The meaning in his voice wasn’t lost on the monk, but instead of being defensive he simply smiled.
“Listen, my son,” said Frère Raymond, speaking slowly. Beauvoir was getting very tired of being spoken to as though he was their son. A child. “That was just a story the old monks told each other to pass the time on long winter nights. It was a bit of fun. Nothing more. There’s no hidden room. No treasure.”
Frère Raymond leaned forward, his hands together in front of him, his elbows resting on his thin knees. “What’re you really looking for?”
“The man who killed your prior.”
“Well, you won’t find him down here.”
There was a moment as the two men looked at each other, and the cool atmosphere crackled.
“I wonder if we’ll find the murder weapon down here then,” said Beauvoir.
“A rock?”
“Why do you think it was a rock?”
“Because that’s what you told us. We all understood Frère Mathieu was killed by a rock to the head.”
“Well, the coroner’s report says the weapon was more likely a length of pipe, or something like it. Do you have any?”
Frère Raymond got up and led him to a door. He switched on a light and they saw a room no larger than the monks’ cells. There was shelving on the walls, and everything was neatly arranged. Boards, nails, screws, hammers, old pieces of broken wrought iron, all the miscellanies of any household, though considerably less than most.
And leaning up in the corner were lengths of piping. Beauvoir moved over there, but after a moment he turned back to Frère Raymond.
“Is this all you have?” Beauvoir asked.
“We try to reuse everything. That’s it.”
The Sûreté officer turned back to the corner. There were pipes there, all right, but none shorter than five feet, most considerably longer. The killer might have used one to pole vault over the wall, but not to actually brain the prior.
“Where could someone find another piece of pipe?” Beauvoir asked as they left the room and closed the door.
“I don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing we leave lying around.”
Beauvoir nodded. He could see that. The basement was pristine. And he knew if there was a length of pipe to be found, Frère Raymond would know about it.
He was the abbot down here. The master of this underworld. And while the abbey above seemed filled with incense and mystery, music and odd, dancing light, down here everything felt organized and clean. And constant. The temperature, the light, all unchanging.
Beauvoir liked it. There was no creativity, nothing beautiful in this netherworld. But neither was there chaos.“The abbot says he came down yesterday morning, after Lauds, but that you weren’t here.”
“After Lauds I work in the garden. The abbot knows that.” Frère Raymond’s voice was light and friendly.
“Which garden?”
“The vegetable garden. I saw you there this morning.” He turned to Superintendent Francoeur. “And I saw you arrive. Very dramatic.”
“You were there?” asked Beauvoir. “In the garden?”
Frère Raymond nodded. “Apparently all monks look alike.”
“Did anyone see you?” Beauvoir asked.
“In the garden? Well, I didn’t talk to anyone, but I wasn’t exactly invisible.”
“So it’s possible you weren’t there?”
“No, it’s not possible. It’s possible I wasn’t seen, but I was there. What is possible is that the abbot wasn’t here. There was no one at all to see him down here.”
“He says he came to look at the geothermal system. Does that sound likely?”
“It does not.”
“Why not?”
“The abbot knows nothing about all this.” Frère Raymond waved to the mechanics. “And when I try to explain he loses interest.”
“Then you think he wasn’t here yesterday, after your prayers?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you think he was?”
The monk stood silent. They’re like rocks, thought Beauvoir. Big black rocks. Like rocks, their natural state was to be silent. And still. Speaking was unnatural to them.
Beauvoir knew of only one way to break a rock.
“You think he was in the garden, don’t you?” said Beauvoir. His voice no longer quite so friendly.
Still the monk stared.
“Not the vegetable garden, of course,” Beauvoir continued, taking a step closer to Frère Raymond, “but his own garden. The abbot’s private garden.”