“You going to throw the book at him?” smiled Elizabeth.
“Shame no one donated a crossbow to the library.”
Inspector Langlois sat at the head of the polished table in the library of the Literary and Historical Society. It was a room at once intimate and grand. It smel ed of the past, of a time before computers, before information was “Googled” and “blogged.”
Before laptops and BlackBerries and al the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, fil ed with old books and dusty old thoughts.
It was calm and comforting.
It had been a long while since Inspector Langlois
had been in a library. Not since his school days. A time fil ed with new experiences and the aromas that would be forever associated with them. Gym socks.
Rotting bananas in lockers. Sweat. Old Spice cologne. Herbal Essence shampoo on the hair of girls he kissed, and more. A scent so sweet, so fil ed with longing his reaction was stil physical whenever he smelt it.
And libraries. Quiet. Calm. A harbor from the turmoil of teenage life. When the Herbal Essence girls had pul ed away, and mocked, when the gym sock boys had shoved and he’d shoved back, laughing.
Rough-housing. Keeping the terror behind savage eyes.
He remembered how it felt to find himself in the library, away from possible attack but surrounded by things far more dangerous than what roamed the school corridors.
For here thoughts were housed.
Young Langlois had sat down and gathered that power to him. The power that came from having information, knowledge, thoughts, and a calm place to col ect them.
Inspector Langlois, of the Quebec City homicide squad, looked round the double-height library with its carved wood and old volumes and wondered at the people he was about to interview. People who had access to al these books, al this calm, al this power.
English people.
To his right sat his assistant, taking notes. On his left sat a man he’d only seen at a distance before today. Heard lecture. Seen on television. At trials, at public hearings, on talk shows. And at the funerals, six weeks ago. Close up, Chief Inspector Gamache looked different. Langlois had only ever seen him in a suit, with his trim moustache. Now the man was not only wearing a cardigan, and corduroys, but also a beard. Shot with gray. And a scar above his left temple.
“Alors,” Langlois started. “Before the first one comes in I want to go over what we know so far.”
“The victim,” his assistant read from his notebook,
“is identified as Augustin Renaud. Seventy-two years of age. His next of kin has been notified, an ex-wife.
No children. She’l formal y identify him later, but there’s no doubt. His driver’s license and health card both identify him. Also in his wal et was forty-five dol ars and there was a further three dol ars and twenty-two cents change in his pockets. When the
body was removed we found another twenty-eight cents beneath him, fal en from his pocket we think.
They’re modern coins. Al Canadian.”
“Good,” said Langlois. “Go on.”
Beside him Chief Inspector Gamache listened, one hand holding the other on the table.
“We found a satchel underneath the body. Inside was a map of Québec, hand-drawn by him.”
It was on the table in front of them. The map showed areas of the city he’d excavated for Champlain, and the dates, going back decades.
“Any ideas?” Langlois asked Gamache as al three men examined the paper.
“I find this significant.” The Chief’s finger hovered over a blank spot on the map. A map that only acknowledged buildings and streets significant to Renaud’s search. Places Samuel de Champlain might have been buried. It showed the Basilica, it showed the Café Buade, it showed assorted restaurants and homes unfortunate enough to be targeted by Renaud.
It was as though the rest of the magnificent old city didn’t exist for Augustin Renaud.
And where Gamache’s finger pointed was the Literary and Historical Society. Missing. Not plotted.
Not in existence in Renaud’s Champlain-centric world.
Langlois nodded. “I’d seen that too. Maybe he just didn’t have time to put it in.”
“It’s possible,” said Gamache.
“What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking it would be a mistake to be blinded by Renaud’s passion. This murder may have nothing to do with Champlain.”
“Then why was he digging?” the young assistant asked.
“Good question,” smiled Gamache, rueful y. “It would seem a clue.”
“Right.” Langlois gathered up the map and returned it to the satchel. As he watched Gamache wondered why Renaud had needed the large leather bag to carry just that one slim piece of paper.
“Nothing else was in there?” Gamache nodded to the satchel in Langlois’s hand. “Just the map?”
“That’s al . Why?”
“He could have carried the map in his pocket. Why the satchel?”
“Habit,” said the assistant. “He probably carried it everywhere in case he found something.”
Gamache nodded. It was probably right.
“The coroner says Renaud was kil ed by the shovel sometime around eleven last night,” said Langlois.
“He fel face forward into the dirt and an attempt was made to bury him.”
“Not deeply,” said the assistant. “Not wel . Do you think he was meant to be found?”
“I wonder how often that cel ar is used,” mused Langlois. “We’l have to ask. Send in the first person, the head of the board. A,” the Inspector consulted his notes, “Porter Wilson.”
Porter entered. He tried not to show it, but he was deeply shocked to see this library, his library, occupied by the police force.
He had no rancor toward the French. It was impossible to live in Quebec City and feel like that. It would be a torturous life and an unnecessary torment.
No, Porter knew the Francophones to be gracious and inclusive, thoughtful and stable. Most of them.
There were radicals on either side.
And that was his problem. Tom Hancock, the minister, kept tel ing him so. He saw it as “sides,” no matter how many years went by, no matter how many French friends he had. No matter his daughter had married a Francophone and his grandchildren went to French schools and he himself spoke perfect French.
He stil saw it as “sides,” with himself on the outside. Because he was English. Stil , he knew himself to be as much a Québécois as anyone else in that elegant room. Indeed, his family had been there for hundreds of years. He’d lived in Québec longer than that young officer, or the man at the head of the table, or Chief Inspector Gamache.
He’d been born there, lived a ful life there, would be buried there. And yet, for al their friendliness, he would never be considered a Québécois, would never total y belong.
Except here. In the Literary and Historical Society, in the very center of the old city. Here he was at home, in an English world created by English words, surrounded by the busts of great Anglos before him.
But today, on his watch, the French force had moved in and were occupying the Lit and His.
“Please,” said Inspector Langlois, swiftly standing and indicating a seat. He spoke in his best, highly accented, English. “Join us.”
As though Mr. Wilson had a choice. They were the hosts and he was the guest. With an effort he swal owed a retort, and sat, though not in the seat