Anger.
“What do you want?” the stiff back demanded.
“I’d like to speak with you, please.”
“Make an appointment.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Neither do I. Good day.” Serge Croix leaned further over the table, examining something.
There was a reason, Gamache knew, Québec’s Chief Archeologist chose to work with clay and shards of pottery, with arrowheads and old stone walls. He could question them and while they might, occasionally, contradict him it was never messy, never emotional, never personal.
“My name is Armand Gamache. I’m helping to investigate the murder of Augustin Renaud.”
“You’re with the Sûreté. You have no jurisdiction here. Go mind your own business.”
Still the stiff back refused to move.
Gamache contemplated him for a moment. “Do you not want to help?”
“I have helped.” Serge Croix turned round and glared at Gamache. “I spent an entire afternoon with Inspector Langlois digging in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society. Gave up my Sunday for that and you know what we found?”
“Potatoes?”
“Potatoes. Which is more than Augustin Renaud ever found when digging for Champlain. Now, I don’t mean to be rude but go away, I have work to do.”
“On what?” Gamache approached.
They were in the basement of the chapel of the Ursuline convent. It was lit with industrial lamps and long examination tables were set up in the center of the main room. Dr. Serge Croix stood beside the longest table.
“It’s an ongoing dig.”
Gamache looked into a hole by one of the rough stone walls. “Is this where Général Montcalm and his men were buried?”
“No, they were found over there.” Croix motioned into another part of the basement and went back to his work. Gamache took a few strides and peered in. He’d never been in that basement before, but had read about it since he was a schoolboy. The heroic Général riding up and down on his magnificent horse, inspiring the troops. Then the fusillade, and the Général was hit, but still he clung to his mount. When it was clear the battle was lost, when it was clear Bougainville was not going to arrive, the French forces had retreated into the old city. Montcalm had ridden there, supported on either side by foot soldiers. Taken to this very spot, to die in peace.
He’d hung on, remarkably, until the next day when he finally succumbed.
The nuns, afraid the English might desecrate the body, afraid of reprisals, had buried the Général where he’d died. Then, at some later date, the sisters had dug up his skull and a leg bone and put it into a crypt in the chapel, to be protected and prayed to privately.
A relic.
These things had power in Québec.
Général Montcalm had only recently been reunited with the men he’d died with. His remains had been reburied in a mass soldiers’ grave a few years ago, a grave that contained the bodies of all the men who died in one terrible hour on the fields belonging to the farmer Abraham.
French and English, together for eternity. Long enough to make peace.
Gamache watched the Chief Archeologist bend over a piece of metal, brushing the dirt free. Was this grave robbing? Could they never let the dead be? Why dig up the Général and rebury him with great ceremony and a huge monument a couple hundred yards away? What purpose was served?
But Gamache knew the purpose. They all did.
So that no one would ever forget, the deaths and the sacrifice. Who had died and who had done it. The city might have been built on faith and fur, on skin and bones, but it was fueled by symbols. And memory.
Gamache turned and saw that Dr. Croix was staring in the same direction, to where the Général had been buried and dug up.
“Dulce et Decorum est,” the archeologist said.
“Pro patria mori,” Gamache finished.
“You know Horace?” Croix asked.
“I know the quote.”
“It is sweet and right to die for your country. Magnificent,” said Croix, gazing beyond Gamache.
“You think?”
“Don’t you, monsieur?” Croix turned suspicious eyes on the Chief Inspector.
“No. It’s an old and dangerous lie. It might be necessary, but it is never sweet and rarely right. It’s a tragedy.”
The two men glared at each other across the dirt floor.
“What do you want?” Croix demanded.
He was tall and slender, hard and sharp. A hatchet. And he was aimed at Gamache.
“Why would Augustin Renaud be interested in some books belonging to Charles Chiniquy?”
Not surprisingly Dr. Croix looked at Gamache as though he was mad.
“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t even understand the question.”
“Not long before he was murdered Renaud found two books that excited him. Books that came from the Literary and Historical Society, but that had once belonged to Father Chiniquy. You know who I mean?”
“Of course I know. Who doesn’t?”
The entire world out there, thought Gamache. It was funny how obsessed people believed others equally obsessed, or even interested. And for archeologists and historians, gripped by the past, it was inconceivable others weren’t.
For them, the past was as alive as the present. And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave. Here was a man who remembered, vividly.
“What connection could Charles Chiniquy have had to Champlain?” Gamache asked.
“None.”
“Think, please.” Gamache’s voice, while still pleasant, now held an edge. “Chiniquy possessed something that excited Augustin Renaud. We know Renaud had only one passion. Champlain. Therefore, in the late 1800s Charles Chiniquy must have found something, some books, about Champlain and when Renaud found them he felt they’d lead him to where Champlain is buried.”
“Are you kidding? Birds led him there. Little voices in his little head led him there, rice pudding led him there. He saw clues and certainties everywhere. The man was a lunatic.”
