by Louise Penny
“But he didn’t, did he? I saw that tape. I know every frame. I saw the raw tape too. Even more telling.”
“What’re you saying?”
“Is Gamache investigating the leak of the video?” Francoeur demanded.
Beauvoir was silent.
“Is he?” Francoeur didn’t just shout now, he screamed at Beauvoir. “I thought not,” said Francoeur at last, his voice quiet now. “Why would he? He knows who released it. He wants all questions to die away.”
“You’re wrong.” Beauvoir was confused and angry. This man had gotten him twisted around, so that up was down, and down was up, and nothing made sense. Francoeur sounded like his grandfather, but said terrible things.
The Superintendent lowered his gun completely, then looked at it as though wondering how it got into his hand. He replaced it in the leather holster attached to his belt.
“I know you admire him,” he said quietly. “But Armand Gamache isn’t the man you think he is. He made a hatchet job of that rescue. Four Sûreté agents were killed. You yourself almost died. You were left to bleed to death on the floor. The man you so respect and admire led you in there, then left you to die. I see it every time I watch the tape. He even kissed you good-bye. Like Judas.”
Francoeur’s voice was calm, reasonable. Comforting. Familiar.
“He had no choice.” Beauvoir’s voice was hoarse. There was nothing left. No impetus forward.
He wouldn’t attack Francoeur now. Wouldn’t smash a rock into his temple. Beauvoir hadn’t the energy left. All he wanted to do was sag to the ground. To sit on the jagged shore, and let the mist swallow him up.
“We all have a choice,” said Francoeur. “Why release that video? We both know what a mess that raid was. Four young agents died. That can’t be considered a success by any standard—”
“Lives were saved,” said Beauvoir, though he barely had the energy to speak. “Hundreds of thousands of lives. Because of the Chief. The deaths weren’t his fault. He was given the wrong information—”
“He was in charge. It was his responsibility. And after all that mess, who comes out a hero? Because of the tape? It could’ve been edited any way. To show anything. To show the truth. Then why did it make Gamache look so good?”
“That wasn’t his doing.”
“Well, it sure wasn’t mine. I know what really happened. And so do you.” Francoeur’s eyes held Beauvoir’s. “God help me, I was even forced to give the man a medal of bravery, so strong was public sentiment. It makes me sick just thinking about it.”
“He didn’t want it,” said Beauvoir. “He hated that whole thing.”
“Then why did he accept it? We have a choice, Jean-Guy. We really do.”
“He deserved that medal,” said Beauvoir. “He saved more lives than—”
“Than he killed? Yes. Perhaps. But he didn’t save you. He could have, but he ran off. You know it. I know it. He knows it.”
“He had to.”
“Yes, I know. He had no choice.”
Francoeur examined Beauvoir, apparently trying to make up his mind about something.
“He probably likes you. Like he likes his car or a nice suit. You suit him. You’re useful.” Francoeur paused. “But that’s all.”
His voice was soft, reasonable.
“You’ll never be his friend. You’ll never be anything other than a convenient subordinate. He has you over to his home, treats you like a son. But then he leaves you to die. Don’t be fooled, Inspector. You’ll never be a member of his family. He comes from Outremont. Where’re you from? East end Montréal, right? Balconville? He went to Cambridge and Université Laval. You went to some grungy public school and played shinny on the streets. He quotes poetry and you don’t understand it, do you?”
There was a gentleness in his tone.
“A lot of what he says you don’t understand. Am I right?”
Despite himself, Beauvoir nodded.
“Neither do I,” said Francoeur with a small smile. “I know after that raid you separated from your wife. I’m sorry to be so personal, but I wondered…”
Francoeur’s voice petered out and he looked almost bashful. Then he met Beauvoir’s eyes and held them for a moment.
“I wondered if you were in a new relationship.”
On seeing Beauvoir’s reaction Francoeur held up his hand. “I know, it’s none of my business.”
But still he held Beauvoir’s eyes and now he lowered his voice still further.
“Be careful. You’re a good officer. I think you can be a great officer, if given a chance. If you can just get out on your own. I’ve seen you texting, and making sure the Chief didn’t see.”
Now there was a long silence between them.
“Is it Annie Gamache?”
The silence was complete. Not a bird called, not a leaf quivered, not a wave came to shore. The world disappeared and all that was left were two men and a question.
Finally Francoeur sighed. “I hope I’m wrong.”
He walked back to the door, took out the iron knocker, and hit.
It opened.
But Beauvoir saw none of this. He’d turned his back on Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups and looked out across where the tranquil lake would be, if it hadn’t disappeared into the mist.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s world was upside down. The clouds had descended, and the sky had become slate. And the only familiar thing was the ache too deep to grasp.
TWENTY-SIX
“Why did you hide the murder weapon?” Gamache asked. “And why didn’t you tell us about the prior’s last words?”
Frère Simon dropped his eyes to the stone floor of the abbot’s rooms, then lifted them again.
“I think you can guess.”
“I can always guess, mon frère,” said the Chief. “What I need from you is the truth.”
