“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.”
Beauvoir stopped and looked at his father-in-law. “What do you mean?”
“No need to get defensive.” Gamache smiled. “I meant some people keep their darkness inside, and some hide their light. You, mon ami, almost certainly have a croissant in there.”
Jean-Guy laughed and the door opened. It was such a coincidence that for a mad moment Beauvoir wondered if it was cause and effect.
And then they stepped inside the godforsaken place.
CHAPTER 36
Armand Gamache stared at John Fleming.
On the drive there, on the long walk down the institutional-green corridor flanked by heavily armed guards, through the miasma of eye-watering disinfectant and the bangs and clangs and banshee cries, he’d come up with his plan.
Look the man in the eye. Let him know you’re not disgusted, not sickened. Let him know you feel nothing.
He’s just one more item on the to-do list. Another person to be interviewed in a homicide case. Nothing more.
Nothing more.
Nothing more, Gamache had said to himself as he’d taken a seat in the interview room. Jean-Guy positioned himself by the door beside the armed guard, out of Fleming’s sight but where Gamache could see him.
But now that Fleming was sitting across the table, all planning, all questions, all strategy left Gamache. Even that thought swirled and disappeared down a drain.
His mind wasn’t just blank, it was empty. He lowered his gaze from Fleming’s eyes to Fleming’s hands. So white. One flopped over the other.
And then an image crawled out of the drain, and another, of what those pale hands had done. With an effort that actually caused him pain, Gamache looked up.
Would I meet your eyes, and stand,
rooted and speechless,
while the pavement cracked to pieces
and the sky fell down.
All he saw now was the seven-headed beast. Not an etching. Not a metaphor. But the creature John Fleming had created. Armand Gamache knew something that had eluded the court, the cops, Fleming’s prosecutors. Even his own attorneys.
He knew what John Fleming had in mind when he’d committed his crimes. The Whore of Babylon, who brought not simply the end of the world, but eternal damnation.
Gamache took a ragged breath and heard a slight wheeze as the air struggled through his throat.
Across from him, John Fleming’s mouth curved up. Like a blade.
Gamache held Fleming’s calm gaze and conjured Reine-Marie, and their children, and grandchildren, and Henri, and their friends. The chaos of Christmases. Quiet moments by the fireplace. Dancing at Annie and Jean-Guy’s wedding in Three Pines. He called up meals at Clara’s, and drinks in the bistro, and times spent on the bench in the village.
Those muscular memories pushed and shoved and stuffed the others back into their own bedlam. Armand Gamache sat in the sterile room and smelled old garden roses in summer, and heard laughter on the village green. He tasted strong café au lait, and felt the fresh morning mist on his face.
“I’m here,” he said, his voice strong, “to talk to you about Gerald Bull and Project Babylon.”
He was rewarded by a blink. A moment of uncertainty. Of caution.
John Fleming hadn’t been expecting that statement.
“I know you. You were at my trial,” said Fleming. “You just sat and watched. Do you like to watch? Was it fun for you?”
Gamache’s expression didn’t change, but in his peripheral vision he saw Beauvoir stir and he could tell that Fleming sensed it too. A slight reaction. Exactly what he wanted.
It was the first time Gamache had heard his voice. Fleming had not testified at the trial. Armand was surprised by how soft the voice was. There was the hint of a speech impediment. Real? Or manufactured to make him appear more human, even vulnerable?
People instinctively let down their guard when they saw a limp, an illness, a flaw in someone else. Not out of compassion but because it made them feel superior. Stronger. Those people, Gamache knew, did not always last long. It was not a useful instinct.
“What do you want to know?” Fleming asked.
“I want to know how you came to be the project manager.”
“Dr. Bull was looking for someone to coordinate the day-to-day work. Not a scientist. They might be precise, but they’re not good at the big picture. I am.”
“But how did Bull hear about you?” Gamache asked, recognizing that Fleming had only partially answered the question.
“Word gets around.”
“Depending on the circles you move in,” said Gamache. “Who recommended you?”
“It could’ve been any number of happy clients. I worked for an agency that specializes in discretion.”
“Which agency was that?”
“I don’t think you’re listening closely enough. Discretion, remember?”
“Why don’t you want to tell me?” Gamache asked.
“Why do you want to know? Can it possibly matter?”
“I wasn’t so sure before,” said Gamache. “But now I’m beginning to wonder.”
The two men stared at each other.
“Tell me about the Whore of Babylon.”
And now there was a reaction. A thinning of the lips, a narrowing of the eyes. And then the razor smile again.
“I wondered when someone would come asking.” Fleming regarded Gamache as though he was Fleming’s guest and not the other way around.
“And what’s the answer?” Gamache asked.
“Who are you?” Fleming asked.
He hadn’t moved since sitting down. Not a millimeter. His hands, his head, his body remained completely still, like a mannequin. As far as Gamache could tell, he wasn’t even breathing.
There was only that one blink. And the smile. And the soft, flawed voice.
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,” said Gamache conversationally, “Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”