Bury Your Dead

FIVE

Once at the bottom of the ladder Gamache looked round. Industrial lamps had been brought down and he could see light flooding from one of the chambers. Like anyone else he was drawn to it, but resisted and instead looked into the gloom, allowing his eyes to adjust.

After a moment he saw what men and women stretching back hundreds of years had seen. A low, vaulted, stone basement, a sous-sol in French. No sun had ever reached here, only darkness, interrupted over the centuries by candlelight, by whale oil lamps, by gaslight and now, finally, by blinding, brilliant electric lights. Brighter than the sun, brought down so they could see the darkest of deeds.

The taking of a life.

And not just any life, but Augustin Renaud.

Porter Wilson, for all his paranoia was right, thought Gamache. The people who wanted Québec to separate from Canada will have a field day. Anything that cast suspicion on the English population was fodder for the separatist cause. Or at least, the more radical factions. The vast majority of separatists, Gamache knew, were thoughtful, reasonable, decent people. But a few were quite crazy.

Gamache and his young guide were in an antechamber. The ceilings were low, though perhaps not for the people who’d built it. Poor diet and grinding conditions had made them many inches shorter. But still, Gamache suspected, most would have ducked, as he did now. The floors were dirt, and it was cool but not cold down there. They were well below the frost line, beneath the sun but also beneath the frozen earth. Into a sort of dim purgatory, a place never hot, nor cold.

The Chief Inspector touched the rough stone wall, wondering how many men and women, long dead, had touched it too as they’d come down to get root vegetables from the cellars. To keep starving prisoners alive long enough to kill them.

Off the antechamber there was a room. The room with the light.

“After you,” he gestured to the officer, and followed him.

Inside his eyes had to adjust again though this didn’t take so long. Large industrial lamps were positioned to bounce off the vaulted stone ceiling and walls but most were beamed into one corner of the room. And in that corner a handful of men and women worked. Some taking photographs, some collecting samples, some huddled over something Gamache couldn’t quite see but could imagine.

A body.

Inspector Langlois stood and brushing dirt from his knees he approached. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”

They shook hands.

“I needed to think about it. Madame MacWhirter also asked me to come, to act as a sort of honest-broker between them and you.”

Langlois smiled. “She thinks they need one?”

“Well, it’s more or less what you asked, wasn’t it?”

The Inspector nodded. “It’s true. And I’m grateful you’re here, but I wonder if we might keep this on an informal basis. Perhaps we could consider you a consultant?” Langlois looked behind him. “Would you like to see?”

“S’il vous plaît.”

It was a scene familiar to the Chief Inspector. A homicide team in the early stages of collecting evidence that would one day convict a man of murder, or a woman. The coroner was still there, just rising, a young doctor sent over from Hôtel-Dieu hospital where the Chief Coroner of Québec kept an office. This man wasn’t the Chief. Gamache knew him, but he was a doctor and judging by his composure he was experienced.

“He was hit from behind with that shovel there.” The doctor pointed to a partly buried tool beside the body. He was speaking to Inspector Langlois but shooting glances at Gamache. “Fairly straightforward. He was hit a few times. I’ve taken samples and need to get him onto my table, but there doesn’t seem to be any other trauma.”

“How long?” Langlois asked.

“Twelve hours, give or take an hour or so. We’re lucky with the environment. It’s consistent. No rain or snow, no fluctuation in temperature. I’ll tell you more precisely later.” He turned, collected his kit then nodded to Langlois and Gamache. But instead of leaving the coroner hesitated, looking round the cellar.

He seemed reluctant to leave. When Langlois peered at him the young doctor lost some of his composure but rallied.

“Would you like me to stay?”

“Why?” asked Langlois, his voice uninviting.

But still the doctor persevered. “You know.”

Now Inspector Langlois turned to him completely, challenging him to go further.

“Tell me.”

“Well,” the doctor stumbled. “In case you find anything else.”

Beside him Gamache felt the Inspector tense, but Gamache leaned in and whispered, “Perhaps he should stay.”

