The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

“I believe for every action there’s an equal reaction. What else is yin and yang? Heaven and hell. A peaceful creative village, and a dreadful killing machine close by.”


“Where else would the devil go, but to paradise?” asked Beauvoir.

“Where else would God go, but to hell,” said Rosenblatt.

The elderly man raised his hands, blotched with age, and lifted first one then the other.

A balance.

“Merci, patron,” said Jean-Guy, leaning back to make room for Olivier to put down his plate.

The scallops were large and succulent and grilled golden brown. They lay on a bed of grains and fresh herbs and roasted pine nuts and goat cheese next to a warm grilled apple. He was about to ask about the pear but was distracted by the bacon club sandwich with thin, seasoned fries put before the professor.

He is smart, thought Beauvoir.

“Can I tempt you?” Rosenblatt asked, pushing his plate a millimeter closer to Jean-Guy.

“Non, merci,” said Jean-Guy, taking a fry.

The professor smiled, but then it faded.

“Who’re they?”

Beauvoir followed Rosenblatt’s scowl and saw Isabelle Lacoste standing in the doorway of the bistro with Sean Delorme and Mary Fraser.

Across the room, Mary Fraser turned to Lacoste. “Is that him?”

“Professor Rosenblatt, oui,” said Lacoste. “Would you like an introduction?”

Isabelle pretended not to hear the urgent whispers of Non, merci behind her as she wove between the tables.

“They’re coming this way,” said Rosenblatt in an urgent whisper. Beauvoir half expected him to bark, “Quick, hide.”

“There you are,” said Isabelle, as though seeing Beauvoir was a surprise and not part of the plan. “We were just coming in for a late lunch too. I don’t believe you’ve met. Professor Michael Rosenblatt, may I present Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme. They’ve just arrived from Ottawa. They’re also interested in what we found.”

Rosenblatt had once again struggled to his feet, though with far less gusto than for Ruth Zardo. He didn’t exactly curl his lip at the newcomers, he was far too courtly for that. But it was close.

“We haven’t met,” he said. “But I believe we’ve corresponded.”

“Yes” was all Delorme said, while Mary Fraser remained silent, though she did shake the professor’s hand. More, Lacoste felt, out of habit than desire.

Lacoste looked around and spotted a table in the corner, a distance from Beauvoir and the professor.

“I think that one’s free,” she said, and watched as the CSIS agents practically climbed over the other tables to get to it.

Chief Inspector Lacoste had asked Olivier not to mention that she’d called ahead and reserved it.

“They work for CSIS,” said the professor, turning his back on them. “But of course, you know that. I think it would be a stretch to call them intelligence agents.”

“Then what are they?” asked Beauvoir.

“File clerks,” said Rosenblatt.

“How do you know them? And how come they know you?”

“I’ve petitioned the government for the files on Gerald Bull and Project Babylon for years. I was planning to write a major paper on him to mark the twentieth anniversary of his assassination. Those two are in the department that keeps the dossier on Dr. Bull, but they won’t release the information.”

“Why not?”

“That’s a good question, Inspector.”

He glanced behind him, and saw Mary Fraser swiftly drop her eyes. Then Rosenblatt returned his attention to Beauvoir.

“How did they react to the Supergun?”

“They were as surprised as you were,” said Beauvoir.

“I wonder if that’s true.”

*

“He was brilliant, you know,” Mary Fraser said. “Gerald Bull. The youngest person to get a Ph.D. in Canada. At the age of twenty-two. Twenty-two. He was light years ahead of the rest. But there was something wrong with him. He had no brakes. He drew no line. And if he saw one, he was determined to cross it.”

Isabelle Lacoste listened. The two CSIS agents were taking turns telling the story. It was now clear to Lacoste why they’d been sent.

Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme might not know much about being spies, but they knew a great deal about Gerald Bull. They were tasked with gathering, and guarding, that knowledge. And now they were letting it out.

Or, at least, some of it.

“Dr. Bull worked with the American government, he worked with the Brits. He was involved with the High Altitude Research Project,” said Sean Delorme, speaking, Lacoste noticed, without need of notes. “He was with McGill University in Montréal for a while. And then he moved to Brussels and went out on his own.”

Delorme took his glasses off and polished them with one of the linen napkins.

“It was a disaster,” he said, putting his glasses back on. “Gerald Bull went from being a scientist, a designer, to being an arms dealer.”

“And Canada lost control of him,” said Chief Inspector Lacoste.