by Louise Penny
A man, perhaps, in need of something. Probably a toilet.
“This shop,” Beauvoir began. He didn’t want to sound like an investigator, but suddenly realized he didn’t know how to sound like anything else. It was like a tattoo. Indelible. He smiled and softened his tone. “I have a friend who used to come here, but that was years ago. Ten years or more. It’s still called Temps Perdu, but has it changed hands?”
“No. Nothing’s changed.”
And Beauvoir could believe it.
“Were you here then?”
“I’m always here. It’s my shop.” The elderly man stood and put out his hand. “Fréderic Grenier.”
“Jean-Guy Beauvoir. You might remember my friend. He sold you a few things.”
“Is that right? What were they?”
The man, Beauvoir noticed, didn’t ask Olivier’s name, just what he sold. Is that how shopkeepers saw people? He’s the pine table? She’s the chandelier? Why not? That’s how he saw suspects. She’s the knifing. He’s the shotgun.
“I think he said he sold you a miniature painting.”
Beauvoir watched the man closely. The man was watching him closely.
“He might have. You say it was ten years ago. That’s a long time. Why’re you asking?”
Normally Beauvoir would have whipped out his Sûreté homicide ID, but he wasn’t on official business. And he didn’t have a ready answer.
“My friend just died and his widow wonders if you sold it. If not she’d buy it back. It’d been in the family for a long time. My friend sold it when he needed money, but that’s no longer a problem.”
Beauvoir was quite pleased with himself, though not altogether surprised. He lived with lies all the time, had heard thousands. Why shouldn’t he be good at it himself?
The antique dealer watched him, then nodded. “That sometimes happens. Can you describe the painting?”
“It was European and very fine. Apparently you paid him fifteen hundred dollars for it.”
Monsieur Grenier smiled. “Now I remember. It was a lot of money, but worth it. I didn’t often pay that much for such a small piece. Exquisite. Polish, I believe. Unfortunately I sold it on. He came in with a few other things after that, if I remember. A carved cane that needed work. It was a little cracked. I gave it to my restorer then sold it too. Went quickly. Those sorts of things do. I’m sorry. I remember him now. Young, blond. You say his wife wanted the things back?”
Beauvoir nodded.
The man frowned. “That must have come as a surprise to his partner. The man, as I remember, was gay.”
“Yes. I was trying to be delicate. In fact, I’m his partner.”
“I’m sorry to hear of your loss. But at least you had a chance to get married.”
The man pointed to Beauvoir’s wedding band.
Time to leave.
That had certainly, thought Beauvoir once back in the car and driving over the Champlain Bridge, been les temps perdu. Except for announcing that his husband, Olivier, had died nothing of significance had happened.
He was almost back in Three Pines when he remembered what had been bothering him after the interview with Olivier. The word that had been missing.
Pulling off to the side of the road he dialed the prison and was eventually connected to Olivier.
“People will begin to talk, Inspector.”
“You have no idea,” said Beauvoir. “Listen, during the trial and investigation you said the Hermit didn’t tell you anything about himself, except that he was Czech and his name was Jakob.”
“Yes.”
“There’s a large Czech community around Three Pines, including the Parras.”
“Yes.”
“And quite a few of his pieces came from former Eastern Bloc countries. Czechoslovakia, Poland, Russia. You testified that your impression was he’d stolen their family treasures, then skipped to Canada in the confusion when communism was collapsing. You thought he was hiding from his countrymen, the people he stole from.”
“Yes.”
“And yet, through our whole interview today you never once called him Jakob. Why was that?”
There was a long pause now.
“You won’t believe me.”
“Chief Inspector Gamache ordered me to believe you.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“Listen, Olivier, this is your only hope. Your last hope. The truth, now.”
“His name wasn’t Jakob.”
Now it was Beauvoir’s turn to fall silent.
“What was it?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Are we back there?”
“You didn’t seem to believe me the first time when I said I didn’t know his name, so I made one up. One that sounded Czech.”
Beauvoir was almost afraid to ask the next question. But he did.
“Was he even Czech?”
“No.”
TEN
“I beg your pardon?”
It was, by Gamache’s rough count, the millionth time he’d said that, or words to that effect, in the past ten minutes. He leaned even closer, risking toppling headlong off his chair. It didn’t help that Ken Haslam had a very, very large oak desk.
“Excusez?” Gamache felt his chair tip as he strained forward. He leaned back just in time. Across the chasm of the desk Mr. Haslam continued to talk or at least move his lips.
Murmur, murmur, murder, murmur, board. Haslam looked sharply at Chief Inspector Gamache.
“Pardon?”
Normally Gamache concentrated on people’s eyes, but was aware of their entire body. Clues came coded, and how people communicated was one of them. Their words were often the least informative. The vilest, bitterest, nastiest people often said nice things. But there was the sugar the words rode in on, or the little wink, or the insincere smile. Or the tense arm wrapped round the tense chest or legs, or the fingers intertwined tightly, white knuckled.
It was vital for him to be able to pick up on all the signals, and normally he could.
