The Nature of the Beast

by Louise Penny

  “But that would mean the murderer knew about the connection between Antoinette’s uncle and Gerald Bull,” said Reine-Marie. “Why didn’t he look for the plans sooner? Why now?”

  “Because the gun was found now,” said Lacoste. “That’s the catalyst. Until then the plans were worthless. But once a working model was found—”

  “The plans become priceless,” said Reine-Marie. “I get it.”

  “There is another possibility,” said Gamache. “That Gerald Bull never had the plans.”

  They stared at him. They’d moved from the soup to fettuccine with grilled salmon, tossed with fennel and apple.

  “His apartment in Brussels was searched several times before his death, and nothing was found,” Gamache explained. “After his murder, people looked but the designs for Project Babylon never turned up. It was assumed that Bull, knowing he was in trouble, destroyed them. But suppose they weren’t found on him because he didn’t have them?”

  “Because he gave them to Dr. Couture,” said Lacoste.

  “Or because Couture stole them,” said Beauvoir.

  “Or,” said Gamache, “because Gerald Bull never had the plans to begin with.”

  “You think Gerald Bull was the ‘front of house,’” said Lacoste. “And Dr. Couture the real genius?”

  “I think it’s possible Dr. Bull did not have the plans because Dr. Bull did not make the plans,” said Gamache. “Do you still have the photograph, Adam?”

  Agent Cohen jumped up and returned a moment later with the picture. He put it on the kitchen table and everyone leaned in.

  “Do you want more light?” asked Reine-Marie.

  “No, this is fine,” said her husband. The candlelight was indeed soothing. “I think they might have been a perfect team,” he said, looking at the photo. “Bull gregarious, outgoing. Dr. Couture quieter, a bachelor scientist. Devoted to his work.”

  “His work being Project Babylon,” said Beauvoir.

  “According to what you found out”—Gamache turned to Cohen—“Dr. Couture started working with Gerald Bull at McGill, on HARP.”

  “Right, but funding for the High Altitude Research Project was cut,” said Cohen. “And Dr. Bull left McGill.”

  “What did he do then?” Gamache asked.

  “He formed the Space Research Corporation,” said Cohen.

  “And the SRC eventually developed the long-range artillery that became Project Babylon,” said Lacoste. “By then it was a private company, run by Bull.”

  “Gerald Bull became an arms dealer,” said Gamache. “But not, perhaps, an arms designer.”

  “That explains why Project Babylon was built here,” said Beauvoir. “Because Guillaume Couture was here.”

  “He built the prototype close to home,” said Lacoste. “Where he could oversee it, but no one else could. In the middle of a Québec forest, where the Iranians, the Israelis, the Iraqis, our own people would never think to look. A gun that doesn’t exist in a village that doesn’t exist.”

  “The last place on earth,” said Beauvoir. “Three Pines.”

  “And no one guessed that Gerald Bull wasn’t the creator of Project Babylon?” asked Cohen.

  “Why would they?” asked Chief Inspector Lacoste. “And who would care? As long as he delivered.”

  “And when he’s murdered, Couture gets scared,” said Beauvoir. “He hides the plans, or maybe destroys them, and goes to ground. Retires to his tomatoes and peppers, and tries to forget about the thing in the woods.”

  “It was covered with camouflage netting,” said Gamache. “An effort had been made to hide it. And the firing pin was removed. Who else but the designer could do that? Did you find the firing pin in Antoinette’s home?”

  “No, though to be fair, we weren’t looking,” said Beauvoir. “We’ll go back and have another look.”

  “If it was there, the killer probably took it,” said Gamache. “But worth a look.”

  “I’ll double the guard on the gun,” said Lacoste, and headed to the telephone in the study.

  The lights suddenly went on, full force, and Armand looked over at Reine-Marie, who was standing by the switch, then she returned to the table.

  “Well, that killed the mood,” said Jean-Guy.

  “I wanted a clearer look at this picture,” she said, bending over it.

  “Do you recognize someone, Madame Gamache?” Adam Cohen asked.

