by Louise Penny
“Frère Antoine?” said Bernard, responding to the Sûreté officer’s question. “Try either the kitchen or the garden.”
“The garden?”
“Through the door at the end of the hall.” He waved a wooden spoon and dribbled chocolate on his apron. He looked like he wanted to swear and Beauvoir paused, wondering how monks cursed. Like the rest of the Québécois? Like Beauvoir himself? Did they curse the Church? Câlice! Tabernac! Hostie! The Québécois had turned religious words into dirty words.
But the monk remained silent and Beauvoir left, glancing into the gleaming stainless-steel kitchen next door. It was easy to see where some of the music money had been spent. There was no Frère Antoine. Only the aroma of a soup simmering, and bread baking. Finally Beauvoir reached the large wooden door at the very end of the corridor. And opened it.
He felt a rush of autumn air, cool and fresh. And the sunshine on his face.
He’d had no idea how much he missed the sun, until it was back. And now he took a deep breath and stepped into the garden.
* * *
The abbot’s bookcase swung open to reveal to Gamache a bright, fresh world. Of green grass and the last of the blooms, of neat shrubs and the huge maple in the middle, losing its autumn leaves. As the Chief watched, a single bright orange leaf lost its grip and wafted back and forth, gently falling to the ground.
This was a walled world. With a pretense of control, without the reality of it.
Gamache felt his foot sink into the soft grass and smelled musky autumn in the morning air. Insects buzzed and droned, almost drunk on the mid-September nectar. It was chilly, but milder than the Chief had expected. The walls, he supposed, acted as a wind barrier and a sun trap. Creating their own environment.
Gamache had asked to come into the garden not simply because he yearned for fresh air and sunshine, but because this was almost the exact moment, twenty-four hours earlier, when two other men had stood here.
Frère Mathieu and his killer.
And now the Chief Inspector of homicide and the abbot of Saint-Gilbert stood there.
Gamache looked at his watch. Just after half past eight in the morning.
When exactly had the prior’s companion known what he was going to do? Had he come into the garden, stood where the Chief now stood, with murder in mind? Had he stooped and picked up a stone, and bashed in the prior’s skull, on impulse? Or had that been his plan all along?
When was the decision made to murder?
And when did Frère Mathieu know he was about to be killed? Had been killed, in fact. It had clearly taken him a few minutes, after the blow was struck, to die. He’d crawled to the far wall. Away from the abbey. Away from the bright and warm sunshine. Into the darkness.
Was it simply instinct, as someone had suggested? An animal wanting to die alone. Or was something else at work? Had the prior one last service to perform?
To protect the yellowed page against the monks. Or the monks from the yellowed page?
“You were inspecting the new geothermal system yesterday morning at this time,” said Gamache. “Alone?”
The abbot nodded. “The morning’s a busy time in the abbey. The brothers are in the garden, or tending the animals, doing all sorts of chores. It takes near constant work to keep the abbey up.”
“Is one of your monks in charge of the physical plant?”
The abbot nodded. “Frère Raymond. He looks after the infrastructure. The plumbing and heating and electrics. That sort of thing.”
“So you met with him.”
“Well, no.” The abbot turned and started strolling slowly around the garden, and Gamache joined him.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“Brother Raymond wasn’t there. He works in the garden every morning after Lauds.”
“And that’s when you chose to inspect the geothermal?” asked Gamache, perplexed. “Wouldn’t you want him there, to go over it together?”
The abbot smiled. “Have you met Brother Raymond?”
Gamache shook his head.
“Lovely man. Gentle man. An explainer.”
“A what?”
“He loves to explain how things work, and why. It doesn’t matter that he’s told me every day for fourteen years how an artesian well works, he’ll still tell me again.”
The whimsical, affectionate look remained on Dom Philippe’s face.
“Some days I’m very bad,” he confided in the Chief, “and sneak down to do my rounds when I know he won’t be there.”
The Chief smiled. He had a few agents and inspectors like that. Who literally followed him through the halls explaining the intricacies of fingerprints. He’d hidden in his office more than once, to avoid them.
“And your secretary, Brother Simon? He tried to find the prior, but when he couldn’t he went to work in the animalerie, I understand.”
“That’s right. He’s very fond of chickens.”
Gamache studied the abbot to see if he was joking, but he seemed perfectly serious.
* * *
Jean-Guy looked at the garden. It was huge. Much, much bigger than the abbot’s garden. This was clearly a vegetable garden, whose main crop seemed to be massive mushrooms.
A dozen monks, in their black robes, were kneeling down or bending over. On their heads they wore large, extravagant straw hats. With wide floppy brims. One man wearing it would look ridiculous but since all of them were it looked normal. And Beauvoir, bare-headed, became the abnormal one.
Plants were staked up, vines were trained along trellises, neat rows were being weeded by some of the mushrooms, while others gathered vegetables in baskets.
Beauvoir was reminded of his grandmother, who’d lived all her life on a farm. Short and stocky, she’d spent half her life loving the Church and the other half loathing it. When Jean-Guy had visited they’d collect little new peas together and shell them, sitting on the porch.
