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 S?reté 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?”
“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?”