Eventually Edward III made an offer. He’d spare Calais, if six of its most prominent citizens would surrender. To be executed. He ordered that these men present themselves at the gate, stripped of their finery, with ropes round their necks and holding the key to the city.
Jean Guy Beauvoir paled, imagining what he’d do. Would he step forward? Would he step back, look away? He imagined the horror of the town, and the choice. Listening to the chief he felt his heart pounding in his chest. This was far worse than any horror film. This was real.
‘What happened?’ Beauvoir whispered.
‘A man, Eustache de Saint-Pierre, one of the wealthiest men in Calais, volunteered. Five others joined him. They took off all their clothes, down to their undergarments, put nooses round their own necks, and walked out of the gates.’
‘Bon Dieu,’ whispered Beauvoir.
Dear God, agreed Gamache, looking again at Charles Morrow.
‘Rodin did a sculpture of that moment, when they stood at the gate, surrendering.’
Beauvoir tried to imagine what it would look like. He’d seen a lot of official French art, commemorating the storming of the Bastille, the wars, the victories. Winged angels, buxom cheering women, strong determined men. But if this statue reminded the chief of those men, it couldn’t be like anything he’d seen before.
‘It’s not a regular statue, is it?’ said Beauvoir, and thought maybe he’d find out where the Musee des Beaux Arts was in Montreal.
‘No, it’s like no other war statue you’re likely to see. The men aren’t heroic. They’re resigned, frightened even.’
Beauvoir could imagine. ‘But wouldn’t that make them even more heroic?’ he asked.
‘I think so,’ said Gamache, turning back to Charles Morrow. Who wore clothing, who had no chains or ropes or noose. At least, not visible. But Armand Gamache knew Charles Morrow was bound as surely as those men. Roped and chained and tied to something.
What was Charles Morrow seeing with those sorrowful eyes?
The owner of the crane company was waiting for them at the reception desk. He was small and square and looked like a pedestal. His steel-grey hair was short and stood on end. A red ridge cut across his forehead where a hard hat had sat, that day and every working day for the past thirty years.
‘It wasn’t my fault, you know,’ he said as he stuck his square hand out to shake.
‘I know,’ said Gamache, taking it and introducing himself and Beauvoir. ‘We think it was murder.’
‘Tabernacle,’ the man exhaled and wiped his beading brow. ‘For real? Wait till the boys hear that.’
‘Did your worker tell you what happened?’ Beauvoir asked, as they took the man into the garage.
‘He’s a horse’s ass. Said the block had shifted and the statue fell off. I told him that was bullshit. The base was solid. They’d poured a concrete foundation with sona tubes sunk six feet into the ground, below frost level, so it doesn’t shift. Ya know what I’m talking about?’
‘Tell us,’ said Gamache.
‘You have to dig down at least six feet around here when you do construction, below the frost line. If you don’t, whatever you build will heave when the ground thaws in the spring. Get it?’
Gamache understood what the worker had meant about his boss. The man was a natural lecturer, though not a natural teacher.
‘Madame Dubois at the Manoir never does anything unless it’s done right. I like that. I’m the same way myself. And she knows a thing or two about building.’ It was his highest compliment.
‘So what did you do?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘Keep your condom on, voyons. I’m getting there. She asked us to put in sona tubes so that the statue wouldn’t fall over, so we did. That was about a month ago. The thing hasn’t even been through a winter yet. Couldn’t have shifted.’
‘You sunk the shafts,’ said Beauvoir, ‘then what?’
A murder investigation, thought Beauvoir, was for the most part asking ‘then what happened?’ over and over. And listening to the answers, of course.
‘We poured the concrete, waited a week. It set. Then we put down that damned base, and yesterday I put the statue on. Huge fucking thing. Had to lift it carefully.’
The men were treated to a fifteen-minute explanation of how hard his job was. Beauvoir replayed the baseball game from the night before, thought about whether his wife would be angry again about his being away from home, had a small argument with the caretaker of his building.
Gamache listened.
‘Who was there when you placed the statue?’
‘Madame Dubois and that other fellow.’
‘Pierre Patenaude?’ asked Gamache. ‘The maitre d’?’
‘Don’t know who he was. In his forties, dark hair, overdressed. Must have been dying in the heat.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Lots of people came by to see. Couple of kids were working in the gardens and watching. The hard part is getting it on right. Don’t want it facing the wrong way.’ The operator laughed then launched into another five-minute monologue about positioning. Beauvoir treated himself to a fantasy involving Pierre Cardin and a shopping spree in Paris. But that got him thinking about the men of Calais, and that got him thinking about Charles Morrow and that brought him back to this long-winded bore.
‘… put the canvas thing over him that Madame Dubois gave me, and left.’
‘How could the statue have come off the pedestal?’
Gamache asked the question as he might ask any, but everyone in the room knew it was the key question. The operator shifted his gaze to the statue, then back.
‘The only way I know is with a machine.’ He was unhappy with his answer, and looked guilty. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘We know you didn’t,’ said Gamache. ‘But who did? If it wasn’t done by a machine then how?’
‘Maybe it was,’ said the operator. ‘There coulda been a crane there. Not mine, but someone else’s. Maybe.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ said Gamache, ‘but I suspect Julia Martin would have noticed.’
They nodded.
‘What did you think of the statue?’ Gamache asked. Beauvoir looked at him with amazement. Who the hell cares what the crane operator thinks? Might as well ask the fucking pedestal.
The crane operator also looked amazed, but he thought about it.
‘Wouldn’t want it in my garden. Kinda sad, you know? I prefer happy things.’
‘Like pixies?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘Sure, pixies or fairies,’ the crane operator said. ‘People think they’re the same, but they’re not.’
Dear God, not a lecture on pixies and fairies.
Gamache shot Beauvoir a warning look.
‘Course, the bird helped.’
The bird?
Gamache and Beauvoir looked at each other.
‘What bird, monsieur?’ asked Gamache.
‘The one on his shoulder.’
His shoulder?