The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,69
last thing he’d say.
Reine-Marie.
She’d been the vessel into which he’d poured his final feelings, his eyes pleading with her to understand.
And she did.
Reine-Marie.
She’d held his hand tightly. It was covered in his own blood and that of others. And it mingled with the blood on her hands. Her own, and others.
And now catching killers was in their blood.
Chief Inspector Gamache hadn’t died. And he’d continued to lead them for many investigations. Until the time had come to come here.
He’d done enough. It was someone else’s turn.
Hers.
“You and Madame Gamache seem happy here.”
“We are. Happier than I ever thought possible.”
“But are you content?” Isabelle probed.
Gamache smiled again. How different she was from Jean-Guy, who’d come right out and demanded, “Are you going to stay here doing nothing, or what, patron?”
He’d tried to explain to Jean-Guy that stillness wasn’t nothing. But the taut younger man just didn’t understand. And neither would he have, Gamache knew, in his thirties. But in his fifties Armand Gamache knew that sitting still was far more difficult, and frightening, than running around.
No, this wasn’t nothing. But the time was coming when this stillness would allow him to know what to do. Next.
What next?
“Please take the Superintendent’s position, patron. There’s a lot left to do at the Sûreté. A mess still to clean up. And you saw those two recent recruits. The new agents have no discipline, no pride in the service.”
“I did notice that.”
“If those are the ones coming up through the ranks, we’ll be back where we started within ten years.” She turned to fully face him. “Please, take the job.”
He looked down at the village.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said, almost under his breath.
She followed his gaze and looked at the cottages, the gardens, the three soaring evergreens on the village green. And she knew those weren’t what made this village so attractive.
Gabri came out of the bistro and headed to the B and B. He spotted them on the ridge and waved. Sarah stood at the door of her boulangerie and flapped a towel embedded with flour. They could see movement through the window of Myrna’s New and Used Bookstore.
Isabelle suddenly felt horrible, for making him feel this shouldn’t be enough.
Gamache lifted his gaze from the village to the rolling mountains covered in a forest that had taken root thousands of years ago. The brilliant autumn leaves interspersed with pines.
“Look at it,” he said, shaking his head slightly, almost in disbelief. “I sometimes sit here and imagine the wildlife, the lives, going on in that forest. I try to imagine what it must’ve been like for the Abenaki, before the Europeans came. Or for the first explorers. Were they amazed by it? Or was it just an obstacle?”
He spent a moment imagining himself an early explorer.
He’d have been amazed. He was even now.
“Not surprising the gun wasn’t found,” he said. “Even if you knew it was there, and were looking for it, you’d probably never find it. You could walk within a foot of the thing and still miss it.”
Isabelle Lacoste stared across the village to the vast forest.
“What’s shocking is that it was found at all,” he said.
“What’s shocking is that it’s there,” said Lacoste, and saw him nod.
“After you left this morning I asked Professor Rosenblatt about that.”
He told her about the two theories put forward by the scientist. That the Supergun was either a display model to show potential buyers, or it was placed deliberately to hit targets in the United States.
“But either way, why here?” she asked. “Why not the forests of New Brunswick or Nova Scotia? Or somewhere else in Québec along the U.S. border? Why here?”
She pointed to the ground.
Armand Gamache had been sitting there wondering the same thing. Someone had planned this, probably for a very long time. And then placed it. Carefully. Intentionally. Here.
“Three Pines isn’t on any map,” he said. “That would be an advantage when trying to hide something, but at the same time the village would provide services and workers when needed.”
“Except according to all our interviews, no local worked on the site,” she said.
“No one willing to admit it.”
“Oui,” said Lacoste.
Armand Gamache returned his gaze to the forest. He wasn’t sitting there with Henri simply marveling at the wildlife it contained. He was also scanning it. For new growth among the old. For holes in the canopy.
For evidence of one reference in the redacted notes the censors had failed to find. And black out.
“Professor Rosenblatt read the notes Reine-Marie printed out,” said Gamache.