  “No, not the people, but the place looks familiar. Armand?”

  The three men in the grainy enlargement were standing at the top of a very long tunnel that sloped downward. The walls appeared to be metal, with strips of more metal shooting down the sides and ceiling. Huge pot lights were attached to the top.

  “I don’t think this’s a tunnel,” she said. “I think they’re standing at the top of a long cylinder.”

  “The mouth of a gun, perhaps,” said Gamache.

  “It would have to be a pretty big gun.”

  “Well, we have a pretty big gun,” he said.

  “I don’t think it’s a gun,” said Beauvoir, leaning over Madame Gamache’s shoulder. “It actually looks more like a stairway.”

  “Or an escalator,” said Armand.

  It did look vaguely familiar. A metro stop? An airport? It could be anywhere.

  “Oh, this’s killing me,” said Reine-Marie.

  “Probably doesn’t matter,” said Armand. “The picture was obviously taken years ago.”

  “What would happen if another one of those guns was built?” Reine-Marie asked.

  Gamache was silent for a moment, then opened his mouth. But there were no words. Certainly none of the reassuring words she was hoping for. The candlelit words. And to Reine-Marie’s horror, he simply closed his mouth and looked at her.

  “Do you think the killer found the plans?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know,” said Gamache. “Mary Fraser accused me of not understanding how dangerous the world of arms dealers is. And she’s right. I don’t think anything we’ve faced compares to it. The scale of death they deal in is almost beyond comprehension. They create and feed wars, they encourage genocide. For profit. And what a profit. The money must be in the billions. Lives are worthless, incidental.”

  He spoke almost matter-of-factly, which only added to the horror of what he was saying.

  “I think we have to assume the worst,” said Jean-Guy. “That the plans have been found.”

  The dinner broke up shortly after that. There didn’t seem much else to say. They made arrangements for Adam Cohen to take Beauvoir’s room at the B and B while Jean-Guy moved into the Gamaches’ home. The young man seemed relieved not to have to drive back to the city.

  After Lacoste and Cohen had gone and the dishes were done, Armand and Henri went for a walk.

  “Mind if I join you?” Jean-Guy asked.

  The three of them walked in companionable silence around and around the village green. It was a clear, cold night and they could see their breath. The sky was filled with stars, and moon shadows from the three huge pines stretched across the grass and landed at the bistro.

  They could see Professor Rosenblatt sitting alone at a table. Gamache paused and thought. And knew it was time.

  “Chilly night,” he said to Jean-Guy. “I feel like something to warm me up.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, patron.”

  A minute later they were standing over the professor’s table.

  “Bonsoir,” said Armand.

  “Hello,” said the professor, looking up and smiling.

  Armand took the photograph from his pocket and placed it on the bistro table, sliding it slowly forward, toward Michael Rosenblatt.

  “I’d like an answer to my question now, s’il vous plaît,” said Gamache. “Did Gerald Bull design the Supergun? Or did someone else? Someone smarter?”

  He watched as the smile flattened. Flatlined. Died on Rosenblatt’s face.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Last call,” said Olivie

r from behind the bar.

  There were two other occupants of the bistro, young lovers on a date, holding hands across the table. Gamache wasn’t worried about them. They clearly were in their own world. One that, thankfully, did not include genocide, and warheads, and dark things hidden in deep forests. Gamache wanted to make sure the two worlds did not meet.

  “Monsieur?” Gamache nodded toward Rosenblatt’s cognac.

  “Oh, I think not.”

  The elderly scientist was slurring slightly, and now blood rushed, in a flush, to his face.

  “Perhaps a glass of water, patron,” said Beauvoir, and Olivier returned with a pitcher and three glasses.

  “I wondered when you’d find out,” said Rosenblatt. “I probably should have told you.”

  “Oui,” said Gamache. “That would’ve been helpful, and might even have saved a life.”

  “What’d you mean?” Professor Rosenblatt opened his eyes wide, then screwed them shut, in an attempt to focus.

