Page 173 of The Grey Wolf
Gamache was silent. That honestly had not occurred to him.
“Maybe they want to keep those documents safe,” suggested the Mountie. “Maybe that’s what ‘sanctuary’ meant. A safe place for the files.”
“Right,” said Jean-Guy, warming to the Mountie and his theory. “To be retrieved later, when the chaos settles down.”
“But why?” asked the Mountie. “What’s in those files?”
All three began speaking at once.
“I think they incriminate Lauzon.” Gamache’s quiet voice cut through the noise, and there was silence. “That’s why she stole them. You might be right. It’s not so much themselves they need to keep safe, but the documents. Not to incriminate me, or to protect Lauzon, but to protect themselves.”
“It’s insurance,” said Beauvoir. “Once he’s in power, he’ll probably start eliminating everyone who’s a danger to him. Page one of the tyrant’s handbook.”
“But if those documents can be insurance,” said Sargent Gauthier, “they can also be a weapon. Blackmail.”
“Holy shit,” said Frederick Castonguay. “Lauzon might be PM, but with that evidence she, they, would hold all the power.”
“If they can keep those documents safe, yes,” said Gamache.
“What is it?” Beauvoir asked.
They’d just turned onto the dirt road that led to Three Pines.
In the front passenger seat, the Chief had groaned. The sort of low growl or moan a person makes who’s trying to suppress pain.
“An email came through an hour ago from the Chicoutimi investigation.”
“The murder of that female postal employee.”
“Oui.I’m just reading it now. I think we now know why she was murdered. She had a nephew. His name is Ferdinand, but he changed it to Robert when he became—”
“Oh, shit. A Carthusian monk.”
“Yes.” Gamache got on the phone to Lacoste.
“She was murdered to send a message to him,” said Beauvoir as Gamache listened to the silence on the phone, waiting for it to engage. Then the line went dead.
He tried again. It could not connect. The monastery of Grande Chartreuse, like Saint-Gilbert, was too remote for reliable coverage.
“When Robert found out about his aunt’s murder,” Beauvoir was saying, “he took off for Grande Chartreuse. He must’ve been terrified. But what about the man on the Magdalen Islands? How does he fit in? It was the same hitman, wasn’t it?”
“Or woman,” said Gamache as he finished the quick text to Lacoste. “I think so.”
Beauvoir stopped the SUV a hundred meters from the top of the hill that led down into Three Pines, and all four got out.
It was just after six o’clock. Midnight in France. He had to assume Lacoste was either speaking to Brother Robert, or would be soon.
The conference call was fast approaching. He had to get solid information before then.
On the way down, in the silent vehicle, he’d gone over where the Abbot and the Chief of Staff would lie low.
The hermit’s cabin? But the Abbot almost certainly wouldn’t know about that.
The B&B? The bistro? Places he’d be familiar with. Perhaps hiding in a basement. But there was no guarantee they would not be discovered.
They wouldn’t dare try a private home. Or the Inn and Spa in what had been the Old Hadley House. Too many people.
Finally, all that was left was the obvious. He pointed toward St. Thomas’s chapel, which had a weak glow from inside.