He now knew his grandmother must have been very busy, but she never gave that impression. Just as these monks now gave the impression of working steadily, working hard even, but working at their own pace.
Beauvoir found himself almost mesmerized by the rhythm of their movements. Standing, bowing, kneeling.
It reminded him of something. And then he had it. Had they been singing, this would be a mass.
Did this explain his grandmother’s love of her garden? As she stood, and bowed, and knelt, had it become her mass? Her devotion? Had she found in her garden the peace and solace she’d sought in the Church?
One of the monks noticed him and smiled. Motioning him over.
Their vow of silence had been lifted, but clearly it was also a choice. These men liked silence. Beauvoir was beginning to see why.
As he arrived, the monk lifted his hat in an old-fashioned greeting. Beauvoir knelt beside him.
“I’m looking for Frère Antoine,” he whispered.
The monk pointed a trowel toward the far wall then went back to work.
Picking his way along the orderly rows, past the weeding and harvesting monks, Beauvoir approached Frère Antoine. Weeding. Alone.
The soloist.
* * *
“Poor Mathieu,” said Dom Philippe. “I wonder why he was here.”
“Didn’t you invite him? You sent Frère Simon to request a meeting.”
“Yes, after the eleven o’clock mass. Not after Lauds. He was three hours early, if that’s why he came.”
“Perhaps he misunderstood.”
“You didn’t know Mathieu. He was rarely wrong. And never early.”
“Then maybe Frère Simon gave him the wrong time.”
The abbot smiled. “Simon is wrong even less of the time. Though more punctual.”
“And you, Dom Philippe? Are you ever wrong?”
“Always and perpetually. One of the perks of the position.”
Gamache smiled. He knew that perk too. But then he remembered that while Frère Simon had headed off to give the prior the message, he h
adn’t found him. The message hadn’t been delivered.
So if it wasn’t to meet the abbot, then why had the prior been here? Who was he meeting?
His killer, obviously. Though equally obviously, the prior couldn’t have known that was on the agenda. So what had brought Frère Mathieu to this garden?
“Why did you want to see the prior yesterday?”
“Abbey business.”
“An argument could be made that everything is abbey business,” said Gamache. The two men continued their stroll around the garden. “But I’d rather you didn’t waste my time making that argument. I understand that you and Frère Mathieu met twice a week to discuss abbey issues. The meeting you wanted to set up yesterday was extraordinary.”
Gamache’s voice was reasonable, but firm. He was tired of this abbot, of all the monks, giving them facile answers. It was like copying someone else’s neumes. It might be easier, but it got them no closer to their goal. If their goal was the truth.
“What was so important, Dom Philippe, that it couldn’t wait until your next scheduled meeting?”
The abbot took another few steps in silence, except for the slight swish as his long black robe brushed the grass and dried leaves.
“Mathieu wanted to talk about making another recording.” The abbot was grim-faced.
“The prior wanted to talk about it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You said Mathieu wanted to talk about it. Was the meeting his idea, or yours?”
“The topic was his idea. The timing was mine. We needed to resolve the issue before the community met again in Chapter.”
“So it wasn’t yet decided if there’d be another recording?”
“He’d decided, but I hadn’t. We’d discussed it in Chapter, but the outcome was—” The abbot searched for the right word. “Inconclusive.”
“There was no consensus?”
Dom Philippe took a few paces and slipped his hands into his sleeves. It made him look contemplative, though his face was anything but thoughtful. It was bleak. An autumn face, after all the leaves had fallen.
“I can ask others, you know,” said the Chief.
“I suspect you already have.” The abbot took a deep breath then exhaled with a puff in the early morning chill. “As with most things in the monastery, some were for it, some against.”
“You make it sound as though this was just one more issue to be resolved. But it was more than that, wasn’t it?” said Gamache. His words pressed but his tone was gentle. He didn’t want the abbot to put up his defenses. At least, not any higher than they already were. Here was a guarded man. But what was he guarding?
Gamache was determined to find out.
“The recording was changing the abbey,” the Chief pressed further, “wasn’t it?”
The abbot stopped then, and cast his eyes over the wall, to the forest beyond and a single, magnificent tree in full autumn color. It shone in the sunlight, made all the brighter for the dark evergreens surrounding it. A living stained-glass window. More magnificent, surely, than anything found in a great cathedral.
The abbot marveled at it. And he marveled at something else.
How he’d actually forgotten what Saint-Gilbert had been like just a few years ago. Before the recording. Everything now seemed measured by that. Before and after.
Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups had been poor, and getting poorer. Before the recording. The roof leaked and pots and pans were put out by hurrying monks every time it rained. The woodstoves barely gave off enough heat. They had to put extra blankets on their cots in winter and wear their robes to bed. Sometimes, on the bitterest of nights, they’d stay up. In the dining hall. Gathered around the woodstove. Feeding it logs. Drinking tea. Toasting bread.
Warmed by the stove, and by each other. Their bodies.
And sometimes, waiting for the sun to rise, they’d pray. Their voices a low rumble of plainchant. Not because some bell had tolled and told them they had to. Not because they were afraid, of the cold, or the night.
They’d prayed because it gave them pleasure. For the fun of it.
