His obligation to his father discharged.
“It was the first thing I ever made,” said Old. “I whittled Woo and gave it to my father. After he died I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore so I put it in the sack. But I brought it out that night. One last time.”
Old Mundin turned to his family. All his energy spent, his brilliance fading. He placed his hand on his sleeping son’s back and spoke.
“I’m so sorry. My father taught me everything, gave me everything. This man killed him, shoved him onto the river in spring.”
Clara grimaced, imagining a death like that, imagining the horror as the ice began to crack. As it did now beneath The Wife.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir went to the bistro door and opened it. Along with a swirl of snow two large Sûreté officers entered.
“Can you leave us, please?” Beauvoir asked of the villagers, and slowly, stunned, they put their winter coats on and left. Clara and Peter took The Wife and Charles back to their home, while Inspector Beauvoir finished the interview with Old Mundin.
An hour later the police cars drew away, taking Old. Michelle accompanied him, but not before stopping at the inn and spa to hand Charles over to the only other person he loved.
The asshole saint. Dr. Gilbert. Who tenderly took the boy in his arms and held him for a few hours, safe against the bitter cold world pounding at the door.
“Hot toddy?”
Peter handed one to Beauvoir, who sat in a deep, comfortable chair in their living room. Gabri sat on the sofa in a daze. Clara and Myrna were also there, drinks in their hands, in front of the fireplace.
“What I don’t get,” said Peter, perching on an arm of the sofa, “is where all those amazing antiques came from in the first place. The Hermit stole them and took them into the woods, but where did Old’s father get them to begin with?”
Beauvoir sighed. He was exhausted. Always happier with physical activity, it constantly amazed him how grueling intellectual activity could also be.
“For all that Old Mundin loved his father, he didn’t know him well,” said Beauvoir. “What kid does? I think we’ll find that Mundin made some trips to the Eastern Bloc, as communism was falling. He convinced a lot of people to trust him with their family treasures. But instead of keeping them safe, or sending people the money, he just disappeared with their treasures.”
“Stole them himself?” Clara asked.
Beauvoir nodded.
“The Hermit’s murder was never about the treasure,” said Beauvoir. “Old Mundin could care less about it. In fact, he came to hate it. That’s why it was left in the cabin. He didn’t want the treasure. The only thing he took was the Hermit’s life.”
Beauvoir looked into the fire and remembered his interrogation of Old, in the deserted bistro, where it had all begun months ago. He heard about the death of Mundin’s father. How Old’s heart had broken that day. But into that crack young Old had shoved his rage, his pain, his loss but that wasn’t enough. But once he placed his intention there his heart beat again. With a purpose.
When Olivier had been arrested Old Mundin had wrestled with his conscience, but had finally decided this was fate, this was Olivier’s punishment for greed, for helping a man he knew very well was at best a thief and at worst, worse.
“You play the fiddle?” Beauvoir had asked Old, when they were alone in the bistro, after the others had left. “I understand you perform at the Canada Day picnics?”
“Yes.”
“Your father taught you that too?”
“He did.”
Beauvoir nodded. “And he taught you about antiques and carpentry and restoration?”
Old Mundin nodded.
“You lived in old Quebec City, at number sixteen rue des Ramparts?”
Mundin stared.
“And your mother used to read Charlotte’s Web to you and your sister, as children?” Beauvoir persisted. He didn’t move from his seat, but it felt as though with each question he was approaching Mundin, getting closer and closer.
And Mundin, baffled, seemed to sense that something was approaching. Something even worse than what had already happened.
The lights flickered as the blizzard threw itself against the village, against the bistro.
“Where did you get your name?” Beauvoir asked, staring at Old Mundin across the table.
“What name?”
“Old. Who gave you that name? Your real name is Patrick. So where did Old come from?”
“Where everything I am came from. My father. He’d call me old son. ‘Come along, old son,’ he’d say. ‘I’ll teach you about wood.’ And I’d go. After a while everyone just called me Old.”
