The Nature of the Beast

by Louise Penny

  “Except that Project Babylon wasn’t over,” said Gamache. “In fact, it got bigger. You say not many knew about the next phase?”

  “That was the only thing that was disconcerting. Gerald Bull was guarded about the second weapon, Big Babylon. It was unlike him. He was a snake-oil salesman, a huckster. So when he was quiet about this second design, it got some people wondering.”

  “If it was true,” said Gamache.

  “If Gerald Bull was building an even more dangerous weapon, and playing an even more dangerous game. With even more dangerous people.”

  “More dangerous than the Iraqis?”

  Michael Rosenblatt didn’t answer that.

  Gamache thought for a minute. “If Bull didn’t talk about it, how did people find out?”

  “Most didn’t. And any information that did come out was patchy. A whispered word here and there. It’s a community filled with whispers. They add up to a sort of scream. Hard to separate the good intelligence from the noise.” He paused, thinking back. “They should’ve known.”

  “CSIS? About the other half of Project Babylon?”

  “Everything, they should’ve known it all. I think they did know. They just didn’t believe it. They dismissed Gerald Bull as a fool, a dilettante, especially after Baby Babylon failed.”

  “So did you,” Gamache pointed out.

  “But I didn’t have the entire intelligence apparatus at my disposal. I worked with the man, I knew he wasn’t capable of actually creating the machines he was marketing. What I didn’t appreciate was that Guillaume Couture was.”

  Rosenblatt looked at Gamache.

  “It honestly never occurred to anyone that Project Babylon wasn’t just a madman’s delusion. Especially after Baby Babylon failed. But he did it. He actually built it.” Rosenblatt shook his head and looked into his fragrant cider, stirring it with his cinnamon stick. “How did we miss it?”

  “Did you miss it?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If everyone thought Bull was such a buffoon, and his designs the product of a delusional mind, why was he killed?”

  “To be sure,” said Rosenblatt. “To be on the safe side.”

  “Murder puts you on the safe side?” Gamache asked.

  “Sometimes, yes.” Rosenblatt stared at the former head of homicide. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought that.”

  “And is this the ‘safe side’?” Gamache asked. “We’re half a kilometer from a weapon that could wipe out every major city down the East Coast, never mind Europe.”

  Rosenblatt leaned closer to Gamache. “Like it or not, the death of Gerald Bull meant Project Babylon did not end up in the hands of the Iraqis. They’d have won the war. They’d have taken over the whole region. They’d have wiped out Israel and anyone else who stood up to them. In a dangerous world, Monsieur Gamache, this is the safe side.”

  “If this is so safe,” said Gamache, “why are you so afraid?”

  CHAPTER 32

  Clara confided her suspicions to Myrna.

  As she spoke she became more convinced. Sometimes, on saying things out loud, especially to Myrna, Clara could see how ludicrous they were.

  But not this time. This time they jelled.

  “What should I do?” asked Clara.

  “You know what you have to do.”

  “I hate it when you say that,” said Clara, sipping her white wine.

  Across from her Myrna smiled, but it was fleeting, unable to penetrate beyond what Clara had just told her.

  They hadn’t noticed the two men in the dark corner until one of them got up.

  Clara nodded to Professor Rosenblatt as he walked by their table. He didn’t stop but continued to, and out, the door. Then they turned their attention to the person left behind.

  Armand was either staring after the scientist or into space. He seemed to make up his mind. Getting up, he walked to the bar, and placed a phone call, turning his back to the room as he spoke. Then he returned to the table, wedged snug into the corner.

  Clara got up, followed by Myrna, and slipped into seats on either side of him.

  “I think I’ve found something interesting,” said Clara. “But I’m not sure.”

  “She’s sure,” said Myrna.

  “Tell me,” said Armand, turning his full and considerable attention to her.

  * * *

  “Take a seat.” Isabelle Lacoste indicated the conference table in the Incident Room. Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme joined Inspector Beauvoir, who was already there.

