The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,123
Gamache wished them back. But it was too late. He’d been wandering in the dark and now he’d walked off a cliff.
His only hope had been in keeping Fleming guessing, making him believe he knew more than he did. Was one of “them.” But with that question he’d given himself away.
The guard backed up against the door, and Beauvoir’s face went white. Gamache felt himself shoved in the chest by the force of Fleming’s personality. The back of the chair stopped him. Had it not, he had the overwhelming impression he’d have fallen, fallen. Straight to hell.
Armand Gamache had been in the presence of malevolence before. Wretched men and women who’d tried to exorcise their demons by placating them. Feeding them terrible crimes. But of course it only made them more monstrous.
But this was different. If Project Babylon had a flesh and blood equivalent, it was John Fleming. A weapon of mass destruction. Without thought, or conscience.
“Who are you?” Fleming demanded.
His gaze traveled over Gamache, taking in his face, his throat, his chest. His hair, his clothing, his hands. His wedding ring. “You’re not a cop. They have to identify themselves. Not a journalist. A professor writing a book on me perhaps? But no. Your interest isn’t academic, is it?” His eyes bored into Gamache. “It’s personal.”
Fleming sat back, and Gamache knew that he’d lost.
But it wasn’t over yet. Not for John Fleming. His fun had just begun. Fleming tilted his head to one side, coquettishly. It was grotesque.
“You got in here, so you must have some pull.” He looked around before his eyes zipped back to Gamache. Studying him, like a butterfly pinned to cardboard. “You’re older, but not old enough to be retired.”
Fleming’s gaze shifted to Gamache’s temple.
“Nasty scar. Recent, but not immediate. And yet, you look healthy. Hearty even. Grain-fed. Free-range.”
He was toying with him, prodding him, but Gamache wasn’t responding.
“Your physical health wasn’t the issue, was it?” asked Fleming, leaning forward. “It’s emotional. You couldn’t take it. You’re broken. Something happened and you weren’t strong enough. You let down people who were depending on you. And then you ran away and hid, like a child. Probably in that village. What was its name?”
“Three Pines.” Fleming smiled. “Nice place. Pretty place. It was a kind of rock, with time moving around it, but not through it. It wasn’t really of this world. Is that where you live? Is that why you’re here? Because the Whore of Babylon was disturbing your hiding place? Marring Paradise?” Fleming paused. “I remember there was a woman who sat on her porch and said she was a poet. She’s lucky so many words rhyme with fuck.”
He didn’t just remember Three Pines, every detail seemed etched in his memory.
“I’m not the only prisoner in this room, am I?” Fleming asked. “You’re trapped in that village. You’re a middle-aged man waiting out his days. Do you lie awake at night, wondering what’s next? Are your friends growing bored with you? Do your former colleagues tolerate you, but cluck behind your back? Is your wife losing respect for you, as you grip the bars and look at her through the prison of your days? Or have you dragged her into the cell with you?”
John Fleming was looking at him. Triumphant. He’d filleted Gamache after all. Eviscerated him. The man lay gutted before Fleming. And both knew it.
Fleming throbbed, emitting malevolence on a scale Gamache had never known before.
“Mary Fraser,” Gamache said, his voice low.
He felt a slight hesitation in the force of personality across from him, and he used it to push forward.
“She’s in Three Pines,” said Gamache. “Along with Delorme.”
He thrust the words at Fleming, then followed them with his body. Ignoring the throbbing in his head, he stood up and leaned forward, hands splayed on the cold metal table, only stopping when his face was within an inch of Fleming’s.
Fleming also stood and closed the tiny gap between them, so that his nose was actually touching Gamache’s. His fetid breath was in Gamache’s mouth in a mockery of intimacy.
“I don’t care,” Fleming whispered.
But what Fleming had done was confirm he knew who they were. Up until that moment it had been a guess on Gamache’s part.
“They know everything,” said Gamache.
“Now that’s not true,” said Fleming, and while Gamache was too close to see the smile, he felt it. “Or you wouldn’t be here. You might have the gun, but you haven’t found what really matters. What only