The Beautiful Mystery ciag-8

by Louise Penny

  Beauvoir, taken aback, nodded.

  “I haven’t,” said Frère Antoine.

  “Have you ever saved anyone?” Beauvoir asked.

  Now Frère Antoine looked surprised. After a moment’s silence he shook his head.

  “I have,” said Beauvoir, getting to his feet. “You just keep singing, mon frère. Keep praying. Keep kneeling. And let others stand up and do the saving.”

  Beauvoir left and was halfway back to the prior’s office before he heard Frère Antoine’s voice.

  “There is one person I’ve saved.”

  Beauvoir stopped and turned around. The monk was standing in the dim corridor outside his cell.

  “Myself.”

  Jean-Guy snorted, shook his head and turned his back on Frère Antoine.

  He hadn’t believed a word of it. Certainly hadn’t believed the monk when he talked about his love of the monastery. It was impossible to love the pile of stones and the old bones that rattled around inside it. Hiding from the world. Hiding from their reason.

  It was impossible to love singing the deathly dull music, or a God who required it of them. And he wasn’t at all sure he believed Frère Antoine when the monk said he’d never killed.

  Once inside the prior’s office, Jean-Guy Beauvoir leaned against the wall, then bent over, placing his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath in. A deep breath out.

  * * *

  Chief Inspector Gamache returned to the prior’s office carrying a new chair.

  “Salut,” he said to Beauvoir, then placed the broken chair in the corridor, hoping a carpenter monk might find it and fix it. Gamache had things of his own to fix.

  He indicated the chair, and Beauvoir sat.

  “What did Superintendent Francoeur say to you?”

  Beauvoir looked at him, astonished.

  “I told you. Just shit about how incompetent you are. Like I don’t already know.”

  But his attempt at levity sat on the desk between them. Gamache didn’t crack a smile. Didn’t take his eyes off his second in command.

  “There was more, though,” the Chief said, after considering Beauvoir for a few quiet moments. “Francoeur said more. Or insinuated. You need to trust me, Jean-Guy.”

  “There was nothing more.”

  Beauvoir was looking tired, drawn, and Gamache knew he needed to send Beauvoir back to Montréal. He’d find some pretext. Jean-Guy could take back the murder weapon and the vellum they found on the body. Now that copies had been made the original could go to the lab.

  Yes, there were plenty of good reasons to send Jean-Guy back to Montréal. Including the real one.

  “I think when people care about each other they want to protect them,” said Gamache, choosing his words carefully. “But sometimes, like blocking a goalie in hockey or soccer, instead of protecting them you’re just making it harder for them to see what’s coming. Harm is done. By mistake.”

  Gamache leaned a fraction further forward, and Beauvoir leaned away, just a fraction.

  “I know you’re trying to protect me, Jean-Guy. And I appreciate it. But you have to tell me the truth.”

  “And you, sir? Are you telling me the truth?”

  “About what?”

  “About the leaked video of the raid. About how it got out. The official report was a cover-up. That video was leaked internally. But you seem to believe the official report. A hacker, my ass.”

  “Is that it? Did Superintendent Francoeur say something about the video to you?”

  “No, it’s my own question.”

  “And I’ve answered it before.” He looked closely at Beauvoir. “Where did this suddenly come from? What do you want me to say?”

  “That you don’t believe the report. That you’re privately investigating. That you’ll find out who did it. They were our people. Your people. You can’t just leave it like this.”

  His voice was spiraling out of control.

  Beauvoir was right, of course. The video had been leaked internally. Gamache had known that from the moment it had happened. But he’d chosen to, officially anyway, accept the finding of the internal investigation. That some kid, some hacker, had just gotten lucky and found the video of the raid in the Sûreté files.

  It was a ludicrous report. But Gamache had told his people, including Beauvoir, to accept it. To let it go. To move on.

  And as far as he knew, they all had. Except Beauvoir.

  And now Gamache wondered if he should tell him that for the past eight months he and a few other senior officers, with the help of some outsiders, were secretly, carefully, quietly investigating.

