“Why not?”
“Because I still think you did it.”
That shut him up, Beauvoir was happy to see. Still, there swirled around Olivier a residue of hope. Was this just cruel? Beauvoir hoped so. The Inspector leaned on the metal table. “Listen, there’re just a few questions. The Chief asked me to be absolutely certain, that’s all.”
“You might think I did it, but he doesn’t, does he?” said Olivier, triumphant.
“He isn’t so sure, and he wants to be sure. Wants to make certain he—we—didn’t make a mistake. Look, if you tell anyone about this, anyone at all, it’s off. You understand?” Beauvoir’s eyes were hard.
“I understand.”
“I mean it, Olivier. Especially Gabri. You can’t tell him anything.”
Olivier hesitated.
“If you tell him he’ll tell others. He couldn’t help but. Or at the very least his mood will change and people’ll notice. If I’m going to ask questions, dig some more, it has to be subtle. If someone else killed the Hermit I don’t want them on their guard.”
This made sense to Olivier, who nodded. “I promise.”
“Bon. You need to tell me again what happened that night. And I need the truth.”
The air crackled between the two men.
“I told you the truth.”
“When?” Beauvoir demanded. “Was it the second or third version of the story? If you’re in here you did it to yourself. You lied at every turn.”
It was true, Olivier knew. He’d lied all his life about everything, until the habit became who he was. It didn’t even occur to him to tell the truth. So when all this happened of course he’d lie.
Too late he’d realized what that did. It made the truth unrecognizable. And while he was very good, very glib, at lying, all his truths sounded like falsehoods. He blushed, stumbled for words, got confused when telling the truth.
“All right,” he said to Beauvoir. “I’ll tell you what happened.”“The truth.”
Olivier gave a single, curt, nod.
“I met the Hermit ten years ago, when Gabri and I first arrived in Three Pines and were living above the shop. He wasn’t a hermit yet. He’d still leave his cabin and get his own supplies, but he looked pretty ragged. We were renovating the shop. I hadn’t turned it into a bistro, it was just an antique store back then. One day he showed up and said he wanted to sell something. I wasn’t very happy. It seemed he wanted a favor from me. Looking at the guy I figured it was some piece of junk he found on the side of the road but when he showed it to me I knew it was special.”
“What was it?”
“A miniature, a tiny portrait, in profile. Some Polish aristocrat, I think. Must have been painted with a single hair. It was beautiful. Even the frame it was in was beautiful. I agreed to buy it from him in exchange for a bag of groceries.”
He’d told the story so often Olivier was almost immune to the disgust in people’s faces. Almost.
“Go on,” said Beauvoir. “What did you do with the portrait?”
“Took it to Montreal and sold it on rue Notre-Dame, the antique district.”
“Can you remember which shop?” Beauvoir pulled out his notebook and a pen.
“Not sure if it’s still there. They change a lot. It was called Temps Perdu.”
Beauvoir made a note. “How much did you get for it?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“And the Hermit kept coming back?”
“Kept offering me things. Some fantastic, some not so great but still better than I’m likely to find in most attics or barns. At first I sold them through that antiques shop but then realized I could get more on eBay. Then one day the Hermit arrived looking really bad. Skinny, and stressed. He said, ‘I’m not coming back, old son. I can’t.’ This was a disaster for me. I’d come to pretty much rely on his stuff. He said he didn’t want to be seen anymore, then he invited me to his cabin.”
“You went?”
Olivier nodded. “I had no idea he lived in the woods. He was way the hell and gone. Well, you know it.”
Beauvoir did. He’d spent the night there with the asshole saint.
“When we finally got there I couldn’t believe it.” For a moment Olivier was transported to that magical moment when he’d first stepped into the scruffy old man’s log cabin. And into a world where ancient glass was used for milk, a Queen’s china was used for peanut butter sandwiches and priceless silk tapestries hung on walls to keep the drafts out.