Page 203 of The Grey Wolf
The funeral for Dom Philippe had been held at the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
The funeral for Yves Rousseau was held in the small chapel overlooking the harbor of Blanc-Sablon. Then his ashes were spread over his favorite rock. The one jutting out into the water, where young Yves had sat and contemplated the great mystery. A mystery the elderly Yves had now solved.
Dom Philippe, Yves Rousseau, had come home.
Armand could not make either funeral. He wanted to, but his doctors said with his damaged eardrum and serious concussion, he could not fly. But Jean-Guy and Isabelle went to both, and Armand and Reine-Marie watched online as Father David spoke of his friend: “We will feel him in the rain, in the wind, in the bite of snow, in the scent of autumn leaves, and in deep and penetrating silence. We might misshim terribly but will never be away from him. Yves returns to joy. As we all will, one day.”
Armand had leaned closer to the laptop and watched as Jeanne Caron limped forward and helped spread her uncle’s ashes over his favorite rock and into the water, to join her mother, his sister. She said something. Armand had to ask what it was.
“I think she said, ‘Forgive me,’” said Reine-Marie.
Isabelle had gone down to Three Pines to brief the Chief Inspector in person. He’d read her official report but wanted to hear the unofficial. Though they both quickly realized speech was just frustrating. So they’d sat together in the garden and texted.
It felt ridiculous at first. Cumbersome and even rude. But eventually they fell into a rhythm. Chief Inspector Gamache asking questions, Lacoste answering.
What was Sébastien’s role in this?
He isn’t talking. As you know, the French police have him in custody, charged with the murder of Brother Robert. Canada has applied to have him extradited, but so far the French authorities are reluctant. A murder at the famous Grande Chartreuse, of one of the monks who held the recipe, has become a cause célèbre.
Gamache nodded. Frère Sébastien’s silence was inevitable if unfortunate.
You have a theory?
I think this might be nuts, but I suspect he was the one in the confessional.
Gamache raised his brows.In DC? The confession Brother Robert took?
Oui. Sébastien didn’t realize it was his friend on the other side of the confessional, but Robert knew who it was confessing his part in a terrorist attack. I think that’s why Robert never sent for him, but asked Sister Irene to come to Rome instead. Robert only ran off to Grande Chartreuse when Sébastien arrived in Rome. He was running from Sébastien.
Gamache nodded. That made sense.
So he knew that Sébastien was involved in the plot. But how did Sébastien know it was Robert who’d heard his confession? Robert would never have told him.
I think Sister Irene did, inadvertently. She told him that Robert heardsomething in a confession when he’d stood in for a priest. Sébastien must’ve been in a panic when he realized what that meant, wrote Isabelle.
Something had to be done to shut Robert up. Fast. So Sébastien followed him to Grande Chartreuse, acting as a lay monk, supposedly to protect Robert but really to watch him and, if necessary, kill him.
It must’ve come as a terrible shock to Brother Robert, when he saw Sébastien there.
Oui. The one person he needed to avoid was locked in the remote monastery with him. Sébastien must’ve also told his co-conspirators back here, and they executed his aunt and that stranger. As a warning.
Then they sent the clippings to Sébastien to give to Robert. But why send for Dom Philippe?
I asked Irene about that. Turns out she was the one pressuring Sébastien to send for the Abbot. I think he did so partly to allay any suspicions Irene might’ve had, but also to find out if Robert would talk. If there was anyone he’d open up to, it would be the Abbot.
So the Abbot arrives, Armand wrote,and Robert does tell him about the terrorist plot to poison the water. But he didn’t say that Sébastien was involved. He was too afraid. He made the Abbot promise not to say anything to Irene and Sébastien. The Abbot thought it was to protect his friends.
It was to protect himself.
Gamache paused, his gaze drifting over to the forest behind Isabelle.
It lasted so long that Isabelle wondered if his mind had drifted off. He tended to do that these days. It worried her, though she said nothing.
Still, she also knew the man should never be underestimated. He was wily. Cunning even. In the hands of others, those qualities would be dangerous. In Gamache, they came in handy, as witnessed by his decision on the day of the attack to fill a small aspirin bottle with water. In case the opportunity came to switch.
Which it did. Gamache couldn’t have known what the actual poison was put in, but he gambled that the terrorists would not know either. Just that it would be a small plastic container that would pass security at the plant.
The only ones who knew had been locked in Pump Room One.
