The Brutal Telling (57 page)

“A pusher to an addict,” said Gabri, with no rancor, but with no surprise either.

“Like Sheherazade.”

Everyone turned to Gamache.

“Who?” Gabri asked.

“It’s an opera, by Rimsky-Korsakov. It tells the story of the Thousand and One Nights.”

They looked blank.

“The king would take a wife at night and kill her in the morning,” said the Chief Inspector. “One night he chose Sheherazade. She knew his habits and knew she was in trouble so she came up with a plan.”

“Kill the king?” asked Gabri.

“Better. Every night she told him a story, but left it unfinished. If he wanted to know the ending he had to keep her alive.”

“Was the Hermit doing it to save his life?” asked Beauvoir, confused.

“In a way, I suppose,” said the Chief. “Like the Mountain, he longed for company, and perhaps he knew Olivier well enough to realize the only way to get him to keep coming back was to promise more.”

“That’s not fair. You make me sound like a whore. I did more than take his things. I helped him garden and brought supplies. He got a lot out of it.”

“He did. But so did you.” Gamache folded his large hands together and looked at Olivier. “Who was the dead man?”

“He made me promise.”

“And secrets are important to you. I understand that. You’ve been a good friend to the Hermit. But you have to tell us now.”

“He was from Czechoslovakia,” said Olivier at last. “His name was Jakob. I never knew his last name. He came here just as the Berlin wall was falling. I don’t think we understood how chaotic it was. I remember thinking how exciting it must have been for the people. To finally have freedom. But he described something else. Every system they knew collapsed. It was lawless. Nothing worked. The phones, the rail service. Planes fell out of the air. He said it was horrible. But it was also a perfect time to run. To get out.”

“He brought everything in that cabin with him?”

Olivier nodded. “For American money, hard currency he called it, you could arrange anything. He had contacts with antiques dealers here so he sold them some of his stuff and used the money to bribe officials in Czechoslovakia. To get his things out. He put them on a container ship and got them to the Port of Montreal. Then he put them all in storage and waited.”

“For what?”

“To find a home.”

“He first went to the Queen Charlotte Islands, didn’t he?” said Gamache. After a pause Olivier nodded. “But he didn’t stay there,” Gamache continued. “He wanted peace and quiet, but the protests began and people came from all over the world. So he left. Came back here. Close to his treasures. And he decided to find a place in Quebec. In the woods here.”

Again Olivier nodded.

“Why Three Pines?” Beauvoir asked.

Olivier shook his head, “I don’t know. I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

“Then what happened?” Gamache asked.

“As I said before, he came down here and started to build his cabin. When it was ready he got the things out of storage and put them there. It took a while, but he had the time.”

“The treasures that he got out of Czechoslovakia, were they his?” Gamache asked.

“I never asked, and he never told me, but I don’t think they were. He was just too afraid. I know he was hiding from something. Someone. But I don’t know who.”

“Do you have any idea how much time you’ve wasted? My God, what were you thinking?” demanded Beauvoir.

“I just kept thinking you’d find who’d killed him and none of this other stuff needed to come out.”

“Other stuff?” said Beauvoir. “Is that how you think of it? As though it was all just details? How’d you think we’d find the murderer with you lying and letting us hare off all over the place?”

Gamache raised his hand slightly and with an effort Beauvoir pulled back, taking a deep breath.

“Tell us about Woo,” Gamache asked.

Olivier lifted his head, his eyes strained. He was pale and gaunt and had aged twenty years in a week. “I thought you’d said it was that monkey that belonged to Emily Carr.”

“I thought so too, but I’ve been thinking about it. I think it meant something else to the dead man. Something more personal. Frightening. I think it was left in the web, and carved, as a threat. Something maybe only he and his murderer understood.”

“Then why ask me?”

“Because Jakob might have told you. Did he, Olivier?”

Gamache’s eyes bored into Olivier’s, insisting on the truth.

“He told me nothing,” said Olivier at last.

Disbelief met this remark.

Gamache stared at him, trying with his considerable might to look beyond the mist of lies. Was Olivier finally telling the truth?

Gamache got up. At the door he turned and looked back at the two men. Olivier drained, empty. Nothing left. At least, Gamache hoped there was nothing left. Each lie was like ripping off a piece of Olivier’s skin, until finally he sat in the bistro, torn to pieces.

“What happened to the young man?” asked Gamache. “The one in the story. Did the Mountain find him?”

“It must have. He’s dead, isn’t he?” said Olivier.

At the B and B Gamache showered and shaved and changed his clothing. He glanced briefly at his bed, with its clean, crisp sheets and the duvet turned back. Waiting for him. But he avoided that siren song and before long he and Beauvoir were back across the village green and at the Incident Room, where Agents Lacoste and Morin waited.