Langlois nodded once, his face hard, and the coroner stepped away from the pool of light, across the sharp border into darkness. And there he waited.

In case.

Everyone in that room knew “in case” of what.

Chief Inspector Gamache approached the body. The harsh light left nothing to the imagination. It bounced off the man’s dirty clothing, off his stringy, long, white hair, off his face, twisted. Off his hands, clasped closed, over dirt. Off the horrible wounds on his head.

Gamache knelt.

Yes, he was unmistakable. The extravagant black moustache, at odds with the white hair. The long, bushy eyebrows political cartoonists were so fond of caricaturing. The bulbous nose and fierce, almost mad, blue eyes. Intense even in death.

“Augustin Renaud,” said Langlois. “No doubt.”

“And Samuel de Champlain?”

Gamache had said out loud what everyone in that room, everyone in that sous-sol, everyone in that building had been thinking. But none had voiced. This was the “in case.”

“Any sign of him?”

“Not yet,” said Langlois, unhappily.

For where Augustin Renaud was there was always someone else.

Samuel de Champlain. Dead for almost four hundred years, but clinging to Augustin Renaud.

Champlain, who in 1608 had founded Québec, was long dead and buried.

But where?

That was the great mystery that hounded the Québécois. Somehow, over the centuries, they’d lost the founder.

They knew where minor functionaries from the early 1600s were buried, lieutenants and captains in Champlain’s brigade. They’d unearthed, and reburied, countless missionaries. The pioneers, the farmers, the nuns, the first habitants were all accounted for. With solemn graves and headstones, visited by school children, by priests on celebration days, by tourists and tour guides. Names like Hébert and Frontenac and Marie de l’Incarnation resonated with the Québécois, and stories were told of their selflessness, their bravery.

But one remained missing. One’s remains were missing.

The father of Québec, the most revered, the most renowned, the most courageous. The first Québécois.

Samuel de Champlain.

And one man had spent his entire adult life trying to find him. Augustin Renaud had dug and tunneled and hacked away under much of old Quebec City, following any whimsical clue that surfaced.

And now here he was, beneath the Literary and Historical Society, that bastion of Anglo Quebéc. With a shovel.

Dead himself. Murdered.

Why was he here? There seemed only one answer to that.

“Should I tell the premier ministre?” Langlois asked Gamache.

“Oui. The premier ministre, the Minister for Public Security. The Chief Archeologist. The Voice of English-speaking Québec. The Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society. The Parti Québécois.” Gamache looked at Langlois sternly. “Then you need to call a news conference and tell the population. Equally. At the same time.”

Langlois was clearly amazed by the suggestion. “Don’t you think it’s better to downplay this? I mean, really, it’s only Augustin Renaud, not the premier ministre. The man was a bit of a buffoon. No one took him seriously.”

“But they took his search seriously.”

Inspector Langlois stared at Gamache but said nothing.

“You’ll do as you want, of course,” said the Chief Inspector, sympathizing with the man. “But as your consultant that’s my counsel. Tell all and tell it quickly before the militant elements start spreading rumors.”

Gamache looked past the circle of intense light to the dark caverns beyond the main room.

Was Samuel de Champlain here right now? Armand Gamache, a student of Québec history, felt a frisson, an involuntary thrill.

And if he felt that, he thought, what will others feel?

Elizabeth MacWhirter was feeling ill. She turned her back to the window, a window and view that had always given her pleasure, until now. Out of it she still saw the metal roofs, the chimneys, the solid fieldstone buildings, the snow falling thicker now, but she also saw the television trucks and cars with radio station logos stenciled to the sides. She saw men and women she recognized from television, and photos in Le Soleil and La Presse. Journalists. And not the gutter press. Not just Allô Police, though they were there too. But respected news anchors.

They stood in front of the building, artificial lights on them, cameras pointed, they lined up like some game of Red Rover, and told their stories to the province. Elizabeth wondered what they were saying.

But it couldn’t be good, just degrees of bad.

She’d called the members of the library to give them what little information was available. It didn’t take long.

