by Louise Penny
Gamache doubted the iron knocker had much to tell them. Frère Simon had admitted washing it off, scrubbing it down, and replacing it by the door. So that anyone wanting admittance to the abbot’s locked rooms yesterday morning would put their fingerprints and DNA on it. And many had. Including Gamache himself.
The prior’s office was empty. A few monks were working in the animalerie, feeding and cleaning the goats and chickens. Down the other corridor, Gamache looked in the dining hall and then opened the door to the chocolaterie.
“Looking for someone?” Frère Charles asked.
“Inspector Beauvoir.”
“I’m afraid he isn’t here.” The medical monk put a scoop into the vat of melted chocolate and brought out a ladle filled with dripping blueberries. “Last batch of the day. Picked by Frère Bernard this morning. He had to go out twice, poor man. Apparently he ate the first harvest himself.” Frère Charles laughed. “An occupational hazard. Like some?”
He gestured to the long rows of tiny, dark brown spheres already cooled and ready to be packaged and shipped south.
Gamache, feeling a bit like a child playing hooky, walked into the chocolaterie and closed the door.
“Please.” Frère Charles motioned to a sturdy stool and pulled one up himself. “We take shifts working here. When the monks first started making chocolate-covered berries one monk was assigned the work, but then they noticed he was getting larger and the output was shrinking.”
Gamache smiled and took the confection the monk was offering. “Merci.”
If possible, the wildly flavorful berry covered in the musky chocolate was even tastier than before. Now, if a monk was murdered for these, Gamache could understand. But then, he thought, taking another chocolate, we all have our drug of choice. For some it’s chocolate, for others it’s chants.
“You told Inspector Beauvoir that you were neutral in the conflict within the monastery, mon frère. A sort of Red Cross, ministering to the wounded in the battle for control of Saint-Gilbert. Who would you say were the most hurt? By the fighting, but also by the prior’s death.”
“In the fighting I’d say not a man was left untouched. We all felt horrible about what was happening, but no one quite knew how to stop it. So much seemed at stake, and there didn’t seem to be any middle ground. You couldn’t make half a recording or remove half the vow of silence. There didn’t seem a compromise possible.”
“You say there was so much at stake, do you know about the foundations?”
“What foundations? Of the abbey?”
Gamache nodded, watching the cheerful doctor closely.
“What about them?”
“Do you know if they’re solid?” asked Gamache.
“Are you talking literally or figuratively? Literally, nothing could knock these walls down. The original monks knew what they were doing. But figuratively? I’m afraid Saint-Gilbert is very shaky.”
“Merci,” said Gamache. Here was another who didn’t seem to know anything about cracked foundations. Was it possible Frère Raymond was wrong? Or lying? Did he make the whole thing up to help pressure the abbot into the second recording?
“And after the prior’s death, mon frère? Which of the monks was most upset?”
“Well, we were all devastated. Even those brothers who bitterly opposed him were shocked.”
“Bien sûr,” said the Chief, shaking his head and refusing more chocolate. If he didn’t stop now, he’d eat them all. “But can you separate them out? The community here isn’t amorphous. You might sing with a single voice, but you don’t react with a single emotion.”
“True.” The doctor sat back and thought about that for a moment. “I’d say two people were the most upset. Frère Luc. He’s the youngest of us, the most impressionable. And the least connected to the community. His only connection seems to be the choir. And, of course, Frère Mathieu was the choirmaster. He adored Frère Mathieu. He was a big reason Luc joined the little old Gilbertines. To study under the prior, and to sing the Gregorian chants.”
“Are the chants here that different? Dom Philippe says every monastery sings from the same book of plainchant.”
“True. But strangely enough they sound different here. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the prior. Or the acoustics. Or the specific combination of voices.”
“I understand Frère Luc has a beautiful voice.”
“He does. Technically the best of all of us. By far.”
“But?”
