The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

Young Agent Cohen took a swig of his beer, then reached for the chips, putting some in his mouth before he realized they were not potato but apple chips.

He looked at Chief Inspector Lacoste, and Inspector Beauvoir. His bosses. And he looked at Monsieur Gamache. And he looked at the strong beamed ceiling and thick plank floors and solid fieldstone hearths of the bistro. He looked out the window, but saw only their own reflection.

And he finally felt safe.





CHAPTER 45

Isabelle Lacoste and Adam Cohen walked up the steps to the B and B. The porch light had been left on by Gabri and the door was, of course, unlocked.

“You said you made a mistake with Fleming,” Isabelle asked. “What was it?”

Adam Cohen gnawed his lip and watched Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir walking, heads down and together, toward the light at the Gamache home. But then the two men paused, veered, and took a turn around the village green.

“I said his name,” said Cohen.

It took Isabelle Lacoste a moment to realize what Cohen meant, and then she too looked at the two men, strolling around the edges of the village green.

Adam Cohen, in his excitement, had called out over the phone. He’d said his name. Monsieur Gamache. And John Fleming, in the backseat, would have heard.

*

“I wanted to ask you about Professor Rosenblatt,” said Jean-Guy. “What did you say to him tonight, out on the terrasse? Did you thank him?”

“Non. I warned him.”

“About what? He stepped in front of the gun. He saved your life and probably mine, and allowed the plans to burn. Kept them out of the hands of those CSIS agents or whatever they are.”

“I wonder if that’s true.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think Professor Rosenblatt does much that is unconsidered. I think he knew the moment to get those plans had passed. And when he stepped in front of the gun, he knew that while Delorme might shoot us, he wouldn’t shoot him.”

Gamache remembered that moment with complete clarity.

When Michael Rosenblatt had stepped in front of him, with the gun pointed at his chest, Gamache had had the overwhelming impression that Rosenblatt was in no danger.

In that split second, as the plans burned, Delorme should have shot. But didn’t. To kill Gamache and Beauvoir, for plans that were almost certainly gone, would trigger an international manhunt. And so Professor Rosenblatt had done the only thing possible. He’d stepped in front of the gun, not to save Gamache or Beauvoir, but to salvage whatever he could of the situation.

“You think Rosenblatt’s one of them? A CSIS agent, or something?”

“Or something,” said Gamache.

He did not believe Michael Rosenblatt was himself a killer, though he thought the man might be capable of it. But he did think Rosenblatt knew Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme much better than he pretended.

After all, who called them to Three Pines? Who told them about finding Project Babylon?

Gamache had suggested as much to the retired scientist when they’d parted on the terrasse. And warned him he’d be watching.

“You still think I’m mixed up in this?” Rosenblatt had asked.

“I think you know far more than you’re telling.”

Rosenblatt had studied him closely. “We’re on the same side, Armand. You must believe me.”

“Do you swear it?” Gamache had asked. “On your grandson’s life?”

Professor Rosenblatt had smiled and Gamache heard a small grunt of acknowledgment. “I do.”

But then all amusement disappeared. “You need to know,” said Rosenblatt, “the clock hasn’t stopped. It has simply been reset.”

Armand Gamache had watched him walk away, believing he was looking at the taproot. From which Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme and John Fleming had sprung.

Jean-Guy and Armand strolled in silence around the village green, through the cold, crisp fresh autumn evening.

“Professor Rosenblatt might not have been in any danger when he stepped in front of the gun, but you were, patron.” Beauvoir stopped and turned to face his father-in-law. “Thank you.”

“Not everyone would have burned those plans, mon vieux. It was one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen. And I’m a man who’s seen the Manneken Pis.”

A laugh escaped Beauvoir, and then a smaller, deeper sound before he muffled it.

“You’re a brave man in a brave country, Jean-Guy. A man so remarkable needs to pass that courage on to his children.”

They walked in silence, by choice for Gamache, by necessity for Jean-Guy, who couldn’t yet speak.

“Merci,” he finally said. Then fell silent again.

As they passed the B and B, Armand saw a shadow in a window. An elderly man, preparing for bed. Where he would dream, perhaps, of children and grandchildren and friends. A warm hearth, a good book, quiet conversation. A life that might have been.

*

The next morning a dark police van drove up to the Canadian side of the U.S. border crossing at Richford.

A man and a woman in the uniform of the Judge Advocate General’s office in the States stood just on the other side of the barrier, military police at their side.