But this man confounded him because the only thing Gamache could see was Haslam’s mouth. He stared at it, desperately trying to lip-read.
Ken Haslam didn’t whisper. A whisper would have been, at this point, a welcome shout. He seemed, instead, to be simply mouthing his words. It was possible, thought Gamache, the man had had an operation. Perhaps his larynx had been removed.
But Gamache didn’t think so. Every now and then a word was intelligible, like “murder.” That word had popped out clearly.
Gamache was straining, physically and intellectually. Reaching to understand. It was exhausting. If only suspects realized, he thought, that screaming and shouting and throwing furniture wouldn’t wear their interrogators down, but whispering would.
“I’m sorry, sir.” Gamache was speaking English with the slight British accent he’d picked up at Cambridge.
Haslam’s office was in the Basse-Ville, the Lower Town. The fastest way to get to the Lower Town was the glass-enclosed elevator called the Funicular that swept up and down the cliff-face from the upper to the lower city. Gamache had paid his two dollars and walked into the Funicular. It dropped over the side and descended. It was a short, very beautiful trip, though the Chief Inspector stayed at the back of the elevator, away from the glass and the sheer drop beyond.
Once there he stepped out into Petit-Champlain, a narrow, charming street closed to traffic and filled with snow and bustling people. Pedestrians ambled along, bundled against the cold, stopping now and then to look into the festive windows at the handmade lace, the art, the blown glass, the pastries.
Gamache continued down to Place Royale, where the first settlement had been built beside the river.
There he found Ken Haslam’s office. Royale Tourists, the sign said. It was well placed, in a graystone building right on the open square. He walked in, spoke to the bright and helpful receptionist, explaining that no, he wasn’t interested in a tour but in speaking to the owner of
the company.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not.” Just at the very moment Beauvoir in Montreal was tempted to reach for his Sûreté ID, the Chief felt his hand move toward his breast pocket then stop. “I’d hoped he might be available.”
He smiled at her. Finally she smiled back.
“As a matter of fact, he is in. Let me go in and just see if he has a minute.”
And so, a few minutes later, he found himself in a quite magnificent office overlooking Place Royale and the Église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. The church built to commemorate two great victories over the English.
It had taken Gamache about ten seconds to appreciate the difficulty of the situation. It’s not that he didn’t understand what Ken Haslam was saying, it was just that he couldn’t hear it. Finally, when even lip-reading failed, the Chief interrupted.
“Désolé,” Gamache put up a hand. Haslam’s lips stopped moving. “Can we perhaps move closer together. I’m afraid I’m having some trouble hearing you.”
Haslam looked perplexed but got up and moved to the chair beside the Chief.
“I really just need to know what happened at the board meeting of the Lit and His, the one where Augustin Renaud appeared.”
Mumble, mumble, arrogant, murmur, couldn’t possibly mumble. Haslam looked quite stern. He was a handsome man with steel gray hair, clean shaven, ruddy complexion that looked like it came from the sun and not the bottle. And now that they were closer together Gamache was better able to understand him. While he still spoke below a whisper it was now almost intelligible and the other signals were clearer.
Haslam was annoyed.
Not at Gamache, he thought, but at what had happened. Someone familiar with the Literary and Historical Society had murdered Augustin Renaud. And the fact the lunatic archeologist had asked to see the board on the very day he died, and been refused, cannot be seen as a coincidence.
But Haslam was mouthing again.
Murmur, mumble, Champlain, mumble idiocy, mumble, canoe race.
“Yes, I understand from Mr. Hancock that you and he left early for a practice. You’re entered in the ice canoe race this coming Sunday.”
Haslam smiled and nodded. “It’s a lifelong dream.”
The words were spoken low, but clear. In a gravelly whisper. It was a warm voice and Gamache wondered why he didn’t use it more, especially in his job. Surely this was a financially fatal flaw, being a tour guide who didn’t speak.
“Why enter the race?” Gamache couldn’t help himself. He was dying to know why anyone, never mind someone closing in on seventy, would do this to themselves.
Haslam’s answer surprised him. He’d expected the Everest answer, or something about history, which the man clearly loved, since the canoe races re-created the old mail-runs before ice breaking ships appeared.
Mumble, like, murmur, people.
“You like the people?” Gamache asked.
Mumble, Haslam nodded and smiled.
“Can’t you just join a choir?”
Haslam smiled. “Not quite the same, is it Chief Inspector?” And Haslam’s eyes were warm, searching, intelligent.
He knows, thought Gamache. Somehow this man knows the value of not only friendship but camaraderie. What happens to people thrown together in extreme situations.
Gamache’s right hand began to tremble and he very slowly curled it into a fist but not before those thoughtful eyes across from him dropped to them. Saw the tremor.
And said nothing.
Armand Gamache walked slowly back up the small hill, to Petit-Champlain and the Funicular. As he walked he thought about his conversations with Haslam and the receptionist, who had been equally, perhaps even more, informative.
No, Mr. Haslam doesn’t do tours himself, he arranges them through emails. Mostly high-end, private tours of Québec for visiting dignitaries and celebrities. He was a little, she said, like a concierge. He’d done it so long people had come to ask for very strange things, and he almost always could accommodate them. Never, she rushed to assure him, illegal, or even immoral. Mr. Haslam was a very upstanding man. But unusual, yes.
