The Beautiful Mystery

TWENTY-EIGHT

Gamache and Beauvoir waited until they were back in the prior’s office to talk. Superintendent Francoeur had corralled the newcomer right after dinner and the two had stayed in the dining hall.

Everyone else had left as soon as they politely could.

“Jeez,” said Beauvoir. “The Inquisition. I didn’t expect that.”

“No one does,” said Gamache. “There hasn’t been an Inquisition in hundreds of years. I wonder why he’s here?”

Beauvoir crossed his arms and leaned against the door while Gamache sat behind the desk. Only then did he notice the other chair was broken, and leaning, crooked, in a corner.

Gamache said nothing, but looked at Beauvoir and raised a brow.

“A slight disagreement.”

“With the chair?”

“With the Superintendent. No one was hurt,” he hurriedly added on seeing the Chief’s face. But the assurance didn’t seem to work. Gamache continued to look upset.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. He said some stupid things and I disagreed.”

“I told you not to engage him, not to argue. It’s what he does, he gets into people’s heads—”

“And what was I supposed to do? Just nod and bow and take his shit? You might, but I won’t.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment.

“Sorry,” said Beauvoir, and stood up straight. He wiped his tired face with his hands then looked at Gamache.

The Chief was no longer looking angry. Now he looked concerned.

“Has something happened? What did the Superintendent say?”

“Oh, just the usual crap. That you don’t know what you’re doing and I’m exactly like you.”

“And that made you angry?”

“To be compared to you? Who wouldn’t be?” Beauvoir laughed, but he could see the Chief wasn’t amused. He continued to examine Beauvoir.

“Are you all right?”

“God, why do you always ask that, as soon as I get angry, or upset? You think I’m that fragile?”

“Are you all right?” Gamache repeated. And waited.

“Oh, fuck,” said Beauvoir and leaned heavily against the wall. “I’m just tired, and this place is getting to me. And now this new monk, this Dominican. I feel like I’ve landed on another planet. They’re speaking the same language as me, but I keep thinking they’re saying more than I understand, you know?”

“I do.” Gamache kept his gaze on Beauvoir, then looked away. Deciding to let it drop for the moment. But something had clearly crawled inside the younger man’s skin. And Gamache could guess what. Or who.

Chief Superintendent Francoeur had many skills, Gamache knew. It was a terrible mistake to underestimate him. And in all the years they’d worked together, Gamache knew that Francoeur’s greatest gift was bringing out the worst in people.

However well hidden that demon, Francoeur would find it. And Francoeur would free it. And feed it. Until it consumed its host, and became the man.

Gamache had seen decent young Sûreté officers turned into cynical, vicious, strutting thugs. Young men and women with little conscience and big guns. And a superior who modeled and rewarded their behavior.

Once again Gamache looked at Beauvoir, leaning exhausted against the wall. Somehow Francoeur had gotten into Jean-Guy. He’d found the entrance, found the wound, and was roaming around inside him. Looking to do even more damage.

And Gamache had allowed it.

He felt himself almost quaking with rage. In a flash it had claimed his core, and raced to his extremities, so that his hands closed into white-knuckled fists.

Rage was transforming him, and Gamache fought to regain control. To grip his humanity and haul himself back.

Francoeur wouldn’t get this young man, Gamache vowed. It stops here.

He got up, excused himself and left the room.

Beauvoir waited for a few minutes, thinking the Chief must have just gone down the hall to the washrooms. But when he didn’t return Beauvoir got up and went into the hallway, looking this way and that.

The halls were dim, the light low. He checked the washrooms. No Gamache. He knocked on the Chief’s cell and when there was no answer poked his head in. No Gamache.

Beauvoir was at a loss. Now what?

He could text Annie.

Taking out his BlackBerry he checked. There was a message from her. She was having dinner with friends and would email him when she got home.

It was short and cheerful.

Too short, thought Beauvoir. Too cheerful? Was there, perhaps, just a hint of abruptness about the message? A dismissiveness. Not caring that he was still working well into the night? That he couldn’t just drop everything and go for drinks and dinner with friends.

