The Nature Of The Beast Part 57

There was nothing even remotely remarkable about it. Except for the intensity with which she was looking at the page.

Sean Delorme sat in the wing chair, watching her, studying her as she studied the play.

And then he looked up. At Gabri. And then he got up and walked slowly, deliberately toward him.

Gabri took a step back as this previously nondescript, dull man came toward him. There was no weapon in his hand, not even a threatening expression on Delorme's face, but Gabri found his heart pounding. Sean Delorme stopped at the doorway and the two men stared at each other across the threshold.

Then Delorme slowly, wordlessly, closed the door until it clicked shut. And then there was another sound, as a bolt was drawn across.

Gabri stared at the wooden door. His last image of the small library fused into his memory. Of Delorme's dark eyes and beyond him, Mary Fraser continuing to read. As though her life depended on it.

From the study Beauvoir phoned across to Lacoste at the Incident Room.

She confirmed that Cohen was at the SHU. "He's in his car, waiting."

"Good" was what Beauvoir said, but good was not what he felt. "Anything in the case files?"

"No, nothing yet," she said, and hanging up, she went back to them. Like the play, she knew her answer was right in front of her if only she could find it.

Isabelle Lacoste had gone over and over the notes. The interviews. The evidence from both murders.

Antoinette Lemaitre had been killed either by someone she'd invited into her home, or when she'd surprised an intruder. It was someone who knew about Project Babylon, and knew Brian would be in Montreal. Someone who knew that her uncle was Guillaume Couture and that Dr. Couture had been Gerald Bull's main designer. Perhaps even knew he was the real architect of Project Babylon.

Someone who thought the plans were hidden in his home. Someone who might've been looking for them for years.

The gun couldn't be sold. Not anymore. But the plans could.

Lacoste stopped herself.

Sidetracked by the G.o.dd.a.m.ned plans again, she thought, and gave a heavy sigh.

But still, she'd come close, before veering off. Where had she gone astray?

All right, she told herself. Let's set aside Antoinette's murder and go back to the first one. Laurent's death.

She herself had been in the bistro when the boy had raced in with yet another ridiculous story, so clearly a product of his imagination.

Isabelle Lacoste tried to remember what he'd said and done.

Laurent had run in and come up to their table, jabbering excitedly, announcing to the room that he'd found a huge gun in the woods. With a monster on it.

When no one paid attention, Laurent had tugged at Gamache's arm to follow him.

Instead, the Chief had driven him home. In the car, Laurent had entertained him with more tales about the gun, and about winged monsters and alien invasions and whatever else his fertile imagination produced.

A day later, Laurent was dead.

Who else had he told? His parents. His father. The one person who would know it wasn't a fantasy, though Lepage claimed not to know what Dr. Bull and the others were building. Was that one more lie in a life that was itself a fabrication? Did he kill his own son to shut him up, knowing that if the ma.s.sive gun was found, with his etching, questions would be asked and Frederick Lawson might be revealed?

Is that what happened? Or had Laurent run into someone else in the hours after Gamache had dropped him off? Someone who knew Laurent was telling the truth. Someone who had Laurent show him the gun, and then killed him there and placed his body by the side of the road, to make it look like an accident.

She was missing something. Or misinterpreting something. There was something she wasn't seeing.

That's when Beauvoir called and reported that they'd found nothing in the play. Her heart dropped. It wasn't their only hope, but it was their best one.

She went back to the file folder and began reading again.

And then she forced herself to stop. She knew the case. Had just refreshed her mind. Now it was time to use her mind. Isabelle Lacoste closed the file, swung her chair around, and stared out the window. Forcing herself to do nothing. Except the most important thing. Think.

Gabri had called from the bistro and asked Gamache to meet him there, leaving Beauvoir alone in the study.

Jean-Guy hadn't meant to pry but, once alone, his eyes had strayed to papers on Gamache's desk. Letters. Offers. Stacks of them. The top one was from the UN to head up their policing division, with a particular focus on Haiti.

For reasons he couldn't explain, Jean-Guy's heart dropped. Haiti was close to Gamache's own heart. It was a job that demanded diplomacy, and patience, and respect. And French. It would be dangerous, but it would be fulfilling, to train the local police in that shattered nation. It was a perfect fit for the Chief.

Then Beauvoir refocused and returned to the script in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to find something in the play.

It seemed more and more likely that Fleming was lying, at least about the play. Probably about the plans too.

The words swam in front of Jean-Guy's eyes and nothing was going in. He read and reread the same pa.s.sage. It was like the recurring nightmare where he had to get away, but couldn't run.

He looked at the words and willed his mind to settle down. But all he could think of was Annie and the baby and a world where a G.o.dd.a.m.ned gun was in the hands of a madman. And another madman was on the loose, freed by them.

Jean-Guy forced himself to close his eyes. And from his mind he pulled the fresh memory of the play being read by Clara and Myrna, Madame Gamache and Brian and Gabri. Ruth and Olivier and Monsieur Beliveau. Their familiar voices lulled him, like his grandmother's voice reading to him at bedtime about the hockey sweater.