Her French was excellent, and Haslam’s, when audible was even better. Had his name been anything other than Ken Haslam, Gamache would have thought him Francophone. According to the receptionist, Mr. Haslam lost his only child to leukemia when she was eleven, and his wife had died six years ago. Both buried in the Anglican cemetery in the old city.
His roots went deep into Québec.
Once up the Funicular, forcing himself to appreciate the magnificent view but gripping the wall behind him, Gamache leaned into the biting wind. His next stop was clear, but first he needed to gather his thoughts. He walked through the little alley called rue du Trésor which even in the bitter cold February day had artists selling their gaudy images of Québec. Bars carved out of blocks of ice had been set up off the alley and were selling Caribou to tourists who would soon regret this lapse in judgment. Once out of the alley he found the Café Buade and went in to both warm up and think.
Sitting in a banquette with a bowl of chocolat chaud he pulled out a notebook and pen. Occasionally sipping, sometimes staring into space, sometimes jotting thoughts, eventually he was ready for the next visit.
From the café he hadn’t far to go. Just across the street to the great monolith that was Notre-Dame Basilica, the magnificent gilded church that wed, christened, chastised, guided and buried the highest officials and the lowest beggars.
While Québec never lacked for churches they were the satellites and Notre-Dame the sun.
As he walked through the gates and up the steps he stopped at the board listing the Sunday services. One had just ended and the next wasn’t until 6 P.M. Opening the heavy doors he walked in and felt the warmth and smelled the years and years of sacred ritual. Of candles and incense, and heard the echoing of feet on the slate floors.
The church was dim, the chandeliers and wall sconces sending a feeble light into the vast space. But at the far end, past near empty pews, there was a glow. The entire altar appeared dipped in gold. It shone and beckoned, angels pranced, stern saints stood and stared, a model of St. Peter’s in Rome, like a spoiled child’s doll house sat in the very center.
It was both glorious and vaguely repulsive. Gamache crossed himself, a habit unbroken and sat quietly for a few moments.
“My family wanted me to become a priest, you know,” said the young voice.
“Having built up a tolerance for ash and smoke, I suppose,” said Gamache.
“Exactly. And I think they figured anyone who could tolerate my grandmother was either a saint or demented. Either way, good material for a life with the Jesuits.”
“But you decided against it.”
“I never seriously considered it,” Agent Morin spoke in Gamache’s ear. “I’d fallen in love with Suzanne when she was six and I was seven. I figured that was God’s plan.”
“You’ve known each other that long?”
“All my life, it seems. We met in confirmation class.”
Gamache could see the young man and tried to imagine him at seven. It wasn’t hard. He looked far younger than his twenty-five years. He had a curious knack for looking like an imbecile. It wasn’t something Morin tried to do, but he succeeded. He often had his mouth slightly open and his thick lips moistened as though he was about to drool. It could be either disconcerting or disarming. One thing it never was was attractive.
But it had grown on Gamache and his team as they realized what his face was doing had nothing to do with his brain or his heart.
“I like to just sit in our village church after everyone’s left. Sometimes I go in in the evening.”
“Do you talk to your priest?”
“Father Michel? Sometimes. Mostly I just sit. These days I imagine my wedding next June. I see the decorations and picture all my friends and family there. Some of the people I work with.” He hesitated. “Would you come?”
<
br /> “If I’m asked, I’d definitely be there.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Wait ’til I tell Suzanne. When I sit in the church mostly I see her coming down the aisle to me. Like a miracle.”
“Now there is no more loneliness.”
“Pardon?”
“It’s a blessing Madame Gamache and I had at our wedding. It was read at the end of the ceremony. Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other,” Gamache quoted.
Now you will feel no cold
For each of you will be warmth for the other
Now there is no loneliness for you
Now there is no more loneliness
Now there is no more loneliness.
Gamache stopped. “Are you cold?”
“No.”
But Gamache thought the young agent was lying. It was early December, cold and damp and he was immobile.
“Can we use that blessing at our wedding?”
“If you’d like. I can send it to you and you can decide.”
“Great. How does it end? Can you remember?”
Gamache gathered his thoughts, remembering his own wedding. Remembering looking out and seeing all their friends and Reine-Marie’s huge family. And Zora, his grandmother, the only one of his family left, but she was enough. There was no bride’s side and no groom’s side. Instead they all mixed in together.
And then the music had changed and Reine-Marie appeared and Armand knew then he’d been alone all his life, until this moment.
Now there is no more loneliness.
And at the end of the ceremony, the final blessing.
“Go now to your dwelling place,” he said to Morin. “To enter into the days of your togetherness. And may your days be good and long upon the earth.”
There was a pause. But not too long. Gamache was about to speak when Agent Morin broke the silence.
“That’s how I feel, that I’m not really alone. Not since I met Suzanne. You know?”
“I do.”
“The only thing wrong with my image of our wedding is that Suzanne always faints or throws up in church.”