The Beautiful Mystery (21 page)

“But it must be painful.”

“It is. But faith is often painful. And often joyous. Two halves of a whole.”

“So,” Gamache turned his attention back to the yellowed page lying on the plan of the monastery. “You don’t think this is actually all that old?”

“I don’t.”

“What else can you tell me about it?”

“What’s clear, and why I showed you my workbook, is the difference between the chants.”

The abbot placed the yellowed page on his workbook so that it covered the modern translation. The two chants with neumes faced each other. The Chief Inspector studied them. He spent almost a minute in complete silence, staring. Looking from one to the other. At the words, and at the marks flitting all over the pages.

Then his eyes slowed and he stared longer at one. Then the other.

When he lifted his eyes there was the spark of discovery in them, and the abbot smiled, as he might to a bright postulant.

“The neumes are different,” said Gamache. “No, not different. But there’re more of them on the page we found on the prior. Far more. Now that I see the two examples side-by-side it seems obvious. The one in your notebook, copied from the original, has just a few neumes per line. But the one we found on the prior is thick with them.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what does it mean?”

“Again, I can’t be sure,” the abbot leaned over the yellowed page. “Neumes serve only one purpose, Chief Inspector. To give direction. Up, down, fast, slow. They’re signs, signals. Like the hands of a conductor. I think whoever wrote this means for there to be many voices, going in different directions. This isn’t plainchant. This is complex chant, multi-layered chant. It’s also quite fast, a strong tempo. And…”

Now the abbot hesitated.

“Yes?”

“As I say, I’m not exactly the resident expert. Mathieu was that. But I think this was also meant to have music. I think one of the lines of neumes is for an instrument.”

“And that would be different from Gregorian chants?”

“It would make it a new creature. Something never heard before.”

Gamache studied the yellowed page.

How odd, he thought, that monks never seen should possess something never heard.

And one of them, their prior, had been found dead, curled around it in the fetal position. Like a mother, protecting an unborn child. Or a brother-in-arms, curled around a grenade.

He wished he knew which it was. Divine or damned?

“Is there an instrument here?”

“There’s a piano.”

“A piano? Were you planning to eat it, or wear it?”

The abbot laughed. “One of the monks arrived with it years ago and we hadn’t the heart to send it back.” The abbot smiled. “We’re dedicated to Gregorian chants, passionate about them, but the fact is, we love all church music. Many of the brothers are fine musicians. We have recorders and violins. Or are they fiddles? I’m never sure what the difference is.”

“One sings, the other dances,” said Gamache.

The abbot looked at him with interest. “What a nice way of putting it.”

“A colleague told me that. I learned a great deal from him.”

“Would he like to become a monk?”

“I’m afraid he’s beyond that now.”

The abbot again correctly interpreted the look on Gamache’s face, and didn’t press.

Gamache picked up the page. “I don’t suppose you have a photocopy machine?”

“No. But we have twenty-three monks.”

Gamache smiled and handed it over to the abbot. “Can you have it transcribed? If you can make a copy that would be helpful, so I don’t need to keep carrying around the original. And perhaps one of you could transcribe the neumes into musical notes? Is that possible?”

“We can try.” Dom Philippe called his secretary over and explained what was needed.

“Transcribe it to musical notes?” Simon asked. He looked not very optimistic. The Eeyore of the monastery.

“Eventually. Just copy it for now so we can give the original back to the Chief Inspector. As accurately as possible, of course.”

“Of course,” said Simon. The abbot turned away, but Gamache caught the flash of a sour look on Simon’s face. Aimed at the abbot’s back.

Was he the abbot’s man after all? the Chief wondered.

Gamache glanced through the leaded-glass window. It made the world outside look slightly distorted. But still he yearned to step into it. And stand in the sunshine. Away, even briefly, from this interior world of subtle glances and vague alliances. Of notes and veiled expressions.

Of vacant looks, and ecstasy.

Gamache longed to walk around the abbot’s garden. No matter how tilled and weeded and pruned it was, that control was an illusion. There was no taming nature.

And then he realized what had made him uncomfortable earlier, when he’d first seen the plan of the monastery.

He looked at it again.

The walled gardens. On the plan they were all the same size. But in reality, they weren’t. The abbot’s garden was much smaller than the
animalerie
. But on the plan they appeared exactly the same size.

The original architects had distorted the drawing. The perspectives were off.

Things appeared equal that weren’t.

SIXTEEN

Inspector Beauvoir left Frère Luc to the massive book resting on his skinny knees. He’d arrived thinking the poor bastard must want company, and left realizing he’d been simply an intrusion. All the young monk really wanted was to be left alone with his book.

Jean-Guy went off in search of Frère Antoine, but paused in the Blessed Chapel to check his BlackBerry.

Sure enough, there were two messages from Annie. Both short. Responding to his email from early that morning, and a more recent one, describing her day so far. Beauvoir leaned against the cool stones of the chapel and smiled as he wrote back.

Something rude and suggestive.

He was tempted to tell her about her father’s adventures that morning, in his pajamas and bathrobe, being found by the monks on their altar. But it was too good a story to waste in an email. He’d take her to one of the
terrasses
not far from her home and tell her over a glass of wine.

When he’d finished his vaguely erotic message to Annie he turned right and looked in the chocolate factory. Brother Bernard was there, fishing tiny wild blueberries out of a vat of dark chocolate.

“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 hadn’t found him. The message hadn’t been delivered.