All the Devils Are Here
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #16
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781250145253
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «All the Devils Are Here». Краткое содержание книги:
On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man's life.
When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d'Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art.
It sends them deep into the secrets Armand's godfather has kept for decades.
A gruesome discovery in Stephen's Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized.
Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family.
For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide.
It had become obvious, as they’d moved deeper into the apartment, that a methodical search had turned to panic, had turned into a sort of frenzy.
The back door was ajar, untouched from when Armand had followed the intruder through it less than half an hour earlier.
Once it was clear the killer had been swallowed by the Saturday morning crowd, Armand had joined Reine-Marie and waited for Claude Dussault and the rest of the gendarmes.
When they arrived just minutes later, Reine-Marie had taken the box of Stephen’s things into bar Joséphine, where she was now waiting.
“I’ll show you where he went,” said Armand, opening the back door with a gloved hand. “Let’s go down.”
Just as they stepped into the stairwell, a voice called from the apartment, “Patron?”
“Here, Irena,” said Dussault, stepping back into the kitchen. “What is it?”
Irena Fontaine stood beside the Prefect. As she’d stood beside and slightly behind him for years. Since she was a junior agent.
When Claude Dussault had been promoted to Prefect after the death of his predecessor, he’d elevated her to head the brigade criminelle.
At thirty-eight, she was the youngest to do so. And only the second woman.
From there, when his longtime second-in-command left the Préfecture, Dussault had promoted her to his number two.
And now, once again, she took her natural place beside him. Tall, blond hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, she emanated competence. The sort of person, Gamache thought, you’d want piloting any plane you were flying in.
“The coroner’s here. We’re ready to turn him over.” She looked from the Prefect to his companion.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced you. Commander Irena Fontaine is my second-in-command. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is the head of homicide with the Sûreté du Québec. He’s a friend and trusted colleague.”
They shook hands, and Fontaine said, “Québec?”
The slight condescension in the tone had long since stopped bothering Gamache. Her attitude was, after all, not his problem.
“Oui.”
“What’ve you found?” Dussault asked as they walked back down the corridor.
“Shot twice, once in his back, once in the head. Looks like a robbery. The victim returned home, surprised the intruder, and was shot.”
“And yet,” said Gamache, a step behind, “nothing was taken.”
Fontaine stopped and turned. “How do you know that?”
“You can see. The artwork alone is worth a fortune. The intruder took the time to take it off the walls, even tearing the framing paper, but didn’t then cut the paintings out.”
“He was looking for ready cash, jewelry,” said Fontaine. “The victim’s wallet is missing.”
“A little early to come to that conclusion, surely,” said Gamache. “With all this mess, it could be anywhere. It looks more like a search than a robbery, non?”
While annoyed at being contradicted by this stranger, Irena Fontaine couldn’t quite suppress a smile. The Québécois accent always amused her. It was like talking to a bumpkin.
“Non,” she said. “It looks to me like a robbery. Not everyone, monsieur, wants to wander the streets with oil paintings under their arms, trying to fence them.”
“There’s something I’ve failed to tell you, Irena,” said Dussault. “Monsieur Gamache isn’t here in his professional capacity, though that is helpful.” He gave her a stern look. Of reproach, Gamache wondered, or warning? “He knows the owner of this apartment. He and his wife found the body.”
Fontaine turned more interested eyes on Gamache. “You know the dead man. Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because the victim isn’t the owner of the apartment. I have no idea who the dead man is, but the owner of the apartment is my godfather. Stephen Horowitz.”
“And where is he?”
“In a coma at the Hôtel-Dieu. He was hit by a van last night in an attempt on his life.”
Fontaine’s eyes widened, and she looked at the Prefect. “That’s the case you passed along to me.”
“Yes.”
“And he owns this apartment?”
“Yes,” said Gamache.
“The two attacks have to be connected,” she said. “There can’t be any doubt now about the hit-and-run last night.”
So there had been doubt, thought Gamache. That might explain why the police hadn’t come to Stephen’s apartment themselves. It was one of the first things you’d expect in an attempted homicide investigation.
“I was with him when he was hit,” said Gamache. “It was deliberate.”
“And you’re here now. You found the body,” said Fontaine.
“I did.”
He knew full well what she was getting at. It was, in all honesty, not a surprise. He’d probably be wondering the same thing if the same person showed up at the scene of two separate, but linked, attacks.
Irena Fontaine turned and looked down the hall toward the living room, and the body.
“I wonder if he was murdered by mistake.”
“We were thinking the same thing,” agreed Dussault.
“Someone was obviously trying to kill this Horowitz,” Fontaine continued, speaking directly, and only, to the Prefect. “They came here first, found this man, and shot him, thinking he was Horowitz. When he discovered his mistake, the murderer went in search of his real target.”
“And how did he know where to find him?” asked Armand.
It was a question that was taking on increasing importance in his mind.
“Maybe someone told him,” she said, staring at Gamache. After a moment’s pause she said, “What do you think happened here?”
“First, let me tell you what we found earlier today.”
“No, I asked you a question. What do you think happened?”
He turned to look at her.
Fontaine expected to see a cold, angry glare. Instead, his gaze was calm, thoughtful. Curious even. She was acutely aware she was being assessed.
She assessed him in return.
Mid-fifties, the Prefect’s vintage. Good cut to his clothes. Well-groomed. Distinguished. What struck her were the lines of his face. Not wrinkles. These weren’t made by time, but by events.
There was the deep scar at his temple. And then there were his eyes. Bright, intelligent, thoughtful. Shrewd. And something else.
There was, she felt, a sympathy there. No, not that. Could it be kindness?
Surely not.
Still, there was something compelling about this man. An unmistakable warmth, like embers in a grate on a dreary day.
Irena Fontaine fought the urge to be drawn in. Recognizing that embers could erupt into flame at any moment.
“I think, Commander,” Gamache said, “I can best answer your question by first telling you what we found among Stephen’s things. If you don’t mind.”
“If you insist.”
“Merci. After Stephen was hit, my wife picked up his glasses and a key off the street. She put both in her purse and only remembered them this morning.”
“So?” said Fontaine. “Natural he’d have a key on him.”
“It was to a hotel room. A suite actually, at the George V. We went there and discovered that Stephen had been living at the hotel for the last ten days. He was planning to check out this coming Wednesday.”
Claude Dussault turned to him. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I haven’t had the chance. And it looks like there was someone else staying there,” Armand continued, in the face of Dussault’s glare. “A man who’d just arrived. He hadn’t yet unpacked and wasn’t planning to stay long. He only had a carry-on.”
Fontaine cocked a thumb toward the living room. “That man?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it seems a pretty good bet.”