The Nature of the Beast

by Louise Penny

  She was in the kitchen. The coffee was perked on the old stove and she had the toast and jam out.

  The knock did not startle her. She’d been expecting it. Rosa, however, looked up from her feed with some surprise. Though ducks often looked surprised.

  Ruth opened the kitchen door, nodded and stepped back.

  “You heard, Clément?” she asked.

  “Oui,” said Monsieur Béliveau. “Worse than we feared.”

  “It’s called Project Babylon, of course. What else would it be called?”

  “How do you know that?” the old grocer asked the old poet as he sat at her kitchen table. “No one else is saying that.”

  “I saw it in some papers last night, over at the Gamache place.”

  “You’re not the one who…?”

  “Told everyone?” she asked, joining him. “Of course not. We promised each other we wouldn’t. Besides, we didn’t know anything. Not really.”

  Monsieur Béliveau looked at her, and she dropped her eyes to the white plastic table.

  “We knew enough, Ruth. More than enough.”

  “Well, why would I say anything now, after all these years?”

  “To take the focus off Monsieur Lepage.” Clément paused before speaking again. “To protect him.”

  “Why would I do that? I don’t even like the man.”

  “You don’t have to like him to protect him. Do you think he did it?” Monsieur Béliveau asked.

  “Do I think Al Lepage killed his own son?” asked Ruth. “It would be a terrible thing. But terrible things happen, don’t they, Clément?”

  “Oui.”

  Monsieur Béliveau was quiet for a moment, looking out the kitchen door to the rectangle of freshly turned earth in her backyard. She followed his gaze.

  “The Fleming play,” Ruth said. “She Sat Down and Wept. A reference to the psalm, of course.”

  “Babylon,” he said. “You buried it?”

  “I tried to, but Armand came and asked for it.”

  “You gave it to him?” It was as close as she’d seen the grocer come to anger.

  “I had no choice. He knew I had it.”

  Clément Béliveau nodded, his eyes drawn back to the dark hole in the bright green grass. A dead thing among the living.

  “Does he know?”

  Ruth shook her head. “And I won’t tell him. I’ll keep my word.”

  Though words, Ruth knew, were what had gotten them into trouble in the first place.

  “Project Babylon,” said Monsieur Béliveau under his breath. “And now it is now. And the dark thing is here.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Jean-Guy arrived in the dining room of the B and B to find Isabelle Lacoste sitting alone at a large table by the fireplace, rereading the printouts on Gerald Bull that Madame Gamache had found and Gamache had given them the night before.

  Gabri had laid, and lit, the fire. An autumn fog had descended, rolling down the cold mountains to pool in the valley. It would burn off in an hour or so, but for now the cheerful little fire was welcome.

  “Salut,” said Beauvoir, sitting down. “Did you hear? Someone leaked the news about the gun.”

  He took a warm crumpet from the basket on the table and watched as the butter melted into the holes. Then he smeared it with marmalade. His uncle, a devout Québécois separatist, had introduced him to the pleasures of crumpets and marmalade, apparently unaware he was consorting with, and consuming, the enemy.

  But allegiances, Jean-Guy knew, lived in the head, not the stomach. He took a huge bite and nodded when Gabri offered to bring a café au lait.

  “I did hear,” said Lacoste.

  “Makes the investigation into Laurent’s murder easier,” said Jean-Guy. “We can now talk about what he found. But I know two people who’re going to be mighty pissed. Speak of the devil.”

  Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme appeared at the door of the dining room and looked around.

  Isabelle Lacoste waved them over.

  “Would you like to join us?” she said.

  “News of Gerald Bull’s Supergun is all over the village,” said Sean Delorme without preamble. “How did that happen?”

  He glared at them.

  “We have no idea,” said Beauvoir. “We were just talking about it. We’re as shocked as you. Fortunately, no one’s talking about Dr. Bull. Just the gun.”

  “‘Just’ the gun?” asked Delorme. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “It could be worse,” said Professor Rosenblatt.