  “Project Babylon wasn’t one missile launcher,” said Beauvoir without preamble. “It was two. Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

  Gamache had called them from the bistro after Professor Rosenblatt confirmed there were two guns, christened with the unlikely names Baby Babylon and Big Babylon.

  Mary Fraser was perfectly contained, in her drab way. Isabelle Lacoste had the impression that the middle-aged woman should have a ball of knitting in her lap like some benign presence, there to calm and soothe infants who were acting out.

  “Is it?” asked Mary Fraser.

  Isabelle Lacoste leaned slightly forward and, lowering her voice, she said, “Highwater.”

  It was like throwing a boulder into a small pond. Everything changed.

  “But Baby Babylon didn’t work—” said Mary Fraser.

  “Mary,” Sean Delorme interrupted.

  “They already know, Sean.”

  Now it was his turn to stare at his colleague. “You knew they’d found out about Highwater and you didn’t tell me?”

  “I forgot.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said, examining her.

  “This isn’t the time to discuss it.”

  Her words mirrored their exchange when they’d first arrived in Three Pines. Their little tiff over driving. Then it had been almost endearing, now it was chilling. And by the look on Sean Delorme’s face, he felt it too. With one more quick glance at his partner, he turned back to the Sûreté investigators.

  “Have you been there?”

  “Up the hill, following the tracks?” said Beauvoir.

  Delorme shifted in his chair, took a breath, and nodded.

  Mary Fraser, however, sat absolutely still, composed. Frozen.

  “We knew about the one in Highwater, but not the other,” she admitted.

  “You went there,” said Lacoste.

  “Yes. To confirm that the pieces were still there and hadn’t also been made to work. But I admit, Big Babylon came as a genuine shock.”

  Neither Lacoste nor Beauvoir were swallowing this whole. There was very little “genuine” about these two.

  “Why didn’t you tell us about Highwater?” said Lacoste.

  “That a giant gun had been built, with our knowledge, on the border with the U.S. thirty-five years ago?” asked Mary Fraser. “Not exactly dinner table conversation.”

  “This isn’t a dinner table,” Lacoste snapped. “This is a murder investigation. Multiple murders, and you had valuable information.”

  “We had nothing,” said Mary Fraser. “How does it help find your killer to know about a long-abandoned and failed experiment?”

  Jean-Guy reached into the evidence box and brought out the pen set and the bookends and placed them on the table in front of him, then, without a word, Isabelle Lacoste picked them up, manipulating them.

  The CSIS agents watched with mild curiosity that became astonishment as they realized what she was doing.

  After the final piece clicked into place, she put it on the table in front of Mary Fraser. It was Sean Delorme who picked it up and examined it.

  “The firing mechanism?” he finally asked.

  “Oui,” said Lacoste. “In case you didn’t know, that”—she thrust her finger toward the assembled piece—“is a pretty good representation of a homicide investigation. All sorts of apparently unrelated and unimportant pieces come together to form something lethal. But we can’t solve a case if p

eople are keeping information from us.”

  “Like a big goddamned gun on the top of a hill,” said Beauvoir. “The baby brother of the one in the woods.”

  Mary Fraser took this in but seemed unmoved, and Lacoste suspected it was because to her secrets were as valuable as information. She was not designed to give up either.

  “Where did you find it?” He held it up.

  When Lacoste didn’t answer, he looked back down at the thing in his hand. “Well, wherever it was, I’m glad you did. This could’ve been big trouble.”

  “Big trouble,” Beauvoir repeated. “Maybe that’s why it’s called Big Babylon.”

  “You think this is funny?” Mary Fraser asked in exactly the same clipped tone his teacher had used when he’d hit Gaston Devereau in the nose with a baseball. All that was missing was the “young man?”

  “Do you know what the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was called?” she asked, confirming Beauvoir’s image of her.