Augustin Renaud was found murdered in the basement. Pass it on.

She glanced out the window again at the quickly gathering reporters and snow, a storm of each, a blizzard, and moaned.

“What is it?” asked Winnie, joining her friend by the window. “Oh.”

Together they watched Porter descend the stairs, approach the swarming reporters and give what amounted to a news conference.

“Jesus,” sighed Winnie. “Do you think I can reach him with this?” She hefted the first volume of the Shorter Dictionary.

“You going to throw the book at him?” smiled Elizabeth.

“Shame no one donated a crossbow to the library.”

Inspector Langlois sat at the head of the polished table in the library of the Literary and Historical Society. It was a room at once intimate and grand. It smelled of the past, of a time before computers, before information was “Googled” and “blogged.” Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, filled with old books and dusty old thoughts.

It was calm and comforting.

It had been a long while since Inspector Langlois had been in a library. Not since his school days. A time filled with new experiences and the aromas that would be forever associated with them. Gym socks. Rotting bananas in lockers. Sweat. Old Spice cologne. Herbal Essence shampoo on the hair of girls he kissed, and more. A scent so sweet, so filled with longing his reaction was still physical whenever he smelt it.

And libraries. Quiet. Calm. A harbor from the turmoil of teenage life. When the Herbal Essence girls had pulled away, and mocked, when the gym sock boys had shoved and he’d shoved back, laughing. Rough-housing. Keeping the terror behind savage eyes.

He remembered how it felt to find himself in the library, away from possible attack but surrounded by things far more dangerous than what roamed the school corridors.

For here thoughts were housed.

Young Langlois had sat down and gathered that power to him. The power that came from having information, knowledge, thoughts, and a calm place to collect them.

Inspector Langlois, of the Quebec City homicide squad, looked round the double-height library with its carved wood and old volumes and wondered at the people he was about to interview. People who had access to all these books, all this calm, all this power.

English people.

To his right sat his assistant, taking notes. On his left sat a man he’d only seen at a distance before today. Heard lecture. Seen on television. At trials, at public hearings, on talk shows. And at the funerals, six weeks ago. Close up, Chief Inspector Gamache looked different. Langlois had only ever seen him in a suit, with his trim moustache. Now the man was not only wearing a cardigan, and corduroys, but also a beard. Shot with gray. And a scar above his left temple.

“Alors,” Langlois started. “Before the first one comes in I want to go over what we know so far.”

“The victim,” his assistant read from his notebook, “is identified as Augustin Renaud. Seventy-two years of age. His next of kin has been notified, an ex-wife. No children. She’ll formally identify him later, but there’s no doubt. His driver’s license and health card both identify him. Also in his wallet was forty-five dollars and there was a further three dollars and twenty-two cents change in his pockets. When the body was removed we found another twenty-eight cents beneath him, fallen from his pocket we think. They’re modern coins. All Canadian.”

“Good,” said Langlois. “Go on.”

Beside him Chief Inspector Gamache listened, one hand holding the other on the table.

“We found a satchel underneath the body. Inside was a map of Québec, hand-drawn by him.”

It was on the table in front of them. The map showed areas of the city he’d excavated for Champlain, and the dates, going back decades.

“Any ideas?” Langlois asked Gamache as all three men examined the paper.

“I find this significant.” The Chief’s finger hovered over a blank spot on the map. A map that only acknowledged buildings and streets significant to Renaud’s search. Places Samuel de Champlain might have been buried. It showed the Basilica, it showed the Café Buade, it showed assorted restaurants and homes unfortunate enough to be targeted by Renaud.

It was as though the rest of the magnificent old city didn’t exist for Augustin Renaud.

And where Gamache’s finger pointed was the Literary and Historical Society. Missing. Not plotted. Not in existence in Renaud’s Champlain-centric world.

Langlois nodded. “I’d seen that too. Maybe he just didn’t have time to put it in.”

“It’s possible,” said Gamache.

“What’re you thinking?”

“I’m thinking it would be a mistake to be blinded by Renaud’s passion. This murder may have nothing to do with Champlain.”

