The Beautiful Mystery (27 page)

“You’re one of the abbot’s men, aren’t you?” he asked. Grabbing at whatever questions surfaced.

“I am.”

“Why? Why not join with the prior?”

The monk starting kicking a stone and Beauvoir focused on that as it danced and jumped along the dirt path. The door into the monastery seemed a long way off. And suddenly he wished he was back in the Blessed Chapel. Where it was calm and peaceful. Listening to the monotone chants. Clinging to the chants.

No chaos there. No thoughts, no decisions. No raw emotions.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

“Frère Mathieu was a gifted musician,” Frère Bernard was saying. “He turned our vocation of singing chants into something sublime. He was a great teacher and a natural leader. He gave our lives new meaning and purpose. He breathed life into the abbey.”

“Then why wasn’t he abbot?”

It was working. Beauvoir followed his breath, and the monk’s quiet voice, back into his own body.

“Perhaps he should have been. But Dom Philippe was elected.”

“Over Frère Mathieu?”

“No. Frère Mathieu didn’t run.”

“Did Dom Philippe get in by acclamation?”

“No. The prior at the time ran. Most expected him to win since it was a natural progression. The prior almost always became the abbot.”

“And who was the prior at the time?” Beauvoir’s mind was working again. Taking things in, and churning rational questions back out. But the fist in his belly remained.

“I was.”

Beauvoir wasn’t sure he heard right. “You were the prior?”

“Yes. And Dom Philippe was just plain old Frère Philippe. A regular monk.”

“It must have been humiliating.”

Frère Bernard smiled. “We try not to personalize these things. It was God’s will.”

“And that makes it better? I’d rather be humiliated by men than God himself.”

Bernard chose not to answer.

“So you go back to being a regular monk, and the abbot appoints his friend as prior. Frère Mathieu.”

Bernard nodded, and absently took a handful of blueberries from his basket.

“Did you resent the new prior?” asked Beauvoir, helping himself to some of the berries.

“Not at all. It turned out to be an inspired choice. The former abbot and I were a good team. But I wouldn’t have been as good a prior to Dom Philippe as Frère Mathieu proved. It worked well for many years.”

“So you had to suck it up.”

“You have a singular way of putting things.”

“You should hear what I’m not saying,” Beauvoir said and saw Frère Bernard smile. “Have you heard that the prior was considering replacing Frère Antoine as soloist?”

“With Frère Luc? Yes. It was a rumor spread by Frère Luc, and apparently believed by him, but no one else.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t true?”

“The prior could be difficult. I think,” Frère Bernard shot Beauvoir a glance, “you might call him an asshole.”

“I’m hurt.”

“But he knew music. Gregorian chant was more than just music to him. It was his path to the Divine. He would rather die than do anything to undermine the choir or the chants.”

Frère Bernard walked on, apparently unaware of what he’d said. But Beauvoir tucked it away.

“Frère Antoine should be soloist,” said the monk, nibbling at more berries. “He has a magnificent voice.”

“Better than Luc’s?”

“Far better. Frère Luc’s is better technically. He can control it. It has a beautiful tone but there’s nothing divine there. It’s like seeing a painting of a person, instead of the real thing. It’s missing a dimension.”

Frère Bernard’s opinion of Luc’s voice was almost exactly the same as Frère Antoine’s.

Still, the young monk had been convinced and convincing.

“If Luc was right,” ventured Beauvoir, “what would the reaction have been?”

Bernard thought about that for a moment.

“I think people would have wondered.”

“Wondered what?”

Now Frère Bernard was distinctly uncomfortable. He popped more berries into his mouth. The basket, once overflowing, had been reduced to a puddle of blueberries.

“Just wondered.”

“You’re not telling me everything, Frère Bernard.”

Bernard remained silent. Swallowing his thoughts and opinions and words along with the berries.

But Beauvoir had a pretty good idea what he meant.

“You’d have wondered at their relationship.”

Bernard’s mouth clamped shut, the muscles around his jaw bulging with the effort of keeping the words in.

