Page 169 of The Grey Wolf
Lacoste and Dussault had just turned yet another corner in the stone labyrinth that was Grande Chartreuse, when they heard the commotion.
“Hurry! Hurry!” The words bounced off the walls and floors, filling the space, making it impossible to tell where exactly they should hurry to.
“It’s coming from there.” Isabelle gestured down another of the long halls.
“No, no, down here.” They looked behind them. Sister Irene was gesturing. “Come on.”
They followed her. Footsteps, shouts for help, were all around them. Hurling, it seemed, out of the old stone.
Cries, trapped in the walls for centuries, were escaping.
The three of them ran up worn stairs. Then along more corridors, and climbed increasingly narrow and winding staircases, finally emerging at the top of a turret.
They were on a parapet high above the ground. It was dark, but they recognized the Abbot. He and two lay monks were staring over the side, their black robes flapping in the wind.
Lacoste’s heart sank.
“What is it?” Frère Sébastien arrived just behind them.
Splayed at the base of the wall was a dark shape outlined by wildflowers. It was in the unmistakable shape of a body, spread-eagled. It looked, from on top of the turret, like a hatchling that had left the nest too early. Tried to fly too soon.
Or, perhaps, a dead monk.
Sister Irene sank to her knees, her forehead resting against the stone wall. Her eyes screwed shut. But it was too late. She’d seen the unthinkable, and now the Dominican nun would never stop seeing the body of her friend.
No one on the top of the wall had any doubt who was at the bottom.
“Did he fall?” asked the Abbot, shaken. “He must’ve fallen. It must be an accident.” He looked from Lacoste to Dussault but did not get the reassurance he was searching for.
The investigators knew what the Abbot could not bring himself to believe. Someone had thrown Brother Robert from his sanctuary. His prayers, his God, his hiding place had failed him.
From the moment he’d agreed to take confession for a priest “too tired” to do his duty, Brother Robert’s life was running out. He was heading to this place, this moment.
“Why was he up here?” said the Abbot. “No one ever comes here. There’s no need.”
“We have to go to him,” said Sister Irene.
Lacoste turned to Claude Dussault. “Will you take them down?”
When they left, she sent off a quick message to Gamache.
Beauvoir saw the Chief approaching. He looked like a cabinet minister leaving Parliament. Authoritative but unremarkable. The same could not be said for the man with him.
For a terrible moment, Beauvoir thought Gamache had been arrested. Walking next to him was an RCMP officer in his impressive scarlet uniform. And between them was a young man in a sharp suit.
The officer held the man’s arm in a tight grip.
Tourists were taking pictures and videos of the Mountie, excited to see the famous dress uniform. All that was missing was a horse.
There was no stopping the photos, or the fact the images would soon be posted on social media. Tomorrow all social media would probably be blacked out except for government-controlled sources. All news would be censored. Until then, images of the Mountie on Parliament Hill would be up. And with him, unintended and unmistakable, would be Chief Inspector Gamache and some strange man. For all the world, including the conspirators, to see.
Gamache got in the car, and after quickly introducing the two men who were now in the back seat, he gave Beauvoir back his gun. Jean-Guy sniffed it.
“Unused,” said Armand. Then he texted David Lavigne a simpleMerci.
The deputy commissioner had not replied to any of his recent messages. Lavigne had gone silent, gone to ground. He hoped by his own choice.
“Get across the border into Québec,” said Gamache. “Quickly.”