  The scientist had arrived in the dining room wearing gray flannels, a tweed jacket and bow tie. He looked around at the tables set for breakfast, with crisp white linen, sterling silver, and fine bone china. The fireplace lit with a modest fire.

  The walls were thick and the windows mullioned and Rosenblatt had the impression if he waited long enough the stagecoach would come by.

  But he wouldn’t take it. This was far more interesting than any other place he could possibly think of.

  “I won’t join you,” said Professor Rosenblatt, as though he’d been invited. “You have things to talk about.”

  “Like the news,” said Jean-Guy.

  “Yes.” Rosenblatt shook his head. “That’s a shame.”

  But he didn’t look at all upset.

  “Please,” said Lacoste, smiling at the professor and indicating a chair. “The more the merrier.”

  “Merrier” did not describe the gathering, no matter how many there were.

  Professor Rosenblatt took a seat and looked at the unhappy faces of the CSIS agents. “Now, what were we talking about?” He put a white linen napkin on his lap and looked around at them. “Ah yes, the leak.”

  Now there’s a shit-disturber, thought Beauvoir with some admiration. What seemed interesting was the amount of shit this professor emeritus was able to disturb.

  Beauvoir shifted his gaze to the CSIS agents, whose faces were now masks of cool civility.

  And why were they so disturbed?

  “Did you do it?” Mary Fraser asked. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she wore a gray sweater and black skirt, and pearls, in what looked like an effort to dress things up, but only managed to make her look even more dowdy.

  “A moment ago you were accusing that young man.” Rosenblatt indicated Beauvoir. “And now me? Who else are you going to blame? Him?”

  He looked at Gabri, making his way across the wide-plank floor with the café au laits. The innkeeper wore an apron with gingham frills, which drove Olivier nuts.

  “It’s fun,” Gabri had said to his partner. “It makes me happy.”

  “It makes you gay.”

  “Yes. Otherwise no one would ever know.”

  Gabri arrived at their table, distributed the coffees and stood poised for their breakfast orders.

  Professor Rosenblatt asked him for a few more minutes to consider the menu. Lacoste and Beauvoir said they’d wait a little longer as well, but the CSIS agents ordered, obviously anxious to finish as quickly as possible.

  “There’re only so many people who could’ve leaked the information about the Supergun,” said Delorme once Gabri had left. “And most of them are sitting at this table.”

  He looked around and Beauvoir was struck by how very hard the man was trying to be threatening, and how very unsuccessful it was. He just seemed petulant.

  “Whoever did it will face the full weight of the law,” said Mary Fraser.

  She managed to be somewhat more threatening, though perhaps not in the way she intended. It was as though they’d disappointed a favorite aunt.

  Jean-Guy wondered if they’d be recalled to Ottawa and some real agents sent down. He hoped not. He quite liked these two.

  “Bonjour,” said Armand Gamache, walking over to the table and taking off his jacket. “Bit of fog this morning. The fire’s nice.”

  He held out his large hands, momentarily, toward the hearth.

  “Patron,” said Gabri, coming in from the kitchen. “I though

t I heard you. Café?”

  “S’il vous plaît,” said Gamache, and looked at the people already at the table.

  Beauvoir and Lacoste had gotten to their feet to greet him. He smiled at them, then shook the elderly scientist’s hand.

  “Professor,” he said with a smile.

  Gamache turned to the other two.

  “May I introduce you?” said Lacoste. “Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme are down from Ottawa. They’re with CSIS. This is Armand Gamache.”

  Delorme had risen and took Gamache’s hand, while Mary Fraser remained seated, staring at the newcomer.

  Trying, thought Jean-Guy, to place him. He knew that look. Here was a familiar face, a familiar name. But in an unfamiliar setting.

  And then she had it. “Of course. Gamache. Of the Sûreté.”

  It sounded much like Renfrew, of the Mounties.

  “Late of the Sûreté,” he said, taking the empty chair beside her. “My former colleagues are being kind to include me. My wife and I have retired to the village.”

  Beauvoir marveled at Gamache’s ability to make himself sound insignificant. But he could also see the wheels turning in Mary Fraser’s mind. For a moment she looked less matronly and far shrewder. And then it was gone.

