by Louise Penny
“Whatever it is, it’s very beautiful,” said Frère Sébastien.
“Much better than the song it replaced in my head. ‘Camptown Races.’”
“Camptown racetrack’s five miles long. Doo-dah, doo-dah,” Frère Sébastien sang. “That one?”
All eyes swung from the Chief Inspector to the newcomer. Even Gamache was speechless for a moment.
Frère Sébastien had made the silly old song sound like a work of genius. As though Mozart or Handel or Beethoven had written it. If the works of da Vinci could turn themselves into music, they’d have sounded like that.
“All the doo-dah day,” Frère Sébastien concluded with a smile.
These monks, who sang so gloriously for God, looked at the Dominican as though at a brand-new creature.
“Who are you?”
It was Frère Antoine who asked. The new choirmaster. He wasn’t demanding, not at all accusing. His face and voice held a note of wonderment Gamache hadn’t heard before.
The Chief looked at the other monks.
The discomfort had disappeared. The anxiety gone. Frère Simon had forgotten to be taciturn, Brother Charles was no longer fearful.
What they did look was deeply curious.
“I’m Frère Sébastien. A simple Dominican friar.”
“But who are you?” Frère Antoine persisted.
Frère Sébastien carefully folded his napkin and placed it in front of him. Then he looked down the long wooden table, worn and marked by hundreds and hundreds of years of Gilbertines sitting at it.
“I said I came from Rome,” he began, “but I wasn’t very specific. I come from the Palace of the Holy Office at the Vatican. I work at the CDF.”
Now the silence was profound.
“The CDF?” Gamache asked.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” Frère Sébastien turned to Gamache and clarified. He had an apologetic look on his nondescript face.
Fear had crept back into the room. Whereas before it seemed vague, without form, now it had a form and a focus. The pleasant young monk at the head of the table, sitting beside the abbot. The hound of the Lord.
As he looked at Frère Sébastien and Dom Philippe side by side, the Chief Inspector was reminded of the unlikely emblem of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. Two wolves, intertwined. One wore black on white, the other, the abbot, wore white on black. Polar opposites. Sébastien, young and vital. Dom Philippe, older and aging by the moment.
Entre les loups. Among the wolves.
“The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?” asked Gamache.
“The Inquisition,” said Frère Simon, in a very small voice.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Gamache and Beauvoir waited until they were back in the prior’s office to talk. Superintendent Francoeur had corralled the newcomer right after dinner and the two had stayed in the dining hall.
Everyone else had left as soon as they politely could.
“Jeez,” said Beauvoir. “The Inquisition. I didn’t expect that.”
“No one does,” said Gamache. “There hasn’t been an Inquisition in hundreds of years. I wonder why he’s here?”
Beauvoir crossed his arms and leaned against the door while Gamache sat behind the desk. Only then did he notice the other chair was broken, and leaning, crooked, in a corner.
Gamache said nothing, but looked at Beauvoir and raised a brow.
“A slight disagreement.”
“With the chair?”
“With the Superintendent. No one was hurt,” he hurriedly added on seeing the Chief’s face. But the assurance didn’t seem to work. Gamache continued to look upset.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He said some stupid things and I disagreed.”
“I told you not to engage him, not to argue. It’s what he does, he gets into people’s heads—”
“And what was I supposed to do? Just nod and bow and take his shit? You might, but I won’t.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment.
“Sorry,” said Beauvoir, and stood up straight. He wiped his tired face with his hands then looked at Gamache.
The Chief was no longer looking angry. Now he looked concerned.
“Has something happened? What did the Superintendent say?”
“Oh, just the usual crap. That you don’t know what you’re doing and I’m exactly like you.”
“And that made you angry?”
“To be compared to you? Who wouldn’t be?” Beauvoir laughed, but he could see the Chief wasn’t amused. He continued to examine Beauvoir.
“Are you all right?”
“God, why do you always ask that, as soon as I get angry, or upset? You think I’m that fragile?”
“Are you all right?” Gamache repeated. And waited.
“Oh, fuck,” said Beauvoir and leaned heavily against the wall. “I’m just tired, and this place is getting to me. And now this new monk, this Dominican. I feel like I’ve landed on another planet. They’re speaking the same language as me, but I keep thinking they’re saying more than I understand, you know?”
“I do.” Gamache kept his gaze on Beauvoir, then looked away. Deciding to let it drop for the moment. But something had clearly crawled inside the younger man’s skin. And Gamache could guess what. Or who.
Chief Superintendent Francoeur had many skills, Gamache knew. It was a terrible mistake to underestimate him. And in all the years they’d worked together, Gamache knew that Francoeur’s greatest gift was bringing out the worst in people.
However well hidden that demon, Francoeur would find it. And Francoeur would free it. And feed it. Until it consumed its host, and became the man.
Gamache had seen decent young Sûreté officers turned into cynical, vicious, strutting thugs. Young men and women with little conscience and big guns. And a superior who modeled and rewarded their behavior.
Once again Gamache looked at Beauvoir, leaning exhausted against the wall. Somehow Francoeur had gotten into Jean-Guy. He’d found the entrance, found the wound, and was roaming around inside him. Looking to do even more damage.
