“Actually, can you call the SHU?”
Beauvoir’s smile disappeared. “I will.”
By the time Armand returned to Three Pines, it was dark, though there was light in the Old Train Station. Jean-Guy met him at the door to the Incident Room.
“I spoke to the warden of the SHU. All’s well. Everyone accounted for. I also asked about art therapy. He said they stopped it last year when two more inmates were stabbed by sharpened brushes.”
Art Therapy with Psychopaths. Canceled. And none too soon, thought Armand.
“You hungry?”
“You have to ask?” said Jean-Guy. “I’ll call Olivier and order something.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll go over. I need some fresh air.”
He found Fiona, Harriet, and Sam having dinner. He said hello to the women and mentioned to Fiona that Reine-Marie had gone to the Gaspé, to visit a sister.
“If you feel uncomfortable staying in the house without her, I’m sure Gabri can put you up in the B&B.”
“You’re not trying to get rid of her, are you?” said Sam, with a smile.
Armand ignored him. After an awkward silence, Fiona answered.
“No. I trust you and Inspector Beauvoir.”
“Would you like to join us, Chief Inspector?” Sam asked.
Once again, Gamache didn’t even look in his direction. It was as though the chair was empty.
He wanted to believe Jean-Guy, but he also wanted to hedge his bets. If Myrna was right and he ignored Sam, the young psychopath would turn all his attention on him. And leave the others alone.
He walked away, ordered dinner, then took it back to the Old Train Station, feeling Sam’s rage following him every step of the way.
Back in the Incident Room, Armand pulled up a chair and sat beside Jean-Guy. Together they ate their wild mushroom ravioli with sage brown butter, drank iced tea, and stared at the painting.
But nothing new appeared.
Armand woke up in the middle of the night to make sure Reine-Marie’s flight had landed. Then he struggled to get back to sleep. Finally giving up, he dressed, left a note for Jean-Guy, and walked back to the Old Train Station. Henri, Fred, and Gracie plodded sleepily along with him.
Putting the coffee on to perk, he once again pulled up a chair. By now he felt he’d memorized the painting, though he knew that wasn’t close to the truth. It was so detailed. With so many elements hidden in plain sight. It was indeed, as art historians had dubbed it, “A World of Curiosities.”
But this one, theirs, was also, as Dr. Louissaint had said, offensive. There was something aggressive, threatening, about it. He wondered if the real one felt the same way. Reine-Marie would soon find out.
She’d written as soon as they landed, and now there was another message. They were on their way to Norwich. He replied, then settled back with a mug of strong coffee and a chewy oatmeal cookie. And stared at the painting while the dogs, and Gracie, stared at the cookie.
The only light in the room was shining on The Paston Treasure. While the disturbing work was illuminated, Armand himself sat in darkness. In stillness and quiet. The only sounds were the breathing of the dogs at his feet and the slight cries of a dreaming Fred as the puppy chased squirrels.
Armand felt his shoulders drop and his breathing steady as he let the painting come to him. As Clara had taught him.
And then, one by one, he saw them. The people staring out of the painting. At him.
“Armand?”
Gamache jolted, almost falling out of his chair. The now cool coffee spilled on his shirt. The dogs lifted their heads at the disturbance.
“Désolé,” said Jean-Guy. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw the light and found your note.” He stopped in his tracks. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
There was no doubt about it. The Chief looked more than startled. He looked frightened.
“It is him.”
“It can’t be.” Beauvoir walked swiftly over.
Gamache got up and went to the painting, pointing. “Look. Here. Here. There.”
He kept pointing. And Jean-Guy kept counting. With each number he felt the vomit rising, burning, until finally at the seventh he could taste wild mushrooms and sage brown butter in his mouth.
He swallowed hard and saw Armand turn pale. His deep brown eyes wide in near panic.
“It’s not possible.” Jean-Guy’s voice was hoarse from the acid burning his throat. He’d turned from the painting, no longer daring to look, not daring to catch the accusing eyes of the seven figures who stared out at them.
“I called,” he said, feeling his own panic threatening to overwhelm him. “I spoke to the warden. He assured me…”
But he knew the Chief was right.
Armand covered his mouth with his hand and turned back to the canvas. Forcing himself to meet those eyes. To let those faces, those people, come to him. And with them came some rough beast slouching toward him.
“Come on, come on.” Reine-Marie’s voice was soft, coaxing. It was the tone she used for Fred when she needed the old dog to try to climb back up the basement stairs.
Amelia moaned. “Can’t we sleep? Just for a little while. I promise. Not long.”
She’d gotten on the plane excited. She got off exhausted. Who knew transatlantic flights were so long? And boring. And now it was nine in the morning in London but—she checked her watch—four a.m. back home.
She hadn’t slept. Tried. Failed. Had shifted this way. That. And then the person in front had put their seat back. All the way.
Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck.
Beside her, Madame Gamache had read for a while, then closed her eyes. What made it worse was knowing that, in the front of the plane, people had beds. Beds. Beds!
“Puh-leeez,” she begged.
Reine-Marie had arranged for a driver, David Norman, to meet them. The same man she and Armand used every visit.
“You can sleep in the car,” she said as she spotted David waiting just beyond the barrier at Heathrow. “And by the way, you did sleep on the flight.”
“Did not.”
Reine-Marie didn’t argue. She knew that tone from when Annie was a child. She knew it from overtired grandchildren. She also knew Amelia had slept. And had dropped her head onto Reine-Marie’s shoulder. She had the drool marks to prove it.
She waved to David, who came over to greet them and take their carry-ons.
He said hello to Amelia, who just grunted.
“Your daughter?” he asked, trying to make it sound like that would be a good thing.
“A friend.” She didn’t dare tell him the truth.
They got in the car for the almost three-hour drive from Heathrow to the Norwich Castle Museum.
Armand stood in front of the locked and bolted metal door in the basement that housed and guarded and imprisoned his files.
Putting in the code, he unlocked it, first glancing behind him to make sure he was alone.
Once inside, he locked the door behind him and opened the drawer where the Beast of Babylon lived. Buried there. Buried alive.
Armand placed the iron ring on the desk. The engineer’s ring he’d found half buried in the dirt. Then he brought out the file and reread it. Forcing himself to relive the details. To go through the photographs again. Every now and then he got up and stepped away, turning his back on the desk.
Then he walked back, sat down, and went through it all again.
CHAPTER 29
Armand placed the call.
“Special Handling Unit,” said the bored voice.
“This is Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté.”
“Yessir.”
Gamache had the call on speakerphone in the car. He could almost see the fellow sit up straight.