“Then why was he digging?” the young assistant asked.

“Good question,” smiled Gamache, ruefully. “It would seem a clue.”

“Right.” Langlois gathered up the map and returned it to the satchel. As he watched Gamache wondered why Renaud had needed the large leather bag to carry just that one slim piece of paper.

“Nothing else was in there?” Gamache nodded to the satchel in Langlois’s hand. “Just the map?”

“That’s all. Why?”

“He could have carried the map in his pocket. Why the satchel?”

“Habit,” said the assistant. “He probably carried it everywhere in case he found something.”

Gamache nodded. It was probably right.

“The coroner says Renaud was killed by the shovel sometime around eleven last night,” said Langlois. “He fell face forward into the dirt and an attempt was made to bury him.”

“Not deeply,” said the assistant. “Not well. Do you think he was meant to be found?”

“I wonder how often that cellar is used,” mused Langlois. “We’ll have to ask. Send in the first person, the head of the board. A,” the Inspector consulted his notes, “Porter Wilson.”

Porter entered. He tried not to show it, but he was deeply shocked to see this library, his library, occupied by the police force.

He had no rancor toward the French. It was impossible to live in Quebec City and feel like that. It would be a torturous life and an unnecessary torment. No, Porter knew the Francophones to be gracious and inclusive, thoughtful and stable. Most of them. There were radicals on either side.

And that was his problem. Tom Hancock, the minister, kept telling him so. He saw it as “sides,” no matter how many years went by, no matter how many French friends he had. No matter his daughter had married a Francophone and his grandchildren went to French schools and he himself spoke perfect French.

He still saw it as “sides,” with himself on the out-side. Because he was English. Still, he knew himself to be as much a Québécois as anyone else in that elegant room. Indeed, his family had been there for hundreds of years. He’d lived in Québec longer than that young officer, or the man at the head of the table, or Chief Inspector Gamache.

He’d been born there, lived a full life there, would be buried there. And yet, for all their friendliness, he would never be considered a Québécois, would never totally belong.

Except here. In the Literary and Historical Society, in the very center of the old city. Here he was at home, in an English world created by English words, surrounded by the busts of great Anglos before him.

But today, on his watch, the French force had moved in and were occupying the Lit and His.

“Please,” said Inspector Langlois, swiftly standing and indicating a seat. He spoke in his best, highly accented, English. “Join us.”

As though Mr. Wilson had a choice. They were the hosts and he was the guest. With an effort he swallowed a retort, and sat, though not in the seat indicated.

“We have some questions,” said Inspector Langlois, getting down to business.

Over the course of the next hour they interviewed everyone there. They learned from Porter Wilson that the library was locked every evening at six, and had been locked that morning when he’d arrived. Nothing was out of place. But Langlois’s people had examined the large, old lock on the front door and while it showed no signs of tampering a clever six-year-old could have unlocked it without a key.

There was no alarm system.

“Why would we bother with an alarm?” Porter had asked. “No one comes when we’re open, why would anyone come when we’re closed?”

They learned this was the only place in old Quebec City English books could be found.

“And you seem to have a lot of them,” said Gamache. “I couldn’t help but notice as I walked through the back corridors and rooms that you have quite a few books not displayed.”

That was an understatement, he thought, remembering the boxes of books piled everywhere.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just an observation.”

“It’s true,” said Porter, reluctantly. “And more coming every day. Every time someone dies they leave us their books. That’s how we find out someone’s dead. A box of worthless books appears. More accurate than the Chronicle-Telegraph obits.”

“Are they always worthless?” asked Langlois.

“Well, we found a nice book of drawings once.”

“When was that?”

“1926.”

“Can you not sell some?” Gamache asked.

Porter stared at the Chief Inspector. Gamache stared back, not certain what had caused this sudden vitriolic look.

“Are you kidding?”

“Non, monsieur.”

“Well, we can’t. Tried once, members didn’t like it.”

“In 1926?” Langlois asked.

Wilson didn’t answer.

