The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,119
as shocked as you.” Though it was clear she was anything but surprised.
“I was wrong, Armand.” She took his hand and examined it for a moment, playing with the simple gold wedding band. “When you said there was a connection between Fleming and Dr. Bull I dismissed it. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“But never blind trust, ma belle,” he said. “You were right to question. What I said sounded delusional. You weren’t to know how brilliant it actually was.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You’re right, judging by past conclusions.”
Armand looked at Beauvoir, watching them. “I’d better go before he eats both chocolatines.”
“There were also a couple of croissants a few minutes ago,” she said. “You’d better hurry.”
“Can I talk you out of this?” Gamache asked Beauvoir, as he approached the car.
“Why don’t you try, while I drive.”
“All right, Frodo. But just remember, this was your idea.”
Beauvoir drove out of Three Pines, amused that he was Frodo and hoping Gamache was Gandalf and not Samwise.
“Do you think Al Lepage knew about the gun?” Beauvoir asked after a few miles.
“I don’t really know. I’ve been wondering the same thing. I suppose it makes sense not to have a stranger at the site of the Supergun, putting an etching on it. After all the secrecy, would Gerald Bull really do that?”
“Agent Cohen did some research,” said Beauvoir. “There is a type of paper that can be used to transfer a drawing or writing into an etching. He might be telling the truth.”
“Hmmmm” was all Gamache would say.
It was a bright morning and they were driving directly into the sun. Jean-Guy put on his dark glasses, but Gamache preferred to just lower the visor.
“I finished reading the play,” said Beauvoir, looking in the rearview mirror at the satchel sitting on the backseat.
“And?”
“When I forgot who’d written it, I thought it was amazing. I got caught up in the story, in the characters. The rooming house, the landlady, the boarders. Their lives. And I laughed—some of it was so funny I thought I’d pee. And then I hated myself.”
“Why?”
“Because John Fleming wrote it,” said Beauvoir. “And when I was laughing, part of me wondered if maybe he wasn’t so bad. Maybe he’d changed.”
He shot a glance at Gamache and saw him nod.
“You too?” he asked.
The nodding stopped.
“No. But I know more about him.”
“Then why were you nodding?”
“Because that’s what Fleming does, what he wants. He tunnels out of his cell through other people’s minds. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to go alone today.”
“Because you’re immune, patron?”
“No, I’m as susceptible as you, but at least there’d only be one of us with Fleming in our heads. And for me, well, he’s already there. The damage is done.”
“But it could get worse,” he said. “And that’s why I’m here.”
After a couple of hours’ drive, the walls of the penitentiary could be seen rising out of the landscape in the middle of barren ground. The forest had been clear-cut. The ground was leveled and shaved. Any man who escaped would be seen and stopped before he reached civilization.
But no one had ever escaped from here. It was impossible to break out without help from the outside, and no one on the outside wanted any of these men back.
If there were zombies in this world, they lived behind those walls. Men who, in another day and age, would have been executed for their crimes. The mass murderers, the serial killers, the psychopaths, the criminally insane, all made their home here. They lived a demi-existence, waiting for death. Ironically, many of them waited a very, very long time for the grim reaper.
Beauvoir parked the car and they sat there a moment, contemplating the bleak walls, and guard towers, and the one tiny door. It looked like a hole.
“Adam Cohen worked here?” asked Beauvoir.
“Oui. It’s where we first met.”
Jean-Guy had not been overly impressed with Agent Cohen, but he knew Chief Inspector Gamache had taken a liking to him. And now he understood why. Anyone who could work here and keep any humanity, never mind the near naïveté that Cohen displayed, deserved respect.
“He must have hidden depths,” said Jean-Guy, getting out of the car.
“He does,” said Armand. “And I suspect every man in here does too. The question is, what are they hiding so deep down?”
“And Agent Cohen?” asked Beauvoir, as they neared the odd little door. “What’s he hiding?”
“I’m not sure yet,” said Gamache. “I’m still trying to figure out what you’re hiding.”