He stood in the murky hallway and imagined Annie at that terrasse she liked on Laurier. Young professionals, drinking micro-brewery ales. Annie laughing. Having a good time. Without him.

“Would you like to see what’s behind that?”

The voice, more than the question, made Francoeur jerk in a small spasm of surprise. The Superintendent had been looking at the plaque to Saint Gilbert when Gamache walked quietly across the Blessed Chapel.

Without waiting for a reply, Gamache reached over and depressed the two wolves. The door swung open to reveal the hidden Chapter House.

“I think we should go in, don’t you?” Gamache placed a large, firm hand on Francoeur’s shoulder and propelled him into the room. It wasn’t a shove, exactly. A witness would never testify that there was any assault. But both men knew it was neither Francoeur’s idea to enter the room, nor his own steam.

Gamache closed the door then turned to face his superior.

“What did you say to Inspector Beauvoir?”

“Let me out of here, Armand.”

Gamache considered him for a moment. “Are you afraid of me?”

“Of course not.” But Francoeur looked a little frightened.

“Would you like to leave?” Gamache’s voice was friendly but his eyes were cold and hard. And his stance, in front of the door, unyielding.

Francoeur was silent for a moment, assessing the situation.

“Why don’t you ask your Inspector what happened?”

“Stop the schoolyard games, Sylvain. You came here with an agenda. I thought it was to screw with me, but it wasn’t, was it? You knew I wouldn’t care. So you took off after Inspector Beauvoir. He’s still recovering from his wounds—”

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 Sûreté 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?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do. You can tell me.”

“I don’t know,” snapped Beauvoir. “But it’s better than sitting on my ass or on my knees praying to some cloud in the sky. At least I’m doing something useful.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?” the monk asked, his voice quiet.

Beauvoir, taken aback, nodded.

“I haven’t,” said Frère Antoine.

“Have you ever saved anyone?” Beauvoir asked.

Now Frère Antoine looked surprised. After a moment’s silence he shook his head.

“I have,” said Beauvoir, getting to his feet. “You just keep singing, mon frère. Keep praying. Keep kneeling. And let others stand up and do the saving.”

Beauvoir left and was halfway back to the prior’s office before he heard Frère Antoine’s voice.

“There is one person I’ve saved.”

Beauvoir stopped and turned around. The monk was standing in the dim corridor outside his cell.

“Myself.”

Jean-Guy snorted, shook his head and turned his back on Frère Antoine.

He hadn’t believed a word of it. Certainly hadn’t believed the monk when he talked about his love of the monastery. It was impossible to love the pile of stones and the old bones that rattled around inside it. Hiding from the world. Hiding from their reason.

It was impossible to love singing the deathly dull music, or a God who required it of them. And he wasn’t at all sure he believed Frère Antoine when the monk said he’d never killed.

Once inside the prior’s office, Jean-Guy Beauvoir leaned against the wall, then bent over, placing his hands on his knees. He took a deep breath in. A deep breath out.

Chief Inspector Gamache returned to the prior’s office carrying a new chair.

“Salut,” he said to Beauvoir, then placed the broken chair in the corridor, hoping a carpenter monk might find it and fix it. Gamache had things of his own to fix.

He indicated the chair, and Beauvoir sat.

“What did Superintendent Francoeur say to you?”

Beauvoir looked at him, astonished.

“I told you. Just shit about how incompetent you are. Like I don’t already know.”

But his attempt at levity sat on the desk between them. Gamache didn’t crack a smile. Didn’t take his eyes off his second in command.

“There was more, though,” the Chief said, after considering Beauvoir for a few quiet moments. “Francoeur said more. Or insinuated. You need to trust me, Jean-Guy.”

“There was nothing more.”

Beauvoir was looking tired, drawn, and Gamache knew he needed to send Beauvoir back to Montréal. He’d find some pretext. Jean-Guy could take back the murder weapon and the vellum they found on the body. Now that copies had been made the original could go to the lab.

Yes, there were plenty of good reasons to send Jean-Guy back to Montréal. Including the real one.

“I think when people care about each other they want to protect them,” said Gamache, choosing his words carefully. “But sometimes, like blocking a goalie in hockey or soccer, instead of protecting them you’re just making it harder for them to see what’s coming. Harm is done. By mistake.”