  “Big Boy.” Mary Fraser let that sink in. “Big Boy killed hundreds of thousands. Big Babylon would do worse. Unlike you, Gerald Bull knew his history and knew his clients would too. He also knew the power of symbolism. He comes from a long and proud tradition of making a weapon even more terrifying by appearing to belittle it.”

  “Proud tradition?” asked Lacoste.

  “Well, a long one.”

  Lacoste walked to the window. “If it’s so dangerous, why haven’t you called in the army? The air force?” She scanned the skies. “There should be helicopters overhead and troops on the ground guarding the thing.”

  She turned back to the CSIS agents.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  Sean Delorme smiled. “Don’t you think it might be better not to advertise? The bigger the weapon, the greater the need for secrecy.”

  “The bigger the secret, the greater the danger,” said Lacoste. “Don’t you think?”

  * * *

  Armand listened to Clara and Myrna, his face opening with wonder.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, not really,” Clara admitted. “I’d have to see them again. I was going to go over there.”

  “You need to tell Chief Inspector Lacoste,” said Gamache. “She and Inspector Beauvoir are at the old train station. Whatever happens, don’t tell anyone else. Does Professor Rosenblatt know?”

  “No. It didn’t come to me until later.”

  “Good.”

  Clara stood up. “Coming with us?”

  They walked together to the door of the bistro.

  “No, there’s someone else I want to see.”

  “Want to?” asked Myrna, following his gaze.

  “Have to,” admitted Armand.

  They parted, Clara and Myrna walking over the bridge to the Incident Room and passing the CSIS agents just leaving. Gamache walked the few paces to the bench on the village green and took a seat beside Ruth and Rosa.

  “What do you want?” Ruth asked. Rosa looked surprised.

  “I want to know why you wrote those lines from the Yeats poem when you heard that Antoinette had been killed.”

  The rain had stopped, and water beaded on the wood. It now soaked into his jacket and the legs of his slacks.

  “I happen to know the poem and like it,” said Ruth. “I’ve heard you quote it often enough. About things falling apart.”

  “True. But those weren’t the lines you chose.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” muttered either Rosa or Ruth. It was impossible to say which had just spoken. They were beginning to meld into one creature, though Ruth was more easily ruffled.

  “You know more than you’re saying,” said Gamache.

  “True. I know the whole poem. Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer. What’s a gyre?”

  “I have no idea,” Gamache admitted. “I think I looked it up once.”

  Ruth stared into the late-afternoon sky as the clouds broke up and the sun broke through. Sparrows and robins and crows descended, gathering on the green.

  “No vultures,” she said. “Always a good sign.”

  He smiled. “You needn’t worry. You’ll live forever.”

  “I hope not.” She broke up some bread and pelted it at the head of a sparrow. “Poor Laurent. Who kills a child?”

  “Who is slouching toward Bethlehem?” Gamache asked. “Who is the rough beast?”

  When she didn’t answer, he stopped her hand before she could cast the morsel of bread, and held her gently, but firmly, until she looked at him.

  “Yeats called that poem ‘The Second Coming,’” he said, letting go of her thin wrist. “It’s about hope, rebirth. But that only happens after a death, after the apocalypse, after the Whore of Babylon has arrived in Armageddon.”

  “Do you know how ridiculous you sound? You don’t believe that myth, do you?”

  “I believe in the power of the imagery. In the symbolism.” He stared at her. “You know about the etching, don’t you? About the Whore of Babylon on the gun. That’s why you specifically quoted those lines about the beast slouching toward Bethlehem, waiting to be born. They’re a reference to the Whore of Babylon.”

  Her thin hand fell to her lap, still clasping the bread.

  Her face was pale, her eyes stared ahead. Sharp. Searching. Her head cocked slightly to the side. Listening, Armand thought, for the voice of the falconer. Telling her what to do.

  * * *

  “Can we speak to you?” Isabelle Lacoste asked.

  Jean-Guy was behind her and Clara stood behind him. Clara had gone to the Incident Room and told them everything, at Myrna’s urging. Myrna had returned to her bookstore, but the others now stood on the porch, waiting for an answer.

