by Louise Penny
The thought made him so sick he thought he’d vomit.
“It’s all right, Jean-Guy. It was a slip, nothing more. We’ll get you home and get help. Nothing that can’t be put right.”
Beauvoir opened his eyes and saw Armand Gamache looking at him not with pity. But with determination. And confidence. It would be all right.
“Oui, patron,” he managed. And he even found himself believing it. That this could be put behind him.
“Tell me what happened.” Gamache put the bottle away and leaned forward.
“It was just there, on the bedside table, with the note from the doctor. I thought…”
I thought it was a prescription. I thought it was all right since it was from the doctor. I thought I had no choice.
He held the Chief’s eyes and hesitated.
“… I didn’t think. I wanted them. I don’t know why, but I had a craving and they appeared and I took them.”
The Chief nodded and let Beauvoir gather himself.
“When was this?” Gamache asked.
Beauvoir had to think. When was it? Weeks ago, surely. Months. A lifetime.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“It wasn’t the doctor who put them there. Do you have any idea who else might have?”
Beauvoir looked surprised. He’d given it no thought, completely accepting they were from the medical monk. He shook his head.
Gamache got up and got Beauvoir another glass of water. “Are you hungry? I can get you a sandwich.”
“No, patron. Merci. I’m fine.”
“The abbot’s called the boatman and he’ll be here in just over an hour. We’ll leave together.”
“But what about the case? The murderer?”
“A lot can happen in an hour.”
Beauvoir watched Gamache leave. He knew the Chief was right. A lot could happen in an hour. And a lot could fall apart.
THIRTY-FOUR
Armand Gamache sat in a front pew and watched the monks at their eleven A.M. mass. Every now and then he closed his eyes and prayed that this would work.
Less than an hour now, he thought. In fact, the boatman might already be at the dock. Gamache watched the abbot leave his spot on the bench and walk to the altar, where he genuflected and sang a few lines of Latin prayer.
Then, one by one, the rest of the community joined in.
Call, response. Call. Response.
And then there was a moment when all sound was suspended and seemed to hang in mid-air. Not a silence, but a deep and collective inhale.
And then all their voices came in together in a chorus that could only be described as glorious. Armand Gamache felt it resonate in his core. Despite what had happened to Beauvoir. Despite what had happened to Frère Mathieu. Despite what was about to happen.
Unseen behind him, Jean-Guy Beauvoir arrived in the chapel. He’d drifted in and out of sleep since the Chief had left, then had finally surfaced. He’d ached all over, and far from getting better, it seemed to be getting worse. He’d walked down the long corridor as though he was an elderly man. Shuffling. Joints creaking. Breath shallow. But every step took him closer to where he knew he belonged.
Not in the Blessed Chapel necessarily. But beside Gamache.
Once in the chapel, he saw the Chief at the very front.
But Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s body had taken him as far as it could, and he slumped into the pew at the very back. He leaned forward, his hands hanging loosely on the pew in front. Not quite in prayer. But in a sort of netherworld.
The world seemed very far away. But the music didn’t. It was all around him. Inside and out. Supporting him. The music was plain and simple. The voices in unison. One voice, one song. The very simplicity of the chants both calmed and energized Beauvoir.
There was no chaos here. Nothing unexpected. Except their effect on him. That was completely unexpected.
Something strange seemed to come over him. He felt out of sorts.
And then he realized what it was.
Peace. Complete and utter peace.
He closed his eyes and let the neumes lift him, out of himself, out of the pew, out of the Blessed Chapel. They took him out of the abbey and out over the lake and the forest. He flew with them, free, unbound.
This was better than Percocet, better than OxyContin. There was no pain, no anxiety, no worry. There was no “us” and no “them,” no boundaries and no limits.
And then the music stopped, and Beauvoir descended, softly, to the earth.
He opened his eyes and looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed what had just happened to him. He saw Chief Inspector Gamache in one of the front pews, and across from him sat Superintendent Francoeur.
Beauvoir looked around the chapel. Someone was missing.
The Dominican. What had become of the man from the Inquisition?
Beauvoir turned to the altar and as he did he intercepted a brief glance from Gamache to Superintendent Francoeur.
Christ, thought Beauvoir. He really does despise the man.
* * *
Armand Gamache brought his gaze back to the monks. The chanting had stopped and the abbot was again standing front and center in the quiet church.
Then, into the silence, there came a single voice. A tenor. Singing.
The abbot looked at his monks. The monks looked at their abbot, then at each other. Their eyes wide, but their mouths shut.
And yet, the clear voice continued.
The abbot stood over the host and the goblet of wine. The body and blood of Christ. A wafer frozen in mid-blessing, offered to the air.
The beautiful voice was all around them, as though it had glided down the shafts of thin light and taken possession of the chapel.
The abbot turned to face the tiny congregation. To see if one of them had lost his wits and found his voice. But all he saw were the three officers. Scattered. Watching. Silent.
Then, from behind the plaque to Saint-Gilbert, the Dominican appeared. Frère Sébastien walked slowly, solemnly, to the center of the Blessed Chapel. There he paused.