Gamache leaned a fraction further forward, and Beauvoir leaned away, just a fraction.

“I know you’re trying to protect me, Jean-Guy. And I appreciate it. But you have to tell me the truth.”

“And you, sir? Are you telling me the truth?”

“About what?”

“About the leaked video of the raid. About how it got out. The official report was a cover-up. That video was leaked internally. But you seem to believe the official report. A hacker, my ass.”

“Is that it? Did Superintendent Francoeur say something about the video to you?”

“No, it’s my own question.”

“And I’ve answered it before.” He looked closely at Beauvoir. “Where did this suddenly come from? What do you want me to say?”

“That you don’t believe the report. That you’re privately investigating. That you’ll find out who did it. They were our people. Your people. You can’t just leave it like this.”

His voice was spiraling out of control.

Beauvoir was right, of course. The video had been leaked internally. Gamache had known that from the moment it had happened. But he’d chosen to, officially anyway, accept the finding of the internal investigation. That some kid, some hacker, had just gotten lucky and found the video of the raid in the Sûreté files.

It was a ludicrous report. But Gamache had told his people, including Beauvoir, to accept it. To let it go. To move on.

And as far as he knew, they all had. Except Beauvoir.

And now Gamache wondered if he should tell him that for the past eight months he and a few other senior officers, with the help of some outsiders, were secretly, carefully, quietly investigating.

Some malady is coming upon us.

But in the case of the Sûreté du Québec, it had already arrived. Had been there for years, rotting away, from the inside. And from the top down.

Sylvain Francoeur had been sent to the monastery to gather information. Not about the murder of the prior, but to find out how much Gamache might know. Or suspect.

And Francoeur had tried to get at it through Beauvoir. Pushing and prodding and trying to thrust him over the edge.

Once again Gamache felt that lick of rage.

He wished he could tell Beauvoir everything, but he was deeply glad he hadn’t. Francoeur would leave Jean-Guy alone now. Satisfied that while Gamache might still be up to something, Beauvoir wasn’t. Francoeur would be satisfied that he’d gotten all he could from Beauvoir.

Yes, Francoeur had been sent with an agenda, and Gamache had finally figured out what it was. But Gamache had a question of his own. Who had sent the Chief Superintendent?

Who was the top boss’s boss?

“Well?” Beauvoir demanded.

“We’ve been through this before, Jean-Guy,” said Gamache. “But I’m happy to talk about it again, if it’ll help.”

He looked directly at Beauvoir over his half-moon reading glasses.

It was a gaze Jean-Guy had seen often. In trappers’ cabins. In shitty little motel rooms. In restaurants and bistros. Burger and poutine in front of them. And notebooks open.

Talking about a case. Dissecting the suspects, the evidence. Tossing around ideas, thoughts, wild guesses.

For more than ten years Beauvoir had looked into those eyes, over those glasses. And while he hadn’t always agreed with the Chief, he’d always respected him. Loved him even. In the way only one brother-in-arms could love another.

Armand Gamache was his Chief. His boss. His leader. His mentor. And more.

One day, God willing, Gamache would hold his grandchildren in that gaze. Jean-Guy’s children. Annie’s children.

Beauvoir could see the pain in those familiar eyes. And he couldn’t believe he’d put it there.

“Forget I said anything,” Beauvoir said. “It was a stupid question. It doesn’t matter who leaked the video. Does it?”

Despite himself he heard the plea in those last words.

Gamache leaned back, heavily, and watched Beauvoir for a moment. “If you want to talk about it, I will, you know.”

But Beauvoir could see what saying this cost Gamache. Beauvoir knew he wasn’t the only one who’d suffered that day in the factory, that day captured by the video and released into the world. Beauvoir knew he wasn’t the only one who still bore the burden of survival.

“The damage is done, patron. You’re right, we need to move on.”

Gamache removed his glasses and looked directly at Beauvoir. “I need you to believe something, Jean-Guy. Whoever leaked that video will answer for it one day.”

“Just not to us?”

“We have our own work to do here, and frankly, I’m finding it hard enough.”

