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.
Viau considered, then nodded. “Yes, I guess so.”
Lacoste and Beauvoir looked at each other.
“Do most people who rent this place see it first?” Beauvoir asked.
“I’d say almost all.”
“Then who from Professor Robinson’s group toured it? And when?”
Viau’s brows drew together. “They didn’t. At least not as far as I know.”
“How did they know about this place?” asked Beauvoir. “And who rented it for her?”
Gamache could see the old gymnasium building from the President’s office.
He returned his gaze from the window back to President Pascal and Chancellor Roberge.
He’d gone through what had happened the day before. Step by step. A report. Facts.
“What’s the most likely scenario?” President Pascal asked.
“At this stage, I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” asked the Chancellor.
Gamache remained silent.
“Basically, Chief Inspector, you’re saying you’re considering every option,” said the President.
“Except space aliens, yes.”
“Including that Professor Robinson herself orchestrated it,” said Pascal.
“That’s one scenario, oui.”
“That sounds like one small step up from space aliens,” said the Chancellor, with a weary smile. This had not been her, or anyone’s, favorite twenty-four hours. “Sounds to me like a spurious correlation. Connecting things that don’t actually go together.”
“We need to look at everything, no matter how unlikely,” Gamache reiterated. Though the more he thought about it, the more Professor Robinson orchestrating an attempt on her own life seemed unlikely. Too many variables. Too many things could go wrong.
As a statistician, she would know that. Would she take the risk?
He doubted it.
“How did the gun get into the place?” asked the President. “I’m assuming he didn’t walk in with it.”
“No. It must’ve been hidden there before the event.” He decided not to tell them that they believed Tardif had an accomplice.
Gamache looked at the President with some sympathy.
Otto Pascal led a small, even sleepy university, and had woken up this morning to chaos. The campus was overrun with police, with journalists from around Québec, soon from around the country and even the world.
The Administration must, by now, be fielding awkward questions from frightened parents. Wondering if their children should return. And not just because of the shooting.
All the journalists, and many of the parents, would be asking how any academic institution could possibly allow a talk by Abigail Robinson, a person many, most, considered a lunatic.
President Pascal looked longingly at his desk, where the latest photos from a find in the Valley of the Kings was awaiting his interpretation.
Otto Pascal had come up with his theory on hieroglyphic fiction in his postdoc work, only because no one else had thought of it. Then he’d spent the last four decades slowly realizing why that was.
Still, it had gotten him some notice. Granted, not as much as his roommate, who had, as a joke and, given this conversation, somewhat ironically, decided to declare that the hieroglyphs, and the pyramids themselves, were the work of ancient aliens.
It pissed Pascal off. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Now he was stuck with the dumb literature theory.
“Mr. President?”
“What?”
The senior Sûreté officer was nodding toward the window.
Through it, President Pascal could see the offending gymnasium. A carbuncle of a building if there ever was one.
“You have a good view of the site,” said Gamache. “I don’t suppose you saw anything in the last week?”
“Me? No. I haven’t been in.”
Gamache noticed Pascal’s quick glance at his desk and took a step over. On it were printouts dated two days earlier.
Pascal noticed him noticing. “Well, only to get those. I took them home, then brought them back here when I realized I’d have to spend most of today putting out fires.”
He looked at Gamache as though he’d personally put a match to the University.
Gamache fought the impulse to point out he’d asked, begged, both the President and the Chancellor to cancel the event.
His phone vibrated and he glanced at the message from Beauvoir.
“We need to know,” he said, replacing his phone in his pocket, “who rented the auditorium for Professor Robinson.”
“The Administration offices are closed for the holidays,” said President Pascal.
Gamache raised his brows. “I think maybe whoever’s in charge can come in, don’t you? It shouldn’t take long. I’d hate to have to get a warrant.”
“No need for that,” said the President. “I’ll make sure you get the information you need within the hour.”
“Bon, merci,” said Gamache. “If there are no further questions…”
“I just wish you’d canceled the event, Armand, after we spoke,” said President Pascal as they walked him to the door. “Still, I’m grateful to you for what you and your people did.”
Gamache caught Colette Roberge’s smile of sympathy.
“I think I can get you the information you need,” she said. “My office is in the Administration Building. I have the key.”
CHAPTER 12
Gamache looked around the room, then at Colette Roberge.
“This’s your office?”
“Oui. I’d ask you to sit, but—”
There was nowhere to sit except at the very old, stained swivel chair behind the desk that looked like it had been salvaged from a dumpster.
Gamache had seen holding cells larger and more inviting.
“They didn’t expect the Chancellor to actually do much work,” she said, leaning against the desk strewn with papers.
“They obviously didn’t know what they were getting when they appointed you.” His expression grew serious. “Why’re we here, Colette?”
“To get you the event booking form you asked for.”
“That could be scanned to me. By someone other than the Chancellor.”
“True.”
He waited.
“I think you can guess.”
“I think I don’t want to.”
She nodded, then reached for a drawer in her desk. “I can give you the booking request and receipt of payment for the gym right now. I don’t have to look it up.”
She brought a slip of paper from the drawer but didn’t yet hand it to him.
“Abby called just before Christmas.”
“You didn’t tell me this before.”
“No. But I’m telling you now. It wasn’t unusual. Like most people who don’t know each other well but want to stay in touch, we connected at Christmas. She’d sent me the paper she’d prepared for the Royal Commission and I’d been following the controversy. She said she’d like to come visit.”
“But they’re not staying with you. They’re at the Manoir Bellechasse, aren’t they? I have agents there in case there’s more trouble.”
“My place was already packed with houseguests, as you saw, so we couldn’t put them up. But…”
“Yes?”
“We spoke on the phone last night. She and Debbie were so shaken I invited them to come to us today. The kids can sleep on the sofas in the basement.”
Gamache’s mind moved quickly. This was probably a good thing. Easier to protect a private home than a hotel.
“When she called and said she wanted to visit, did she say why?”
Now Colette smiled. “I’d assumed she wanted my wisdom, my advice. But seems not. She hasn’t asked for it.”
“Did she mention doing an event while she was here?”
“No. None was planned.”