And Gamache had allowed it.
He felt himself almost quaking with rage. In a flash it had claimed his core, and raced to his extremities, so that his hands closed into white-knuckled fists.
Rage was transforming him, and Gamache fought to regain control. To grip his humanity and haul himself back.
Francoeur wouldn’t get this young man, Gamache vowed. It stops here.
He got up, excused himself and left the room.
* * *
Beauvoir waited for a few minutes, thinking the Chief must have just gone down the hall to the washrooms. But when he didn’t return Beauvoir got up and went into the hallway, looking this way and that.
The halls were dim, the light low. He checked the washrooms. No Gamache. He knocked on the Chief’s cell and when there was no answer poked his head in. No Gamache.
Beauvoir was at a loss. Now what?
He could text Annie.
Taking out his BlackBerry he checked. There was a message from her. She was having dinner with friends and would email him when she got home.
It was short and cheerful.
Too short, thought Beauvoir. Too cheerful? Was there, perhaps, just a hint of abruptness about the message? A dismissiveness. Not caring that he was still working well into the night? That he couldn’t just drop everything and go for drinks and dinner with friends.
He stood in the murky hallway and imagined Annie at that terrasse she liked on Laurier. Young professionals, drinking micro-brewery ales. Annie laughing. Having a good time. Without him.
* * *
“Would you like to see what’s behind that?”
The voice, more than the question, made Francoeur jerk in a small spasm of surprise. The Superintendent had been looking at the plaque to Saint Gilbert when Gamache walked quietly across the Blessed Chapel.
Without waiting for a reply, Gamache reached over and depressed the
two wolves. The door swung open to reveal the hidden Chapter House.
“I think we should go in, don’t you?” Gamache placed a large, firm hand on Francoeur’s shoulder and propelled him into the room. It wasn’t a shove, exactly. A witness would never testify that there was any assault. But both men knew it was neither Francoeur’s idea to enter the room, nor his own steam.
Gamache closed the door then turned to face his superior.
“What did you say to Inspector Beauvoir?”
“Let me out of here, Armand.”
Gamache considered him for a moment. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Of course not.” But Francoeur looked a little frightened.
“Would you like to leave?” Gamache’s voice was friendly but his eyes were cold and hard. And his stance, in front of the door, unyielding.
Francoeur was silent for a moment, assessing the situation.
“Why don’t you ask your Inspector what happened?”
“Stop the schoolyard games, Sylvain. You came here with an agenda. I thought it was to screw with me, but it wasn’t, was it? You knew I wouldn’t care. So you took off after Inspector Beauvoir. He’s still recovering from his wounds—”
Francoeur made a gruff, dismissive noise.
“You don’t believe that?” asked Gamache.
“Everyone else recovered. You recovered, for God’s sake. You treat him like a child.”
“I won’t discuss the Inspector’s health with you. He’s still recovering, but he’s not as vulnerable as you think. You’ve always underestimated people, Sylvain. That’s your great weakness. You think others are weaker than they are. And that you’re more powerful than you actually are.”
“Which is it, Armand? Is Beauvoir still wounded? Or is he stronger than I think? You might’ve fooled your people, mesmerized them with your bullshit, but not me.”
“No,” said Gamache. “We know each other too well.”
Francoeur had begun to roam the room, pacing it. But Gamache stayed put, in front of the door. His eyes never leaving the Chief Superintendent.
“What did you say to Inspector Beauvoir?” Gamache repeated.
“I told him what I told you. That you’re incompetent and he deserves better.”
Gamache studied the prowling man. Then shook his head.
“It’s more than that. Tell me.”
Francoeur stopped and turned to face Gamache.
“My God, Beauvoir’s said something to you, hasn’t he?” Francoeur got within inches of the Chief, staring point-blank into his eyes. Neither man blinking. “If he’s not recovered from his wounds, they’re wounds you made. If he’s weak, it’s a weakness you created. If he’s insecure it’s because he knows he’s not safe with you. And now you blame me?”
Francoeur laughed. The peppermint breath hot and moist on Gamache’s face.
And again Gamache could feel his rage, so tightly contained, spill out. He fought with all his might to control it, knowing the enemy wasn’t this leering, lying, vicious man. It was himself. And the rage that threatened to consume him.
“Jean-Guy Beauvoir is not to be harmed.” Each word was said slowly. Clearly. Precisely. And in a voice few had heard from the Chief Inspector. A voice that made his superior step back. That sizzled the smile right off the handsome face.
“It’s too late, Armand,” said Francoeur. “The harm’s already done. And you’re the one who did it. Not me.”
* * *
“Inspector?”
Frère Antoine had been reading in his cell when he heard the footfall outside his door. He looked into the corridor and noticed the Sûreté officer standing there, looking confused.
“You look lost. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Beauvoir, wishing people would stop asking him that.
Once again the two men stared at each other. The same man, in so many ways. The same age, height, build. The same neighborhood growing up.