The Chief smiled, but it didn’t quite cover the watchfulness in his brown eyes. The sooner Gamache could get Beauvoir back to Montréal, the better. It was dark now, but he’d talk to the abbot and send Beauvoir back first thing in the morning.

Gamache pulled the laptop toward him. “I wish we could get this thing working.”

“No,” said Beauvoir, sharply. He leaned over the desk, his hand gripping the screen.

The Chief looked at him in surprise.

Beauvoir smiled. “Sorry, it’s just that I was working on it this afternoon and I think I’ve found the problem.”

“And you don’t want me to screw it up, is that it?”

“Absolutely.”

Beauvoir hoped his voice was light. He hoped his explanation was credible. But mostly he hoped Gamache would back away from the computer.

He did. And Beauvoir turned it around so that it faced him.

The crisis was averted. He sat back down in his chair. The chronic ache had turned into a sharp pain that tunneled into Beauvoir’s bones and ran through his marrow. Like corridors, carrying the pain to every part of his body.

Beauvoir began wondering how soon he could be alone in the office. With the computer. And the DVD the Superintendent had brought. And the pills the doctor had left. He now longed for the next service. So that while everyone else was in the Blessed Chapel he could be in here.

They spent the next twenty minutes discussing the case, throwing around theories, throwing out theories, until finally Gamache got to his feet.

“I need a walk. Do you want to come?”

Beauvoir’s heart sank, but he nodded and followed Gamache into the corridor.

They turned toward the Blessed Chapel, when the Chief suddenly stopped and stared, at the electric light bulb attached to the wall.

“Do you know, Jean-Guy, when we first arrived I was surprised they had electricity here.”

“Comes from solar and some hydro power they’ve hooked up to a nearby river. Frère Raymond told me. Want to know how it works? He told me that as well.”

“Perhaps for my birthday. As a special gift,” said the Chief. “But what I’m wondering now is how that light got there.”

He pointed to the wall sconce.

“I don’t understand, patron. How does any light get on a wall? It’s wired there.”

“Exactly. But where’re the wires? And where’s the ductwork for the new heating system? And the pipes for the plumbing?”

“Where they are in any building,” said Beauvoir, wondering if the Chief had lost his mind. “Behind the wall.”

“But the plan shows only one wall. The Gilbertines who built it took years, decades, to dig the foundation and put the walls up. It’s an engineering marvel. But you can’t tell me they designed it to have a geothermal unit and plumbing and that.”

Again he pointed to the light.

“You’ve lost me,” admitted Beauvoir.

Gamache turned to him. “In your home, in mine, there’re two walls. The exterior cladding and the interior drywall. And between the two is the insulation, and the wiring. The plumbing. The vents.”

And then it clicked for Beauvoir. “They can’t have passed the wires and pipes through solid stone. So this isn’t the outside wall,” he pointed to the fieldstones that made the wall, “there’s another wall behind it.”

“I think there must be. The wall you examined for flaws might not be the one that’s crumbling. It’s the outer wall that’s breached by roots and water. It isn’t yet noticeable inside.”

Two skins, thought Beauvoir, as they resumed their walk and stepped into the Blessed Chapel. The public face, and then the crumbling, rotting one behind.

He’d made a mistake. Hadn’t looked hard enough. And Gamache knew it.

“Excusez-moi,” a voice sang out, and the two men slowed, and turned. They were crossing the Blessed Chapel.

“Over here.”

Gamache and Beauvoir looked to their right, and there, in the shadows, stood the Dominican. Beside the plaque to Gilbert of Sempringham.

The two Sûreté men walked over.

“You looked like you have someplace to go,” said Frère Sébastien. “If I’m disturbing you we can talk later.”

“We always have someplace to go, mon frère,” Gamache said. “And if we don’t we’re trained to look as though we do.”

The Dominican laughed. “The same with monks. If you go to the Vatican we’re always hurrying down corridors looking important. Most of the time we’re just trying to find a bathroom. The sad convergence of great Italian coffee and a shocking distance between toilets in the Vatican. The architects of Saint Peter’s were brilliant, but toilets weren’t a priority. Superintendent Francoeur has told me something about the death of the prior. I wonder if we can talk some more about it? I get the feeling that while Monsieur Francoeur’s in charge, you do most of the actual investigating.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” agreed Gamache. “What questions do you have?”

