Bury Your Dead Read online

  BURY YOUR DEAD

  ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY

  The Brutal Telling

  A Rule Against Murder

  The Cruelest Month

  A Fatal Grace

  Still Life

  LOUISE PENNY

  BURY YOUR DEAD

  MINOTAUR BOOKS

  NEW YORK

  Table of Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty–One

  Chapter Twenty–Two

  Chapter Twenty–Three

  Chapter Twenty–Four

  Chapter Twenty–Five

  Chapter Twenty–Six

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  BURY YOUR DEAD. Copyright © 2010 by Three Pines Creations, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.minotaurbooks.com

  Grateful acknowledgment is given for permission to reprint the following:

  “Morning in the Burned House” by Margaret Atwood © 1995.

  Published by McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Used with permission of the publisher.

  “Vapour Trails” by Marylyn Plessner © 2000.

  Published by Stephen Jarislowsky. Used with permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Penny, Louise.

  Bury your dead : a Chief Inspector Gamache novel / Louise Penny. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-0-312-37704-5

  1. Gamache, Armand (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—Québec (Province)—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Québec (Province)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9199.4.P464B87 2010b

  813'.6—dc22

  2010026415

  First Edition: October 2010

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to second chances—

  Those who give them

  And those who take them

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Michael and I spent a magical month in Quebec City researching Bury Your Dead. Québec is a glorious place, and the old walled city is even more beautiful. I hope I’ve managed to capture how it felt to walk those streets every day and see not just the lovely old stone buildings, but see my history. Canadian history. Alive. It was very moving for both of us. But Quebec City isn’t a museum. It’s a vibrant, modern, thriving capital. I hope I’ve captured that too. But mostly I hope Bury Your Dead contains the great love I feel for this society I have chosen as home. A place where the French and English languages and cultures live together. Not always in agreement, both have suffered and lost too much to be completely at peace, but there is deep respect and affection.

  Much of the action in Bury Your Dead takes place in the Literary and Historical Society library, in old Quebec City. It is a stunning library, and a stunning achievement to have created and kept this English institution alive for generations. I was helped in my researches by the members, volunteers and staff of the Lit and His (as it is affectionately known). Because this is a work of fiction I have taken liberties with some of the history of Québec, and the Literary and Historical Society. Especially as it concerns one of its most distinguished members, Dr. James Douglas. I realize some will not be pleased with my extrapolating, but I hope you understand.

  I also need to make clear that I have met the Chief Archeologist of Québec many times and he is charming, helpful and gracious. Not at all like my fictional Chief Archeologist.

  The majority of the history in the book concerns Samuel de Champlain. I have to admit, to my shame, I wasn’t all that familiar with him before starting my researches. I knew the name, I knew he was one of the founders of Québec and therefore Canada. I knew his burial place is a mystery. No one has found it. And this has confounded archeologists and historians for decades. This mystery is at the center of my mystery. But it demanded I learn about Champlain. To do that I read a fair amount and spoke with local historians, chief among them Louisa Blair and David Mendel. I was also helped by a wonderful book called Champlain’s Dream, by Professor David Hackett Fischer, of Brandeis University. Professor Hackett Fischer actually came to Quebec City during our stay and when we heard this Michael and I decided to hear him lecture. It struck us (belatedly) as odd that the venue would be a government conference room. When we arrived we sat at the far end of the large table. A very nice young woman approached and asked, in perfect French, who we might be. We, in not so perfect French, explained that I was an English Canadian writer doing research on Champlain and had come to hear the professor speak. She thanked me and a few minutes later a man came by, shook our hands and escorted us to the head of the table. Then everyone stood and the Minister of Culture arrived along with other high government officials. Finally Professor Hackett Fischer came in and was seated right in front of us.

  Way too late Michael and I figured out this was a private briefing of high Québec government officials—and us. When they realized who we were, instead of showing us the door, the government officials gave us the best seats and much of the conference was held in English.

  This is Québec. Where there is great kindness and accommodation. But there can also be, in some quarters, great suspicions—on both sides.

  That is part of what makes Québec so fascinating.

  I’d like to thank Jacquie Czernin and Peter Black, of the local CBC Radio, for their help with contacts. And Scott Carnie for his help on some tactical issues.

  For those of you who love, as I do, the poetry of the Great War, you’ll recognize that I paraphrase a stunning poem by Wilfred Owen called “Dulce et Decorum Est.”

  Bury Your Dead owes a great deal to my wonderful agent Teresa Chris and editors, Hope Dellon, Sherise Hobbs and Dan Mallory. Their kind words and critical eyes bring out the best in the book and in me as a writer.