Beauvoir nodded. “Old. Old son.”
Old Mundin stared at Beauvoir, his face blank then his eyes narrowed as something appeared on the horizon, very far off. A gathering. Terror, the Furies. Loneliness and Sorrow. And something else. Something worse. The worst thing imaginable.
“Old son,” Beauvoir whispered again. “The Hermit used that expression. Called Olivier that. ‘Chaos is coming, old son.’ Those were his words to Olivier. And now I say it to you.”
The building shuddered and cold drafts stole through the room.
“Chaos is coming, Old son,” Beauvoir said quietly. “The man you killed was your father.”
“He killed his own father?” Clara whispered. “Oh, dear God. Oh my God.”
It was over.
“Mundin’s father faked his death,” said Beauvoir. “Before that he’d built the cabin and moved the treasures. Then he returned to Quebec City and waited for spring, and a stormy day to cover his tracks. When the perfect conditions came he put his coat by the shore and disappeared, everyone assumed into the St. Lawrence River. But in fact, into the forest.”
There was silence then, and in that silence they imagined the rest. Imagined the worst.
“Conscience,” said Myrna, at last. “Imagine being pursued by your own conscience.”
And for a terrible moment they did. A mountain of a conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow. Growing. Darkening.
“He had his treasure,” said Clara, “but finally all he wanted was his family.”
“And peace,” said Myrna. “A clear and quiet conscience.”
“He surrounded himself with things that reminded him of his wife and kids. Books, the violin. He even carved an image of what Old might look like as a young man, listening. It became his treasure, the one thing he could never part with. He carved it, and scratched ‘Woo’ under it. It kept him company and eased his conscience. A bit. When we first found it we thought the Hermit had made a carving of Olivier. But we were wrong. It was of his son.”
“How’s Old?” Clara asked.
“Not good.”
Beauvoir remembered the look of rage on the young man’s face when the Inspector had told him the Hermit was in fact his father. He’d murdered the very man he meant to avenge. The only man he wished was alive, he killed.
And after the rage, came disbelief. Then horror.
Conscience. Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew it would keep Old Mundin company in prison for decades to come.
Gabri held his head in his hands. Muffled sobs came from the man. Not great dramatic whoops of sorrow, but tired tears. Happy, confused, turbulent tears.
But mostly tears of relief.
Why had Olivier moved the body?
Why had Olivier moved the body?
Why had Olivier moved the body?
And now, finally, they knew. He’d moved the body because he hadn’t killed the Hermit, only found him already dead. It was a revolting thing to do, disgraceful, petty, shameful. But it wasn’t murder.
“Would you like to stay for dinner? You look exhausted,” Beauvoir heard Clara say to Gabri. Then he felt a soft touch on his arm and looked up.
Clara was talking to him.
“It’ll be simple, just soup and a sandwich, and we’ll get you home early.”
Home.
Perhaps it was the fatig
ue, perhaps it was the stress. But he felt his eyes burning at the word.
He longed to go home.
But not to Montreal.
Here. This was home. He longed to crawl under the duvet at the B and B, to hear the blizzard howl outside and do its worst and to know he was warm, and safe.
God help him, this was home.
Beauvoir stood and smiled at Clara, something that felt at once foreign and familiar. He didn’t smile often. Not with suspects. Not at all.
But he smiled now, a weary, grateful grin.
“I’d like that but there’s something I have to do first.”
Before he left he went into the washroom and splashed cold water onto his face. He looked into the reflection and saw there a man far older than his thirty-eight years. Drawn and tired. And not wanting to do what came next.
He felt an ache deep down.
Bringing the pill bottle out of his pocket he placed it on the counter and stared at it. Then pouring himself a glass of water he shook a pill into his palm. Carefully breaking it in half he swallowed it with a quick swig.
Picking up the other half from the white porcelain rim of the sink he hesitated then quickly tossed it back in the bottle before he could change his mind.
