philippe.
“I’m afraid not, mon père. The news will get out, it always does,” said Gamache. “You might consider issuing a statement yourself.”
He saw the distaste on the abbot’s face and suspected that wouldn’t happen.
“Au revoir, Chief Inspector,” said Dom Philippe, extending his hand. “Thank you for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” said Gamache, taking the hand. “But it isn’t over yet.” At a nod from Gamache, the boatman yanked the cord and the motor leapt into life. Beauvoir dropped the rope into the boat and it drifted away. Leaving Gamache and Beauvoir standing on the dock.
“You’re staying?” asked the abbot, bewildered.
“Yes. We’re staying. I leave with the murderer, or not at all.”
Beauvoir stood beside Gamache and together they watched the small boat chug down the sunset bay, and around the corner. Out of sight.
The two Sûreté investigators remained there until the sound had disappeared.
And then they turned their backs on the natural world and followed the robed figures back into the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
TEN
Beauvoir spent the early evening setting up their Incident Room in the prior’s study while Chief Inspector Gamache read the interviews with the monks, and spoke to some in more depth.
A picture was emerging. How accurate it was was impossible to say, but it was clear and surprisingly consistent from man to man.
After Vigils at five in the morning, the monks had had breakfast and prepared for the day. There was another service at seven thirty, Lauds. It ended at eight fifteen. Then their workday began.
Work was any number of things, but for each man it was much the same each day.
They worked in the garden, or with the animals. They cleaned the abbey, did the archives, did repairs. Cooked the meals.
Each man was, it turned out, quite expert in his field. Whether it was as a chef or gardener, engineer or historian.
And they were all, without exception, exceptional musicians.
“How does this happen, Jean-Guy?” Gamache asked, looking up from his notes. “That they’re all remarkable musicians?”
“You’re asking me?” Beauvoir’s voice came from beneath the desk, where he was trying to reconne
ct the laptop. “Dumb luck?”
“Dumb luck would be you getting that thing to work,” said the Chief. “I think there’s another agency at work here.”
“I hope you don’t mean divine.”
“Not entirely, though I wouldn’t rule it out. No, I think they must have been recruited.”
Beauvoir looked out from beneath the desk, his dark hair disheveled. “Like hockey players are recruited?”
“Like you were recruited. I found you lording it over the evidence locker in that Sûreté outpost, remember?”
Beauvoir would never forget. Banished to the basement, because no one wanted to work with him. Not because he was incompetent, but because he was an asshole. Though Beauvoir preferred to believe they were just jealous of him.
He’d been assigned to the evidence locker since he was only fit for things not actually alive.
They’d wanted him to quit. Expected him to quit. And, to be honest, he’d been about to quit, when Chief Inspector Gamache had come calling on a murder investigation. He’d come to the locker looking for a piece of evidence. And found Agent Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
And had invited him to join the investigation.
It was a moment Beauvoir would never forget. Looking into those eyes, a smart-ass remark dying on his lips. He’d been fucked with so often, jerked around, insulted, bullied. He barely dared hope this wasn’t another trick. A new bit of cruelty. Kicking a dead man. Because Beauvoir could feel himself dying down there. All he’d ever wanted was to be a Sûreté officer. And every day he came closer to losing it.
But now this large man with the quiet demeanor had offered to take him away.
To save him. Even though they were strangers.
And Agent Beauvoir, who had sworn to never trust again, had trusted Armand Gamache. That was fifteen years ago.
Had these monks also been recruited? Found? Saved, even? And brought here?
“So,” said Beauvoir, getting up from the floor and dusting off his slacks, “you think someone lured these monks to the abbey?”
Gamache smiled and looked at Beauvoir over the top of his reading glasses. “You have a gift for making everything sound suspicious, even ominous.”
