Tom Hancock sat quietly, watching. Young, vital, wise, but not real y one of them. An outsider. But that gave him clarity, he could see what was only visible from a distance.
And final y, Ken Haslam. Whose voice was either
silent or shrieking.
No middle ground, a man of extremes, who either sat quietly in his chair or fought his way across a frozen river.
A man whose wife and daughter were buried in Québec but who was not considered a Québécois, as though even more could be expected.
They’d adjourned to the library once the coffin had been removed and the others had gone, leaving Émile, Gamache and the board.
Gamache looked at the board members, resting final y on Porter Wilson. Expecting an outburst, expecting a demand for information, tinged perhaps with a slight accusation of unfairness.
Instead they al simply looked at the Chief Inspector, politely. Something had changed, and Gamache knew what.
It was the damned video. They’d seen it, and he hadn’t. Not yet. They knew something he didn’t, something about himself. But he knew something they didn’t, something they wanted to know.
Wel , they’d have to wait.
“You were out practicing this afternoon, I believe,”
said Gamache to the Reverend Mr. Tom Hancock.
“We were,” he agreed, surprised by the topic.
“I saw you.” The Chief turned to Ken Haslam.
Haslam smiled and mouthed something Gamache couldn’t make out. There was a nodding of heads.
The Chief turned to the others.
“What did Mr. Haslam just say?”
Now several faces blushed. He waited.
“Because,” he final y said, “I didn’t hear a word and I don’t think you did either.” He turned again to the upright, distinguished man. “Why do you whisper? In fact, I don’t think it can even be cal ed a whisper.”
Gamache had spoken respectful y, quietly, without anger or accusation but wanting to know.
Haslam’s lips moved and again no one heard anything.
“He speaks—” began Tom Hancock before Gamache put up a hand and stopped him.
“I think it’s time Mr. Haslam spoke for himself, don’t you? And you, perhaps uniquely, know he can.”
Now it was the Reverend Mr. Hancock’s turn to blush. He looked at Gamache but said nothing.
Gamache leaned forward, toward Haslam. “I heard you out on the ice cal ing the strokes. No other crew could be heard, no other person. Just you.”
Ken Haslam looked frightened now. He opened his
mouth, then shook his head, practical y in tears.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice barely registering. “Al my life I’ve been told to be quiet.”
“By whom?”
“Mother, Father, brothers. My teachers, everyone.
Even my wife, God bless her, asked me to keep my voice down.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
The word was spoken clearly, too clearly. It wasn’t so much piercing as al enveloping, fil ing the space. It was a voice that carried, boomed, and drove al before it. No other voice could exist, but that one. An English voice, drowning out al others.
“And so you learned to be silent?” asked Gamache.
“If I wanted friends,” said Haslam, his words slamming into them. Was it some quirk of palate and brainpan and voice box so that the sound waves were magnified? “If I wanted to belong, yes, I learned never to raise my voice.”
“But that meant you could never speak at al , never be heard,” said Gamache.
“And what would you choose?” Haslam asked, his loud voice turning a rational question into an attack.
“To speak up but chase people away, or to be quiet in company?”
Armand Gamache was silent then, looking down the long table at the solemn faces, and he knew Ken Haslam wasn’t the only one who’d faced that question, and made the same choice.
To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted.
But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?
Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swal owed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hol owing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.
“Perhaps you could explain the coffin in our basement,” Elizabeth broke the silence.
It seemed a reasonable request.
“As you know I came here to recover from my wounds.” Beauvoir wouldn’t let them think he didn’t know what they knew. A few vil agers lowered their eyes, a few blushed as though Beauvoir had dropped his pants, but most continued to look at him, interested.
“But there was another reason. Chief Inspector
Gamache asked me to look into the murder of the Hermit.”
That caused a stir. They looked at each other.
Gabri, alone among them, stood up.
“He sent you? He believed me?”
“Hasn’t that case been solved?” said Hanna.
“Haven’t you caused enough harm?”
“The Chief wasn’t satisfied,” said Beauvoir. “At first I thought he was wrong, that perhaps he’d been persuaded by the wishful thinking of Gabri here, who every day since Olivier was arrested sent the Chief a letter, containing the same question. Why did Olivier move the body?”
Gabri turned to Clara. “It was my query letter.”
“And we al know you’re quite a query,” said Ruth.
Gabri was bursting, beaming. No one else was.
“The more I investigated the more I began to think Olivier might not have kil ed the Hermit. But if not Olivier, then who?”
He stood with his hands on the back of a wing chair for support. Almost there. “We believed the motive had to do with the treasure. It seemed obvious. And yet, if it was the motive, why hadn’t the murderer taken it? So I decided to take a different tack. Suppose the treasure had very little to do with the kil ing of the Hermit? Except for one crucial feature. It led the murderer here, to Three Pines.”
They al stared at him, even Clara and Myrna. He hadn’t shared his conclusions with them. This close to trapping the kil er he couldn’t risk it.
“If he hid al those things in his cabin, how could they lead anyone to Three Pines?” Old Mundin asked from the back of the room.
“They didn’t stay hidden,” Beauvoir explained. “Not al of them. The Hermit began to give some to Olivier in exchange for food and company and Olivier, knowing what he had, sold them. Through eBay, but also through an antique shop in Montreal on rue Notre-Dame.”
He turned to the Gilberts. “I understand you bought some things on rue Notre-Dame.”
“It’s a long street, Inspector,” said Dominique. “A lot of stores.”
“True, but like butchers and bakers, most people develop a loyalty for a specific antique shop, they go back to the same one. Am I right?”
He looked around. Everyone, except Gabri, dropped their eyes.
“Wel , not to worry. I’m sure the owner wil recognize
your photographs.”
“Al right, we used the Temps Perdu,” said Carole.
“Les Temps Perdu. Popular place. It happens to be where Olivier sold the Hermit’s things.” Beauvoir wasn’t surprised. He’d already spoken to the owner about the Gilberts.
“We didn’t know that’s where he went,” said Dominique, her voice sounding squeezed, sharp. “It just had nice things. Lots of people go there.”
“Besides,” said Marc. “We only bought the home here in the last year. We didn’t need antiques before that.”
“You might have gone in to look. People window-shop up and down rue Notre-Dame al the time.”