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.
“Actually, not that far.” She kissed him back and heard him whisper, “Don’t react.”
She kept the smile on her face and tried not to betray any confusion.
He stepped aside and revealed Claude Dussault.
“Claude,” she said.
But she was confused. What had Armand meant? Was she not supposed to recognize this man she knew well?
Had seen the night before in the hospital?
But as the Prefect bent to kiss her on both cheeks, with an exaggerated politesse that had become a joke between them, she understood.
She tried not to react, but she feared she might have, momentarily, given it away. In the slight widening of her eyes. In surprise.
She was pleased to see Jean-Guy and focused her surprise on him.
Everyone got settled in the banquette and ordered drinks as Armand brought Reine-Marie up to speed.
She listened, asked a few questions that had no answers, then fell silent.
But her mind was racing. So quickly she actually felt it was spinning. Kicking up dust. Obscuring what should have been clear.
Jean-Guy pointed to her brioche. “Are you…?”
She pushed it toward her son-in-law, who was always, it seemed, ravenous.
“One big question is whether Monsieur Plessner was mistaken for Monsieur Horowitz, or whether the attack on him was deliberate,” said Claude Dussault. “What’ve you got there?”
He gestured toward the box, where Reine-Marie’s hand still rested, protectively.
“Oh, yes,” said Armand. “We wanted to show you.” He looked around and caught the maître d’s eye.
“Jacques.”
“Oui, Monsieur Armand?”
The two men went way back. Jacques had been a busboy when Stephen first brought Armand, at the age of nine, to the Lutetia. They were a decade apart in age, and while they’d known each other for almost half a century, there remained a formality between the two. A good maître d’hôtel was never overly familiar with guests. And Jacques was among the best.
“Is there somewhere we can go to talk privately?”
“Of course. I will find you a room.”
A few minutes later they found themselves in the presidential suite.
“I was expecting some basement storage closet,” said Dussault, looking around with amusement. “You clearly have some pull here, Armand.”
“As do you at the George V.”
Dussault laughed. “I wish. I haven’t been there in years.”
“My mistake. I thought you said you had.”
“No. You’re thinking of the flophouse around the corner from the Quai des Orfèvres.”
“Right. The Gigi V,” said Armand.
As Dussault laughed, Armand caught Reine-Marie’s eyes, with another warning. But he could see it was no longer necessary.
Claude Dussault sat on the deep sofa and, putting the box on his knees, he opened it with all the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.
“Let’s see what we have here. This’s a hospital container, non? Monsieur Horowitz’s belongings. Sealed. You haven’t opened it? But I thought—”
“We opened it,” said Armand. “And resealed it.”
He explained for Dussault and Jean-Guy what had happened at the George V.
“Bon,” said Dussault. “Good thinking. So everything’s in here? Laptop, phone, clothing?”
“Everything that Stephen had on him last night, and that I could find in his study.”
Dussault paused, his hand hanging into the box and a perplexed expression on his slender face. “It’s so strange, that he’d be staying at the hotel. You have no idea why?”
“None.”
Dussault brought out the laptop. “I don’t suppose you know his password for this?”
“No. Nor the phone. Though it’s smashed.”
“The SIM card?” Dussault asked.
“Broken.”
He sighed. “That’s a shame.”
“Oui.”
“What’s this?” Dussault asked.
“Looks like an Allen wrench,” said Reine-Marie.
She’d assembled enough big-box furniture for Daniel and Annie when they’d gone away to university to know an Allen wrench.
“That was on the desk beside the laptop,” said Armand. “I just swept everything into the box.”
“Including these,” said Dussault, holding a few screws in his palm. “All we need is a roll of duct tape and we’ll know more than we want to about the George V.”
“This’s interesting.” Jean-Guy picked up a couple of Canadian nickels. “They’re stuck together.”
“Ha,” said Reine-Marie, reaching for them. “That’s fun. One of them must be magnetized. I used to show Daniel and Annie that trick when they were kids.”
“What trick?”
“Older coins have a high nickel content, which means they can be turned into magnets.”
As she spoke, Jean-Guy tried to pull them apart. “They’re not magnetized, they’re glued. Now why would Stephen have two old nickels glued together?”
“He probably found them on the street and picked them up,” said Armand.
“As a good-luck charm?” asked Dussault.
“You would’ve hoped,” said Armand.
Dussault tossed the soldered coins in the air, caught them, then put them in his pocket. “For luck.”
“Actually, Claude, if they are Stephen’s good-luck charm, I’d like to take them to the hospital. Put them by his bed.”
Most people, Armand knew, had some degree of superstition, and imbued objects and rituals with power. From crucifixes to the Star of David, from a rabbit’s foot to a lucky pair of socks.
This could be Stephen’s. Nickels stuck together. Money he could not spend.
“Of course,” said Dussault, and without hesitation he gave them to Armand. “Selfish of me, to want all the luck.”
He went back to the box and examined the torn and bloody clothing. Armand noticed that he looked for, and found, the hidden pocket. Which held Stephen’s passport. But not his agenda. That was sitting in Armand’s pocket. And would stay there.
Finally, from the bottom of the box, Claude Dussault brought out a publication.
“An annual report. You said he was here for meetings. Could this be one?”
Dussault placed the document on the sofa.
Armand watched as Jean-Guy picked it up. It was for GHS Engineering. Beauvoir’s company.
His face, at first, showed some confusion. That never lasted long with Beauvoir.
“Stephen?” he said quietly. “You?”
Armand was prepared for this, but no less dreading it. He’d known since the attempt on Stephen’s life, since they’d found the annual report on Stephen’s desk, since bringing it with them, since calling Beauvoir into the investigation, that this moment would come.
“What does this mean?” Jean-Guy asked, holding up the document.
There was no mistaking the barely contained anger in his voice.
“It means that Stephen helped find you your job, at my request.”
And there it was.
“You told Stephen to use his influence to get me my job at GHS?”
Armand stood up. “Let’s talk in the bedroom.”
Not waiting for Jean-Guy to agree, Armand walked across the huge living room, down the corridor, and into the farthest bedroom.
A moment later Beauvoir appeared, his lips thin. His eyes hard.
“Close the door, please,” said Armand.
Beauvoir gave it a sharp shove. Creating a bang that got the message across.
“I’m sorry,” said Armand.
Beauvoir opened his hands, indicating Is that it? while remaining mute. Partly because he didn’t know what to say. Partly out of fear of what he would say.
This was a betrayal, on so many levels. To not just do this thing, but to keep it from him.