  It wasn’t, Gamache thought, simply the alcohol. The man looked exhausted.

  “A woman named Antoinette Lemaitre was killed last night,” said Beauvoir.

  “Yes, I heard. Terrible,” said Rosenblatt. “The people here seem to think it had something to do with a play. Must have been a very bad play.”

  “She was Guillaume Couture’s niece,” said Gamache.

  Michael Rosenblatt stared at them as though they’d gone fuzzy.

  “Guillaume Couture,” he repeated. “I haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

  “How did you know him?” Beauvoir asked.

  Rosenblatt looked surprised by the question. He glanced at the photograph, then from one to the other of his companions.

  “We worked together, briefly. With Gerald Bull. Back in the McGill days.”

  They waited for more. The young couple left, arm in arm, and Olivier began cleaning up.

  And still they waited.

  It seemed Rosenblatt had fallen into a stupor.

  “Where did you get that?” He finally spoke, gesturing toward the picture.

  “The McGill alumni magazine. It’s from Dr. Couture’s obituary,” said Beauvoir.

  Michael Rosenblatt nodded. “I remember seeing the notice and the photo and wondering if anyone would put it together. But they didn’t.”

  “Put what together?” Gamache asked.

  “Or maybe they did,” said Rosenblatt, either ignoring the question or lost in his own thoughts.

  He seemed to be rallying, rousing. His voice was less dreamy. His eyes sharper.

  Gamache wasn’t sure this was such a good thing. His defenses would soon go up again, and this man’s barriers were thick and old and encrusted with a lifetime of evasions.

  “He was very clever, you know. Switched on.”

  “Dr. Couture?” asked Gamache.

  Rosenblatt laughed. “No. Not him. Gerald Bull. Most scientists are sort of idiot savants. They know one thing very well, but fail in most other aspects of their lives. But not Dr. Bull. He could be off-putting. Abrupt, impatient. But he could also be charming and clever. He was shrewd, you know. Picked up on things that others missed. It’s a useful tool. He made connections. I don’t mean social, though he did that too. He made intellectual connections. He could see how things fit together.”

  “As a scientist?” asked Gamache.

  Now Rosenblatt chuckled. “As a scientist he was crap.” He reflected a bit on that, then amended what he’d said. “Not crap really. He’d earned his Ph.D. He was workmanlike. No, you were right yesterday when you suggested his real genius was public relations. Getting people to agree to the disagreeable. But he was also ruthless.”

  “Who designed Project Babylon?” asked Gamache.

  Rosenblatt nodded toward the photograph. “You already know.”

  “I need you to confirm it.”

  Even now, even when worn down and cornered, Gamache could see the elderly scientist twisting, so deep was the instinct and perhaps the training to evade.

  “The plans may have been found,” Gamache said quietly.

  “Ahh,” said Rosenblatt. The sound slipped out of him, like a long tail on a sigh.

  He nodded a few times, carrying on some internal conversation. A debate. An argument. And then he spoke.

  “Guillaume Couture designed Project Babylon. I suspect Gerald Bull conceived of the idea, but he needed someone smarter than himself to actually figure out how to do it. So he found Dr. Couture ferreting away in the engineering department of McGill. Couture became Bull’s chief designer and silent partner.”

  Now that he’d started, Professor Rosenblatt couldn’t seem to stop talking. It was such a stream of information and confidences that Gamache found himself wary. Not sure if this was the truth, half-truths, or a blockade of lies.

  Though it fit with their own conclusions. Perhaps a bit too well.

  “Gerald Bull essentially committed suicide when he put himself forward as the sole designer of Project Babylon,” said Rosenblatt. “He was killed to stop him. No one knew about Guillaume Couture.”

  “Except you,” said Beauvoir.

  “Oh, I didn’t know. Not until much later. All that research on Gerald Bull, it didn’t fit, until I factored in someone else. Someone smarter.”

  “Do you think Dr. Couture would have kept the plans?” Beauvoir asked. “After all, they’re what got his boss killed.”

