by Louise Penny
“Fernando?” Gamache had to ask.
Simon actually laughed, to the surprise and near consternation of the monks directly around him. It was doubtful they’d ever heard that sound before.
“Truthfully?” asked Simon, leaning toward Gamache. “I had the Abba song in mind.”
The monk sang the familiar tune, a single phrase about drums and guns. Gamache felt his heart leap, as though it wanted to attach itself to this monk. Here was an extraordinarily beautiful voice. Where others were glorious for their clarity, Simon’s was beautiful for its tonality, its richness. It elevated the simple pop lyric into something splendid. The Chief found himself wishing Brother Simon also had a chicken named Mama Mia.
Here was a man filled with passion. Granted, it was for chickens. Whether he was passionate about music, or God, or monastic life was another question.
All the doo-dah day.
* * *
“Your boss seems to have made a conquest,” said Frère Charles, leaning into Beauvoir.
“Oui. I wonder what they’re talking about.”
“I do too,” said the doctor. “I’ve never been able to get more than a grunt out of Frère Simon. Though that makes him a great gatekeeper.”
“I thought Frère Luc was the gatekeeper.”
“He’s the portier, the doorkeeper. Simon has another job. He’s the abbot’s guard dog. No one gets to Dom Philippe except through Frère Simon. He’s devoted to the abbot.”
“And you? Are you devoted?”
“He’s the abbot, our leader.”
“That’s not an answer, mon frère,” said Beauvoir. He’d managed to turn away from Frère Raymond toward the medical monk, when the maintenance monk had reached for more cider.
“Are you one of the abbot’s men, or the prior’s men?”
The doctor’s gaze, friendly before, now sharpened, examining Beauvoir. Then he smiled again.
“I’m neutral, Inspector. Like the Red Cross. I just tend to the wounded.”
“Are there many? Wounded, I mean.”
The smile left Frère Charles’s face. “Enough. A rift like that in a previously happy monastery hurts everyone.”
“Including yourself?”
“Oui,” the doctor admitted. “But I really don’t take sides. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Was it appropriate for anyone?”
“It wasn’t anyone’s first choice,” said the doctor, an edge of impatience in his friendly voice. “We didn’t wake up one morning and pick teams. Like a game of Red Rover. This was excruciating and slow. Like being eviscerated. Gutted. A civil war is never civil.”
Then the monk’s gaze left Beauvoir and looked first at Francoeur, beside the abbot, then across the table to Gamache.
“As perhaps you know.”
A denial was on Beauvoir’s lips, but he stopped it. The monk knew. They all knew.
“Is he all right?” Frère Charles asked.
“Who?”
“The Chief Inspector.”
“Why shouldn’t he be?”
Brother Charles hesitated, searching Beauvoir’s face. Then he looked down at his own steady hand. “The tremble. In his right hand.” He returned his eyes to Beauvoir. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“I have and he’s fine.”
“I’m not asking just to be nosy, you know,” Frère Charles persisted. “A tremble like that can be a sign of something seriously wrong. It comes and goes, I notice. For instance, his hand seems steady right now.”
“It happens when the Chief is tired, or stressed.”
The doctor nodded. “Has he had it long?”
“Not long,” said Beauvoir, careful not to sound defensive. He knew the Chief didn’t seem to care who saw the occasional quiver in his right hand.
“So it’s not Parkinson’s?”
“Not at all,” said Beauvoir.
“Then what caused it?”
“An injury.”
“Ahh,” said Frère Charles, and again he looked across at the Chief Inspector. “The scar near his left temple.”
Beauvoir was silent. Regretting turning away from Frère Raymond and the long list of structural disasters, and other disasters, visited upon the abbey by incompetent abbots, Dom Philippe prominent among them. Now he wanted to turn back. To hear about artesian wells, and septic systems and load-bearing walls.
Anything was better than discussing the Chief’s injuries. And, by association, that terrible day in the abandoned factory.