Gamache looked around. They’d returned to the privacy of the abbot’s office. The weak sun no longer lit the room, and his secretary had been too distracted to turn on the lamps, or to even notice they were needed.
“Can we speak in the garden?” Gamache asked, and Frère Simon nodded.
He seemed to have run out of words, as though he was allocated only so many, and he’d used enough for a lifetime.
But it was his actions that were being called to account now.
The two men walked through the bookcase, filled with volumes on early Christian mystics, like Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and the writings of other great Christian minds, from Erasmus to C. S. Lewis. Filled with books on prayer and meditation. On leading a spiritual life. On leading a Catholic life.
They swung aside the words, and walked into the world.
The hills outside the wall were thick with low-hanging cloud. Mist was sitting on the trees, and among the trees, turning the world from the brilliant colors of that morning to shades of gray.
Far from diminishing the beauty, it seemed to add to it, giving the world a degree of softness, and subtlety, of comfort and intimacy.
Wrapped in a towel in the Chief’s hand was the length of iron that, like a magic wand, had turned the living prior into a dead body.
Frère Simon walked to the center of the garden, and paused under the huge nearly bare maple tree.
“Why didn’t you tell us that the prior spoke to you?” said Gamache.
“Because his words were in the form of a confession. My sort, not yours. It was my moral obligation.”
“You have convenient morals, mon frère. They seem to allow lying.”
That brought Frère Simon up short, and again he reverted to silence.
He also, thought Gamache, has a convenient vow of silence.
“Why didn’t you tell us the prior had said ‘homo’ just before he died?”
“Because I knew it’d be misunderstood.”
“Because we’re stupid, you mean? Not given to the nuance of mind so obvious in les religieux? Why did you hide the murder weapon?”
“I didn’t hide it
, it was in plain sight.”
“Enough of this,” snapped Gamache. “I know you’re frightened. I know you’re cornered. Stop playing these games and tell me the truth and let’s end this. Have the decency and courage to do that. And trust us. We’re not the fools you’re afraid we are.”
“Désolé,” said the monk, with a sigh. “I’ve been trying so hard to convince myself what I did wasn’t wrong, I almost forgot that it was. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you. And God knows, I should never have taken the knocker away.”
“Why did you?”
Frère Simon stared into Gamache’s eyes.
“You suspect someone, don’t you,” said the Chief, holding that stare.
The monk’s eyes held a plea. A desperate plea for this interrogation to stop. For the questions to stop.
But they both knew it couldn’t. This conversation was destined to happen, from the moment the blow fell, and Frère Simon heard a dying man’s last words, and took the murder weapon. He knew, one way or another, he’d have to answer for his actions.
“Who do you think did this?” Gamache asked.
“I can’t tell you. I can’t say the words.”
And he looked as though, physically, he couldn’t.
“We’ll stand here for eternity, then, mon frère,” said Gamache. “Until you say the words. And then we’ll both be free.”
“But not…”
“The man you suspect?” Gamache’s eyes, and voice, softened. “You think I don’t know?”
“Then why force me to say it?” The monk was almost in tears.
“Because you must. It’s your burden, not mine.” He looked at Frère Simon with sympathy, as one brother to another. “Believe me, I have my own.”
Simon paused, and looked at Gamache.
“Oui. C’est la vérité.” He took a breath. “I didn’t tell you that the prior said ‘homo’ just before he died, then I hid the murder weapon, because I was afraid the abbot had done it. I thought Dom Philippe had killed Frère Mathieu.”
“Merci,” said Gamache. “And do you still think that?”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what else to think.”
The Chief nodded. He didn’t know if Frère Simon was telling the truth, but he did know these words had cost the monk. Simon had, in effect, thrown the abbot to the Inquisition.
The question Gamache asked himself now, that the Inquisitors had failed to ask, was whether this was the truth. Or was this poor man so terrified he’d say anything? Did Frère Simon name the abbot to save himself?
Gamache didn’t know. What he did know was that Frère Simon, the taciturn monk, had loved the abbot. Still did.
Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?
Had Frère Simon rid the abbot of the troublesome prior? Had he taken some subtle look, a raised brow, a twitch of the hand, as a plea from the abbot? And acted upon it? And now, consumed with guilt and flailed by his conscience, was Frère Simon trying to blame the abbot himself?
The prior might have been troublesome, but it was nothing compared to an aroused conscience. Or the trouble created when the head of homicide knocked at the door.
The monks’ external lives in Saint-Gilbert might be simple, ruled by the bell and the chants and the changing seasons. But their internal life was a quagmire of emotions.
Emotions, Gamache knew from years of kneeling beside corpses, were what made the body. Not a gun, not a knife. Not a length of old iron.
Some emotion had slipped the leash and killed Frère Mathieu. And to find his killer, Armand Gamache needed to use his logic, but also, his own feelings.
The abbot had said, Why didn’t I see this coming?
The question had seemed genuine, the angst certainly was. He hadn’t seen that one of his community, his flock, wasn’t a sheep at all. But a wolf.
But suppose the question, filled with wonder and shock, wasn’t aimed at one of the brothers? Maybe the abbot was asking it of himself. Why didn’t I see this coming? Not the murderous thoughts and actions of another, but of himself.
