Page 105 of The Grey Wolf
“A name would help,” she agreed.
“If we have him, then we have what we need to stop whatever’s going to happen.” The Chief Inspector’s voice, while steady, held an unmistakable edge of anxiety. Not panic, but getting close.
“And you,patron?” asked Lacoste.
“I’ll look into Dom Philippe. Try to work out where the Abbot went after he left the monastery.”
“He went to Rome,non?” said Beauvoir.
“Yes, but he couldn’t just stroll onto a flight. So how did he get there?”
“He got help,” said Lacoste. “From his family and friends.”
“Must have. I need to find out who they are. Who he stayed with, who he spoke to. And, I hope, find the man himself. If he was in Rome, he obviously came back. He was in Three Pines just a few days ago.” He rubbed his forehead. “The thing is, we can’t wait much longer to sound the alarm. We’re going to have to tell the mayors and Premier and those in charge of treatment plants. To warn them. It’s getting far too dangerous to wait.”
Isabelle and Jean-Guy exchanged looks. They didn’t envy the Chief. It had been his decision to wait. And it would be his decision when to sound the alarm.
And if the terrorists struck first, it would be partly his fault if thousands were killed, without warning. By the deepening lines down his face, it was clear that he was very aware of that.
“Fortunately,” said Gamache, “if one of us succeeds, we have a good chance of stopping this. Find any one of the monks, and we have our answers. Find the laptop and notebooks, and it’s probably even clearer.”
“Pardon.” They looked over and saw that Frère Simon had crept closer. Now he looked sheepish. “You were talking about Dom Philippe’s family.”
“Do you know anything?” asked Gamache. “You said all the records had been burned.”
“True, but there was one thing.”
Beauvoir looked like he was going to strangle the maddening monk. “What?”
Simon, understandably, chose to speak to Gamache. “A photograph. The Abbot kept it in his cell. He must’ve taken it with him when he left. It was of Dom Philippe before he joined the order. He’d have been in his early twenties. He was with a young woman and a girl. I think it was his family.”
“He was married?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. The young woman could’ve been his wife, I guess. And the girl his daughter.”
“Was anything written on the back?” asked Gamache.
Simon had obviously studied the photograph, being a man given to curiosity and crossing boundaries. Gamache suspected the picture was not in full view but probably in a drawer, or the pages of a book. And Simon, snooping, found it. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that in violating trust and privacy, the monk might have inadvertently saved thousands of lives.
Simon shook his head. “No, nothing.”
“Can you describe the background? Did it look at all familiar?”
“They were standing in front of what looked like a shack, built on rocks. It looked”—he hesitated to say the word—“desolate.”
“And he never talked about his family? Where he was from?” pressed Gamache. “Now’s the time to tell us. You’re not doing him any favors by holding out. There’s a good chance he’s in danger. We need to find him.”
“Désolé.I know nothing more.”
Staring at this obstinate man, Gamache could understand the temptation to drag information out of suspects. To beat it out. To pistol-whip and waterboard and do anything necessary to one person, to save tens of thousands. To save his own family.
He would never do it. He thought. But Armand Gamache could understand the frustrations, the fears, the pressures that drove otherwise decent people to it. As Sister Prejean said,No one of us is as bad as the worst thing we’ve done.
Armand could see his worst approaching.
As the monk was placed in an unmarked car, Jean-Guy and Isabelle looked at each other. Finally, Jean-Guy ventured the question.
“Are you going to Ottawa?”
