The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

*

“Do you wish you were out there?” Reine-Marie asked, as her husband took a bite of the maple-smoked ham, apple and Brie sandwich, on a pain de campagne.

He looked out the bistro window, toward the stone bridge.

“You mean in the damp, cold woods at a crime scene?”

“Yes.”

“A little.”

“Monsieur Gamache,” said Reine-Marie, “you’re crazier than even my mother thought.”

“Your mother loved me.”

“Only because you made her own children look sane. Except Alphonse, of course. He really is nuts.”

Henri was curled under their bistro table. The shepherd’s head, resting on Armand’s shoes, was smattered with flakes of crusty bread.

“Isabelle’s doing a good job?” Reine-Marie asked.

“Not just a good job, a remarkable job. She’s completely taken control of the department. Made it her own.”

Reine-Marie watched him for signs of regret hiding beneath the obvious relief. But there was only admiration there for his young protégé.

“Jean-Guy seems to be accepting her as his boss,” she said, buttering a piece of fresh baguette from the basket that came with her parsnip and apple soup.

“I think it’s still a bit of a struggle,” said Armand. “But he at least respects Isabelle and knows he couldn’t possibly be made Chief Inspector, after what happened.”

“You mean after he shot you?” Reine-Marie asked.

“That didn’t help,” Armand admitted. He picked up his sandwich again, then put it down. “I was threatened yesterday by a young agent.”

“I saw him put his hand on his billy club,” said Reine-Marie, lowering her spoon.

Armand nodded. “Fresh out of the academy. He knew I was once a cop and he didn’t care. If he’d treat a former cop like that, how’s he going to treat citizens?”

“You look shaken.”

“I am. I’d hoped by getting rid of the corruption the worst was over, but now…” He shrugged and smiled thinly. “Is he alone, or is there a whole class of thugs entering the S?reté? Armed with clubs and guns.”

“I’m sorry, Armand.”

She reached across the table and placed her hand on his.

He looked down at her hand, then up into her eyes, and smiled.

“It’s a place I no longer recognize. To everything there is a season. I’m thinking of talking to Professor Rosenblatt about his job at McGill.”

“You think he’s not who he claims to be?”

“Oh, no, not at all. I’m sure Isabelle and Jean-Guy checked him out. No, this is personal interest.”

“Really? Thinking about becoming a physicist?” asked Reine-Marie. When he didn’t answer, she looked at him closely. “Armand?”

She knew he wasn’t considering studying science, but now she understood what he was considering.

If the big question facing both of them was, What next? could the answer be, University?

“Would that interest you?” he asked.

“Going back to school?”

She hadn’t really thought about it, but now that she did she realized there was a world of knowledge out there she’d love to dive into. History, archeology, languages, art.

And she could see Armand there. In fact, it was a far more natural fit than the S?reté ever seemed. She could see him walking through the hallways, a student. Or a professor.

But either way, he belonged in the corridors of academe. And so did she. She wondered if the killing of young Laurent had finally, completely, put paid to any interest he had in the disgrace that was murder.

“You like the professor?” she asked, going back to her soup.

“I do, though there seems a strange disconnect between the man and what he did for a living. His field was trajectory and ballistics. The main people who’d benefit from his research would be weapons designers. And yet he seems so, so, gentle. Scholarly. It just doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Really?” she asked, trying not to smile. It was what she’d just been thinking about him. A scholarly man who pursued murderers. “I guess we’re not all what we seem.”

“He does seem to know his stuff, though. He identified the weapon immediately. He said it was a Supergun.”

“A Supergun?”

He’d wondered if she’d laugh. Sitting in the warm and cheerful bistro, with fresh warm bread and parsnip and apple soup in front of them, the very word sounded ridiculous. “Supergun.” Like something out of a comic book.

But Reine-Marie didn’t laugh. Instead she remembered, as he did every hour of every day, Laurent. Alive. And Laurent, dead. Because of the thing in the woods. No matter its name, there was nothing remotely funny about it.

“It was built by a man named Gerald Bull,” said Armand.

“But what’s it doing here?” she asked. “Did Professor Rosenblatt know?”

Armand shook his head, then gestured out the window. “Maybe they can tell us.”

Reine-Marie looked out and saw Lacoste and Beauvoir walking across the dirt road, to the path into the woods. And with them were two strangers. A man and a woman.