  Some malady is coming upon us.

  But in the case of the Sûreté du Québec, it had already arrived. Had been there for years, rotting away, from the inside. And from the top down.

  Sylvain Francoeur had been sent to the monastery to gather information. Not about the murder of the prior, but to find out how much Gamache might know. Or suspect.

  And Francoeur had tried to get at it through Beauvoir. Pushing and prodding and trying to thrust him over the edge.

  Once again Gamache felt that lick of rage.

  He wished he could tell Beauvoir everything, but he was deeply glad he hadn’t. Francoeur would leave Jean-Guy alone now. Satisfied that while Gamache might still be up to something, Beauvoir wasn’t. Francoeur would be satisfied that he’d gotten all he could from Beauvoir.

  Yes, Francoeur had been sent with an agenda, and Gamache had finally figured out what it was. But Gamache had a question of his own. Who had sent the Chief Superintendent?

  Who was the top boss’s boss?

  “Well?” Beauvoir demanded.

  “We’ve been through this before, Jean-Guy,” said Gamache. “But I’m happy to talk about it again, if it’ll help.”

  He looked directly at Beauvoir over his half-moon reading glasses.

  It was a gaze Jean-Guy had seen often. In trappers’ cabins. In shitty little motel rooms. In restaurants and bistros. Burger and poutine in front of them. And notebooks open.

  Talking about a case. Dissecting the suspects, the evidence. Tossing around ideas, thoughts, wild guesses.

  For more than ten years Beauvoir had looked into those eyes, over those glasses. And while he hadn’t always agreed with the Chief, he’d always respected him. Loved him even. In the way only one brother-in-arms could love another.

  Armand Gamache was his Chief. His boss. His leader. His mentor. And more.

  One day, God willing, Gamache would hold his grandchildren in that gaze. Jean-Guy’s children. Annie’s children.

  Beauvoir could see the pain in those familiar eyes. And he couldn’t believe he’d put it there.

  “Forget I said anything,” Beauvoir said. “It was a stupid question. It doesn’t matter who leaked the video. Does it?”

  Despite himself he heard the plea in those last words.

  Gamache leaned back, heavily, and watched Beauvoir for a moment. “If you want to talk about it, I will, you know.”

  But Beauvoir could see what saying this cost Gamache. Beauvoir knew he wasn’t the only one who’d suffered that day in the factory, that day captured by the video and released into the world. Beauvoir knew he wasn’t the only one who still bore the burden of survival.

  “The damage is done, patron. You’re right, we need to move on.”

  Gamache removed his glasses and looked directly at Beauvoir. “I need you to believe something, Jean-Guy. Whoever leaked that video will answer for it one day.”

  “Just not to us?”

  “We have our own work to do here, and frankly, I’m finding it hard enough.”

  The Chief smiled, but it didn’t quite cover the watchfulness in his brown eyes. The sooner Gamache could get Beauvoir back to Montréal, the better. It was dark now, but he’d talk to the abbot and send Beauvoir back first thing in the morning.

  Gamache pulled the laptop toward him. “I wish we could get this thing working.”

  “No,” said Bea
uvoir, sharply. He leaned over the desk, his hand gripping the screen.

  The Chief looked at him in surprise.

  Beauvoir smiled. “Sorry, it’s just that I was working on it this afternoon and I think I’ve found the problem.”

  “And you don’t want me to screw it up, is that it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Beauvoir hoped his voice was light. He hoped his explanation was credible. But mostly he hoped Gamache would back away from the computer.

  He did. And Beauvoir turned it around so that it faced him.

  The crisis was averted. He sat back down in his chair. The chronic ache had turned into a sharp pain that tunneled into Beauvoir’s bones and ran through his marrow. Like corridors, carrying the pain to every part of his body.

  Beauvoir began wondering how soon he could be alone in the office. With the computer. And the DVD the Superintendent had brought. And the pills the doctor had left. He now longed for the next service. So that while everyone else was in the Blessed Chapel he could be in here.