  Finally, I’d like to mention that the Literary and Historical Society is a gem, but like most libraries it now functions on little money and the good will of volunteers both Francophone and Anglophone. If you’d like to join, or visit, please contact them at: www.morrin.org.

  This is a very special book for me, on so many levels, as I hope you’ll see. Like the rest of the Chief Inspector Gamache books, Bury Your Dead is not about death, but about life. And the need to both respect the past and let it go.

  BURY YOUR DEAD

  ONE

  Up the stairs they raced, taking them two at a time, trying to be as quiet as possible. Gamache struggled to keep his breathing steady, as though he was sitting at home, as though he had not a care in the world.

  “Sir?” came the young voice over Gamache’s headphones.

  “You must believe me, son. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

  He hoped the young agent couldn’t hear the strain in his voice, the flattening as the Chief Inspector fought to keep his voice authoritative, certain.

  “I believe you.”


  They reached the landing. Inspector Beauvoir stopped, staring at his Chief. Gamache looked at his watch.

  47 seconds.

  Still time.

  In his headphones the agent was telling him about the sunshine and how good it felt on his face.

  The rest of the team made the landing, tactical vests in place, automatic weapons drawn, eyes sharp. Trained on the Chief. Beside him Inspector Beauvoir was also waiting for a decision. Which way? They were close. Within feet of their quarry.

  Gamache stared down one dark, dingy corridor in the abandoned factory then down the other.

  They looked identical. Light scraped through the broken, grubby windows lining the halls and with it came the December day.

  43 seconds.

  He pointed decisively to the left and they ran, silently, toward the door at the end. As he ran Gamache gripped his rifle and spoke calmly into the headset.

  “There’s no need to worry.”

  “There’s forty seconds left, sir.” Each word was exhaled as though the man on the other end was having difficulty breathing.

  “Just listen to me,” said Gamache, thrusting his hand toward a door. The team surged ahead.

  36 seconds.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” said Gamache, his voice convincing, commanding, daring the young agent to contradict. “You’ll be having dinner with your family tonight.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The tactical team surrounded the closed door with its frosted, filthy window. Darkened.

  Gamache paused, staring at it, his hand hanging in the air ready to give the signal to break it down. To rescue his agent.

  29 seconds.

  Beside him Beauvoir strained, waiting to be loosed.

  Too late, Chief Inspector Gamache realized he’d made a mistake.

  “Give it time, Armand.”

  “Avec le temps?” Gamache returned the older man’s smile and made a fist of his right hand. To stop the trembling. A tremble so slight he was certain the waitress in the Quebec City café hadn’t noticed. The two students across the way tapping on their laptops wouldn’t notice. No one would notice.

  Except someone very close to him.

  He looked at Émile Comeau, crumbling a flaky croissant with sure hands. He was nearing eighty now, Gamache’s mentor and former chief. His hair was white and groomed, his eyes through his glasses a sharp blue. He was slender and energetic, even now. Though with each visit Armand Gamache noticed a slight softening about the face, a slight slowing of the movements.

  Avec le temps.

  Widowed five years, Émile Comeau knew the power, and length, of time.

  Gamache’s own wife, Reine-Marie, had left at dawn that morning after spending a week with them at Émile’s stone home within the old walled city of Québec. They’d had quiet dinners together in front of the fire, they’d walked the narrow snow-covered streets. Talked. Were silent. Read the papers, discussed events. The three of them. Four, if you counted their German shepherd, Henri.

  And most days Gamache had gone off on his own to a local library, to read.

  Émile and Reine-Marie had given him that, recognizing that right now he needed society but he also needed solitude.

  And then it was time for her to leave. After saying good-bye to Émile she turned to her husband. Tall, solid, a man who preferred good books and long walks to any other activity, he looked more like a distinguished professor in his mid-fifties than the head of the most prestigious homicide unit in Canada. The Sûreté du Québec. He walked her to her car, scraping the morning ice from the windshield.

  “You don’t have to go, you know,” he said, smiling down at her as they stood in the brittle, new day. Henri sat in a snow bank nearby and watched.

  “I know. But you and Émile need time together. I could see how you were looking at each other.”

  “The longing?” laughed the Chief Inspector. “I’d hoped we’d been more discreet.”

  “A wife always knows.” She smiled, looking into his deep brown eyes. He wore a hat, but still she could see his graying hair, and the slight curl where it came out from under the fabric. And his beard. She’d slowly become used to the beard. For years he’d had a moustache, but just lately, since it happened, he’d grown the trim beard.

  She paused. Should she say it? It was never far from her mind now, from her mouth. The words she knew were useless, if any words could be described as that. Certainly she knew they could not make the thing happen. If they could she would surround him with them, encase him with her words.