Clara walked him to the front door.
“Can I come by in an hour?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said and added, “bring Ruth.”
How did she know? Perhaps, he thought as he plunged into the storm, he wasn’t as clever as all that. Or perhaps, he thought as the storm fought back, they know me here.
“What do you want?” Ruth demanded, opening the door before he knocked. A swirl of snow came in with him and Ruth whacked his clothing, caked in snow. At least, he thought that was why she was batting away at him, though he had to admit the snow was long gone and still she hit him.
“You know what I want.”
“You’re lucky I have such a generous spirit, dick-head.”
“I’m lucky you’re delusional,” he muttered, following her into the now familiar home.
Ruth made popcorn, as though this was trivial. Entertainment. And poured herself a Scotch, not offering him one. He didn’t need it. He could feel the effects of the pill.
Her computer was already set up on the plastic garden table in her kitchen and they sat side-by-side in wobbly pre-formed plastic chairs.
Ruth pressed a button and up came the site.
Beauvoir looked at her. “Have you watched it?”
“No,” she said, staring at the screen, not at him. “I was waiting for you.”
Beauvoir took a deep ragged breath, exhaled, and hit play.
“Too bad about Champlain,” said Émile as they walked down St-Stanislas and across rue St-Jean, waiting for revelers to pass like rush-hour traffic.
It was beginning to snow. Huge, soft flakes drifted down, caught in the street lamps and the headlights of cars. The forecast was for a storm coming their way. A foot or more expected overnight. This was just the vanguard, the first hints of what was to come.
Quebec City was never lovelier than in a storm and the aftermath, when the sun came out and revealed a magical kingdom, softened and muffled by the thick covering. Fresh and clean, a world unsullied, unmarred.
At the old stone home Émile got out his key. Through the lace curtains on the door they could see Henri hiding behind a pillar, watching.
Gamache smiled then brought his mind back to the case. The curious case of the woman in Champlain’s coffin.
Who was she, and what happened to Champlain? Where’d he go? Seemed his explorations didn’t end with his death.
Once inside Gamache took Henri for a walk and when he returned Émile had set the laptop on the coffee table, put out a bottle of Scotch, lit the fire and was waiting.
The elderly man stood in the center of the room, his arms at his side. He looked formal, almost rigid.
“What is it, Émile?”
“I’d like to watch the video with you.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
All through the walk the Chief Inspector had been preparing himself for this. The cold flakes on his face had been refreshing and he’d stopped and tilted his face up, closing his eyes and opening his mouth, to catch them.
“I love doing that,” Morin said. “But the snow has to be just right.”
“You were a connoisseur?” the Chief asked.
“Still am. The flakes have to be the big, fluffy kind. The ones that just drift down. None of the hard, small flakes you get in storms. That’s no fun. They go up your nose and get in your ears. Get everywhere. No it’s the big ones you want.”
Gamache knew what he meant. He’d done it himself, as a child. Had watched Daniel and Annie do it. Children didn’t need to be taught, it seemed instinctive to catch snowflakes with your tongue.
“There’s a technique, of course,” said Morin in a serious voice, as though he’d studied it. “You have to close your eyes, otherwise the snow gets in them, and stick out your tongue.”
There was a pause and the Chief Inspector knew the young agent was sitting, bound to the chair, his head tilted back, his eyes closed, his tongue out. Catching snowflakes.
“Now,” agreed Gamache and after bending down to release Henri, he walked to the sofa and sat before the laptop.
“I found the site.” Émile sat and looked over at Armand in profile. The trim beard suited the man, now that Émile had gotten used to it. Gamache’s eyes were steady, staring at the screen, then he turned and looked directly at his mentor.
“Merci.”
Émile paused, taken by surprise. “What for?”
“For not leaving me.”
Émile reached out and touched Gamache on the arm, then clicked the button and the video started to play.