  They spent the next twenty minutes discussing the case, throwing around theories, throwing out theories, until finally Gamache got to his feet.

  “I need a walk. Do you want to come?”

  Beauvoir’s heart sank, but he nodded and followed Gamache into the corridor.

  They turned toward the Blessed Chapel, when the Chief suddenly stopped and stared, at the electric light bulb attached to the wall.

  “Do you know, Jean-Guy, when we first arrived I was surprised they had electricity here.”

  “Comes from solar and some hydro power they’ve hooked up to a nearby river. Frère Raymond told me. Want to know how it works? He told me that as well.”

  “Perhaps for my birthday. As a special gift,” said the Chief. “But what I’m wondering now is how that light got there.”

  He pointed to the wall sconce.

  “I don’t understand, patron. How does any light get on a wall? It’s wired there.”

  “Exactly. But where’re the wires? And where’s the ductwork for the new heating system? And the pipes for the plumbing?”

  “Where they are in any building,” said Beauvoir, wondering if the Chief had lost his mind. “Behind the wall.”

  “But the plan shows only one wall. The Gilbertines who built it took years, decades, to dig the foundation and put the walls up. It’s an engineering marvel. But you can’t tell me they designed it to have a geothermal unit and plumbing and that.”

  Again he pointed to the light.

  “You’ve lost me,” admitted Beauvoir.

  Gamache turned to him. “In your home, in mine, there’re two walls. The exterior cladding and the interior drywall. And between the two is the insulation, and the wiring. The plumbing. The vents.”

  And then it clicked for Beauvoir. “They can’t have passed the wires and pipes through solid stone. So this isn’t the outside wall,” he pointed to the fieldstones that made the wall, “there’s another wall behind it.”

  “I think there must be. The wall you examined for flaws might not be the one that’s crumbling. It’s the outer wall that’s breached by roots and water. It isn’t yet noticeable inside.”

  Two skins, thought Beauvoir, as they resumed their walk and stepped into the Blessed Chapel. The public face, and then the crumbling, rotting one behind.

  He’d made a mistake. Hadn’t looked hard enough. And Gamache knew it.

  “Excusez-moi,” a voice sang out, and the two men slowed, and turned. They were crossing the Blessed Chapel.

  “Over here.”

  Gamache and Beauvoir looked to their right, and there, in the shadows, stood the Dominican. Beside the plaque to Gilbert of Sempringham.

  The two Sûreté men walked over.

  “You looked like you have someplace to go,” said Frère Sébastien. “If I’m disturbing you we can talk later.”

  “We always have someplace to go, mon frère,” Gamache said. “And if we don’t we’re trained to look as though we do.”

  The Dominican laughed. “The same with monks. If you go to the Vatican we’re always hurrying down corridors looking important. Most of the time we’re just trying to find a bathroom. The sad convergence of great Italian coffee and a shocking distance between toilets in the Vatican. The architects of Saint Peter’s were brilliant, but toilets weren’t a priority. Superintendent Francoeur has told me something about the death of the prior. I wonder if we can talk some more about it? I get the feeling that while Monsieur Francoeur’s in charge, you do most of the actual investigating.”

  “That’s a fair assessment,” agreed Gamache. “What questions do you have?”

  But instead of answering, the monk turned to the plaque. “A long life, Gilbert had. And an interesting description.” He gestured to the writing. “I find it strange that the Gilbertines themselves, who presumably made the plaque, should make him out to be so dull. But way down here, as an afterthought, they say he defended his archbishop.” Frère Sébastien turned to Gamache. “You know who that was?”

  “The archbishop? Thomas à Becket.”

  Frère Sébastien nodded. In the uncertain light of the bulbs high in the rafters, shadows were distorted. Eyes became bleak holes, noses were elongated, misshapen.

  The Dominican gave them a grotesque smile. “A remarkable thing for Gilbert to do. I’d love to know why he did it.”

  “And I’d love to know, mon frère,” said Gamache, not smiling, “why you’re really here.”

  The question amazed the monk, who stared at Gamache, then laughed.