  “Come home when you can,” she said instead, her voice light.

  He kissed her. “I will. In a few days, a week at the most. Call me when you get there.”

  “D’accord.” She got into the car.

  “Je t’aime,” he said, putting his gloved hand into the window to touch her shoulder.

  Watch out, her mind screamed. Be safe. Come home with me. Be careful, be careful, be careful.

  She put her own gloved hand over his. “Je t’aime.”

  And then she was gone, back to Montreal, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see him standing on the deserted early morning street, Henri naturally at his side. Both watching her, until she disappeared.

  The Chief Inspector continued to stare even after she’d turned the corner. Then he picked up a shovel and slowly cleared the night’s fluffy snowfall from the front steps. Resting for a moment, his arms crossed over the handle of the shovel, he marveled at the beauty as the first light hit the new snow. It looked more pale blue than white, and here and there it sparkled like tiny prisms where the flakes had drifted and collected, then caught, remade, and returned the light. Like something alive and giddy.

  Life in the old walled city was like that. Both gentle and dynamic, ancient and vibrant.

  Picking up a handful of snow, the Chief Inspector mashed it into a ball in his fist. Henri immediately stood, his tail going so hard his entire rear swayed. His eyes burning into the ball.

  Gamache tossed it into the air and the dog leapt, his mouth closing over the snowball, and chomping down. Landing on all fours Henri was once again surprised that the thing that had been so solid had suddenly disappeared.

  Gone, so quickly.

  But next time would be different.

  Gamache chuckled. He might be right.

  Just then Émile stepped out from his doorway, bundled in an immense winter coat against the biting February cold.

  “Ready?” The elderly man clamped a toque onto his head, pulling it down so that it covered his ears and forehead, and put on thick mitts, like boxing gloves.

  “For what? A siege?”

  “For breakfast, mon vieux. Come along, before someone gets the last croissant.”

  He knew how to motivate his former subordinate. Hardly pausing for Gamache to replace the shovel, Émile headed off up the snowy street. Around them the other residents of Quebec City were waking up. Coming out into the tender morning light to shovel, to scrape the snow from their cars, to walk to the boulangerie for their morning baguette and café.

  The two men and Henri set out along rue St-Jean, past the restaurants and tourist shops, to a tiny side street called rue Couillard, and there they found Chez Temporel.

  They’d been coming to this café for fifteen years, ever since Superintendent Émile Comeau had retired to old Quebec City, and Gamache had come to visit, to spend time with his mentor, and to help with the little chores that piled up. Shoveling, stacking wood for the fireplace, sealing windows against drafts. But this visit was different. Like no other in all the winters Chief Inspector Gamache had been coming to Quebec City.

  This time it was Gamache who needed help.

  “So,” Émile leaned back, cupping his bowl of café au lait in slender hands. “How’s the research going?”

  “I can’t yet find any references to Captain Cook actually meeting Bougainville before the Battle of Québec, but it was 250 years ago. Records are scattered and weren’t well
kept. But I know they’re in there,” said Gamache. “It’s an amazing library, Émile. The volumes go back centuries.”

  Comeau watched his companion talk about sifting through arcane books in a local library and the tidbits he was unearthing about a battle long ago fought, and lost. At least, from his point of view lost. Was there a spark in those beloved eyes at last? Those eyes he’d stared into so often at the scenes of dreadful crimes as they’d hunted murderers. As they’d raced through woods and villages and fields, through clues and evidence and suspicions. Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, Émile remembered the quote as he remembered those days. Yes, he thought, that described it. Chasmed fears. Both their own, and the murderers. Across tables across the province he and Gamache had sat. Just like this.

  But now it was time to rest from murder. No more killing, no more deaths. Armand had seen too much of that lately. No, better to bury himself in history, in lives long past. An intellectual pursuit, nothing more.

  Beside them Henri stirred and Gamache instinctively lowered his hand to stroke the shepherd’s head and reassure him. And once again Émile noted the slight tremble. Barely there now. Stronger at times. Sometimes it disappeared completely. It was a tell-tale tremble, and Émile knew the terrible tale it had to tell.

  He wished he could take that hand and hold it steady and tell him it would be all right. Because it would, he knew.

  With time.

  Watching Armand Gamache he noticed again the jagged scar on his left temple and the trim beard he’d grown. So that people would stop staring. So that people would not recognize the most recognizable police officer in Québec.

  But, of course, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t them Armand Gamache was hiding from.

  The waitress at Chez Temporel arrived with more coffee.

  “Merci, Danielle,” the two men said at once and she left, smiling at the two men who looked so different but seemed so similar.