“If you think he needs anything, I have some things that might be helpful in the infirmary.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure he will.” Frère Charles paused and his eyes held Beauvoir’s. “But we all need help sometimes. Including your Chief. I have relaxants and painkillers. Just let him know.”
“I will,” said Beauvoir. “Merci.”
Beauvoir turned his attention to his meal. But as he ate, the words drifted in through Beauvoir’s own wounds. Sinking deeper and deeper.
Relaxants.
Until they finally hit bottom, and came to rest in Beauvoir’s hidden room.
And painkillers.
TWENTY-ONE
When lunch was over Chief Inspector Gamache and Beauvoir walked back to the prior’s office, comparing notes.
Beauvoir on foundations and Gamache on chickens.
“These aren’t ordinary chickens, but the Chantecler,” said Gamache, with enthusiasm. Beauvoir was never sure if the Chief really was that interested, or just pretending, but he had his suspicions.
“Ahh, the noble Chantecler.”
Gamache smiled. “Don’t mock, Jean-Guy.”
“Me, mock a monk?”
“It seems our Frère Simon is a world expert on the Chantecler. It was bred right here in Québec. By a monk.”
“Really?” Despite himself, Beauvoir was interested. “Right here?”
“Well, no, not in Saint-Gilbert, but in a monastery just outside Montréal, about a hundred years ago. The climate was too harsh in Canada, he thought, for the regular chickens to survive, so he spent his lifetime developing a native Canadian breed. The Chantecler. They almost went extinct, but Frère Simon is bringing them back.”
“Just our luck,” said Beauvoir. “Every other monastery makes alcohol. Brandy and Bénédictine. Champagne. Cognac. Wines. Ours sings obscure chants and breeds near extinct chickens. No wonder they almost went the way of the dodo. But that brings me to my lunch table conversation with Frère Raymond. Thank you for that, by the way.”
Gamache grinned. “Talkative, was he?”
“You couldn’t get your monk started and I couldn’t get mine to stop. But wait ’til you hear what he had to say.”
They were in the Blessed Chapel now. The monks had dispersed, off to do more work, or read, or pray. The afternoons seemed less structured than the mornings.
“The foundations of Saint-Gilbert are crumbling,” said Beauvoir. “Frère Raymond says he discovered it a couple of months ago. The abbey won’t stand another ten years if something isn’t done right away. The first recording made them lots of money, but not enough. They need more.”
“You mean, the entire abbey might collapse?” asked Gamache, who stopped dead in his tracks.
“Boom, gone,” said Beauvoir. “And he blames the abbot.”
“How so? Surely the abbot hasn’t been undermining the abbey, at least not literally.”
“Frère Raymond says if they don’t get the money from a second recording and a concert tour they can’t save the monastery. And the abbot won’t allow either.”
“Dom Philippe knows about the foundations?”
Beauvoir nodded. “Frère Raymond says he told the abbot, but no one else. He’s been begging Dom Philippe to take it seriously. To raise the money to repair the foundations.”
“And no one else knows?” Gamache confirmed.
“Well, Brother Raymond didn’t tell anyone. The abbot might’ve.”
Gam
ache walked a few paces in silence, thinking. Then he stopped.
“The prior was the abbot’s right hand. I wonder if Dom Philippe told him.”
Beauvoir thought about that. “It seems the sort of thing you tell your second in command.”
“Unless you were at war with him,” said Gamache, lost in thought. Trying to see what might have happened. Did the abbot tell the prior that Saint-Gilbert was literally crumbling? But then continued to hold firm against another recording. And continued, even in the face of this news, to refuse to break the silence that would allow the monks to tour and give interviews. To make the millions and millions it would take to save the abbey.
Suddenly the second recording of Gregorian chants went from a possible vanity project on the part of the monks and Frère Mathieu, to something vital. It wouldn’t simply put Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups on the map, it would save the entire abbey.
This had become no mere philosophical difference between the abbot and the prior. The very survival of the abbey was in the balance.
What would Frère Mathieu have done had he known?