They sat round the conference table, mugs of strong coffee and the Hermit’s carvings in front of them. Succinctly the Chief Inspector told them about his trip to the Queen Charlottes and their interview with Olivier.

“So the dead man was telling a story all along. With his carvings,” said Lacoste.

“Let’s walk through this,” said Beauvoir, going over to the sheets of paper on the wall. “The Hermit gets out of Czechoslovakia with the treasures just as the Soviet Union’s crumbling. It’s chaos there so he bribes port officials to get the goods shipped to the Port of Montreal. Once there he puts them into storage.”

“If he was a refugee or an immigrant his fingerprints would’ve shown up on record,” said Agent Morin.

Agent Lacoste turned to him. He was young, she knew, and inexperienced. “There’re illegal immigrants all over Canada. Some hiding, some with false papers that pass for real. A little money to the right people.”

“So he snuck in,” said Morin. “But what about the antiques? Were they stolen? Where’d he get them? Like the violin, and that Amber Room thing?”

“Superintendent Brunel says the Amber Room disappeared in the
Second World War,” said Gamache. “There’re a lot of theories about what happened to it, including that it was hidden by Albert Speer in a mountain range. Between Germany and Czechoslovakia.”

“Really?” said Lacoste, her mind working rapidly. “Suppose this Jakob found it?”

“If he found it he’d have the whole thing,” said Beauvoir. “Suppose someone else found it, or part of it, and sold it to the Hermit.”

“Suppose,” said Morin, “he stole it.”

“Suppose,” said Gamache, “you’re all right. Suppose someone found it, maybe decades ago. And split it up. And all that was left to one family was the one pane. Suppose that pane was entrusted to the Hermit, to smuggle out of the country.”

“Why?” asked Lacoste, leaning forward.

“So they could start a new life,” Beauvoir jumped in. “They wouldn’t be the first who smuggled a family treasure out and sold it to start a business or buy a home in Canada.”

“So they gave it to the Hermit to get out of the country,” said Morin.

“Did it all come from different people?” wondered Lacoste. “A book here, a piece of priceless furniture or glass or silver there? Suppose all his things came from different people, all hoping to start a new life here? And he smuggled it all out.”

“It would answer Superintendent Brunel’s question about why there’s such a range of items,” said Gamache. “It’s not from one collection, but many.”

“No one would trust anyone with things that valuable,” said Beauvoir.

“Maybe they had no choice,” said the Chief. “They needed to get them out of the country. If he was a stranger they might not have trusted him. But if he was a friend . . .”

“Like the boy in the story,” said Beauvoir. “Betraying everyone who trusted him.”

They stared ahead. Silent. Morin had never realized murderers were caught in silence. But they were.

What would have happened? Families waited in Prague, in smaller cities and towns and villages. Waiting for word. From their trusted friend. At what stage did hope turn to despair? And finally to rage? And revenge?

Had one of them made it out, come across to the New World, and found the Hermit?

“But why did he come here?” asked Agent Morin.

“Why not?” asked Beauvoir.

“Well, there’s a big Czech population here. If he was bringing all sorts of stolen goods, stuff he’d taken from people in Czechoslovakia, wouldn’t he stay as far away from them as possible?”

They appealed to Gamache, who was listening, and thinking. Then he sat forward and drew the photographs of the carvings to him. Particularly the one of the happy people building a new village, in their new home. Without the young man.

“Maybe Olivier isn’t the only one who lies,” he said, getting up. “Maybe the Hermit wasn’t alone when he came here. Maybe he had accomplices.”

“Who are still in Three Pines,” said Beauvoir.

H
anna Parra was clearing up lunch. She’d made a hearty soup and the place smelled of her mother’s home in her Czech village. Of broth and parsley and bay leaves, and garden vegetables.

Her own gleaming metal and glass home couldn’t be more different from the wooden chalet she’d grown up in. Full of wonderful aromas, and a hint of fear. Fear of attracting attention. Of standing out. Her parents, her aunts, her neighbors, had all lived comfortable lives of conformity. The fear of being found different, though, created a thin film between people.

But here everything really was transparent. She’d felt light as soon as they’d arrived in Canada. Where people minded their own business.

Or so she thought. Her hand hovered over the marble counter as some glint in the sun caught her eye. A car rolling up the drive.

A
rmand Gamache stared at the glass and metal cube in front of him. He’d read reports of the interviews with the Parras, including descriptions of their home, but still it took him aback.

The house gleamed in the sun. Not blinding, but it seemed to glow as though it lived in a world slightly different from theirs. A world of light.

“It’s beautiful,” said Gamache, almost under his breath.

“You should see inside.”

“I think I should,” Gamache nodded and the two men strolled across the yard.

Hanna Parra let them in and took their coats. “Chief Inspector, this is a pleasure.”

Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who’d not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.