When Olivier had been arrested Old Mundin had wrestled with his conscience, but had final y decided this was fate, this was Olivier’s punishment for greed, for helping a man he knew very wel was at best a thief and at worst, worse.
“You play the fiddle?” Beauvoir had asked Old, when they were alone in the bistro, after the others had left. “I understand you perform at the Canada Day picnics?”
“Yes.”
“Your father taught you that too?”
“He did.”
Beauvoir nodded. “And he taught you about antiques and carpentry and restoration?”
Old Mundin nodded.
“You lived in old Quebec City, at number sixteen rue des Ramparts?”
Mundin stared.
“And your mother used to read Charlotte’s Web to you and your sister, as children?” Beauvoir persisted.
He didn’t move from his seat, but it felt as though with each question he was approaching Mundin, getting closer and closer.
And Mundin, baffled, seemed to sense that something was approaching. Something even worse than what had already happened.
The lights flickered as the blizzard threw itself against the vil age, against the bistro.
“Where did you get your name?” Beauvoir asked, staring at Old Mundin across the table.
“What name?”
“Old. Who gave you that name? Your real name is Patrick. So where did Old come from?”
“Where everything I am came from. My father. He’d cal me old son. ‘Come along, old son,’ he’d say. ‘I’l teach you about wood.’ And I’d go. After a while everyone just cal ed me Old.”
Beauvoir nodded. “Old. Old son.”
Old Mundin stared at Beauvoir, his face blank then his eyes narrowed as something appeared on the horizon, very far off. A gathering. Terror, the Furies.
Loneliness and Sorrow. And something else.
Something worse. The worst thing imaginable.
“Old son,” Beauvoir whispered again. “The Hermit used that expression. Cal ed Olivier that. ‘Chaos is coming, old son.’ Those were his words to Olivier.
And now I say it to you.”
The building shuddered and cold drafts stole through the room.
“Chaos is coming, Old son,” Beauvoir said quietly.
“The man you kil ed was your father.”
“He kil ed his own father?” Clara whispered. “Oh, dear God. Oh my God.”
It was over.
“Mundin’s father faked his death,” said Beauvoir.
“Before that he’d built the cabin and moved the treasures. Then he returned to Quebec City and waited for spring, and a stormy day to cover his tracks. When the perfect conditions came he put his coat by the shore and disappeared, everyone assumed into the St. Lawrence River. But in fact, into the forest.”
There was silence then, and in that silence they imagined the rest. Imagined the worst.
“Conscience,” said Myrna, at last. “Imagine being pursued by your own conscience.”
And for a terrible moment they did. A mountain of a conscience. Throwing a lengthening shadow.
Growing. Darkening.
“He had his treasure,” said Clara, “but final y al he wanted was his family.”
“And peace,” said Myrna. “A clear and quiet conscience.”
“He surrounded himself with things that reminded him of his wife and kids. Books, the violin. He even carved an image of what Old might look like as a young man, listening. It became his treasure, the one thing he could never part with. He carved it, and scratched ‘Woo’ under it. It kept him company and eased his conscience. A bit. When we first found it we thought the Hermit had made a carving of Olivier. But
we were wrong. It was of his son.”
“How’s Old?” Clara asked.
“Not good.”
Beauvoir remembered the look of rage on the young man’s face when the Inspector had told him the Hermit was in fact his father. He’d murdered the very man he meant to avenge. The only man he wished was alive, he kil ed.
And after the rage, came disbelief. Then horror.
Conscience. Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew it would keep Old Mundin company in prison for decades to come.
Gabri held his head in his hands. Muffled sobs came from the man. Not great dramatic whoops of sorrow, but tired tears. Happy, confused, turbulent tears.
But mostly tears of relief.
Why had Olivier moved the body?
Why had Olivier moved the body?
Why had Olivier moved the body?
And now, final y, they knew. He’d moved the body because he hadn’t kil ed the Hermit, only found him already dead. It was a revolting thing to do, disgraceful, petty, shameful. But it wasn’t murder.
“Would you like to stay for dinner? You look exhausted,” Beauvoir heard Clara say to Gabri. Then he felt a soft touch on his arm and looked up.
Clara was talking to him.
“It’l be simple, just soup and a sandwich, and we’l get you home early.”
Home.
Perhaps it was the fatigue, perhaps it was the stress. But he felt his eyes burning at the word.
He longed to go home.
But not to Montreal.
Here. This was home. He longed to crawl under the duvet at the B and B, to hear the blizzard howl outside and do its worst and to know he was warm, and safe.
God help him, this was home.
Beauvoir stood and smiled at Clara, something that felt at once foreign and familiar. He didn’t smile often.
Not with suspects. Not at al .
But he smiled now, a weary, grateful grin.
“I’d like that but there’s something I have to do first.”
Before he left he went into the washroom and splashed cold water onto his face. He looked into the reflection and saw there a man far older than his thirty-eight years. Drawn and tired. And not wanting to do what came next.
He felt an ache deep down.
Bringing the pil bottle out of his pocket he placed it on the counter and stared at it. Then pouring himself a glass of water he shook a pil into his palm. Careful y breaking it in half he swal owed it with a quick swig.
Picking up the other half from the white porcelain rim of the sink he hesitated then quickly tossed it back in the bottle before he could change his mind.
Clara walked him to the front door.
“Can I come by in an hour?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said and added, “bring Ruth.”
How did she know? Perhaps, he thought as he plunged into the storm, he wasn’t as clever as al that.
Or perhaps, he thought as the storm fought back, they know me here.
“What do you want?” Ruth demanded, opening the door before he knocked. A swirl of snow came in with him and Ruth whacked his clothing, caked in snow. At least, he thought that was why she was batting away at him, though he had to admit the snow was long gone and stil she hit him.
“You know what I want.”
“You’re lucky I have such a generous spirit, dick-head.”
“I’m lucky you’re delusional,” he muttered, fol owing her into the now familiar home.
Ruth made popcorn, as though this was trivial.
Entertainment. And poured herself a Scotch, not offering him one. He didn’t need it. He could feel the effects of the pil .
Her computer was already set up on the plastic garden table in her kitchen and they sat side-by-side in wobbly pre-formed plastic chairs.
Ruth pressed a button and up came the site.
Beauvoir looked at her. “Have you watched it?”
“No,” she said, staring at the screen, not at him. “I was waiting for you.”
Beauvoir took a deep ragged breath, exhaled, and hit play.
“Too bad about Champlain,” said Émile as they walked down St-Stanislas and across rue St-Jean, waiting for revelers to pass like rush-hour traffic.