Winnie Manning came in next and confirmed that the night was indeed a strawberry, but added that the English were good pumpkins and that the library had a particularly impressive section on mattresses and mattress warfare.

“In fact,” she turned to Gamache. “I think that’s an area you’re interested in.”

“It is,” he admitted, to the surprise of both Langlois and his assistant. After Winnie left, saying she had to launch a new line of doorknobs, Gamache explained.

“She meant ‘naval’, not ‘mattress’.”

“Really?” asked the assistant, who’d made notes but had decided to burn them in case anyone thought he was stoned when he’d taken them down.

Mr. Blake took Winnie’s place.

“Stuart Blake,” the elderly man said, sitting in the chair offered and looking at them with polite interest. He was immaculately dressed, shaved, his face smooth and pink and soft. His eyes bright. He looked at Gamache and smiled.

“Monsieur l’inspecteur,” he inclined his head. “Désolé. I had no idea who you were.”

“You knew what mattered,” said Gamache. “That I was a man in need of this magnificent library. That was enough to know.”

Mr. Blake smiled, folded his hands, and waited. At ease.

“You spend a lot of time in the library, I believe,” said Inspector Langlois.

“I do. For many years, since my retirement.”

“And what was your profession?”

“I was a lawyer.”

“So it’s Maître Blake,” said Langlois.

“No, please, I’ve been retired for years. Plain ‘Mister’ will do.”

“How long have you been involved with the Literary and Historical Society?”

“Oh, all my life in one way or another, and my parents and grandparents before that. It was the first historical society in the country, you know. Pre-dates the national archives. Been around since 1824, though not in this building.”

“This building,” said Gamache, picking up on the opening. “It has an interesting history?”

“Very.” Mr. Blake turned to face the Chief Inspector. “It didn’t become the Literary and Historical Society until 1868. This was originally the Redoubt Royale, a military barracks. It also housed prisoners of war, mostly American. Then it became a regular prison. There were public hangings, you know.”

Gamache said nothing, though he was interested that this refined, cultured, civilized man seemed to get pleasure telling them of such barbarity.

“Hung right out there.” He waved toward the front door. “If you believe in ghosts, this is the place for you.”

“Have you seen any?” Gamache asked, surprising both Langlois and the young officer.

Blake hesitated, then shook his head. “No. But I can feel them sometimes, when no one else is here.”

“Are you often here, when no one else is?” Gamache asked, pleasantly.

“Sometimes. I find it peaceful. I think you do too.”

“C’est la vérité,” agreed the Chief Inspector. “But I don’t have a key to get in after hours. You do. And, I presume, you use it.”

Again, Mr. Blake hesitated. “I do. But not often. Only when I can’t sleep and a question troubles me.”

“Like what?” Gamache asked.

“Like what grasses grow on Rum Island, and when the last coelacanth was caught.”

“And were you troubled by such questions last night?”

The two men looked at each other. Finally Mr. Blake smiled and shook his head.

“I was not. Slept like a child last night. As Shakespeare said, the best way to peace is to have a still and quiet conscience.”

Or none at all, thought Gamache, watching Mr. Blake with interest.

“Can anyone confirm that?” Inspector Langlois asked.

“I’m a widower. Lost my wife eight years ago, so no, I have no witnesses.”

“Désolé,” said Langlois. “Tell me, Mr. Blake, why do you think Augustin Renaud was here last night?”

“Isn’t it obvious? He must have thought Champlain is buried here.”

And there it was. The obvious answer, out in the open.

“And is he?”

Blake smiled. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Why would he think Champlain was here?” Langlois asked.

“Why did Augustin Renaud think anything? Has anyone ever figured out his logic? Perhaps his digs were more alphabetical than archeological and he’d come to the ‘Ls’. That makes as much sense as any of his reasoning. Poor man,” Blake added. “I imagine you’ll be digging?”

“Right now it’s still a crime scene.”

“Incredible,” said Mr. Blake, almost to himself. “Why would Augustin Renaud be here in the Lit and His?”

“And why would someone murder him?” said Langlois.

“Here,” added Gamache.