  “I think we have a lot to talk about, monsieur. Shall we go into the Chapter House? We won’t be disturbed there.”

  The door to the room was through the plaque. Gamache knew it. Beauvoir knew it. And the monk seemed to know it. But instead of finding the hidden catch and opening it, Frère Sébastien waited. For one of the others to do it.

  Chief Inspector Gamache considered the monk. He seemed pleasant. There was that word again. Inoffensive. Happy in his work, happy in his life. Happy, certainly, to have followed the Angelus bells and found this secluded monastery.

  Built almost four hundred years earlier by Dom Clément, to escape the Inquisition. They’d faded into the Canadian wilderness and let the world believe the last rites were said for the last Gilbertine centuries ago.

  Even the Church believed they’d gone extinct.

  But they hadn’t. For centuries these monks sat by the shores of this pristine lake, adoring God. Praying to him. Singing to him. And living lives of quiet contemplation.

  But never forgetting what drove them there.

  Fear. Fretting.

  As though the walls weren’t high enough, and thick enough, Dom Clément had taken one more measure. He built a room to hide in. The Chapter House. In case.

  And tonight the “in case” had finally happened. The Inquisition, in the person of this pleasant monk, had found the Gilbertines.

  “At last,” Frère Sébastien had said when he first crossed the threshold. “I found you.”

  At last, thought Gamache.

  And now the Dominican from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was asking a police officer to show him the secret door. To open it. To take away the Gilbertines’ last hiding place.

  Gamache knew it no longer mattered. The secret was out. There was no more hiding to be done. And no need. The Inquisition had ended. But even so, Chief Inspector Gamache was loath to be the man who after four hundred years opened that door for the hound of the Lord.

  All this went through Gamache’s mind in a flash, but before he could say anything, Beauvoir stepped forward and pressed the image of the intertwined wolves.

  And the plaque clicked open.

  “Merci,” said the Dominican. “I wondered briefly if you knew how.”

  Beauvoir gave him a dismissive look. That would teach this young monk to underestimate him.

  Gamache stepped aside and gestured, inviting the monk to go first. They step
ped into the Chapter House and sat on the stone bench that ran around the walls. Gamache waited. He wasn’t going to start the conversation. So the three of them sat in silence. After a minute or so Beauvoir began to fidget slightly.

  But the Chief sat absolutely still. Composed.

  Then a soft sound came from the monk. It took just a moment for the Chief to recognize it. He was humming the tune Gamache himself had hummed over dinner. But it sounded different. Perhaps, Gamache thought, it was the acoustics of the room. But he knew, deep down, it wasn’t that.

  He turned to the man next to him. Frère Sébastien had his eyes closed, his fine, light lashes resting on his pale cheek. And a smile on his face.

  It felt as though the stones themselves were singing. It felt as though the monk had coaxed the music out of the air, out of the walls, out of the fabric of his robes. Gamache had the oddest sensation that the music was coming out of himself. As though the music was part of him, and he a part of it.

  It felt as though all of everything was broken down and swirled together, and out of that came this sound.

  The experience was so intimate, so invasive, it was almost frightening. And would have been, had the music itself not been so beautiful. And calming.

  Then the Dominican stopped humming, opened his eyes, and turned to Gamache.

  “I’d like to know, Chief Inspector, where you heard that tune.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “I need to speak to you, Père Abbot,” said Frère Antoine.

  From inside his office, Dom Philippe heard the request. Or demand. Normally he’d have heard the old iron knocker against wood. But these were far from normal times. The rod had been declared the weapon that had killed Frère Mathieu, and taken away.

  And word had spread that the prior had been alive when Simon had found him. Had received last rites, while alive. It gave Dom Philippe immense peace of mind to know that. Though he wondered why Simon hadn’t mentioned it before.

  And then he found out.

  Mathieu had not only been alive, but he’d spoken. Said one word. To Simon.

  Homo.

  Dom Philippe was as baffled as anyone by that. With one word left to say in this world, why would Mathieu say “homo”?