Maybe Dom Philippe was amazed that he himself could, and did, kill.
The Chief Inspector took half a step back. Physically, not much, but it was a signal to the monk that he had a little space, and time. To compose himself. To gather himself and his wits back up. It might have been a mistake, the Chief knew, to give Frère Simon this time. His colleagues, including Jean-Guy, would almost certainly have pressed on. Knowing the man was on his knees, they’d have forced him to the ground.
But Gamache knew that while that sort of thing might be effective in the short term, a man humiliated, emotionally raped, would never again open up.
Besides, while Gamache wanted very much to solve the crime, he didn’t want to lose his soul in the process. He suspected there were enough lost souls already.
“Why would Dom Philippe kill the prior?” Gamache eventually asked.
The garden was quiet, all sound muffled by the mist. Not that there was much sound to begin with. Birds called every now and then, chipmunks and squirrels chattered at each other. Twigs and branches broke, as something larger moved through the thick Canadian forest.
All muffled now.
“You were right about the rift,” said Frère Simon. “As soon as that first recording was a success things started falling apart. Ego, I suspect. And power. Suddenly there was something worth fighting over. Up until then we were all equal, just sort of meandering through our days in a rickety old monastery. We were quite happy, certainly content. But the recording brought so much attention, and so much money so quickly.”
The monk raised his palms to the gray sky and gave a little shrug.
“The abbot wanted us to take it slowly. To not rush off and leave our vows behind. But the prior and others saw the success as a sign from God, that we needed to be out in the world more. To share our gifts.”
“Each claimed to know God’s will,” said the Chief.
“We were having some difficulty interpreting it,” Frère Simon admitted with a small smile.
“Perhaps not the first religieux to have that problem.”
“You think?”
It was as Gamache had heard from everyone except the abbot. Before the recording the monastery was falling apart but the congregation was solid. After the recording the monastery was being repaired but the congregation was falling apart.
Some malady is coming upon us.
The abbot was stuck trying to figure out the will of a God who seemed himself conflicted.
“The abbot and his prior were good friends, even loving friends, before the recording.”
The monk nodded.
Gamache thought the Gilbertines could begin a new calendar. There was BR, before the recording. And AR.
Some malady is coming upon us. Disguised as a miracle.
They were now roughly two years AR. Plenty of time for a close friendship to turn to hate. As only a good friendship could. The conduit to the heart was already created.
“And the piece of paper,” Gamache asked, indicating the yellowed chant he still held. “What part could this have played?”
Frère Simon thought about that. As did Gamache.
The two men stood in the garden, as the mist slipped over the wall.
“The abbot loves plainchant,” said Frère Simon, speaking slowly, working his way through this. “And he has a wonderful voice. Very clear, very true.”
“But?”
“But he isn’t the most gifted musician in Saint-Gilbert. And he isn’t fluent in Latin. Like the rest of us, he knows scripture and the Latin mass. But beyond that, he wasn’t a Latin scholar. You might have noticed, all his books are in French, not Latin.”
Gamache had noticed.
“I doubt he’d know the Latin word for ‘banana,’ for instance.” Simon pointed to that silly phrase.
“But you did,” said Gamache.
“I looked it up.”
“As could the abbot.”
<
br /> “But why would he look up and use a string of nonsense words in Latin?” asked Frère Simon. “If he was going to put Latin words on paper he’d probably use bits of prayers or chants. I doubt he was Gilbert to the prior’s Sullivan. Or the other way around.”
Gamache nodded. That had been his reasoning as well. He could see the abbot braining the prior, in a fit of passion. Not sexual passion, but a much more dangerous kind. A religious fervor. Believing Frère Mathieu was going to kill the monastery, kill the order. And it was Dom Philippe’s burden, given by God, to stop him.
It was also Dom Philippe’s job, as father to his sons, to protect them. And that meant protecting their home. Defending their home. Gamache had looked into the eyes of too many grieving fathers not to know the force of that love.
He felt it himself, for his own son and daughter. He felt it, God help him, for his agents. He chose them, recruited them, trained them.
They were his sons and daughters, and every day he sent them after murderers.
And he’d crawled over to each and every mortally wounded one, and held them and whispered an urgent prayer.
Take this child.
As gunshots exploded into walls and floors, he’d held Jean-Guy, protecting him with his own body. He’d kissed his brow and whispered those words too. Believing this boy he loved was dying. And he could see in Jean-Guy’s eyes, he believed it too.
And then he’d left him. To help the others. Gamache had killed that day. Coolly taken aim and seen men lose their lives. He’d killed deliberately, and he’d do it again. To save his agents.
Armand Gamache knew the power of a father’s love. Whether it be a biological father or a father by choice. And fate.
If he could kill, why couldn’t the abbot?
But Gamache couldn’t, for the life of him, see what role the neumes might have played. It all made sense. Except for the mystery he held in his hand.
Like a father himself, the prior had died hugging it.
* * *
The Chief Inspector left Frère Simon and went in search of Beauvoir, to bring him up to speed and to give him the murder weapon for safekeeping.
