The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

When put that way it didn’t sound likely.

Gamache looked again at the balls of paper, like hail. “Well, I’m off.”

“Thanks for your help,” Beauvoir called after him.

“De rien,” waved Gamache and was gone.

In the hour or so drive into Montreal Gamache and Clara talked about the people of Three Pines, about the summer visitors, about the Gilberts, who Clara thought might stay now.

“Old Mundin and Charles were in the village the other day. Old is very taken with Vincent Gilbert. He apparently knew it was him in the woods, but didn’t want to say anything.”

“How would he have recognized him?”

“Being,” said Clara.

“Of course,” said Gamache, merging onto the autoroute into Montreal. “Charles has Down’s syndrome.”

“After he was born Myrna gave them a copy of Being. Reading it changed their lives. Changed lots of lives. Myrna says Dr. Gilbert’s a great man.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t disagree.”

Clara laughed. “Still, I don’t think I’d like to be raised by a saint.”

Gamache had to agree. Most saints were martyrs. And they took a lot of people down with them. In companionable silence they drove past signs for Saint-Hilaire, Saint-Jean and a village named Ange Gardien.

“If I said ‘woo,’ what would you think?” Gamache asked.

“Beyond the obvious?” She gave him a mock-worried look.

“Does the word mean anything to you?”

The fact he’d come back to it alerted Clara. “Woo,” she repeated. “There’s pitching woo, an old-fashioned way of saying courting.”

“Old-fashioned for courting?” He laughed. “But I know what you mean. I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for.”

“Sorry, can’t help.”

“Oh, it probably doesn’t matter.” They were over the Champlain Bridge. Gamache drove up Boulevard Saint-Laurent, turned left then left again and dropped her at the Santropole restaurant for lunch.

Climbing the steps she turned and walked back. Leaning into the car window she asked, “If a person insulted someone you cared about, would you say something?”

Gamache thought about that. “I hope I would.”

She nodded and left. But she knew Gamache, and knew there was no “hope” about it.

TWENTY-NINE

After a luncheon of herbed cucumber soup, grilled shrimp and fennel salad and peach tarte Gamache and the Brunels settled into the bright living room of the second-floor apartment. It was lined with bookcases. Objets trouvés lay here and there. Pieces of aged and broken pottery, chipped mugs. It was a room that was lived in, where people read, and talked and thought and laughed.

“I’ve been researching the items in the cabin,” said Thérèse Brunel.

“And?” Gamache leaned forward on the sofa, holding his demi-tasse of espresso.

“So far nothing. Amazing as it sounds, none of the items has been reported stolen, though I haven’t finished yet. It’ll take weeks to properly trace them.”

Gamache slowly leaned back and crossed his long legs. If not stolen, then what? “What’s the other option?” he asked.

“Well, that the dead man actually owned the pieces. Or that they were looted from dead people, who couldn’t report it. In a war, for instance. Like the Amber Room.”

“Or maybe they were given to him,” suggested her husband, Jérôme.

“But they’re priceless,” objected Thérèse. “Why would someone give them to him?”

“Services rendered?” he said.

All three were silent then, imagining what service could exact such a payment.

“Bon, Armand, I have something to show you.” Jérôme rose to his full height of just five and a half feet. He was an almost perfect square but carried his bulk with ease as though his body was filled with the thoughts overflowing from his head.

He wedged himself onto the sofa beside Gamache. He had in his hands the two carvings.

“First of all, these are remarkable. They almost speak, don’t you find? My job, Thérèse told me, was to figure out what they’re saying. Or, more specifically, what these mean.”

He turned the carvings over to reveal the letters carved there.

MRKBVYDDO was etched under the people on the shore.

OWSVI was under the sailing ship.

“This’s a code of some sort,” explained Jérôme, putting his glasses on and peering closely at the letters again. “I started with the easiest one. Qwerty. It’s the one an amateur’s most likely to use. Do you know it?”