But instead of answering, the monk turned to the plaque. “A long life, Gilbert had. And an interesting description.” He gestured to the writing. “I find it strange that the Gilbertines themselves, who presumably made the plaque, should make him out to be so dull. But way down here, as an afterthought, they say he defended his archbishop.” Frère Sébastien turned to Gamache. “You know who that was?”

“The archbishop? Thomas à Becket.”

Frère Sébastien nodded. In the uncertain light of the bulbs high in the rafters, shadows were distorted. Eyes became bleak holes, noses were elongated, misshapen.

The Dominican gave them a grotesque smile. “A remarkable thing for Gilbert to do. I’d love to know why he did it.”

“And I’d love to know, mon frère,” said Gamache, not smiling, “why you’re really here.”

The question amazed the monk, who stared at Gamache, then laughed.

“I think we have a lot to talk about, monsieur. Shall we go into the Chapter House? We won’t be disturbed there.”

The door to the room was through the plaque. Gamache knew it. Beauvoir knew it. And the monk seemed to know it. But instead of finding the hidden catch and opening it, Frère Sébastien waited. For one of the others to do it.

Chief Inspector Gamache considered the monk. He seemed pleasant. There was that word again. Inoffensive. Happy in his work, happy in his life. Happy, certainly, to have followed the Angelus bells and found this secluded monastery.

Built almost four hundred years earlier by Dom Clément, to escape the Inquisition. They’d faded into the Canadian wilderness and let the world believe the last rites were said for the last Gilbertine centuries ago.

Even the Church believed they’d gone extinct.

But they hadn’t. For centuries these monks sat by the shores of this pristine lake, adoring God. Praying to him. Singing to him. And living lives of quiet contemplation.

But never forgetting what drove them there.

Fear. Fretting.

As though the walls weren’t high enough, and thick enough, Dom Clément had taken one more measure. He built a room to hide in. The Chapter House. In case.

And tonight the “in case” had finally happened. The Inquisition, in the person of this pleasant monk, had found the Gilbertines.

“At last,” Frère Sébastien had said when he first crossed the threshold. “I found you.”

At last, thought Gamache.

And now the Dominican from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was asking a police officer to show him the secret door. To open it. To take away the Gilbertines’ last hiding place.

Gamache knew it no longer mattered. The secret was out. There was no more hiding to be done. And no need. The Inquisition had ended. But even so, Chief Inspector Gamache was loath to be the man who after four hundred years opened that door for the hound of the Lord.

All this went through Gamache’s mind in a flash, but before he could say anything, Beauvoir stepped forward and pressed the image of the intertwined wolves.

And the plaque clicked open.

“Merci,” said the Dominican. “I wondered briefly if you knew how.”

Beauvoir gave him a dismissive look. That would teach this young monk to underestimate him.

Gamache stepped aside and gestured, inviting the monk to go first. They stepped into the Chapter House and sat on the stone bench that ran around the walls. Gamache waited. He wasn’t going to start the conversation. So the three of them sat in silence. After a minute or so Beauvoir began to fidget slightly.

But the Chief sat absolutely still. Composed.

Then a soft sound came from the monk. It took just a moment for the Chief to recognize it. He was humming the tune Gamache himself had hummed over dinner. But it sounded different. Perhaps, Gamache thought, it was the acoustics of the room. But he knew, deep down, it wasn’t that.

He turned to the man next to him. Frère Sébastien had his eyes closed, his fine, light lashes resting on his pale cheek. And a smile on his face.

It felt as though the stones themselves were singing. It felt as though the monk had coaxed the music out of the air, out of the walls, out of the fabric of his robes. Gamache had the oddest sensation that the music was coming out of himself. As though the music was part of him, and he a part of it.

It felt as though all of everything was broken down and swirled together, and out of that came this sound.

The experience was so intimate, so invasive, it was almost frightening. And would have been, had the music itself not been so beautiful. And calming.

Then the Dominican stopped humming, opened his eyes, and turned to Gamache.

“I’d like to know, Chief Inspector, where you heard that tune.”