“Their relationship was already strained,” said Gamache, starting to walk again, but slowly. Thinking out loud. His voice low, to avoid being overheard. It gave them the appearance of conspirators in the Blessed Chapel.
“The prior would’ve been in a fff…” On seeing Gamache’s face, Beauvoir shifted his words. “In a rage.”
“He was already in an effin’ rage,” agreed the Chief. “This would’ve propelled him right over the edge.”
“And if, faced with all this, the abbot continued to refuse a second recording? I bet Frère Mathieu would’ve threatened to tell the other monks. And then the shhh … the…” But Beauvoir could think of no other way of putting it.
“It certainly would,” agreed Gamache. “So…”
The Chief stopped again and stared into space. Putting the pieces together to form a similar, but different, image.
“So,” he turned to Beauvoir, “maybe Dom Philippe didn’t tell his prior that the foundations were crumbling. He’s smart enough to know what Frère Mathieu would do with that. He’d be handing his adversary a nuclear bomb of information. The cracked and rotting foundations would be the last and most potent argument the prior and his men would need.”
“You think the abbot kept the information to himself?”
“I think it’s possible. And he swore Frère Raymond to secrecy.”
“But if he told me,” said Beauvoir, “wouldn’t he have told the other monks?”
“Perhaps he felt the promise he made to the abbot only extended to the community. Not to you.”
“And maybe he’s had enough of silence,” said Beauvoir.
“And maybe,” said Gamache, “maybe Frère Raymond lied to you, and he did tell one other person.”
Beauvoir considered that for a moment. They heard the soft shuffling of monk feet in the Blessed Chapel and saw monks walking here and there, hugging the old walls. As though afraid to show themselves.
Gamache and Beauvoir had kept their voices low. Low enough, Beauvoir hoped. But if not, it was too late now.
“The prior,” said Beauvoir. “If Frère Raymond was going to break his promise to the abbot, he’d have gone to Frère Mathieu. He’d have felt justified, if he thought the abbot wasn’t going to act.”
Gamache nodded. It made sense. In the logical little world they’d just created. But so much about the lives of the monks didn’t seem logical. And the Chief Inspector had to remind himself not to confuse what should have been, what could have been, with what actually was.
They needed facts.
“If Frère Raymond told the prior, patron, what do you think would happen next?”
“I think we can guess. The prior would’ve been enraged—”
“—or maybe not,” Beauvoir interrupted and the Chief looked at him. “Well maybe the abbot, in staying silent about something so vital, had finally given the prior the weapon he needed. The prior might have pretended to be angry, but in fact, he might have been ecstatic.”
Gamache imagined the prior. Saw him getting the news about the crumbling foundations. The fact the abbot knew, and was apparently doing nothing. Except praying. What would the prior then do?
Would he tell anyone else?
Gamache thought not. At least, not right away.
In a silent order, information became a powerful currency, and Frère Mathieu was almost certainly a miser. He’d never have shared that information so quickly. He’d have hoarded it. Waited for the perfect moment.
Gamache couldn’t be sure, but he thought the prior would probably ask for a meeting with the abbot. Someplace private. Not overlooked. Not overheard. With only the birds, and the old-growth maple, and the black flies as witnesses. If you didn’t count God.
Again, though, the Chief shook his head. It didn’t fit all the facts. One fact, supported by witnesses, was that it was the abbot who had sought out the prior. Not the other way around.
Except.
Gamache thought back to one of his interviews with the abbot. In the garden. When the abbot admitted it was the prior’s idea to meet. Only the timing was the abbot’s.
So, the prior had asked for the meeting. Could it have been about the foundations?
And the scenario shifted again. To the abbot, sending his private secretary on a fool’s errand. To find the prior and ask him to meet later that morning.
Frère Simon leaves.
And the abbot has his office, his cell, and his garden to himself. And there he waits, for Frère Mathieu, and the assignation he’d secretly set up. Not for after the 11 A.M. mass, but after Lauds.
