The Nature of the Beast
“I think we’ll find it’s the Space Research Corporation,” said Jean-Guy. “Gerald Bull’s company.”
“I think you’re right,” said Gamache. “But why abandon what looked like a perfect site on the top of a hill looking directly into the U.S.? Why move everything here? I’ve asked Reine-Marie to use her archive access and see what she can find out.”
“And I’ll keep looking, if it’s okay with you,” Agent Cohen said, looking at Gamache, then over to Lacoste, then back again, like a confused puppy.
Gamache however was not confused. He looked at Chief Inspector Lacoste, who nodded to Cohen.
“Can your contact at CSIS help?” Beauvoir asked Gamache. “I know you don’t want to press her, but it seems important to know what CSIS really does have on Gerald Bull. The agents clearly knew about Highwater, or suspected.”
But Gamache shook his head. “If Fraser and Delorme are who we suspect, then they’ll be monitoring things very closely. I don’t want them to know that we know.”
“But you asked your contact at CSIS about their work and their real jobs,” said Beauvoir. “Aren’t you worried that Fraser and Delorme will find out about that?” He watched Gamache, then smiled. “I see. You want them to find out that you’ve been asking.”
“I want them to think we’ve been, to once again use Mary Fraser’s word, misdirected. I think the one thing they don’t want us to find out about is that.”
He pointed to his device with the photographs of another Babylon.
Come hell or high water, he thought.
“Hello? Bonjour?”
They heard the voice before they saw the man, though they knew who’d called out. A moment later Professor Rosenblatt appeared around the big red fire truck that shared the space with the homicide unit. He wore a rumpled black raincoat and held a dripping umbrella that he’d furled up.
“Am I interrupting?” he asked, shaking his umbrella. “I can come back.”
“Not at all,” said Lacoste. “We were just finishing.” She got up and walked over to him. “How can I help you?”
“This is so trivial I’m a little embarrassed.” And he looked it. “I was just wondering if I could use one of your computers? My iPhone won’t receive or send messages in the village.”
“No one’s does,” said Beauvoir, joining them. “It’d be relaxing if it wasn’t so infuriating.”
The professor laughed, until his attention was caught by the image on Agent Cohen’s screen.
“Is that—?”
Cohen quickly stepped in front of it.
“Why don’t you use this computer, Professor,” said Lacoste, directing the elderly scientist to a desk across the room. “It’s hooked up but not in use right now. Need to check your email?”
He might have laughed again, but all humor had withered in the face of the fleeting image on Agent Cohen’s computer.
“No, no one really writes to me. I wanted to look up a reference.” He turned to Gamache. “You might know where it’s from.”
“Is it obscure poetry?” asked Beauvoir.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” said Rosenblatt, and saw the alarm on Beauvoir’s face. “Though I don’t think it’s all that obscure. I just can’t place it. The Bible, I think, or Shakespeare. Your friend Ruth Zardo wrote it in her notebook when we were told about that woman’s murder.”
“One of hers, probably,” said Lacoste.
“No, I don’t think so. Something about some rough beast moving toward Jerusalem.”
“It sounds familiar,” said Gamache.
“Oh, we’re in luck,” mumbled Jean-Guy.
“But I don’t think it’s Jerusalem,” said Gamache.
“No, you’re right,” said Rosenblatt. “It was Bethlehem.”
The two men pulled chairs up to the terminal, and while the others investigated murders and massacres, they looked up poetry.
“Any luck finding the plans?” Rosenblatt asked, as they typed in a few words: rough beast, Bethlehem. Then hit search.
“Not so far,” said Gamache. “We found some things belonging to Dr. Couture, but no plans and no firing mechanism.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Would you like to have a look?” Gamache asked, and brought over the box while they waited for the dial-up to download.
Professor Rosenblatt poked through the things without great interest until he came to the Manneken Pis. He picked it up and smiled.