“You’d have wondered,” Beauvoir pressed, “what was going on between the older prior and the new recruit.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Of course it is. You and the other monks would have wondered what happened after choir practice. When the rest of you went back to your cells.”

“No. You’re wrong.”

“Is that how Antoine got his job? Was he more than just a soloist, and Frère Mathieu more than just the choirmaster?”

“Stop,” snapped Frère Bernard. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“You’re making the chants, the choir, sordid. Mathieu was a deeply unpleasant man. I didn’t like him at all. But even I know that never,” Bernard hissed the words, “never would he have chosen a soloist in exchange for sex. Frère Mathieu loved the chants. Above all else.”

“But still,” said Beauvoir, his voice very quiet now. “You would have wondered.”

Frère Bernard stared at Beauvoir, his eyes wide. His hand around the handle of the basket showed a strip of white knuckles.

“Did you know that the abbot has made Frère Antoine the new choirmaster?”

Beauvoir’s voice was friendly. Conversational. As though the confrontation hadn’t just happened. It was a trick he’d learned from Gamache. Don’t keep attacking. Move forward, back, sideways. Stand still.

Be unpredictable.

Slowly Frère Bernard gathered himself. And took a deep breath in.

A deep breath out.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” he finally said. “It’s the sort of thing the abbot would do.”

“Go on.”

“A few minutes ago you asked why I’m the abbot’s man. This is why. Only a saint or a fool would promote an adversary. Dom Philippe’s no fool.”

“You think he’s a saint?”

Frère Bernard shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think he’s the closest we have. Why do you think he was elected abbot? What did he have to offer? He was just a quiet little monk going about his day. He wasn’t a leader. He wasn’t a great administrator. He wasn’t a fine musician. He brought almost no actual skills to the community. He wasn’t a plumber or carpenter or stonemason.”

“Then what is he?”

“He’s a man of God. The real deal. He believes with all his heart and soul. And he inspires that in others. If people hear the Divine when we sing, Dom Philippe put it there. He makes us better men and better monks. He believes in God and he believes in the power of love and forgiveness. And not just a faith of convenience. If you ever needed proof, look at what he just did. He made Frère Antoine choirmaster. Because it was the right thing to do. For the choir, for the chants and for the peace of the community.”

“That just makes him a savvy politician, not a saint.”

“You’re a skeptic, Monsieur Beauvoir.”

“And for good reason, Frère Bernard. Someone killed your prior. Bashed his head in in the abbot’s pretty little garden. You talk of saints. Where was the saint then? Where was God then?”

Bernard said nothing.

“
Oui,
” snapped Beauvoir. “I’m a skeptic.”

Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

Someone had.

“And your precious abbot wasn’t simply elected out of the blue,” Beauvoir reminded him. “He chose to run. He wanted the job. Does a saint seek power? I thought they were supposed to be humble.”

They were within sight of the gate now. Inside were the long, light hallways. And small cells. And silent, gliding monks. And Chief Inspector Gamache. And Francoeur. Together. Beauvoir was a little surprised the walls and foundations of the monastery weren’t shaking.

They approached the door, made of thick wood, cut from this forest four hundred years ago. And then hinges were forged. And a deadbolt. And a lock.

On the rolled paper in Beauvoir’s hand Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups looked like a crucifix. But in reality?

It looked like a prison.

Beauvoir stopped.

“Why is the door locked?” he asked Frère Bernard.

“Tradition, nothing more. I expect lots of what we do seems senseless, but our rules and traditions make sense to us.”

Still Beauvoir stared.

“A door is locked as protection,” he finally said. “But who’s being protected?”

“
Pardon?
”

“You said your slogan could be ‘Just in case.’”

“
Exsisto paratus,
yes. It was a joke.”

Beauvoir nodded. “Lots of truth is said in jest, or so I’ve heard. Just in case of what,
mon frère
? What’re the locked doors for? To keep the world out, or the monks in? To protect you, or protect us?”

“I don’t understand,” said Frère Bernard. But Beauvoir could see by his expression that he understood perfectly well. He could also see that the monk’s basket, with its mother lode of berries, was now empty. The perfect offering gone.

