The Madness of Crowds
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #17
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781250145284
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Madness of Crowds». Краткое содержание книги:
You're a coward.
Time and again, as the New Year approaches, that charge is leveled against Armand Gamache.
It starts innocently enough.
While the residents of the Québec village of Three Pines take advantage of the deep snow to ski and toboggan, to drink hot chocolate in the bistro and share meals together, the Chief Inspector finds his holiday with his family interrupted by a simple request.
He's asked to provide security for what promises to be a non-event. A visiting professor of statistics will be giving a lecture at the nearby university.
While he is perplexed as to why the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec would be assigned this task, it sounds easy enough. That is, until Gamache starts looking into Professor Abigail Robinson and discovers an agenda so repulsive he begs the university to cancel the lecture.
They refuse, citing academic freedom, and accuse Gamache of censorship and intellectual cowardice. Before long, Professor Robinson's views start seeping into conversations. Spreading and infecting. So that truth and fact, reality and delusion, are so confused it's near impossible to tell them apart.
Discussions become debates, debates become arguments, which turn into fights. As sides are declared, a madness takes hold.
Abigail Robinson promises that if they follow her, ça va bien aller. All will be well. But not, Gamache and his team know, for everyone.
When a murder is committed, it falls to Armand Gamache, his second-in-command Jean-Guy Beauvoir, and their team to investigate the crime as well as this extraordinary popular delusion.
And the madness of crowds.
Dr. Landers decided there were better ways, better places, happier people to spend her life with. So she’d submitted her resignation, cleared her case files, sold her home, packed her car, and one spring morning she’d turned south.
Her goal was to keep driving until she finally, Ulysses-like, found a community where the people did not know what an ice scraper was. But, losing her way after only an hour of driving, she crested a hill and found a tiny village in a valley. It wasn’t on her map. In fact, her GPS was warning her she was in the middle of a meadow, in the middle of nowhere.
But it was wrong. She was somewhere.
From the top of the hill she could see fieldstone homes, clapboard cottages, and brick shops surrounding a village green. Perennial gardens were in their first blush. There were peonies and huge purple lilac bushes. Banks of lupins grew wild down the slope.
Three massive pine trees stood in the center of the village.
She drove down and parked in front of the shops. Getting out, she took a deep breath of fresh air and fresh baking. Going into the bistro to ask for directions, Myrna Landers sat down, ordered a café au lait and a fresh, crispy, warm amandine. And pretty much never left.
She rented the shop next door, opened a new and used bookstore, and moved into the loft above.
Armand suspected the other glass of red wine he could see Myrna carrying was for her best friend, the artist Clara Morrow.
“D’accord,” he said to Jean-Guy. “The bistro it is.”
As he put on his parka and boots, he wondered why Jean-Guy wanted to leave when the home was warm, and private. But as they walked across to the bistro, he understood.
Home was home. A safe, almost sacred place.
Jean-Guy did not want to sully it with what was about to be said. And once again Armand was reminded of how much he admired and respected Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
Which made what was about to happen all the worse.
CHAPTER 8
Clara looked up as the door opened and a gust of cold air blew in, bringing with it Armand and Jean-Guy.
A pretzel she’d absently stuck in her hair, thinking it was a pencil, fell to the old pine floor. Stooping to pick it up, she popped it in her mouth and wondered just how many pencils she might have eaten, mistaking them for pretzels. Since it didn’t bear thinking of, she stopped.
“Huh,” said Myrna, also turning to look. “Didn’t expect to see them.”
She began to rock her large body out of the deep sofa. But stopped when she saw Armand’s face.
Beside her on the sofa Rosa the duck muttered, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” and also looked surprised. But then ducks often did.
“Who’s that?” asked the woman in the armchair closest to the fire. Unused to winter, she wore layers of itchy wool under her flowing fuchsia caftan. A wool scarf around her neck met the hijab covering her head, framing her lined face.
Though only in her early twenties, Haniya Daoud looked much older.
