The Nature of the Beast
“You think Rosenblatt’s one of them? A CSIS agent, or something?”
“Or something,” said Gamache.
He did not believe Michael Rosenblatt was himself a killer, though he thought the man might be capable of it. But he did think Rosenblatt knew Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme much better than he pretended.
After all, who called them to Three Pines? Who told them about finding Project Babylon?
Gamache had suggested as much to the retired scientist when they’d parted on the terrasse. And warned him he’d be watching.
“You still think I’m mixed up in this?” Rosenblatt had asked.
“I think you know far more than you’re telling.”
Rosenblatt had studied him closely. “We’re on the same side, Armand. You must believe me.”
“Do you swear it?” Gamache had asked. “On your grandson’s life?”
Professor Rosenblatt had smiled and Gamache heard a small grunt of acknowledgment. “I do.”
But then all amusement disappeared. “You need to know,” said Rosenblatt, “the clock hasn’t stopped. It has simply been reset.”
Armand Gamache had watched him walk away, believing he was looking at the taproot. From which Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme and John Fleming had sprung.
Jean-Guy and Armand strolled in silence around the village green, through the cold, crisp fresh autumn evening.
“Professor Rosenblatt might not have been in any danger when he stepped in front of the gun, but you were, patron.” Beauvoir stopped and turned to face his father-in-law. “Thank you.”
“Not everyone would have burned those plans, mon vieux. It was one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen. And I’m a man who’s seen the Manneken Pis.”
A laugh escaped Beauvoir, and then a smaller, deeper sound before he muffled it.
“You’re a brave man in a brave country, Jean-Guy. A man so remarkable needs to pass that courage on to his children.”
They walked in silence, by choice for Gamache, by necessity for Jean-Guy, who couldn’t yet speak.
“Merci,” he finally said. Then fell silent again.
As they passed the B and B, Armand saw a shadow in a window. An elderly man, preparing for bed. Where he would dream, perhaps, of children and grandchildren and friends. A warm hearth, a good book, quiet conversation. A life that might have been.
* * *
The next morning a dark police van drove up to the Canadian side of the U.S. border crossing at Richford.
A man and a woman in the uniform of the Judge Advocate General’s office in the States stood just on the other side of the barrier, military police at their side.
Waiting.
The van stopped twenty meters short, its engine running. The army officers looked at each other and shifted from foot to foot. Antsy.
The van door slid open and a large, burly man with wild gray hair stepped out. Then he turned and reached out his hand to help an elderly woman from the vehicle. And, after her, a tall elderly man.
They walked on either side of Al Lepage. Their pace measured, their faces solemn. Returning the man. Finishing the deed.
The bar lifted, but just before he crossed, Ruth stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I sent John Fleming to you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know. He terrified me and I wanted to get rid of him. I gave him you to save myself.”
Al Lepage considered Ruth Zardo.
“I could have sent him away too. That’s the difference between us. You saw evil and wanted nothing to do with it. But I invited him in.”
Al looked at the officers waiting for him. Then turned to the man and woman who had saved him once. He shook Monsieur Béliveau’s hand, then looked at Ruth.
“May I?” he asked, and when she nodded, he kissed her on one cheek. “I have no right to ask this, but please look after Evelyn. She knew none of this.”
Then he stepped across the border and became Frederick Lawson once again.
* * *
Before taking Al Lepage across the border that morning, Ruth had something she needed to do.
She picked up Rosa and walked over to Clara’s cottage. Letting herself in, she found Clara where she knew she’d be. Ruth sat on the sprung and lumpy sofa that smelled of banana peels and apple cores and watched Clara at the easel, staring at Peter’s portrait.
“Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair?” said Ruth.
“The line from your poem,” said Clara, turning on the stool to look at Ruth.