  “Please, Madame Lepage.”

  Evie Lepage stepped back and let them into her home, surprised to see Clara with the Sûreté officers.

  “I don’t mean to be rude—” Evie began.

  But Clara knew that’s exactly what Evelyn meant to be. If she had a hatchet and some privacy, she’d have used that instead of words.

  “—but I’m a little busy. Perhaps you can come back later.”

  “You drew the Whore of Babylon on the missile launcher,” said Clara. She brought out her device and showed the picture to Evie. “This is your work.”

  “What?”

  “I know,” said Clara. “They know. I’m sorry but I’ve told them. Don’t make this worse.”

  “The Whore of Babylon?” Evie leaned closer to the image glowing on Clara’s device. “That was on the goddamned gun in the woods? The one Laurent found? Where he was found? Where he wa…” She stumbled to silence, wide-eyed. Wild-eyed.

  Clara lowered her arm and turned off the device.

  “Yes,” said Isabelle Lacoste.

  Clara studied Laurent’s mother. She knew faces. Knew moods. Tried to capture both in her paintings. Her works appeared to be portraits but were actually of the layers of skin underneath, each stretching over a different, deeper, emotion.

  If she were to paint Evie Lepage at this moment she’d try to get the emptiness, the bewilderment. The despair. And just there, barely visible in the depths—was that dread Clara saw? Was the mask stretched too tight, was the emotion too strong? Was it breaking through?

  And if Clara was to do a self-portrait? There would be anger and disgust and, beneath that, compassion. And beneath that? In the darkness?

  Doubt.

  “I saw the drawings in Laurent’s room, of the lambs,” said Clara. “The ones you did for him every birthday. The same hand did both. It’s unmistakable.”

  But seeing Evie’s alarm grow, Clara felt her own doubt expand, bloat, break through the other taut layers. Until doubt and dread stared at each other across the kitchen.

  “It wasn’t you, was it?” said Clara. Stating what would have been obvious had she not been blinded by her own brilliance.

  “That picture,” Evelyn gestured toward the now dark device in Clara’s hand, “was on the gun?”

  “Yes,” said Beauvoir.

  “What is it? You called it the Whore of Babylon.”

  “It’s a biblical reference,” said Clara. “From the Book of Revelation. Some interpret it as the Antichrist. The devil.”

  It would have sounded melodramatic had two people not already been killed, including this woman’s son.

  Evie gripped the Formica countertop behind her.

  “Can I see the drawings again?” Clara asked.

  They followed Evelyn through the empty home, up the stairs, and into Laurent’s room. There, leaning against the books, was the row of lambs with the ewe and ram on the knoll watching over their child. The drawings progressed from the very first, which simply said “My Son,” through to Laurent aged nine. In each the lamb grew slightly larger, grew up. And then it ended. The lamb to the slaughter.

  “You didn’t draw them, did you,” said Clara, seeing it now. “Al did.”

  Evelyn nodded. “I thought I made that clear when you came the other day.”

  “You might have, but I was so convinced it was you that I never really heard what you were saying. It didn’t occur to me that Al would do these.”

  “Did you know your husband helped build the missile launcher?” Beauvoir asked.

  “He couldn’t have,” said Evie. “Al hates guns, hates violence. He came here to get away from all that. There’s no way he’d have had anything to do with whatever is in those woods. Not Al.”

  The Sûreté agents did not tell her what they knew about her husband. That he was not only capable of violence, he’d been involved in one of the great atrocities of the past century.

  “Where is your husband?” Lacoste asked.

  “In the field,” said Evie. “He spends all of his time out there now.”

  Through Laurent’s bedroom window, past Spider-man and Superman and Batman on the sill, they could see the large man bending over, pulling his crop from the ground.

  A minute later Clara and Evie watched as the Sûreté officers approached him. He stood up and wiped his large forearm across his forehead, then dropped his arms to his sides.

  Then the Sûreté agents shepherded Al Lepage to the car.

  CHAPTER 33

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