“I can’t hear you,” he sang in an upbeat tempo, much faster, lighter, than any Gregorian chant ever heard in the chapel. The Latin words filled the air. “I have a banana in my ear.”
The music the prior died with had come to life.
“I am not a fish,” the Dominican chanted, as he walked down the center aisle. “I am not a fish.”
The monks, and the abbot, were paralyzed. Little rainbows danced around them as the morning sun burned through more mist. Frère Sébastien approached the altar, his head up, his arms thrust into his sleeves, his voice filling the void.
“Stop it.”
It wasn’t so much a command as a howl. A baying.
But the Dominican stopped neither his singing nor his progress. He continued, unhurried and unrelenting, toward the altar. And the monks.
Armand Gamache slowly rose to his feet, his eyes on the one monk who had finally separated himself from the rest.
The lone voice.
“Nooo!” the monk cried in pain. It was as though the music was sizzling his skin, as though the Inquisition had one final monk to burn.
Frère Sébastien came to a halt just below the abbot, and looked up.
“Dies irae,” Frère Sébastien sang. Day of wrath.
“Stop,” the monk pleaded. He’d stepped toward the Dominican and sank to his knees. “Pleeease.”
And the Dominican stopped. All that filled the chapel was sobbing. And giddy light.
“You killed your prior,” said Gamache quietly. “Ecce homo. He is man. And you killed him for it.”
* * *
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”
The abbot crossed himself.
“Go on, my son.”
There was a long pause. Dom Philippe knew this old confessional had heard many, many things over the centuries. But none as disgraceful as was about to come out.
God, of course, already knew. Had probably known
before the blow was struck. Probably even knew before the thought was formed. This confession wasn’t for the Lord, but for the sinner, the sheep who’d wandered too far from the fold. And been lost in a land of wolves.
“I have committed murder. I killed the prior.”
* * *
Bugs were crawling all over Jean-Guy Beauvoir’s skin and he wondered if the infirmary might’ve been infested with bedbugs or cockroaches.
He wiped his hand over his arms and tried to get at the ones crawling down his spine. He and the Chief were in the prior’s office, doing the paperwork, making notes. Packing up. The final preparations before leaving with the boatman.
Superintendent Francoeur had officially made the arrest, taken possession of the prisoner, and called for the floatplane to pick them up. Francoeur was now sitting in the Blessed Chapel while the murderer monk made his confession. Not to the police, but to his confessor.
Beauvoir’s discomfort came in waves. Getting closer and closer, until now he was barely able to sit still. Bugs crawled under his clothing, and waves of anxiety cascaded over him until he found he could barely breathe.
And the pain was back. In his gut, in his marrow. His hair, his eyeballs, his dry lips hurt.
“I need a pill,” he said, barely able to focus on the man across from him. He saw Gamache raise his head from the notes he was making, and stare at him.
“Please. Just one more, and then I’ll stop. Just one to get me home.”
“The doctor said to give you Extra Strength Tylenol—”
“I don’t want a Tylenol,” shouted Beauvoir, his hand slapping the desk. “For God’s sake, please. It’ll be the last one, I swear.”
The Chief Inspector calmly shook two pills into his hand and walked around the desk with a glass of water. He offered his palm to Beauvoir. Jean-Guy grabbed the pills then tossed them onto the floor.
“Not those, not the Tylenol. I need the others.”
He could see them in Gamache’s jacket pocket.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew he shouldn’t. Knew this would be crossing a line which could never be uncrossed. But finally there was no “knowing” about it. Only the pain. And the crawling, and the anxiety. And the need.
He pushed himself off the chair with all the strength he had and grabbed at Gamache’s pocket, thrusting the two of them against the stone wall.
* * *
“I killed the prior.”
“Go on, my son,” said the abbot.
There was a silence. But it wasn’t complete. Dom Philippe heard gasping as the man in the other half of the confessional tried to breathe.
“I didn’t mean to. Not really.”
The voice was growing hysterical and the abbot knew that wouldn’t help.
“Slowly,” he advised. “Slowly. Tell me what happened.”
There was another pause as the monk gathered himself.
“Frère Mathieu wanted to talk about the chant he’d written.”
“Mathieu wrote the chant?” The abbot knew he shouldn’t be asking questions during a confession, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Yes.”
“The words and the music?” the abbot asked, and promised himself that would be the last interruption. And then silently begged God’s forgiveness for lying.
He knew there’d be more.
“Yes. Well, he’d written the music and then put in just any Latin words to fit the meter of the music. He wanted me to write the real words.”
“He wanted you to write a prayer?”
“Sort of. Not that I’m so great at Latin, but anyone was better than him. And I think he wanted an ally. He wanted to make the chants even more popular and he thought if we could modernize them just a little, we’d reach more people. I tried to talk him out of it. It wasn’t right. It was blasphemy.”
The abbot sat in silence and waited for more. And finally it came.
“The prior gave me the new chant about a week ago. He said if I helped him I could sing it on the new recording. Be the soloist. He was excited and so was I at first, until I looked more closely. I could see then what he was doing. It had nothing to do with the glory of God and everything to do with his own ego. He expected I’d just say yes. He couldn’t believe it when I refused.”