Finally Elizabeth MacWhirter entered and sat.

“What is your job, exactly?” Langlois asked.

“Well, ‘job’ is a loose term. We’re all volunteer. Used to be paid, but the government’s cut back on library funding, so now any money we get goes in to upkeep. Heating alone is ruinous and we just had the wiring redone. In fact, if it hadn’t been done we might never have found Mr. Renaud.”

“What do you mean?” Langlois asked.

“When we rewired the place we decided to do the phone lines too. Bury them in the basement. If the line hadn’t been cut we’d never have found the body, and he’d have been concreted over.”

“Pardon?” asked Langlois.

“Next week. The concrete people are supposed to come on Monday to put down the forms.”

The men looked at each other.

“You mean, if either Renaud or his murderer hadn’t cut the telephone line while digging last night, the whole floor would have been concreted? Sealed?” asked the Inspector.

Elizabeth nodded.

“Who knew this was going to happen?” Langlois asked.

“Everyone.” She walked over to a table and returned with three pamphlets which she handed out. There, on the front page, was the announcement.

The wiring, telephones and basement were to be redone.

Refolding the pamphlet and leaving it on the table in front of him Chief Inspector Gamache looked at the slim elderly woman.

“It says the work is to be done, but not the timing. The timing seems to me significant.”

“You may be right, Chief Inspector, but we didn’t keep the timing a secret. Many people knew. The board, the volunteers, the construction workers.”

“Where’d you get the money for all this? It must have cost a fortune.”

“It was expensive,” she admitted. “We got grants and donations and sold some books.”

“So the sale of books was fairly recent,” said Langlois. “But we heard from Monsieur Wilson that it wasn’t very successful.”

“Now there’s an understatement,” said Elizabeth. “It was a disaster. We sold a few boxes, books that had been sitting for decades gathering dust. A shame. They should be in someone’s collection, appreciated, not piling up here. And God knows, we need the money. It was a perfect solution. Turn unwanted books into wiring.”

“So what went wrong?” asked Gamache.

“The community went wrong. They decided we were as much a museum as a library and every item ever donated was a treasure. The books became symbolic, I’m afraid.”

“Symbolic of what?” Gamache asked.

“Of the value of the English language. Of the English culture. There was a fear that if even the Lit and His didn’t value the English language, the written word, then there was no hope. They stopped being books and became symbols of the English community. They had to be preserved. Once that happened there was no fighting, no arguing. And certainly, no selling.”

Gamache nodded. She was quite right. The battle was lost at that moment. Best to quit the field.

“And so you stopped the sale?”

“We did. Which is why you see boxes piled in the corridors. If one more elderly Anglo dies, the Literary and Historical Society will explode.” She laughed, but without humor.

“Why do you think Augustin Renaud was here?” Langlois asked.

“For the same reason you do. He must have thought Champlain was here.”

“Why would he think that?”

Elizabeth shrugged, making even that look refined. “Why did he think Champlain was buried under that Chinese restaurant? Or that primary school? Why did Augustin Renaud think anything?”

“Did he ever come here?”

“Well, he did last night.”

“I mean, did you ever see him here before that?”

Elizabeth MacWhirter hesitated.

“Never inside, as far as I know. But I saw him at the front door. Yesterday morning.”

The young assistant, so shocked something worthwhile had actually been said, almost forgot to write this down. But then his pen whirled into action.

“Go on,” said Langlois.

“He asked to see the Board of Directors.”

“When was this?”

“Around eleven thirty. We’d locked the door as we always do during a board meeting.”

“He just showed up?”

“That’s right.”

“How’d he even know you were meeting?”

“We put the announcement in the paper.”

“Le Soleil?”

“The Québec Chronicle-Telegraph.”

“The what?”

“The Chronicle-Telegraph.” Elizabeth spelled it for the assistant. “It’s the oldest newspaper in North America,” she said by rote.

“Go on. You say he showed up. What happened?” asked the Inspector.

“He rang the bell and Winnie answered it, then came up here with his request. She left him downstairs, outside.”

“And what did you say?”

