“And what would the rest have been?” asked Gamache, beginning to understand what they were saying.
“Nothing,” said Jean. “Forest. Rock.”
“And where the Literary and Historical Society is now?”
“Woods.” René brought the old map out and placed his finger on a big blank space, far from any habitation.
Nothing.
There was no way they’d have buried Champlain that far from civilization.
There was no way the father of Québec could be in the basement of the Lit and His.
“So,” Gamache leaned back. “Why was Augustin Renaud there?”
“Because he was mad?” asked Jean.
“He was you know,” said Émile. “Champlain loved Québec, to the exclusion of everything else in his life. It was all he knew, all he lived for. And Renaud loved Champlain with the same devotion. A devotion bordering on madness.”
“Bordering?” asked René. “He was the capital of the state of madness. Augustin Renaud was the Emperor of it. Bordering,” he muttered.
“Maybe,” said Émile, staring down at the old map again. “Maybe he wasn’t looking for Champlain. Maybe there was another reason he was there.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” his mentor looked at him. “It is a literary society. Maybe he was looking for a book.”
Gamache smiled. Maybe. He got up and paused as the waiter fetched his coat. Looking down at the modern map he noticed something.
“The old chapel, the one that burned. Where would it have been on this map?”
René put out his finger one more time and pointed.
It landed on the Notre-Dame Basilica, the mighty church where the great and good used to pray. As the waiter helped Gamache into his parka René leaned over and whispered, “Speak to Père Sébastien.”
Jean-Guy Beauvoir waited.
He wasn’t very good at it. First he looked as though he didn’t care, then he looked as though he had all the time in the world. That lasted about twenty seconds. Then he looked annoyed. That was more successful and lasted until Olivier Brulé arrived a quarter hour later.
It had been a few months since he’d last seen Olivier. Prison changed some men. Well, it changed all men. But externally some showed it more than others. Some actually seemed to flourish. They lifted weights, bulked up, exercised for the first time in years, ate three square meals. They even thrived, though few would admit it, on the regimen, the structure. Many had never had that in their lives, and so they’d wandered off course.
Here their course was clearer.
Though most, Beauvoir knew, withered in confinement.
Olivier walked through the doors, wearing his prison blues. He was in his late thirties and of medium build. His hair was cut far shorter than Beauvoir had ever seen, but it disguised the fact he was balding. He looked pale but healthy. Beauvoir felt a revulsion, as he did in the presence of all murderers. For that’s what he knew in his heart Olivier was.
No, he sharply reminded himself. I need to think of this man as innocent. Or at least, as not guilty.
But try as he might he saw a convict.
“Inspector,” said Olivier, standing at the far end of the visitors’ room, unsure what to do.
“Olivier,” said Beauvoir and smiled, though judging by the look on Olivier’s face it was probably more of a sneer. “Please. Call me Jean-Guy. I’m here privately.”
“Just a social call?” Olivier sat at a table across from Beauvoir. “How’s the Chief Inspector?”
“He’s in Quebec City for Carnaval. I’m expecting to have to bail him out any minute.”
Olivier laughed. “There’s more than one fellow in here who arrived via Carnaval. Apparently the ‘I was drunk on Caribou’ defense isn’t all that effective.”
“I’ll alert the Chief.”
They both laughed, a little longer than necessary, then fell into an uneasy silence. Now that he was there Beauvoir wasn’t sure what to say.
Olivier stared at him, waiting.
“I wasn’t totally honest with you just now,” Beauvoir began. He’d never done anything like this before and felt as though he’d wandered into a wilderness and hated Olivier all the more for making him do that. “I’m on leave as you know, so this really isn’t an official call but . . .”
Olivier waited, better at it than Beauvoir. Finally he raised his brows in a silent, “go on.”
“The Chief asked me to look into a few aspects of your case. I don’t want you to get your hopes up—” But he could see it was already too late for that. Olivier was smiling. Life seemed to have returned to him. “Really, Olivier, you can’t expect anything to come from this.”
