Langlois looked relieved. “Yes, please. Could you?”
Gamache smiled and placing two bags on the desk he brought out an assortment of sandwiches and a couple of beers.
“Perfect. I haven’t even had lunch yet.”
“Busy day,” said Gamache.
Langlois nodded, taking a huge bite from a roast beef, hot mustard and tomato sandwich on a baguette then took a swig of beer.
“We’ve only really had a chance to fingerprint and get DNA samples here. Even that’s taken two days. The forensics people have been through and now the work begins.” He glanced round.
Gamache pulled up a chair, grabbed a baguette filled with thick sliced maple-cured ham, brie and arugula and took a beer. For the next few hours the two men went through Augustin Renaud’s home, organizing it, separating his original papers from photocopies of other people’s works.
Gamache found reproductions of Champlain’s diaries and scanned them. They were as Pere Sebastien had said, little more than “to do” lists. It was a fascinating insight into everyday life in Quebec in the early 1600s, but it could have been written by anyone. There was certainly no personal information. Gamache came away with no feeling for the man.
“Found anything?” Langlois wiped a weary hand across his face and looked up.
“Copies of Champlain’s diary, but nothing else.”
“Don’t you think Renaud must have kept a journal or a diary himself?”
Gamache looked round the room and into the next, seeing stack after stack of papers. Bookcases stuffed to bursting, closets filled with magazines. “We might find some yet. Have you found any personal papers at all?” Gamache took off his reading glasses and looked across the desk at Langlois.
“Some letters from people replying to Renaud. I’ve made a file, but most seem to just be telling him with varying degrees of civility that he was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Oh, different theories he had about Champlain. That he was a spy, or the son of the King, or even that he was Protestant. As one said, if he was a Huguenot why give most of his money to the Catholic Church in his will? It was like all of Renaud’s theories. Close, but just a little wacky.”
Gamache thought Langlois was being charitable by calling Renaud “a little” wacky. He glanced at his watch. Ten to eight.
“Are you still hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Great. Let me take you to dinner. There’s a place just down the street I’ve been dying to try.”
On their way they stopped at a shop so Langlois could pick up a nice bottle of red wine then they carefully made their way just a few steps down the slide that was rue Ste-Ursule, to a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in the basement.
As soon as they entered they were met by warmth, by rich Moroccan spices and by the owner who introduced himself, took their coats and wine and led them to a quiet corner table by a wall of exposed stone.
He returned a moment later with the wine uncorked, two glasses and menus. After ordering they compared notes. Gamache told the Inspector about his day and his conversations with the members of the Champlain Society and Pere Sebastien.
“Well, that dovetails nicely with my day. Among other things I spent much of it in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society with one very annoyed archeologist.”
“Serge Croix?”
“Exactly. Not pleased to be called out on a Sunday, though he did admit it often happens. They’re like doctors, I suppose. On call all the time in case someone suddenly digs up bones or an old wall or piece of pottery. Apparently it’s quite common in Quebec.”
Their dinners arrived, steaming, fragrant plates of lamb tagine with couscous and stewed vegetables.
“Croix brought a couple of technicians and a metal-detector thing. But more sophisticated than anything I’d seen before.”
Gamache tore a piece of baguette off the loaf and dipped it in the tagine juices. “Did he think Renaud might have been right? That Champlain was there?”
“Not for a moment, but he felt they at least had to look, if only to tell reporters that Renaud was wrong, yet again.”
“And never again,” said Gamache.
“Hmm.” Langlois was enjoying his dinner, as was Gamache.
“So you didn’t find anything?”
“Potatoes and some turnips.”
“It was a root cellar, I suppose that makes sense.” Still, while Gamache was relieved for the English, he was a little disappointed. Part of him hoped Renaud had finally, perhaps fatally, gotten it right.
So why had he been killed? And why had he been at the Lit and His?
What did he want to talk to the board about?
But really, thought Gamache, whether Champlain was buried there or not was irrelevant. All that mattered was
