The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

“Now I understand why you hated them so much,” said Gabri softly. “It seemed such an overreaction. It wasn’t just the competition with the bistro and B and B, was it?”

“It was the trails. I was afraid, angry at them for getting Roar to open them. I knew he’d find the cabin and it’d all be over.”

“What did you do?” asked Gamache.

And Olivier told them.

He’d sat on the porch for what seemed ages, thinking. Going round and round the situation. And finally he’d arrived at his coup de grâce. He decided the Hermit could do him one more favor. He could ruin Marc Gilbert and stop the trails, all at once.

“So I put him in the wheelbarrow and took him to the old Hadley house. I knew if another body was found there it would kill the business. No inn and spa, then no horse trails. Roar would stop work. The Gilberts would leave. The paths would grow over.”

“And then what?” asked Gamache, again. Olivier hesitated.

“I could take what I wanted from the cabin. It would all work out.”

Three people stared at him. None with admiration.

“Oh, Olivier,” said Gabri.

“What else could I do?” he pleaded with his partner. “I couldn’t let them find the place.” How to explain how reasonable, brilliant even, this all seemed at two thirty in the morning. In the dark. With a body ten feet away.

“Do you know how this looks?” rasped Gabri.

Olivier nodded and hung his head.

Gabri turned to Chief Inspector Gamache. “He’d never have done it if he’d actually killed the man. You wouldn’t, would you? You’d want to hide the murder, not advertise it.”

“Then what happened?” Gamache asked. Not ignoring Gabri but not wanting to be sidetracked either.

“I took the wheelbarrow back, picked up those two things and left.”

They looked at the table. The most damning items. And the most precious. The murder weapon and the sack.

“I brought them back here and hid them in the space behind the fireplace.”

“You didn’t look in the bag?” Gamache asked again.

“I thought I’d have plenty of time, when all the attention was on the Gilbert place. But then when Myrna found the body here the next morning I almost died. I couldn’t very well dig the things out. So I lit the fires, to make sure you wouldn’t look in there. For days after there was too much attention on the bistro. And by then I just wanted to pretend they didn’t exist. That none of this had happened.”

Silence met the story.

Gamache leaned back and watched Olivier for a moment. “Tell me the rest of the story, the one the Hermit told in his carvings.”

“I don’t know the rest. I won’t know until we open that.” Olivier’s eyes were barely able to look away from the sack.

“I don’t think we need to just yet.” Gamache sat forward. “Tell me the story.”

Olivier looked at Gamache, flabbergasted. “I’ve told you all I know. He told me up to the part where the army found the villagers.”

“And the Horror was approaching, I remember. Now I want to hear the end.”

“But I don’t know how it ends.”

“Olivier?” Gabri looked closely at his partner.

Olivier held Gabri’s gaze then looked over at Gamache. “You know?”

“I know,” said Gamache.

“What do you know?” asked Gabri, his eyes moving from the Chief Inspector to Olivier. “Tell me.”

“The Hermit wasn’t the one telling the story,” said Gamache.

Gabri stared at Gamache, uncomprehending, then over at Olivier. Who nodded.

“You?” Gabri whispered.

Olivier closed his eyes and the bistro faded. He heard the mumbling of the Hermit’s fire. Smelled the wood of the log cabin, the sweet maple wood from the smoke. He felt the warm tea mug in his hands, as he had hundreds of times. Saw the violin, gleaming in the firelight. Across from him sat the shabby man, in clean and mended old clothing surrounded by treasure. The Hermit was leaning forward, his eyes glowing and filled with fear. As he listened. And Olivier spoke.

Olivier opened his eyes and was back in the bistro. “The Hermit was afraid of something, I knew that the first time I met him in this very room. He became more and more reclusive as the years passed until he’d hardly leave his cabin to go into town. He’d ask me for news of the outside world. So I’d tell him about the politics and the wars, and some of the things happening locally. Once I told him about a concert at the church here. You were singing,” he looked at Gabri, “and he wanted to go.”