  “It must be upsetting to have all this commotion just when you thought you’d left it behind,” said Mary Fraser.

  “Well, I can pop in and out of the case. It’s different when it’s not your responsibility.”

  Gabri came out with eggs Benedict for Sean Delorme, and for Mary Fraser, crêpes stuffed with apple confit and drizzled with syrup. On the side were thick strips of maple-smoked bacon.

  “A very good choice,” said Armand, leaning toward her conspiratorially.

  Mary Fraser all but blushed, and then to cover her reaction she pointed to the papers by Lacoste’s hand.

  “Are those about Project Babylon?”

  “A little. Mostly they’re about Gerald Bull.” Lacoste held them up. “Redacted, so most of the information on Project Babylon has been removed.”

  “Where did you get them?” asked Rosenblatt, taking a sheet and scanning it.

  “Archives.”

  “How did you get them?” he asked. “I’ve been trying for years.”

  “And if you’d joined the Sûreté you might’ve been successful,” said Lacoste. She caught Gamache’s eyes and saw his appreciation. She was not going to mention Madame Gamache.

  Rosenblatt frowned, but didn’t say anything. Mary Fraser picked up the pages and scanned them, pausing at the black-and-white photograph of Gerald Bull.

  “Did you ever meet him?” Lacoste asked, and Mary Fraser shook her head.

  “This is a common photo of him though,” she said. “Just about the only one I’ve seen. For a man with an outsized ego, he didn’t like to have his picture taken.”

  Mary Fraser put the photo down and turned to the typed pages.

  “Interesting reading,” said Isabelle Lacoste. “The details are blacked out, but the reports confirm that Gerald Bull would sell anyone anything. Not just the Iraqis.”

  “I think it’s over to you,” Rosenblatt said to the CSIS agents. “Unless you’d like me to answer.”

  Mary Fraser looked annoyed, but realized she really had no choice.

  “The papers are correct. Gerald Bull went completely off the rails in Brussels. He took on contracts with anyone and everyone. All the legitimate powers who once worked with him backed off. He was like the Black Death.”

  “Tell them about the Soviets,” said Rosenblatt, obviously enjoying himself.

  Delorme shot him what he must’ve thought was a withering look but managed to be just comical.

  “Bull used the Soviets and South Africans as conduits for his weapons and designs,” said Fraser. “But as you know, his biggest contract was with the Iraqis. He was completely amoral.”

  “Let’s not be disingenuous here,” said Lacoste. “We’ve been doing our own research. Saddam got a lot of his weapons from the West. Dr. Bull was far from alone.”

  “The region’s a quagmire,” Mary Fraser admitted. “We supplied Saddam, but stopped when we realized what he was capable of. Gerald Bull did not. He saw a business opportunity, a market, and he jumped in. We deeply regret selling Saddam any weapons, but who knew he’d turn out to be a sociopath?”

  Professor Rosenblatt looked about to say something, so Sean Delorme jumped in.

  “No one’s proud of the choices we made, but at least we were trying to keep order. But Gerald Bull was a whole other beast. He was beyond any form of control. He’d slipped below the official channels and was into the dark region of arms suppliers. There were no rules or laws, and no boundaries. If governments were making a mess of it, you can imagine the damage the arms dealers were doing. We’re pretty sure the gun was destined for the Iraqis. Bull apparently convinced Saddam that he could make him the only superpower in the region.”

  “And you had no idea this was happening?” asked Beauvoir.

  Sean Delorme shook his head and a long strand of the combover came loose. “Informants told us they thought Gerald Bull was having parts of the cannon made in different factories around the world, but he was killed before he could assemble it.”

  “Then what’s that?” Beauvoir pointed toward the forest.

  The CSIS agents shook their heads in unison. More combover came loose, exposing Sean Delorme’s skull if not his thoughts.

  “I don’t know,” said Mary Fraser. “I mean, we know what it is. It’s a Supergun. But we don’t know how it got there.”

  “And why someone had to murder a nine-year-old boy to keep it quiet,” said Gamache.