“What did Frère Mathieu do?”
“He tried to bribe me. And then he got angry. Said he’d drop me from the choir completely.”
Dom Philippe tried to imagine what that would be like. To be the only monk not singing the chants. To be excluded from that Glory. To be excluded from the community. Left out. His silence complete.
It would be no life at all.
“I had to stop him. He’d have destroyed everything. The chants, the monastery. Me.” The disembodied voice paused, to gather himself. And when he spoke again it was so quietly the abbot had to lean his ear against the grille to hear.
“It was a profanity. You heard it, mon père. You see that something had to be done to stop him.”
Yes, thought the abbot, he’d heard it. Hardly believing his eyes, and ears, he’d watched the Dominican walk down the central aisle of the Blessed Chapel. The abbot had been at first shocked, angered even. And then, God help him, all the anger had disappeared and he’d been seduced.
Mathieu had created a plainchant with a complex rhythm. The music had swarmed over the abbot’s final defenses. Walls he didn’t realize he still had. And the notes, the neumes, the lovely voice had found the chord at Dom Philippe’s core.
And for a few moments the abbot had known complete and utter bliss. Had resonated with love. Of God, of man. Of himself. Of all people and all things.
But now all he heard was the sobbing in the stall beside him.
Frère Luc had finally made his choice. He’d left the porterie and killed the prior.
* * *
Gamache felt himself propelled backward and braced himself. His back connected with the stone wall and the breath was knocked out of him.
But by far the biggest shock came in that split second before impact, when he realized who was doing this.
He gasped for air and felt Jean-Guy’s hand go to his pocket. After the pills.
Gamache grabbed the hand and twisted. Beauvoir howled and fought harder, thrashing and wailing. Knocking Gamache in the face and chest. Knocking him backward again in a desperate, single-minded drive to get at what was in Gamache’s pocket.
Nothing else mattered. Beauvoir twisted and shoved and would have clawed his way through concrete to get at that pill bottle.
“Stop, Jean-Guy, stop,” Gamache shouted, but knew it was no use. Beauvoir was out of his mind. The Chief brought his forearm up and held it to Beauvoir’s throat, just as he saw something that almost stopped his heart.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir went for his gun.
* * *
“All those neumes,” Frère Luc slobbered, his voice wet and messy. There was a snuffle, and the abbot imagined the long black sleeve of the robe drawn across the runny nose. “I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a joke, but the prior said it was his masterpiece. The result of a lifetime studying chants. The voices would be sung in plainchant. Together. The other neumes were for instruments. An organ and violins and flute. He’d been working on it for years, Père Abbé. And you didn’t even know.”
The young voice was accusatory. As though it was the prior who had sinned and the abbot who had failed.
Dom Philippe looked through the grillwork of the confessional, trying to glimpse the other side. To see the young man he’d followed since the seminary. Had watched, from a distance, as he’d grown and matured, and chosen holy orders. As his voice had begun the long drop, from his head to his heart.
But, unknown to the abbot or the prior, that drop had never been completed. The lovely voice had gotten stuck behind a lump in the young man’s throat.
After the success of their first recording, but before the rift, Mathieu and the abbot had met for one of their talks in the garden. And Mathieu had said
the time had come. The choir needed the young man. Mathieu wanted to work with him, to help shape the extraordinary voice before some less gifted choirmaster got hold of him.
One of the elderly brothers had just died, and the abbot had agreed, with some reluctance. Frère Luc was still so young, and this was such a remote monastery.
But Mathieu had been convincing.
And now, peering through the grille at Mathieu’s killer, the abbot wondered whether it was the voice Mathieu hoped to influence, or the monk.
Did Mathieu realize that the other brothers might be reluctant to sing such a revolutionary chant? But if he could recruit the young, lonely monk to the abbey, he could get him to do it. And to not only sing the chant, but write the words.
Mathieu was magnetic, and Luc was impressionable. Or so the prior had thought.
“What happened?” the abbot asked.
There was a pause and more ragged inhales.
The abbot didn’t press anymore. He tried to tell himself it was patience that guided him. But he knew it was fear. He didn’t want to hear what came next. His rosary hung from his hands and his lips moved. And he waited.
* * *
Gamache grabbed at Beauvoir’s hand, trying to loosen the gun. From Jean-Guy’s throat came a wail, a cry of desperation. He fought wildly, flailing and kicking and bucking but finally Gamache twisted Beauvoir’s arm behind his back and the firearm clattered to the floor.
Both men were gasping for breath. Gamache held Jean-Guy’s face against the rough stone wall. Beauvoir bucked and sidled but Gamache held firm.
“Let go,” Beauvoir screamed into the stone. “Those pills are mine. My property.”
The Chief held him there until his twisting and bucking slowed, and stopped. And all that was left was a panting young man. Exhausted.
Gamache took the holster from Beauvoir’s belt then reached into Jean-Guy’s pocket and took his Sûreté ID. Then he stooped for the gun and turned Beauvoir around.
The younger man was bleeding from scrapes to the side of his face.
“We’re going to leave here, Jean-Guy. We’re going to get in that boat and when we get to Montréal I’m taking you straight to rehab.”