“Maybe your precious abbot was neither a savvy politician nor a saint. But a jailer. Maybe that’s why he was so against another recording. So adamant about keeping the vow of silence. Was he just enforcing a long tradition of silence? Or was the abbot afraid of loosing some monster into the world?”

“I can’t believe you just said that,” said Bernard, trembling with the effort to contain himself. “Are you talking about pedophilia? Do you think we’re here because we violated little boys? Do you think Brother Charles, Brother Simon, the abbot—” he sputtered. “—I … You can’t possibly…”

He could go no further. His face was red with rage and Beauvoir wondered if his head might explode.

But still, the homicide inspector said nothing. He waited. And waited.

Finally silence was his friend. And this monk’s enemy. Because in that silence sat a specter. Fully grown. Fully fleshed. Of all the little boys. All the choirboys. The schoolboys. The altar boys. The trusting boys. And their parents.

That lived forever, in the silence of the Church.

When given a choice, given free will, the Church had chosen to protect the priests. And how better to protect those clerics than to send them into the wilderness. To an order all but extinct. And build a wall around them.

Where they could sing, but not speak.

Was Dom Philippe as much guard as abbot? A saint who kept watch over sinners?

NINETEEN

“Do you know why the Gilbertines have black robes and white hoods? It’s unique, you know. No other order wears it.”

Chief Superintendent Sylvain Francoeur was sitting behind the prior’s desk, leaning back casually in the hard chair, his long legs crossed.

Chief Inspector Gamache was now in the visitor’s chair, on the other side of the desk. He was trying to read the coroner’s report and the other papers Francoeur had brought with him. He looked up and saw the Superintendent smiling.

It was an attractive smile. Not slimy, not condescending. It was warm and confident. The smile of a man you could trust.

“No, sir. Why do they?”

Francoeur had arrived at the office twenty minutes earlier and given the reports to Gamache. He’d then proceeded to interrupt the Chief’s reading with trivial statements.

Gamache recognized it as a twist on an old interrogation technique. Designed to irritate, to annoy. Interrupt, interrupt, interrupt, until the subject finally exploded and said far more than they normally would have, out of frustration at not being allowed to say anything at all.

It was subtle and time consuming, this wearing away at a person’s patience. Not used by the brash young agents of today. But the older officers knew it. And knew, if they waited long enough, it was almost always effective.

The Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté was using it on his head of homicide.

Gamache, as he listened politely to Francoeur’s mundane observations, wondered why. Was it just for fun, to toy with him? Or was there, as there always was with the Chief Superintendent, some deeper purpose?

Gamache looked into that charming face and wondered what was going on inches from the smile. In that rotting brain. In that Byzantine mind.

As much as Jean-Guy might consider this man an idiot, Gamache knew he wasn’t. No one rose to be the most senior police officer in Québec, in one of the most respected forces in the world, without having skills.

To dismiss Francoeur as a fool would be a grave mistake. Though Gamache could never totally shake the impression Beauvoir was partly right. While Francoeur wasn’t an idiot, he wasn’t as clever as he appeared. And certainly not as clever as he thought he was. After all, Francoeur was skilled enough to use an old and subtle interrogation technique, but arrogant enough to use it on someone who’d almost certainly recognize what it was. He was really more cunning than clever.

But that didn’t make him less dangerous.

Gamache looked down at the coroner’s report in his hand. In twenty minutes he’d only managed to read a single page. It showed the prior to be a healthy man in his early sixties. The usual wear and tear on a sixty-year-old body. Some slight arthritis, some hardening of the arteries.

“I looked up the Gilbertines as soon as I’d heard about the prior’s murder.” Francoeur’s voice was agreeable, authoritative. People not only trusted this man, they believed him.

Gamache lifted his eyes from the page and put a politely interested look on his face.

“Is that right?”

“I’d read some of the newspaper articles, of course,” said the Superintendent, moving his eyes from Gamache to gaze out the narrow slat of the window. “The news coverage when their recording was such a hit. Do you have it?”

“I do.”

“So do I. Don’t understand the attraction myself. Dull. But lots liked it. Do you?”

“I do.”

Francoeur gave him a small smile. “I thought you might.”