They go into the garden. Dom Philippe doesn’t know for sure why the prior wants to meet, but he suspects. He’s brought a length of pipe out with him, hidden in the long black sleeves of his robe.
Frère Mathieu tells the abbot he knows about the foundations. Demands the second recording. Demands a lifting of the vow of silence. To save the monastery. Or in Chapter later that day he’ll tell all the monks about the foundations. About the abbot’s silence. About the abbot’s paralysis in the face of crisis.
When Frère Mathieu brings out his bomb, the abbot brings out his pipe. One weapon is figurative, and the other isn’t.
Within seconds the prior lies dying at the abbot’s feet.
Yes, thought Gamache, imagining the scene. It fit.
Almost.
“What’s wrong?” asked Beauvoir, seeing the unease on the Chief’s face.
“It almost makes sense, but there’s a problem.”
“What?”
“The neumes. That piece of paper the prior had on him when he died.”
“Well, maybe he just brought it with him. Maybe it’s nothing.”
“Maybe,” said Gamache.
But neither man was convinced. There was a reason the prior had the paper. A reason he died curled around it.
Could it have something to do with the rotting foundations of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups? Gamache couldn’t see how.
“I’m all confused,” Beauvoir admitted.
“So am I. What’s confusing you, mon vieux?”
“The abbot, Dom Philippe. I talk to Frère Bernard, who seems a good guy, and he thinks the abbot’s almost a saint. Then I talk to Frère Raymond, who also seems pretty decent, and he thinks the abbot’s first cousin to Satan.”
Gamache was quiet for a moment. “Can you find Frère Raymond again? He’s probably in the basement. I think that’s where his office is. Ask him directly if he told the prior about the foundations.”
“And if a pipe was the murder weapon the killer probably got it from the basement. And might’ve taken it back.”
Which, Beauvoir knew, made the strappy, chatty Frère Raymond a pretty good suspect. The prior’s man, who knew about the cracks, who loved the abbey and believed the abbot was about to destroy it. And who better than the maintenance monk to know where to find a length of pipe?
Except. Except. Yet again, Beauvoir came up against the fact that the wrong monk had been killed. All that fit. If the abbot had died. But he hadn’t. The prior had.
“I’ll also ask Frère Raymond about the hidden room,” said Beauvoir.
“Bon. Take the plans. See what he thinks. And look at the foundations. If they’re that bad, it should be easy to see. I wonder why no one noticed before?”
“You think he was lying?”
“Some people do, I’m told.”
“It goes against my nature to be cynical, patron, but I’ll try. And you?”
“Frère Simon must be finished copying the chant we found on the prior. I’ll go and get it. I also have a few quiet questions for him. But first I want to finish reading the coroner’s and the forensics reports in peace.”
A sharp, determined footfall echoed in the chapel. Both men turned toward it, though each knew what they’d see. Not one of the soft-footed monks, that was certain.
Chief Superintendent Francoeur was walking toward them, his feet clacking on the stone floor.
“Gentlemen,” said Francoeur. “Did you enjoy your lunch?” He turned to Gamache. “I could hear you and the other monk discussing poultry, was it?”
“Chickens,” confirmed Gamache. “Chantecler, to be exact.”
Beauvoir repressed a smile. Francoeur hadn’t meant for Gamache to be quite so enthusiastic. Asshole, thought Beauvoir. And then he caught sight of Francoeur’s cold eyes, staring at the Chief, and his smile froze on his face.
“I hope you have something more useful planned for this afternoon,” said the Superintendent, his voice casual.
“We do. Inspector Beauvoir is planning to tour the basement with Frère Raymond, looking for a possible hidden room. And maybe even the murder weapon,” Gamache added. “And I’m off to speak further with the abbot’s secretary, Frère Simon. The man I was talking to over lunch.”
“About pigs perhaps, or goats?”
Beauvoir grew very still. And watched the two men, in the peaceful, cool chapel, glare at each other. For a beat.
And then Gamache smiled.
“If he’d like, but mostly about that chant I told you about.”
