Page 88 of The Grey Wolf
It seemed unlikely. The most likely was that the young biologist had come to the monastery and given the map and notes to the Abbot, for safekeeping. Dom Philippe had rolled the map up inside an older scroll no one had looked at in centuries.
Which meant the map was important. Vital even.
It was maddening. To know they were almost certainly staring at the answer. But without knowing the question.
And where were the laptop and notebooks?
“There must be a reason Langlois would come here, of all places,” said Beauvoir. “He must’ve known the Abbot, and known he’d help. There’s some connection.”
There was that word again.Connection.
It felt to Gamache as though they were caught in a web of invisible threads. And getting all tangled up.
“But Langlois knew Jeanne Caron,” said Beauvoir. “Does that mean the Abbot does too?”
“Not necessarily.” But… it was possible.
“You have to admit,” said Jean-Guy, looking around. “It’s a pretty damned good hiding place. It’s like a fortress, and there’s no wayanyone’s getting in without the monks’ permission. And they never give that.”
It was true. Almost.
“We got in. And they’d have to let in a team with a search warrant. Jesus.” Armand stared at Beauvoir. “I was actually considering doing that. What was I thinking? I can’t order a search of the place.”
It took Jean-Guy a moment to understand what Gamache was saying. “Shit. If there are collaborators high up in the Sûreté, this would play right into their hands. We’d give them the key to the monastery, and practically hand them the laptop and notebooks. So what do we do?”
“Do we trust the monks?”
Jean-Guy knew what the Chief was proposing. And he knew how much might be riding on his answer.
“Yes. I trust them. Even Simon. He has his faults, but then, so do you.”
Armand gave one burst of laughter at that unexpected, but quite accurate, dig. His amusement was absorbed by the walls, to join the centuries of notes and neumes. To become part of the abbey of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.
“We get the monks to search,” said Jean-Guy.
“Exactly. I wish we knew when Langlois was here.”
“Wait a minute.” Beauvoir reached for his phone. “I got Langlois’s travel schedule from AQB. I doubt he’d put down that he’d come to the monastery, but…”
His voice petered out as he read the document he’d downloaded. Then he got off the bed and knelt beside the map.
“These are dates,patron. He wrote other stuff too, but some are the dates when he visited certain sites. Look.”
He handed his phone to the Chief, who compared the travel schedule with the notes on the map. The reason they hadn’t immediately realized they were dates was because Langlois had written them in a strange way. Instead of putting slashes or even dots between day, month, year, he’d just written down the numbers without a divide.
Once Jean-Guy had seen it, they were able to correlate. Dates and locations. There was no date attached to the lake with the monastery, and it was not on the research schedule he’d submitted to AQB.
“Look here,patron. The most recent date was last week. Just days before he was killed.”
Gamache bent over the map to study the lake. It was unremarkable. Nothing on it except the monastery. No other settlement. No industry. He wondered what could have taken Langlois there.
“There’re more numbers and letters,” said Jean-Guy, also leaning close to the map and looking at the notes Charles had written.
“Maybe the results of his water tests,” said Gamache, getting up from crouching with a slight groan. “We need sleep. It’ll be an early morning. Leave that.” He stopped Beauvoir from rolling up the map. “It’s fine where it is.”
They put Bibles on the corners vacated by Jean-Guy’s shoes, and the younger man left. With the cheese.
Armand blew out his candle and lay down on the surprisingly comfortable bed. There were no outlets in their cells, so no way to charge their phones or laptops.