Mathieu was always beside him. And as they sang Dom Philippe would notice the slight movement of Mathieu’s hand. Privately conducting. As though the notes and words were part of him. Fused.
Dom Philippe had wanted to hold that hand. To be a part of it. To feel what Mathieu felt. But, of course, he never took Mathieu’s hand. And never would now.
That was before the recording.
Now, all that was gone. Killed. Not by a stone to Mathieu’s head. It had, in fact, been killed before that.
By that damned recording.
The abbot chose his words, even the ones he kept to himself, carefully. It was a damned recording. And he wished with all his heart it had never happened.
This large, quiet, quite frightening man from the police had asked if he was ever wrong. He’d answered glibly that he was always wrong.
What he should have said was that he was wrong many times, but one mistake overshadowed all the rest. His error had been so spectacular, so stunning it had become a permanent wrong. In indelible ink. Like the plan of the abbey. His error had soaked into the very fabric of the monastery. It now defined the abbey and had become perpetual.
What had appeared so right, so good, on so many levels, had turned into a travesty. The Gilbertines had survived the Reformation, survived the Inquisition. Survived almost four hundred years in the wilderness of Québec. But they’d finally been found. And felled.
And the weapon had been the very thing they’d wanted to protect. The Gregorian chants themselves.
Dom Philippe would die before he’d make that mistake again.
* * *
Jean-Guy Beauvoir stared at Frère Antoine.
It was like peeking into an alternate universe. The monk was thirty-eight years old. Beauvoir’s age. He was Beauvoir’s height. Beauvoir’s coloring. They even shared the same lean and athletic build.
And when he spoke, Frère Antoine’s voice had the same Québécois accent. From the same region. The streets of east end Montréal. Imperfectly hidden under layers of education and effort.
The two men stared, neither sure what to make of the other.
“Bonjour,” said Frère Antoine.
“Salut,” said Beauvoir.
The only difference was that one was a monk and the other a Sûreté officer. It was as though they’d grown up in the same home, but in different rooms.
Beauvoir could understand the other monks. Most were older. They seemed of an intellectual, contemplative nature. But this lean man?
Beauvoir felt a slight vertigo. What could possibly have led Antoine to become Frère Antoine? Why not a cop, like Beauvoir. Or a teacher. Or work for Hydro-Québec. Or a bum, or a vagrant, or a burden to society?
Beauvoir could understand the path to all those things.
But a religious? A man of his own age? From the same streets?
No one Beauvoir knew even went to church, never mind dedicated his life to it.
“I understand you’re the soloist for the choir,” said Beauvoir. He stood as tall as he could, but still felt dwarfed by Frère Antoine. It was the robes, Beauvoir decided. They were an unfair advantage. Gave the impression of height and authority.
Perhaps the Sûreté should consider it, if they ever redesigned the uniforms. He’d have to put it in the suggestion box, and sign Inspector Lacoste’s name to it.
“That’s true. I’m the soloist.”
Beauvoir was relieved this monk hadn’t called him “my son.” He wasn’t sure what he’d do if that happened, but he suspected it wouldn’t reflect well on the Sûreté.
“I also understand you were about to be replaced.”
That got a reaction, though not the one Beauvoir expected and hoped for.
Frère Antoine smiled.
“You’ve been talking to Frère Luc, I see. I’m afraid he’s mistaken.”
“He seems quite certain.”
&
nbsp; “Frère Luc is having difficulty separating what he hopes will happen from what actually will. Expectations from reality. He’s young.”
“I don’t think he’s much younger than Christ.”
“You’re not suggesting we have the second coming in the porter’s room?”
Beauvoir, who had a tenuous hold on anything biblical, gave the point to the monk.
“Frère Luc must have misunderstood the prior,” said Frère Antoine.
“Was that an easy thing to do?”
Frère Antoine hesitated then shook his head. “No,” he admitted. “The prior was quite a definite man.”
“Then why does Frère Luc believe the prior wanted him to be the soloist?”
“I can’t explain what people believe, Inspector Beauvoir. Can you?”
“No,” admitted Beauvoir. He was looking at a man his own age, in a gown and floppy hat, head shaved, in a community of men in the woods. They’d dedicated their lives to a church most in Québec had renounced and they found meaning in singing songs in a dead language with squiggles for notes.
No, he couldn’t explain it.
But Beauvoir knew one thing, after years of kneeling beside dead bodies. It was very, very dangerous to come between a person and their beliefs.
Frère Antoine handed Beauvoir a basket. The monk bent down and searched through thick elephant ear leaves.
“Why do you think Frère Luc is the portier?” the monk asked, not looking at Beauvoir.
“Punishment? Some sort of hazing ritual?”
Frère Antoine shook his head. “Every single one of us is assigned that little room when we first arrive.”
“Why?”
“So we can leave.”
Frère Antoine picked a plump squash and put it in Beauvoir’s basket.
“Religious life is hard, Inspector. And this is the hardest. Not many can cut it.”
He made it sound like the marines of religious orders. There’s no life like it. And Beauvoir discovered a small stirring of understanding. Of attraction even. This was a tough life. And only the tough made it. The few. The proud. The monks.