“Oh, he’ll get there. Once he learns to channel those emotions from his head and into his heart. One day he’ll be the choirmaster himself. And he’ll be a magnificent one. He has all the passion, he just needs to direct it.”
“But will he stay?”
The medical monk absently ate a few more blueberries. “Now that Frère Mathieu is dead? I don’t know. Perhaps not. It was a huge loss to the whole community, but perhaps to Frère Luc most of all. I think there was some hero worship there. Not unusual in a mentor-pupil relationship.”
“Was the prior Frère Luc’s mentor?”
“He mentored all of us, but since Luc was the newest he needed the most guidance.”
“Could Frère Luc have misread their relationship? Assumed it was more special? Unique even?”
“In what way?” Frère Charles, while still cordial, was now guarded. They all became defensive, when there was any suggestion of a “special” friendship.
“Could he have thought the choir director was grooming him? That this was more than simply schooling him in the ways of this particular choir?”
“It’s possible,” admitted Frère Charles. “But the prior would have been sensitive to that and stopped it. Frère Luc wouldn’t have been the first monk to fall under his spell.”
“Had Frère Antoine? The soloist?” asked Gamache. “They must have been close.”
“You’re not suggesting Frère Antoine killed the prior in some fit of jealousy, when the prior turned his attentions to Luc?” The doctor all but snorted.
But Gamache knew laughter often covered up an uncomfortable truth.
“Is it so ludicrous?” asked the Chief.
The smile fell from the monk’s face. “You mistake us for the cast of some soap opera. Frères Antoine and Mathieu were colleagues. They shared a love of Gregorian chant. That is the only love they shared.”
“But that was quite a potent love, wouldn’t you say?” asked Gamache. “All-consuming even.”
The doctor remained silent now, just watching the Chief. Not agreeing. But not disagreeing either.
“You said there were two people most affected by the prior’s death.” Gamache broke the silence. “One was Luc. Who was the other?”
“The abbot. He’s trying to hold it together, but I can see what a strain it is. There’re small signs. A slight inattention. Forgetting things. His appetite is off. I’ve ordered him to eat more. It’s always the small things that give us away, isn’t it?”
Brother Charles dropped his gaze, to the Chief Inspector’s hands, one lightly clasping the other.
“Are you all right?”
“Me?” asked Gamache, surprised.
The doctor brought his hand up and grazed his finger along his left temple.
“Ah,” said the Chief. “That. You noticed.”
“I’m a medical man,” said Brother Charles with a smile. “I almost never miss a deep scar on the temple.” Then his face grew serious. “Or a trembling hand.”
“An old issue,” said Gamache. “In the past.”
“A bleed?” asked the doctor, not letting it go.
“A bullet,” said the Chief.
“Oh,” said Brother Charles. “A hematoma. Is that the only effect? The tremble in your right hand?”
Gamache didn’t quite know how to answer that. So he didn’t. Instead he smiled and nodded. “It gets slightly more noticeable when I’m tired, or stressed.”
“Yes, Inspector Beauvoir told me.”
“Did he?” Gamache looked interested. And
not particularly pleased.
“I asked.” The doctor looked at Gamache for a moment, examining him. Seeing the friendly face. The lines from the corners of his eyes, and his mouth. Laugh lines. Here was a man who knew how to smile. But there were other lines too. On his forehead and between Gamache’s brows. Lines that came with worry.
But more than this man’s physical body, what struck Frère Charles about Gamache was his calm. Frère Charles knew this was the sort of peace a person found only after being at war.
“If that’s your only symptom, you’re a lucky man,” the medical monk finally said.
“Yes.”
Take this child.
“Though the arrival of your boss doesn’t seem to have improved the situation.”
Gamache said nothing. Not for the first time he realized these monks missed very little. Every breath, every look, every movement, every tremble told these monks something. This medical monk in particular.
“It was a surprise,” Gamache admitted. “Who do you think killed the prior?”
