The Brutal Telling
“There’s a thought,” said Gamache, putting on his half-moon reading glasses.
Beauvoir went over to his computer to check messages. There, taped to the monitor, was a scrap of paper with familiar writing. He ripped it off, scrunched it up and tossed it to the floor.
Chief Inspector Gamache also looked at his screen. The results of his Google search of “Charlotte.”
Sipping his coffee he read about Good Charlotte, the band, and Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Church and Charlotte’s Web, the city of Charlotte in North Carolina and Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands on the other side of the continent, off British Columbia. Most of the places were named after Queen Charlotte, he discovered.
“Does the name Charlotte mean anything to you?” he asked his team.
After thinking for a moment, they shook their heads.
“How about Queen Charlotte? She was married to King George.”
“George the Third? The crazy one?” Morin asked. The others looked at him in amazement. Agent Morin smiled. “I was good at history in school.”
It helped, thought Gamache, that school for him wasn’t all that long ago. The phone rang and Agent Morin took it. It was the Martinù Conservatory, in Prague. Gamache listened to Morin’s side of the conversation until his own phone rang.
It was Superintendent Brunel.
It was confirmed he’d meet them at one o’clock at the Brunel apartment on rue Laurier. As he hung up the phone rang again.
“Clara Morrow for you, sir,” said Agent Morin.
“Bonjour, Clara.”
“Bonjour. I just wanted to let you know I spoke to Denis Fortin this morning. In fact, we’re having lunch today. He told me he’d found a buyer for the carvings.”
“Is that right? Who?”
“I didn’t ask, but he says they’re willing to pay a thousand dollars for the two. He seemed to think that was a good price.”
“That is interesting. Would you like a lift into town? I’m meeting someone myself.”
“I’ll be by in about half an hour.”
“They said Martinù had no children. They were aware of the violin, but it disappeared after his death in,” Morin consulted his notes, “1959. I told them we’d found the violin and an original copy of the score. They were very excited and said it would be worth a lot of money. In fact, it would be considered a Czech national treasure.”
There was that word again. Treasure.
“Did you ask about his wife, Charlotte?”
“I did. They were together a long time, but only actually married on his deathbed. She died a few years ago. No family.”
Gamache nodded, thinking. Then he spoke to Agent Morin again. “I need you to look into the Czech community here, especially the Parras. And find out about their lives in the Czech Republic. How they got out, who they knew there, their family. Everything.”
He went over to Beauvoir. “I’m heading into Montreal for the day to talk to Superintendent Brunel and follow some leads.”
“D’accord. As soon as Morin gets the information on the Parras I’ll go up there.”
“Don’t go alone.”
“I won’t.”
“In the midst of your nightmare,” he repeated, handing it to Beauvoir. “What do you think it means?”
Beauvoir shrugged and opened the drawer to his desk. A nest of balled-up words lay there. “I find them everywhere. In my coat pocket, pinned to my door in the morning. This one was taped to my computer.”
Gamache reached into the desk and chose a scrap at random.
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
“They’re all like this?”
Beauvoir nodded. “Each crazier than the last. What’m I supposed to do with them? She’s just pissed off because we took over her fire hall. Do you think I can get a restraining order?”
“Against an eighty-year-old winner of the Governor General’s award, to stop her sending you verse?”