Slowly the scenes came alive, the characters came alive, in front of him. Beauvoir could see them. The boarders, the shopkeeper. Vivid. At once funny and heartbreaking, and surprisingly human.

John Fleming was describing a group of people who were being offered a second chance. A lifeboat. But who didn't recognize it for what it was, because it wasn't offered in the form they wanted.

They wanted a burning bush, a bolt of lightning. A lottery win.

It reminded Jean-Guy of Three Pines. Of the travelers who came upon the village unexpectedly. They sat in the bistro, having stopped just to relieve themselves and get something to eat. They drank their cafe au laits and ate their pain au chocolat, and consulted their maps. Never once looking up, and around.

And then they left, climbing out of the lifeboat and back into the ocean. And they swam away. In search of the job, the person, the big house that would save them.

But every now and then someone did look up. And around. And saw that they'd arrived. They'd made it to sh.o.r.e.

Jean-Guy had sat in the bistro, or on the bench, or the porch of the Gamaches' home with Annie and seen that look on new faces, on a few faces. Not many, but it was unmistakable and unforgettable when it happened. It wasn't joy, it wasn't happiness. Not yet. It was relief.

He recognized it because he himself had washed ash.o.r.e. Here.

Jean-Guy opened his eyes and sat up straight.

Armand Gamache stared out the bistro window at the B and B. Gabri had quietly told him about seeing Delorme and Fraser in the library there, with the Fleming play.

"I've never seen anyone read like that before," he said. "She was so focused and he was like her watchdog. A pit bull."

"Sean Delorme?" asked Gamache.

"I know," said Gabri. "That's why I thought you should know. He wasn't at all happy that I'd seen them."

Gamache was keenly aware of the clock on the mantelpiece behind him, ticking down. And Michael Rosenblatt, in the corner. Cornered.

Someone had told the CSIS agents about the significance of the play and Gamache could guess who.

Armand looked out over the village and with a great effort cleared his mind and heard again the voices of the villagers reading the Fleming play. Armand stood very still, in the window, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes closed.

"Jesus," he whispered after a couple of minutes. "Could it be?"

Mary Fraser looked up from the script, the blood rushing from her face, then rushing back.

She felt faint, light-headed.

"What is it?" asked Delorme.

"Jesus," she mumbled. "I'm an idiot."

She lifted the script off her lap as though offering it to Delorme, but kept it for herself.

"Fleming was here, in this village."

"We know that," said Delorme.

"The play is set here," she said, excited. "We missed it because Three Pines has changed, not a lot, but enough so that it wasn't immediately recognizable."

Jean-Guy was reaching for the phone when it rang. Before he could say "All," Gamache said, "The play is set in Three Pines."

"I just realized it myself," said Jean-Guy. "The B and B was a boardinghouse when Fleming was here. He set the play there. But what does it mean? We still don't know where the plans are. n.o.body lost anything in the play."

"True, but every character was in search of something, and they all went to the same place hoping to find it. Remember?"

"Milk," said Beauvoir. "The hardware store."

"Which is now the bistro."

"I'll be right over."

Gamache took Olivier and Gabri aside, well aware that Rosenblatt was watching, and no longer caring. It no longer mattered. There was no "longer" left.

It was twenty to six.

"The B and B was a boardinghouse when you moved here, right?"

The two men nodded, attentive, alert, picking up on the urgency.

"And this was a hardware store?"

"Oui," said Olivier.

"You obviously did major renovations," said Gamache. "Did you find anything in the walls, the floors?"

Please Lord, please Lord, he thought.

"All sorts of things," said Gabri. "We took the place down to the studs. The walls were insulated with old newspapers and mummified squirrels."

"The papers," said Gamache, speaking clearly, deliberately. "Where are they?"

"We put them in the blanket box over there." He waved at the pine chest in front of the fireplace. They'd been using it as a coffee table and footstool for years.

"We always meant to read them," said Gabri, following Gamache over there. "Some are really old."

Beauvoir arrived and joined them at the blanket box.

"They found papers when they did the renovations," said Gamache, kneeling in front of the box. "They're all in here."

"Let me help."

They looked up and into the eyes of Professor Rosenblatt.

"Please," said the elderly scientist.

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged a quick glance, then Gamache nodded. They emptied the contents of the heavy wooden box onto the area rug. Behind them the fire in the grate mumbled and popped as though sensing something flammable nearby.

Gabri and Olivier joined them on the floor and Professor Rosenblatt sat on the sofa as they divvied up the pile.

"Carefully," said Gamache. "No panic, look at everything carefully. The plans might appear to be something else. Examine a piece of paper, then set it aside, then take the next-"

But they were already racing through the great mound of papers.

The phone rang and Olivier got up to answer it.

"It's for you." He held the receiver out to Jean-Guy.

"Take a message."

"The message is 'f.u.c.k you,'" said Olivier, returning to the hunt. "I think you can guess who that was. She wants the two of you to share a Lysol."

After a minute or so, Gamache looked at Beauvoir. "I think you should go see her."