“Changing the subject?” The doctor smiled, then thought before he answered. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve thought of little else since his death. I can’t believe any of us did it. But of course, one of us did.”
He paused again and looked directly at Gamache. “One thing I know for sure, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Most people don’t die at once.”
It wasn’t what Gamache was expecting the doctor to say, and he wondered if Brother Charles realized the prior was alive when Frère Simon found him.
“They die a bit at a time,” said the doctor.
“Excusez-moi?”
“They don’t teach this at medical school, but I’ve seen it in real life. People die in bits and pieces. A series of petites morts. Little deaths. They lose their sight, their hearing, their independence. Those are the physical ones. But there’re others. Less obvious, but more fatal. They lose heart. They lose hope. They lose faith. They lose interest. And finally, they lose themselves.”
“What are you telling me, Frère Charles?”
“That it’s possible both the prior and his killer were well down the same path. Both might have suffered a series of petites morts, before the final blow.”
“The grande mort,” said Gamache. “And who here fits that description?”
Now the doctor leaned forward, past the field of chocolate blueberries.
“How do you think we get here, Chief Inspector? To Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups? We didn’t follow the yellow brick road. We were shoved along, by our own petites morts. There isn’t a man in this monastery who didn’t come through that door wounded. Damaged. Almost dead inside.”
“And here you found what?”
“Healing. Our wounds were bound. The holes inside us were filled with faith. Our loneliness healed by the company of God. We thrived on simple work and healthy food. On routine and certainty. By no longer being alone. But more than anything, it’s the joy of singing to God. The chants saved us, Chief Inspector. Plainchants. They resurrected each and every one of us.”
“Well, maybe not all of you.”
Both men sat with the knowledge that the miracle hadn’t been perfect. One man was missed.
“Eventually those chants destroyed your community.”
“I can see how it would appear that way, but the chants weren’t the problem. It was our own egos. Power struggles. It was terrible.”
“Some malady is coming upon us,” said Gamache.
The doctor looked puzzled, then nodded. Placing the quote.
“T. S. Eliot. Murder in the Cathedral. Oui. That’s it. A malady,” said the medical monk.
Gamache, as he made his way out the door, was left to wonder just how neutral this Red Cross really was. Had the good doctor found the malady and cured it, with a blow to the head?
* * *
Jean-Guy Beauvoir reentered the monastery and went in search of one private place. Just someplace he could be alone.
Finally he found it. The narrow walkway running above and around the Blessed Chapel. Beauvoir climbed the winding steps and sat on the narrow stone bench carved into the wall. He could stay there without being seen.
Once sitting, though, he felt he might never get up. They’d find him decades from now, ossified. Turned to rock, up there. A gargoyle. Perched and permanently looking down on the bowing and genuflecting men in black and white.
Beauvoir longed at that moment to slip into a robe. To shave his head. To tighten the cord around his waist. And see the world in black and white.
Gamache was good. Francoeur was bad.
Annie loved him. He loved Annie.
The Gamaches would accept him as their son. As their son-in-law.
They’d be happy. He and Annie would be happy.
Simple. Clear.
Beauvoir closed his eyes and took deep breaths, smelling the incense. Years and years of it. Instead of bringing up bad memories, of hours wasted on hard pews, it actually smelled good. Comforting. Relaxing.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
In his hand he clasped a pill bottle he’d found on the table in his cell, a note scribbled beside it.
Take as needed. The signature was illegible, but it looked like Frère Charles’s. He was a doctor, after all, thought Beauvoir. There could be no harm.
He’d stood in his cell, uncertain. The familiar bottle rested in his hand as though the small cavity in the center of his fist was designed for it. He knew what the bottle contained without even reading the label, but he read it anyway and felt both alarm and relief.
OxyContin.
Beauvoir was tempted to bolt down a pill right then and there, in his cell. Then lie down on the narrow cot. And feel the warmth spread and the pain ebb.
