TEN
Beauvoir spent the early evening setting up their Incident Room in the prior’s study while Chief Inspector Gamache read the interviews with the monks, and spoke to some in more depth.
A picture was emerging. How accurate it was was impossible to say, but it was clear and surprisingly consistent from man to man.
After Vigils at five in the morning, the monks had had breakfast and prepared for the day. There was another service at seven thirty, Lauds. It ended at eight fifteen. Then their workday began.
Work was any number of things, but for each man it was much the same each day.
They worked in the garden, or with the animals. They cleaned the abbey, did the archives, did repairs. Cooked the meals.
Each man was, it turned out, quite expert in his field. Whether it was as a chef or gardener, engineer or historian.
And they were all, without exception, exceptional musicians.
“How does this happen, Jean-Guy?” Gamache asked, looking up from his notes. “That they’re all remarkable musicians?”
“You’re asking me?” Beauvoir’s voice came from beneath the desk, where he was trying to reconnect the laptop. “Dumb luck?”
“Dumb luck would be you getting that thing to work,” said the Chief. “I think there’s another agency at work here.”
“I hope you don’t mean divine.”
“Not entirely, though I wouldn’t rule it out. No, I think they must have been recruited.”
Beauvoir looked out from beneath the desk, his dark hair disheveled. “Like hockey players are recruited?”
“Like you were recruited. I found you lording it over the evidence locker in that S?reté outpost, remember?”
Beauvoir would never forget. Banished to the basement, because no one wanted to work with him. Not because he was incompetent, but because he was an asshole. Though Beauvoir preferred to believe they were just jealous of him.
He’d been assigned to the evidence locker since he was only fit for things not actually alive.
They’d wanted him to quit. Expected him to quit. And, to be honest, he’d been about to quit, when Chief Inspector Gamache had come calling on a murder investigation. He’d come to the locker looking for a piece of evidence. And found Agent Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
And had invited him to join the investigation.
It was a moment Beauvoir would never forget. Looking into those eyes, a smart-ass remark dying on his lips. He’d been fucked with so often, jerked around, insulted, bullied. He barely dared hope this wasn’t another trick. A new bit of cruelty. Kicking a dead man. Because Beauvoir could feel himself dying down there. All he’d ever wanted was to be a S?reté officer. And every day he came closer to losing it.
But now this large man with the quiet demeanor had offered to take him away.
To save him. Even though they were strangers.
And Agent Beauvoir, who had sworn to never trust again, had trusted Armand Gamache. That was fifteen years ago.
Had these monks also been recruited? Found? Saved, even? And brought here?
“So,” said Beauvoir, getting up from the floor and dusting off his slacks, “you think someone lured these monks to the abbey?”
Gamache smiled and looked at Beauvoir over the top of his reading glasses. “You have a gift for making everything sound suspicious, even ominous.”
“Merci.” Beauvoir sat down with a thump on one of the hard wooden chairs.
“Does it work?” Gamache nodded toward the laptop.
Beauvoir pressed some buttons. “The laptop works, but we can’t connect to the Internet.” Beauvoir continued to pound the connect button as though that would help.
“Perhaps you should pray,” suggested the Chief.
“If I was going to pray for anything it’d be food.” He gave up trying to connect. “When’s dinner, do you think?”
Then Beauvoir remembered something and brought a small wax paper packet from his pocket. He placed it on the desk between them and opened it up.
“What are those?” asked the Chief, leaning closer.
“Try one.”
Gamache picked up a chocolate and held it between his large fingers. It looked microscopic there. Then he ate it. And Beauvoir smiled to see the astonishment, and delight, on Gamache’s face.
“Blueberry?”
Beauvoir nodded. “Those tiny wild ones. Chocolate covered. They make them by the bucketload here. I found the chocolaterie when I was looking for the monks. Seems like the better find.”
Gamache laughed, and together they ate the few chocolates. They were, the Chief had to admit, without a doubt the best he’d ever tasted, and he’d tasted a few chocolates in his life.
“What’re the chances, Jean-Guy, that all two dozen monks here, all of them, would have good voices?”
“Pretty small.”
“And not just good voices, but great voices. And ones that work together, that fit together.”
“Maybe they were trained,” suggested Beauvoir. “Isn’t that what the choir director, the dead man, would’ve done?”
“But he had to have something to work with. I’m far from an expert on music but even I know a great choir isn’t just a collection of great voices. They have to be the right voices, complementary. Harmonious. I think these monks are here by design. I think they were specially chosen, to sing the chants.”
“Maybe they were specially bred for this,” said Beauvoir, his voice low and his eyes mock-mad. “Maybe this is some Vatican plot. Maybe there’s some mind control in the music. To lure people back to the Church. Produce a zombie army.”
“My God, man, that’s brilliant! It’s so obvious.” Gamache looked at Beauvoir with awe.
Beauvoir laughed. “You think the monks were specially chosen?”
“I think it’s a possibility.” The Chief got to his feet. “Keep working at that. It would be nice to be able to contact the outside world. I’m going to speak to the portier.”
“Why him?” asked Beauvoir as Gamache made for the door.
“He’s the youngest here, probably the most recent arrival.”
“And a murder happens because something changes,” said Beauvoir. “Something provoked the murder of Frère Mathieu.”
“It was almost certainly building for a while, most murders take years to actually happen. But finally something, or someone, tips the balance.”
That was what Gamache and his team did. They sieved for that often tiny event. A word. A look. A slight. That final wound that released the monster. Something had made a man into a murderer. Had made a monk into a murderer, surely a longer journey than most.
“And what was the most recent change?” asked Gamache. “Perhaps the arrival of Frère Luc. Maybe that somehow upset the balance, the harmony, of the abbey.”
The Chief closed the door behind him and Beauvoir went back to work. As he tried to figure out what was wrong with the connection, his mind went back to the evidence locker. His hell. But he also thought about the door with the word “Porterie” stamped on it.
And the young man relegated to it.
Was he hated? Surely you had to be, to be stuck there. Every other job made sense in the abbey. Except his. After all, why have a porter for a door that never opened?