“I don’t say the Chiniquy books really did answer the mystery of Champlain,” Gamache explained. “Only that Renaud believed they did.”
Croix’s eyes narrowed but Gamache could see he was no longer dismissing the question. Finally he shook his head.
“I have another question,” said the Chief Inspector. “Chiniquy and James Douglas were friends, correct?”
Croix nodded, interested in where this might be going.
“Why would they meet two Irish immigrant laborers in 1869?”
“The workers were either drunk or insane or both. No big mystery there.”
“Except there is. They met at the Literary and Historical Society.”
That gave Croix pause.
“Now, that is a mystery,” he admitted. “The Irish hated the English. There’s no way they’d have gone to the Literary and Historical Society voluntarily.”
“You mean, it wouldn’t have been their idea?”
“I frankly doubt they could even read and write. Probably didn’t know the Literary and Historical Society existed and if they did, the last place they’d want to go is into the heart of the Anglo establishment.”
“And yet they did. To meet with Father Chiniquy and Dr. James Douglas. Why?”
When no answer came Gamache fished into his breast pocket and brought out the old photograph.
“These are the workers, the ones smiling. Shortly after this was taken that man,” Gamache placed his finger on the figure of Sean Patrick, “bought a home in the Upper Town, just around the corner from here on des Jardins.”
“Impossible.”
“Fact.”
Croix searched Gamache’s face then returned to the photograph.
“Do you know what digging work was going on at the time?”
“In 1869? Lots I’d imagine.”
“It w
ould be the summer, judging by what they’re wearing and probably in the old city. Look at the stonework.”
Croix examined the grainy photo and nodded.
“I can try to find out.”
“Bon,” said Gamache, holding out his hand for the picture. Croix seemed reluctant to let it go but eventually gave it back.
“How did you find out about this meeting between Chiniquy, Douglas and the laborers?” Croix asked.
“From Renaud’s diary. I have no idea how he knew about it. Presumably it’s in one of the books he found. He bought the Chiniquy collection from the Literary and Historical Society. There was something in them, but we can’t find the books. Renaud seems to have hidden them. What could hundred-year-old books contain that someone was willing to kill for them?” Gamache wondered.
“You’d be surprised. Not everything buried is actually dead,” said the archeologist. “For many the past is alive.”
What putrid piece of history was walking among them? Gamache wondered. What had Augustin Renaud disturbed?
He remembered an entry in Renaud’s diary. Not the one circled and exclaimed over but a quieter entry, a meeting he would never make. With an SC.
The Chief Inspector slowly returned the photograph to his pocket, watching Croix, who was walking back to his work table.
“Were you going to meet Augustin Renaud?”
Croix stopped, then turned and stared.
“What?”
“Thursday at one o’clock. Augustin Renaud had an appointment with an SC.”
“SC? That would be anyone.”
“With the initials SC, yes. Was it you?”
“Me, have lunch with Renaud? I wouldn’t be seen in the same room with the man if I could help it. No. He was always asking, demanding, to meet with me, but I never agreed. He was a nasty little piece of work who thought he knew better than anyone else. He was vindictive and manipulative and stupid.”
“And maybe, finally, he was right,” said Gamache. “Maybe he found Champlain. Was that what you were afraid of? That he might actually succeed? Is that why you tried to stop him at every turn?”
“I tried to stop him because he was a bumbling idiot who was ruining perfectly good and valuable archeological digs with his fantasies. He was a menace.”
Serge Croix’s voice had risen so that the harsh words bounced and throbbed off the hard stone walls, coming back at the two men. Filling the space with rage that echoed and grew.
But the last sentence was rasped out. Barely audible, it scraped along the dirt floor and gave Gamache a chill.
“You tried to stop him. Did you finally succeed?”
“You mean did I kill him?”
They glared at each other.
“I didn’t arrange to meet him, and I certainly didn’t kill him.”
“Do you know where Champlain is buried?” Gamache asked.
“What did you just ask?”
“Do you know where Samuel de Champlain is buried?”
“What do you mean by that?” Croix’s voice was low and his look filthy.
“You know what I mean. The question is clear.”
“You think I know where Champlain is buried and am keeping it a secret?”
Croix invested each and every word, every syllable, with scorn.
“I think it’s almost inconceivable that we know where minor clerics, where war heroes, where farmers are buried,” said Gamache, not taking his eyes off the archeologist. “But not the founder of this country, the father of this country. I think you and the archeological establishment heaped derision onto Augustin Renaud, not because he was so laughable, but because he wasn’t. Was he getting close? Had he actually found Champlain?”
“Are you mad? Why would I hide the greatest archeological find in the nation? It would make my career, make my reputation. I’d be forever remembered as the man who gave the Québécois the one piece missing in their history.”
“That piece isn’t missing, monsieur, just the body. Why?”