  “Thank God it doesn’t work,” said Lacoste.

  “But why doesn’t it work?” asked Professor Rosenblatt. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m as relieved as you, but, well…”

  “Where’s the key?” said Beauvoir.

  “The what?” asked Delorme.

  “The key,” said Professor Rosenblatt. “The missing firing mechanism.”

  “But there’s something else missing,” said Beauvoir. “Something you haven’t mentioned.”

  “What?” asked Delorme.

  “The plans,” said Professor Rosenblatt.

  He no longer looked like he was enjoying this. Now he was deadly serious, his eyes bright and his voice grave. This was not a man who was there for amusement.

  “Oui,” said Beauvoir, nodding. “When I make a model plane, I have plans. You can’t tell me Gerald Bull made it up as he went along. He might’ve been a genius, but no one could do that. He must’ve had drawings.”

  The CSIS agents fell silent.

  “Well?” asked Beauvoir.

  “No plans were ever found,” said Mary Fraser. “And not for lack of trying. Dr. Bull’s apartment had been broken into several times before he was killed. As a warning for him to stop his activities, but also, we suspect, to search for his schematics.”

  “You suspect?” said Lacoste. “So it wasn’t CSIS?”

  “No. We don’t know who broke into his home.”

  “Probably the same people who killed him,” said Delorme.

  “It was a professional hit,” said Mary Fraser, the words coming out with disconcerting ease. And familiarity. “Bullets to the head to be sure of the kill.”

  And Isabelle Lacoste looked with fresh eyes at this middle-aged, slightly drab woman. Was she familiar with this method through training or personal experience? Was it possible she knew much more about the murder of Gerald Bull than she was saying? This conversation was obviously redacted.

  Lacoste did a quick calculation. Mary Fraser was probably in her mid-fifties. Gerald Bull was murdered in Brussels twenty-five years ago.

  Fraser would have been in her mid-twenties.

  It was possible. Most soldiers were that age, or younger.

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” asked Gamache, and all eyes swung to him.

  “Pardon?” said Mary Fraser.

  “Gerald Bull. Did CSIS see the body? Did anyone at the Canadian Embassy identify it?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Delorme. “He’s dead. Five bullets to the head will do that.”

  Gamache smiled. “Merci. I was just wondering. And John Fleming?”

  Now the CSIS agents really did stare at him, though both Lacoste and Beauvoir dropped their eyes to the table.

  “I beg your pardon?” asked Mary Fraser. “John Fleming?”

  “Yes,” said Gamache, his voice conversational, friendly even. “How is he connected?”

  Mary Fraser looked first at her colleague, then over to the Sûreté agents. There was an awkward silence.

  “You do know we’re talking about Project Babylon,” she said.

  “Oui,” Beauvoir jumped in. “We found a play by John Fleming and it seemed a coincidence, that’s all.”

  “You found it at the site of the gun?” asked Sean Delorme, trying to follow, trying to find the logic.

  “Well, no,” Gamache admitted.

  “Then why’re we talking about this?” Mary Fraser looked at the Sûreté officers, obviously asking for clarification. None was coming. They’d lapsed into embarrassed silence.

  Armand Gamache, however, had not.

  “So as far as you know, John Fleming has no involvement at all with Gerald Bull and Project Babylon?” he asked, looking from Mary Fraser to Sean Delorme and back again.

  “I frankly don’t even know who you’re talking about,” said Mary Fraser, getting to her feet. “I think this conversation has run its course. Thank you for your company and your help. Will you excuse us?”

  “I have work to do too,” said the professor. “Notes I’d like to reread. I’d also like to borrow those”—he pointed to the redacted pages—“if you don’t mind. I’ll give them back to you.”

  “It would be good to get your opinion, sir,” said Lacoste, handing them to the elderly scientist.

  Professor Rosenblatt chose the spacious banquette by the window and immediately started reading.

  After Gabri took their breakfast orders, Isabelle turned to Gamache.

  “What was that about?”

  “What?”

  “John Fleming.”

  “I just wanted to see their reaction,” said Gamache.

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