Louise Penny - Brutal Telling

“You played on his sense of guilt, magnified by isolation. You guessed he’d stolen those things so you made up the story of the boy and the Mountain. And it worked. It kept him there. But it also inspired him to produce those carvings, which ironically turned out to be his greatest treasure.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You just kept him prisoner. How could you?” said Gabri.

“I didn’t say anything he wasn’t willing to believe.”

“You don’t really think that?” said Gabri.

Gamache glanced at the items on the table. The menorah, used to murder. And the small sack. The reason for murder. He couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time for his own brutal telling. He stood.

“Olivier Brulé,” said Chief Inspector Gamache, his voice weary and his face grim, “I’m arresting you on a charge of murder.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

The frost was thick on the ground when Armand Gamache next appeared in Three Pines. He parked his car by the old Hadley house and took the path deeper and deeper into the woods. The leaves had fallen from the trees and lay crisp and crackling beneath his feet. Picking one up he marveled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives.

He paused now and then, not to get his bearings because he knew where he was going and how to get there, but to appreciate his surroundings. The quiet. The soft light now allowed through the trees and hitting ground that rarely saw the sun. The woods smelled musky and rich and sweet. He walked slowly, in no rush, and after half an hour came to the cabin. He paused on the porch, noticing again with a smile the brass number above the door.

Then he entered.

He hadn’t seen the cabin since all the treasures had been photographed, fingerprinted, catalogued and taken away.

He paused at the deep burgundy stain on the plank floor.

Then he walked round the simple room. He could call this place home, he knew, if it had only one precious thing. Reine-Marie.

Two chairs for friendship.

As he stood quietly, the cabin slowly filled with glittering antiques and antiquities and first editions. And with a haunting Celtic melody. The Chief Inspector again saw young Morin turn the violin into a fiddle, his loose limbs taut, made for this purpose.

Then he saw the Hermit Jakob, alone, whittling by the fire. Thoreau on the inlaid table. The violin leaning against the river rock of the hearth. This man who was his own age, but appeared so much older. Worn down by dread. And something else. The thing that even the Mountain feared.

He remembered the two carvings hidden by the Hermit. Somehow different from the rest. Distinguished by the mysterious code beneath. He’d really thought the key to breaking the Caesar’s Shift had been Charlotte. Then he’d been sure the key was seventeen. That would explain those odd numbers over the door.

But the Caesar’s Shift remained unbroken. A mystery.

Gamache paused in his thinking. Caesar’s Shift. How had Jérôme Brunel explained it? What had Julius Caesar done with his very first code? He hadn’t used a key word, but a number. He’d shifted the alphabet over by three letters.

Gamache walked to the mantelpiece and reaching into his breast pocket he withdrew a notebook and pen. Then he wrote. First the alphabet, then beneath it he counted spaces. That was the key. Not the word sixteen but the number. 16.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J

Carefully, not wanting to make a mistake in haste, he checked the letters. The Hermit had printed MRKBVYDDO under the carving of the people on the shore. C, H, A, R . . . Gamache concentrated even harder, forcing himself to slow down. L, O, T, T, E.

A long sigh escaped, and with it the word. Charlotte.

He then worked on the code written under the hopeful people on the boat. OWSVI.

Within moments he had that too.

Emily.

Smiling he remembered flying over the mountains covered in mist and legend. Spirits and ghosts. He remembered the place forgotten by time, and John the Watchman, who could never forget. And the totems, captured forever by a frumpy painter.

What message was Jakob the Hermit sending? Did he know he was in danger and wanted to pass on this message, this clue? Or was it, as Gamache suspected, something much more personal? Something comforting, even?

This man had kept these two carvings for a reason. He’d written under them for a reason. He’d written Charlotte and Emily. And he’d made them out of red cedar, from the Queen Charlotte Islands, for a reason.

What does a man alone need? He had everything else. Food, water, books, music. His hobbies and art. A lovely garden. But what was missing?

Company. Community. To be within the pale. Two chairs for friendship. These carvings kept him company.

He might never be able to prove it, but Gamache knew without doubt the Hermit had been on the Queen Charlotte Islands, almost certainly when he’d first arrived in Canada. And there he’d learned to carve, and learned to build log cabins. And there he’d found his first taste of peace, before having it disrupted by the protests. Like a first love, the place where peace is first found is never, ever forgotten.

He’d come into these woods to re-create that. He’d built a cabin exactly like the ones he’d seen on the Charlottes. He’d whittled red cedar, to be comforted by the familiar smell and feel. And he’d carved people for company. Happy people.

Except for one.

These creations became his family. His friends. He kept them, protected them. Named them. Slept with them under his head. And they in turn kept him company on the long, cold, dark nights as he listened for the snap of a branch, and the approach of something worse than slaughter.

Then Gamache heard a twig crack and tensed.

“May I join you?”

Standing on the porch was Vincent Gilbert.

“ S’il vous plaît .”

Gilbert walked in and the two men shook hands.

“I was at Marc’s place and saw your car. Hope you don’t mind. I followed you.”

“Not at all.”

“You looked deep in thought just now.”

“A great deal to think about,” said Gamache, with a small smile, tucking his notebook back into his breast pocket.

“What you did was very difficult. I’m sorry it was necessary.”

Gamache said nothing and the two men stood quietly in the cabin.

“I’ll leave you alone,” said Gilbert eventually, making for the door.

Gamache hesitated then followed. “No need. I’m finished here.” He closed the door without a backward glance and joined Vincent Gilbert on the porch.

“I signed this for you.” Gilbert handed him a hardcover book. “They’ve reissued it after all the publicity surrounding the murder and the trial. Seems it’s a bestseller.”

“ Merci .” Gamache turned over the gleaming copy of Being and looked at the author photo. No more sneer. No more scowl. Instead a handsome, distinguished man looked back. Patient, understanding. “ Félicitations ,” said Gamache.

Gilbert smiled, then unfolded a couple of aluminum garden chairs. “I brought these with me just now. The first of a few things. Marc says I can live in the cabin. Make it my home.”

Gamache sat. “I can see you here.”

“Away from polite society,” smiled Gilbert. “We saints do enjoy our solitude.”

“And yet, you brought two chairs.”

“Oh, you know that quote too?” said Gilbert. “ I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. ”