  “It was his life’s work,” said Rosenblatt. “Guillaume was a nice man, in many ways a gentle man. But he was unbothered by a conscience. He had no imagination. No, that’s probably unfair. He was myopic. Shortsighted. He only saw the challenge, the scheme. He didn’t look beyond that, to what his plans would actually do.”

  “So what does that mean?” Beauvoir demanded. “Would he have kept the plans or not?”

  “I think so,” said Rosenblatt. “They were the work of a lifetime. Without doubt the highlight of his career.” He considered for a moment. “You say the woman killed last night was his niece?”

  “She lived in his home,” said Gamache.

  In the background, the clock on the bistro mantel struck the hour. Midnight.

  “And you didn’t find the plans?” Rosenblatt asked.

  Gamache shook his head and in the silence the clock continued to sound. One measured stroke after another.

  “You think the killer has the designs for Project Babylon,” said Rosenblatt.

  “I think it’s possible. We have to assume he found them,” said Gamache.

  The clock struck one last time, then stopped.

  Michael Rosenblatt looked at it, then back at Gamache.

  “The chimes at midnight, Chief Inspector,” he said quietly. “It’s later than we thought.”

  Beauvoir saw a look pass between the two men and knew he’d missed some reference. But not the meaning.

  They walked the professor back to the B and B and made sure he got up to his room. A light was on under Mary Fraser’s door, and Gamache paused, then tapped.

  “What’re you doing?” Beauvoir whispered.

  “The CSIS agents need to know that the plans might’ve been found,” Gamache whispered back.

  “Just a minute,” came Mary Fraser’s pleasant voice. The door opened and she stood there adjusting an unexpectedly frilly dressing gown. “Oh.”

  “You were expecting someone else?” Jean-Guy asked.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. She had her glasses on and papers were spread out on the bed. Jean-Guy strained to get a look at them, but she stepped out and closed the door.

  “What can I do for you? It must be late.” She peered at her watch. “It’s past midnight.”

  It’s later than we thought. Rosenblatt’s words drifted into Beauvoir’s mind.

  “The plans might’ve been found,” said Armand.

  The bookish woman who lived in a filing cabinet disappeared and a much sharper person stood before them, albeit in a frilly pink dressing gown.

  “Come with me,” said the CSIS agent, and led them downstairs and into the farthest corner of the B and B’s living room.

  “Should we get Monsieur Delorme?” Gamache asked.

  “No need,” she said, taking a seat. “You can tell me and I’ll pass the information on to him.”

  Gamache and Beauvoir sat in the two remaining armchairs.

  “You might have heard about another murder in the area,” said Gamache. “A woman named Antoinette Lemaitre.”

  “Yes, the owner of the B and B told me. He seems to be town crier.”

  “Antoinette Lemaitre was Guillaume Couture’s niece.”

  Fraser stared at Gamache, the words sliding off her expressionless face to drop into silence. It took effort for an intelligent person to look that vacant, and Gamache suspected she was working very, very hard at that moment.

  “Whose niece?” she asked.

  “Please, madame,” said Gamache. “We have no time for this. You know as well as I do that Guillaume Couture worked with Gerald Bull at HARP, and almost certainly on the Supergun.”

  Once again he took the photograph out of his pocket. Unfolding it, he handed it to her. Her brows rose very slightly, creating tiny crevices in her forehead.

  “You cannot possibly be an expert on Gerald Bull and not know that,” said Gamache.

  Mary Fraser folded the picture in half and offered it back.

  “Dr. Bull had many colleagues. Including, might I remind you, Professor Rosenblatt.”

  “True, but Professor Rosenblatt’s niece wasn’t just murdered and the home he once owned ransacked,” said Gamache, taking back the photograph. “Time is running out and your evasions are wasting what little we have left. You seem to be treating this as some sort of game. We know all about Dr. Couture.”

  “You know nothing,” she hissed. “You’re mired in guesses, not facts. And don’t you ever presume to lecture me about the importance of what we’re doing. You gave up that right when you ran away to this quaint little village with its café au laits and village fêtes. Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

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