“There was a fire, the original church burned, documents burned—”
“I know the official history but that doesn’t explain it and you know that. Why hasn’t his body been found? It makes no sense. So I ask myself the other question. Not why hasn’t he been found, but suppose he has? Why cover it up?” Gamache moved closer to the Chief Archeologist with each word until they were almost nose to nose. And Gamache whispered, “To the point of murder.”
They stared and finally Croix leaned back.
“Why would someone want to do that?” asked Croix.
“There’s only one reason, isn’t there,” said Gamache. “Champlain wasn’t what he seemed. He wasn’t quite the hero, the father figure, the great man. Champlain’s become a symbol of the greatness of the Québécois, a potent symbol for the separatists of what the settlement might have been, had the English not taken over. Champlain hated the English, derided them as brutes. On every level Champlain is the perfect tool for Québec separatists. But suppose this wasn’t true?”
“What’re you saying?”
“A lot of what we know to be history isn’t,” said Gamache. “You know that, I know that. It serves a purpose. Events are exaggerated, heroes fabricated, goals are rewritten to appear more noble than they actually were. All to manipulate public opinion, to manufacture a common purpose or enemy. And the cornerstone of a really great movement? A powerful symbol. Take away or tarnish that and everything starts to crumble, everything’s questioned. Can’t have that.”
“But what could be so bad about Champlain?” Croix asked.
“When was he born?”
“We don’t really know.”
“What did he look like?”
Croix opened his mouth then shut it again.
“Who was his father?”
Now Croix was silent, not even trying.
“Was he a spy? He was an expert mapmaker and yet many of the maps showed ridiculous creatures and claimed events that were clearly lies.”
“It was the style of the time.”
“To lie? Is that ever a style? We know who would want him found, Dr. Croix, but who wants him to remain buried?”
As Gamache left he wished the meeting with the Chief Archeologist could have been more cordial, if such a thing was possible with Serge Croix. He’d have loved to poke around that storied basement, loved to ask about the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, about the cannonballs still found in trees in old Quebec City.
He’d have loved to ask him about the strange coincidence of Captain Cook and Bougainville fighting in the same battle, on opposite sides, and Bougainville’s almost inconceivable decision not to help his Général.
But those were questions that would have to wait and for which there might be no answer.
Just before plunging back into the Québec winter he called Inspector Langlois and made an appointment. Ten minutes later he was walking through the corridors of police headquarters looking for Inspector Langlois’s offices, a visiting professor perhaps, an academic called in to consult.
“Chief Inspector.” Langlois advanced, his hand out. Others in the large room got to their feet as Gamache entered. He nodded to them and smiled briefly then Langlois showed him into his private office.
“You must be used to it by now,” said Langlois.
“The staring? Goes with the position, so yes, I’m used to it.” Gamache handed Langlois his coat. “But it’s changed of course, since the kidnapping and the other events.”
No use pretending otherwise.
Inspector Langlois hung up the Chief’s parka.
“I’ve been following the fall-out from it all, of course. The main question seems to be why we didn’t realize the attack was coming.”
Langlois searched Gamache’s face, anxious for an answer. But he’d find none there.
“The people who did this were patient. The plan a long time in the making,” said the Chief at last. “It moved so slowly as to be invisible.”
“But so
mething that big—” Inspector Langlois’s question was the same as everyone else’s. How could they have missed it?
Misdirection. And cunning. And the ability of the attackers to adapt. That was how, thought Gamache.
He accepted the chair indicated but said nothing.
Langlois sat across from him. “When did you realize it was more than a simple kidnapping?”
Gamache was quiet. He saw again Inspector Beauvoir returning from seeing Agent Nichol in the basement of Sûreté headquarters. Where Chief Inspector Gamache had placed her a year or more ago. A job he knew she’d hate, but needed to learn. Listening to other people. And not talking.
She needed to learn to be quiet.
Beauvoir had not been happy at bringing Agent Nichol in. Neither had he, for that matter. But he could see no other option. Chief Superintendent Francoeur was off chasing the kidnappers, down paths Gamache was more and more convinced were being laid out by the kidnappers themselves. Leading the Sûreté here and there. Morin’s transmissions appearing to pop up all over the vast province. The trace a farce.
No. They needed help. And the embittered young agent in the basement was the only one he could turn to.
Chief Superintendent Francoeur would never think of her. No one ever did. And so Gamache could operate quietly, through her.
She says she needs the password for your computer, Beauvoir scrawled longhand. So that nobody else will see our messages. She also wants you to pause as long as possible when speaking with Morin so she can get some ambient sound.
Gamache nodded and without hesitation handed over his private password. He knew he was giving her access to everything. But he also knew he had no choice. They were blind. Not even Morin could help them. He was tied up facing a wall, and a clock. He’d done the best he could, describing his surroundings. The concrete floors, the dirt, the impression he had that wherever he was, it was abandoned. Paul Morin described the silence.
But he’d been wrong. The place wasn’t abandoned. Nor was it silent. Not quite. He’d been fooled by the headset, which made clear Gamache’s voice from miles away, but muffled any sound just feet away.