But one had entered the Church and never left. The other had left the Church and never returned. Now they looked at each other across the dim corridor of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
Beauvoir approached the monk. “That fellow who just arrived. The Dominican. What’s the story there?”
Frère Antoine’s eyes darted up and down the hallway. Then he stepped into his cell and Beauvoir followed.
It was exactly the same as the cell Beauvoir had been assigned, with a few personal tweaks. A sweatshirt and pants lay in a bundle in the corner. Books were stacked beside the bed. A biography of Maurice Richard. A hockey playbook, written by a former coach of the Montréal Canadiens. Beauvoir had those books too. Hockey had replaced religion for most Québécois.
But here they seemed to co-exist. On top of the pile was a history of a monastery in someplace called Solesmes. And a bible.
“Frère Sébastien,” said Brother Antoine, his voice not exactly a whisper, but low enough so that Beauvoir had to concentrate to hear, “is from the office in the Vatican that used to be known as the Inquisition.”
“I gathered that. But what’s he doing here?”
“He said he came because of the prior’s murder.” Frère Antoine didn’t look any too happy about that.
“But you don’t believe it, do you?”
Frère Antoine grinned, just a little. “Is it that obvious?”
“No. I’m just that observant.”
Antoine chuckled before growing serious again. “The Vatican might send a priest to investigate what happened in a monastery where there’s been a murder. Not to find the killer, but to find out how the climate in an abbey got so bad there was a murder.”
“But we know what went wrong,” said Beauvoir. “You were all fighting over the chants, the recording.”
“But why were we fighting?” asked Frère Antoine. He seemed genuinely perplexed. “I’ve been praying over it for weeks, months. We should’ve been able to resolve this. So what went wrong? And why didn’t we see that one of us was not only capable of murder, but actually contemplating it?”
Seeing the confusion, the pain, in the monk’s eyes, Beauvoir wanted to tell him. To answer his question. But he hadn’t a clue what the answer was. He didn’t know why the monks had turned on each other. Just as he hadn’t a clue why any of them were there in the first place. Why any of these men were even monks.
“You said the Vatican might send a priest, but you don’t seem convinced. Do you think he’s not who he says he is?”
“No, I believe he really is Frère Sébastien, and that he works for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. I just don’t think he’s here because of the murder of Frère Mathieu.”
“Why not?” Beauvoir sat on the wooden chair and the monk sat on the side of his bed.
“Because he’s a monk, not a priest. I think they’d send someone more senior for something this serious. But really,” Frère Antoine tried to find the words to express what was mostly a feeling. An intuition. “The Vatican doesn’t move this fast. Nothing in the Church moves quickly. It’s mired in tradition. There are proper procedures for everything.”
“Even murder?”
Antoine grinned again. “If you’ve studied the Borgias you know the Vatican has a tradition of that too. So yes, even murder. The CDF might send someone to investigate us, but not so quickly. It’d take months, maybe even years, for them to act. Frère Mathieu would be dust. It’s inconceivable a Vatican man would arrive before the prior is even buried.”
“Then what’s your theory?”
The monk thought, then shook his head. “I’ve been trying to figure it out all evening.”
“So’re we,” Beauvoir admitted, then regretted giving out that information. The less a suspect knew of the investigation, the better. Sometimes they planted information, to unnerve a suspect. But it was always deliberate. This was an unguarded slip.
“I have those books,” he said, hoping to cover up his indiscretion.
“The hockey ones? You play?”
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“Center. You?”
“Center too, but I have to admit there wasn’t much competition for the position once Frère Eustache died of old age.”
Beauvoir laughed, then sighed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Frère Antoine asked.
“About what?”
“Whatever it is that’s eating you.”
“All that’s eating me is trying to find the killer and getting out of here.”
“You don’t like the monastery?”
“Of course not. You do?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” said Frère Antoine. “I love Saint-Gilbert.”
It was such a simple statement it left Beauvoir dumbfounded. He’d said it in the same way Beauvoir might talk about Annie. No confusion, no ambiguity. It just was. Like the sky just was, and the stones just were. It was natural and absolute.
“Why?” Beauvoir leaned forward. It was one of the questions he’d been dying to ask this monk with the beautiful voice and the body so like his own.
“Why do I love it here? What’s not to love?” Frère Antoine looked around his cell as though it was a suite at the Ritz in Montréal. “We play hockey in the winter, fish in the summer, swim in the lake and collect berries. I know what each day will bring, and yet each day feels like an adventure. I get to hang around men who believe as I do, and yet are different enough to be endlessly fascinating. I live in the house of my Father and learn from my brothers. And I get to sing the words of God in the voice of God.”
The monk leaned forward, his strong hands resting on his knees.
“Do you know what I found here?”
Beauvoir shook his head.
“I found peace.”
Beauvoir felt his eyes burn and sat back, deeply ashamed of himself.
“Why do you investigate murders?” Frère Antoine asked.
“Because I’m good at it.”
“And what makes you good at it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. You can tell me.”
“I don’t know,” snapped Beauvoir. “But it’s better than sitting on my ass or on my knees praying to some cloud in the sky. At least I’m doing something useful.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?” the monk asked, his voice quiet.