Beauvoir stared at the screen. As he suspected, the images were cobbled together from the tiny cameras attached to the headsets of each Sûreté officer. What he hadn’t expected was the clarity. He’d thought it’d be grainy, hard to distinguish the players, but it was clear.
As were their voices.
“Officer down!” Gamache called above the gunfire.
“Go, go, go,” Beauvoir shouted, pointing to a gunman on the gallery above. Rapid fire shots, the camera swinging wildly, then dropping. Then another view, of the officer on the ground. And blood.
“Officer down,” shouted one of the team. “Help him.”
Two forms moved forward, automatic weapons firing, laying down cover for a third. Someone grabbing the downed officer, dragging him away. Then a cut to a corridor, racing, chasing the gunmen down darkened halls and into cavernous rooms. Explosions, shouts.
The Chief leaning against a wall, wearing a black tactical vest, automatic rifle in his hands. Firing. It looked so strange to see Gamache with a gun, and using it.
“We have at least six shooters,” someone called.
“I count ten,” said Gamache, his voice clipped, precise, clear. “Two down. That leaves eight. Five on the floor above, three down here. Where’re the medics?”
“Coming,” came Agent Lacoste’s voice. “Thirty seconds away.”
“We need a target alive,” the Chief ordered. “Take one alive.”
All hell was breaking loose as bullets slammed into walls, into bodies, into the floor and ceiling. Everything became gray, the air filled with dust and bullets. Shouts and screams. The Chief issuing orders as they pushed the gunmen from one room into another. Cornering them.
Then Beauvoir saw himself.
He stepped out from the wall and shot. Then he saw himself stagger, and fall.
Hitting the floor.
“Jean-Guy!” the Chief yelled.
He saw himself splayed on the ground, legs collapsed beneath him. Unmoving.
Gamache ran, calling, “Where are those medics!”
“Here, Chief, here,” called Lacoste. “We’re coming.”
Gamache grabbed Beauvoir’s jacket, dragging him behind the w
all, shots ringing out. Now, with the sounds of explosions all round, the scene was suddenly intimate. The Chief’s worried face, in close up, staring down.
Armand Gamache watched, unblinking, though all he wanted to do was look away. Close his eyes, cover his ears, curl into a ball.
He could smell again the acrid gunpowder, the burning, the concrete dust. He could hear the violent report of the weapons. Feel the rifle in his own hands, pounding out bullets. And weapons firing at him.
Bang, bang, bang, exploding all round. The bullets hitting and bouncing, ricocheting, thudding. The riot of sensations. It was near impossible to think, to focus.
And for an instant he felt again the jolt of seeing Beauvoir hit.
On the screen he saw himself staring down at Beauvoir, searching his face. Feeling for a pulse. The camera catching not just the events, but the sensations, the feelings. The anguish in Gamache’s face.
“Jean-Guy?” he called and the Inspector’s eyes fluttered and opened, then rolled closed.
Bullets splayed their position and the Chief ducked over Beauvoir, pulling him further behind the wall and propping him up. He opened Jean-Guy’s vest, his eyes sweeping down the Inspector’s torso, stopping at the wound. The blood. Ripping open a pocket in his own vest he brought out a bandage and pressed it into Beauvoir’s hand then pressed the hand to the wound.
Leaning forward he whispered in Beauvoir’s ear.
“Jean-Guy, you have to hold your hand there, can you do it?”
Beauvoir’s eyes fluttered open again, fighting for consciousness.
“Stay with me,” the Chief commanded. “Can you stay conscious?”
Beauvoir nodded.
“Good.” Gamache looked up, at the fighting ahead and overhead, then looked back down. “Medics are on their way. Lacoste’s coming, she’ll be here in a moment.” He paused and did something not meant to be seen by anyone else, and now seen by millions. He kissed Beauvoir on the forehead. Then smoothing Beauvoir’s hair, he left.
Beauvoir watched the screen through his fingers clutched to his face, his eyes wide. He’d expected the video to have captured, imperfectly, the events. It hadn’t occurred to him it would also capture how it felt.