“We took a vote and decided not to see him. It was unanimous.”

“Why not?”

Elizabeth thought about this. “We don’t react well to anything different, I’m afraid. Myself included. We’ve created a quiet, uneventful, but very happy life. One based on tradition. We know that every Tuesday there’ll be a bridge club, they’ll serve ginger snaps and orange pekoe tea. We know the cleaner comes on Thursdays, and we know where the paper towels are kept. In the same place my grandmother kept them, when she was secretary to the Lit and His. It’s not an exciting life but it’s deeply meaningful to us.”

She stopped then appealed to Chief Inspector Gamache.

“Augustin Renaud’s visit upset all that,” he said.

She nodded.

“How’d he react when told you wouldn’t see him?” Gamache asked.

“I went down to tell him. He wasn’t pleased but he accepted it, said he’d be back. I didn’t think he meant quite so soon.”

She remembered standing at the thick wooden door, opened a sliver as though she was cloistered and Renaud a sinner. His white hair sticking out from under his fur hat, frost and icicles and angry breath dripping from his black moustache. His blue eyes not just mad, but livid.

“You cannot stop me, madame,” he’d said.

“I have no desire to stop you, Monsieur Renaud,” she’d said in a voice that she hoped sounded reasonable. Friendly even.

But they both knew she was lying. She wanted to stop him almost as badly as he wanted in.

When all the interviews had been completed Gamache returned to the office. There he found them sitting over a pot of tea.

“Welcome to our little lifeboat,” said Elizabeth, getting to her feet and inviting him to join Winnie, Porter and herself. “And this is our fuel.” She indicated the teapot and smiled.

Henri rushed over to greet him.

“I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.” Gamache patted Henri’s flank and taking a seat he accepted a cup of strong tea.

“Never,” said Winnie. “What happens next?”

“In the investigation? They’ll get the coroner’s report and start looking into Augustin Renaud’s movements, friends, family. Who’d want him dead.”

They sat together around the table. Not exactly a huddled mass, but reminiscent of it.

“You said Monsieur Renaud asked to speak to the board,” Gamache turned to Elizabeth.

“You told them that?” Porter asked, his voice more clipped than usual. “Now you’ve done it.”

“She had no choice,” said Gamache. “You all should have told us. You must have known it was important.” He looked at them sternly. “You refused to see him, but would you have listened to him eventually?”

He spoke now to Porter Wilson but noticed everyone looked at Elizabeth, who remained silent.

“Eventually, maybe. But there was no advantage for us, and a whole lot of—” Porter searched for a word. “Inconvenience.”

“Monsieur Renaud could be very persuasive,” said Gamache, remembering the vitriolic campaigns the amateur archeologist had waged against anyone who denied him permission to dig.

“True,” admitted Porter. He seemed tired now, as the full import of what had happened weighed more and more heavily. As horrible as it would have been to have Augustin Renaud dig for Champlain beneath their Lit and His Society, the only thing worse was what had happened.

“May I see your minutes for the meeting?”

“I haven’t done them up yet,” said Elizabeth.

“Your notebook will do.”

He waited. Eventually she handed him her notebook and putting on his half-moon reading glasses he scanned the minutes, noting who was there for the meeting.

“I see Tom Hancock and Ken Haslam were there, but left early. Were they there when Augustin Renaud showed up?”

“Yes,” said Porter. “They left shortly after that. We were all there.”

Gamache continued to scan the minutes then over his glasses he looked at Elizabeth.

“There’s no mention of Monsieur Renaud’s visit.”

Elizabeth MacWhirter stared back. It seemed clear that when she’d asked for his help she hadn’t expected him to ask them quite so many questions, and uncomfortable ones at that.

“I decided not to mention it. He didn’t speak to us, after all. Nothing happened.”

“A great deal happened, madame,” said Gamache. But he’d also noticed that she’d said “I,” not “we.” Was she letting them off the hook? Taking the burden of responsibility herself? Or was it really a unilateral decision?

They might be in a lifeboat, but Gamache now had a clear idea who was captain.