But he was afraid Gamache might walk in. Instead, he’d found a place he suspected the Chief, afraid of heights, wouldn’t go, even if he knew it was there. The exposed catwalk above the Blessed Chapel.
Now Beauvoir looked at the bottle in his hand, clasped so tightly the cap had left a purple circle in his palm. It was, after all, from a doctor. And he was in pain.
“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, and opened the bottle. A few moments later, in the Blessed Chapel, Jean-Guy Beauvoir found blessed relief.
* * *
The bells of Saint-Gilbert rang out. Not the thin call to prayers of earlier in the day, but all the bells pealed in a hearty, robust, full-bodied invitation.
Chief Inspector Gamache looked at his watch, out of habit. But he knew what the bells signaled. Five o’clock service.
Vespers.
The Blessed Chapel was empty when he slid into a pew. He put the murder weapon on the seat beside him, and closed his eyes. But not for long. Someone had joined him in the pew.
“Salut, mon vieux,” said Gamache. “Where’ve you been? I was looking for you.”
He’d known it was Jean-Guy without looking.
“Here and there,” said Beauvoir. “Investigating a murder, you know.”
“Are you all right?” Gamache asked. Beauvoir seemed dazed and his clothes were disheveled.
“Fine. I went for a walk and slipped on the path outside. I need to get out every now and then.”
“I know what you mean. Any luck with Frère Raymond in the basement?”
Beauvoir looked lost for a moment. Frère Raymond? Then he remembered. Had that even happened? It seemed so long ago.
“The foundations look OK to me. And no sign of a steel pipe.”
“Well, no need to look further. I’ve found the murder weapon.”
Gamache handed the towel to his second in command. Above them the bells stopped ringing.
Beauvoir carefully unwrapped the package. There, in the folds, was the iron knocker. He looked at it, not touching, then up at Gamache.
“How d’you know this’s what killed him?”
The Chief Inspector told him about his conversation with Frère Simon. The Blessed C
hapel was very quiet now and Gamache kept his voice in the lowest register. When he looked up it was to see that the Chief Superintendent had arrived and was sitting in a pew across from them and down a row.
The gap between them, it seemed, was widening. This was fine with Gamache.
Beauvoir wrapped the length of iron back up. “I’ll put it in an evidence bag. Not much hope of forensics, though.”
“I agree,” whispered the Chief.
From the wings of the chapel came a now familiar sound. A single voice. Frère Antoine, Gamache recognized, alone, came in first. The new choirmaster.
Then his rich tenor was joined by another voice. Frère Bernard, who collected eggs and wild blueberries. His voice was higher, less rich but more precise.
Then Brother Charles, the médecin, walked in, his tenor filling in the gaps between the first two monks.
One after another the brothers filed in, their voices joining, mixing, complementing. Giving a plainchant depth and life. As beautiful as the music had been on CD, as wonderful as it had been yesterday, it was even more glorious now.
Gamache could feel himself both invigorated and relaxed. Calmed and enlivened. The Chief wondered if it was simply because he knew the monks now, or if it was something less tangible. Some shift in the monks that came with the death of their old choirmaster and the ascension of the new.
One after another, the monks walked in, singing. Frère Simon. Frère Raymond. And then, at last, Frère Luc.
And everything changed. His voice, not a tenor, not a baritone. Neither, yet both, joined the rest. And suddenly the individual voices, the individual notes were connected. Joined. Held in an embrace, as though the neumes had lengthened and become arms, and were holding each monk and each man listening.
It became whole. No more wounds. No more damage. The holes became whole. The damage repaired.
Frère Luc sang the simple chant, simply. No histrionics. No hysteria. But with a passion and fullness of spirit that Gamache hadn’t noticed before. It was as though the young monk was free. And being freed, he gave new life to the gliding, soaring neumes.
Gamache listened, struck dumb by the beauty of it. By the way the voices claimed not just his head, but his heart. His arms, his legs, his hands. The scar on his head, and his chest, and the tremble in his hand.
