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.
“Oui, Canadian citizen, probably living in Toronto.”
“Did Monsieur Horowitz meet anyone here in the last ten days?” Gamache asked.
“Ten days? I assumed he’d just arrived.”
Armand brought up a photo on his phone. “Does this man look familiar?”
It was a close-up of Plessner’s face. He appeared asleep. Except for the pallor.
“Is he dead? He looks dead.”
“Please, just tell me if he’s been here recently, or ever. Do you recognize him?”
“No.”
Armand nodded. “Bon. Merci, Jacques. Oh, what time did Stephen leave yesterday?”
“I’d say just after four.”
“He met us at eight,” said Jean-Guy. “Four hours unaccounted for.”
“For now,” said Armand.
“May I visit him?” Jacques asked.
“I’m afraid not. But I’ll let him know you were asking after him.”
“Yes, please. And can you tell him, Fluctuat nec mergitur?”
“What does it mean?” Jean-Guy asked.
“‘Beaten by the waves,’” said the maître d’. “‘But never sinks.’”
Armand and Jacques stared at each other, then nodded. And went about their jobs. Jacques to command the army of staff in the bar and restaurant, and young Armand to find a murderer.
CHAPTER 13
“May I help you, madame?” a young man asked.
“I’m trying to find a cologne. I smelled it recently but don’t know the name,” Reine-Marie said. “I’m sorry. That’s not much help.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “I love this sort of thing. Now, are you sure it was a man’s cologne and not a woman’s eau de parfum?”
“Absolutely.”
“Bon,” he said. “That helps. We can ignore all those.” He waved toward the archipelago of women’s scents. And then asked the question she’d been dreading. “Can you describe it?”
Short of saying it smelled like a senior police officer, she racked her brain. What were the words she’d used when first trying to imprint it on her brain in those horrific few seconds in front of the corpse?
“Was it earthy?” the salesperson asked, trying to help. “Did it smell like moss or bark? Lots of men’s fragrances do. They think it’s masculine.”
He made a face, and Reine-Marie smiled. She liked this man.
“No. It was lighter than that.”
“Fruity?”
“Non.”
“Citrusy?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Maybe a little woody,” she added, and grimaced to show her uncertainty.
“Okay,” he said.
“With a kind of chemical-y smell?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Telling?” she said.
“It seems we’re looking for a lemon tree made out of plastic. It’s a good thing you’re not trying to sell fragrances, madame.”
Armand pushed his omelette away after one bite. It was moist, with aged Comté cheese and tarragon. Just as he remembered it. Just as he liked it.
But not today.
Adjusting his reading glasses, he leaned over the agenda once more.
Jean-Guy had wolfed down the juicy burger, with the young, runny Gorgonzola, Mont d’Or, and sautéed mushrooms, and was now also reading while absently dipping the herbed frites into mayonnaise.
“Stephen arrived on the eleventh of September,” said Jean-Guy. “Air Canada flight from Montréal. That was ten days ago, just like the manager at the George V told you. So, what’s he been doing?”
The rest of the agenda, from the eleventh to the day before he was hit, was empty. Until the entry about meeting Armand in the garden of the Musée Rodin. Then AFP, which they now knew stood for Alexander Francis Plessner.
Below that, Stephen had written in the dinner with the family. His family, Armand noticed. His family.
Armand brought out his own notebook.
“This’s ridiculous,” said Jean-Guy as he leaned back against the sofa. “Stephen came to Paris for a reason. Why didn’t he write anything down? The rest of the agenda is packed with meetings and notes.”
It was true. They’d been through it once, scanning, and would need to go over it a few more times, carefully. The ten days previous were empty.
But the days going forward were not.
On Monday Stephen was planning to attend an eight a.m. board meeting of GHS Engineering.
“He has a reservation on the Air Canada flight back to Montréal on Wednesday,” said Armand. “But there’s a note beside it.” He leaned closer to read the cramped writing, then smiled. Stephen had written, only if baby has arrived.
Armand sat back and took a deep breath.
Going more slowly through the agenda, they found notes on meetings with an AP, presumably Alexander Plessner, in the past year. And lunches with friends, including Daniel.
But nothing about what he was up to, if anything. And certainly no suggestion of concern on his part.
But then, Stephen was a careful man. He wouldn’t write anything like that in his agenda.
“Do you think the attacks have something to do with the board meeting?” Beauvoir asked.
“The timing is suggestive. We need to get our hands on that annual report, preferably Stephen’s copy. He might’ve made notes in the margin.”
“Dussault has the box. We can ask him.” When there was no answer, Beauvoir looked at his father-in-law. “Do you really suspect the Prefect just because of his cologne?”
Gamache opened his mouth, then shut it. Not sure what to say.
“It’s slightly more than that,” said Gamache. “He said he hadn’t been to the George V in years, but the manager said she’d seen him yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Beauvoir’s brows shot up. “She could be wrong.”
Gamache made a noncommittal guttural sound.
Still, it seemed absurd. Was he going to suspect a friend, a colleague, of murder based on such flimsy evidence? A whiff? And a possible sighting in a crowded hotel?
Was loyalty so fragile?
What he did know about Claude Dussault, and had seen time and again over the years, was that he had both courage and integrity.
But people changed. Sometimes for the better. Often for the worse.
And there was something else.
“The intruder Reine-Marie and I surprised this morning. If he was responsible for the murder, and the attack on Stephen, then he should have killed us. I told Reine-Marie that he wouldn’t. It would cause too much of a mess, but that was a lie. The truth is, once he’d made one body, he wouldn’t hesitate to make two more. And he certainly should have killed me when I was chasing him. It would’ve been easy enough.”
“Yes,” said Beauvoir.
His father-in-law had hit on the one great argument against trusting Claude Dussault.
A stranger would not have hesitated to murder the Gamaches. But a friend…?
“And when I was chasing him down the stairs, I heard a phone ring. It was muffled, but I’m pretty sure it came from the intruder.”
“Yes?” said Beauvoir, not sure how this linked up with the Prefect.
“Reine-Marie would’ve been calling Claude at about that time.”
There it was.
“Maybe we don’t tell the Prefect everything,” said Jean-Guy. “But we do need to get our hands on that annual report.”
“How did Stephen seem to you last night?”
“He was in good spirits. As good as it ever got with Stephen.”
“But not especially giddy,” said Gamache. “Not like a man about to expose some big swindle?”
“Not giddy, no. You’re thinking he found something out about GHS? That’s why he wanted to go to the board meeting?”