Her lips were thin in displeasure. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“Cops,” said Ruth Zardo. “Sûreté du Québec. Brutal. Especially to people of color, as Myrna knows. Probably heard you were here.” She looked around. “Too late to run.”
“For chrissake, Ruth,” snapped Myrna. She turned to Haniya. “It’s not true.”
But it was too late. The newcomer was gripping Ruth’s thin arm. “Save me. I know what police do to people like me. You have to help me.” Her voice had risen in panic. “Please. I’m begging you.”
Ruth, seeing what she’d created, was desperately trying to walk it back. “No. No, no, no” was all she could get out.
Haniya started to wail and rock back and forth. Rosa let out a mighty “Fuuuuuuck.”
Only when Myrna started to laugh did Ruth get it. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Haniya. “Are you messing with me?”
“And why would I do that?” the young woman said, perfectly composed now and smiling.
But there was a sharp glint in her eye, which Myrna the psychologist and Clara the artist both recognized. It wasn’t amusement, it was malice.
Armand and Jean-Guy had taken off their coats and were making their way across the bistro, with its wooden beams and wide-plank floor. Huge fieldstone fireplaces on either end were lit and throwing warmth.
Neither man acknowledged their friends and neighbors. They kept their eyes forward and kept walking.
A hush had descended. Everyone in the bistro knew what had happened at the University that afternoon. Ruth gave them her usual greeting, but they ignored the raised finger.
Jean-Guy in particular looked grim.
Armand passed any number of places before choosing a small round table far from everyone else.
He pointed, indicating Jean-Guy should sit at the far seat. The one in the corner. Jean-Guy wondered if that was on purpose. Like a naughty child.
Very little of what the Chief Inspector did was without purpose.
As he squeezed in, Jean-Guy glanced at the group by the fireplace. How he wished they were headed there. To sit by the fire and talk about a day that had been uneventful. To hear how many books Ruth had stolen from Myrna, claiming to believe her bookstore was a library. To hear about Clara’s latest painting and watch crumbs drop from her hair as she moved her expressive hands through it.
To exchange insults with the crazy old poet, and pretend not to hear the mutterings of that odd duck. To be joined by Olivier and Gabri, at the end of their day running the bistro, and pretend not to be interested in gossip about who’d be at the New Year’s Eve party the next night, up at the big house on the hill.
As they’d walked over to their table, he’d noticed there was someone else sitting by the fire. Someone he didn’t recognize. An older woman in a hijab.
And it came to Jean-Guy who this must be. Myrna had said she’d be picking her up in Montréal that evening. There was much excitement in the village about the arrival of Haniya Daoud. A woman who’d endured so much. Survived so much. Spoken at the UN. Led a movement for social justice. Led so many others to freedom. Was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Myrna Landers, with the support of others in Three Pines, had been among the first to answer Haniya Daoud’s call for help. A human rights campaign was launched, in a corner of the world few seemed to know about and fewer still seemed to care about.
Madame Daoud was in Canada to thank Myrna and others for their support.
Now Jean-Guy wondered, in passing, if she’d be at the New Year’s Eve party. Did people like that go to parties, or was it too frivolous?
He also wondered if he’d be going, or still be stuck in the corner.
All this flashed through his mind as he sucked in his stomach, whose size was beginning to surprise him, and maneuvered into the seat.
“What will you have?” Armand asked.
“I’ll get it,” said Jean-Guy, struggling to stand up again.
“Sit. I will. What do you want?”
As Armand spoke, Olivier was making his way across the room to their table.
The bistro owner was smiling. Not fully, but warmly. Like everyone else, he’d heard what had happened. Seen the reports on the internet and television.
“Armand,” he said, and put a hand on his arm. “All right?”
Armand smiled thinly and nodded. “Fine.”
“I believe it. You?” he asked Jean-Guy.
“Okay.”
Olivier studied them for a moment, and while wanting to say something that would help, he could see that whatever was wrong, it was beyond his ability to fashion comfort into words.
So he offered what he could. “We have some lemon meringue pie going begging.”