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.
Jostled and shoved by impatient guests, Armand stood his ground and contemplated the ancient symbol of Paris before it was Paris.
Jacques had quoted the Latin motto. Fluctuat nec mergitur.
Beaten by the waves, but never sinks.
For the first time, despite seeing it for decades, Armand realized the mosaic looked like a scene from The Tempest. Shakespeare’s play opened with a terrible storm, and a ship in peril.
As a young man leaped from a sinking ship to almost certain death, he screamed, “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”
Armand raised his head and looked around.
Here, here? In the Hôtel Lutetia?
CHAPTER 14
Beauvoir sat on the Paris métro as it rumbled out of the center of the city to the area known as La Défense, where he worked.
The district sounded more romantic than it actually was.
When Jean-Guy heard that’s where he’d be working, he’d been excited. The very name, La Défense, conjured childhood images of chivalry. Of bold and brave deeds. Of towers erected to defend the City of Light.
There were indeed towers in La Défense. Incredible numbers of them. But they wouldn’t repel a rock, never mind an army. They were made of glass.
There was barely a tree, barely any grass to be seen. Just concrete. And glass. With helicopters droning overhead, ferrying presidents and CEOs to important meetings.
Beauvoir wondered if their feet ever actually touched the ground.
It was a place of industry, of finance, of unimaginable wealth.
Of inconceivable power.
And that, he suspected as the train approached his stop, was what they were defending.
As he got off, he looked around.
This man, born and raised in inner-city Montréal, was beginning to yearn for a tree. Or two. Or maybe even three.
Reine-Marie parted with Armand at the Quai des Orfèvres, but not before giving him the paper bag with her purchase from Le Bon Marché.
While she went home to take a long, long, hot, hot shower, he approached the old building overlooking the Seine.
The 36, as it was known, had once been the bustling headquarters of the Paris police. How many cops, how many criminals, had walked through that archway?
Most of the operations had been moved to more modern facilities, leaving just the BRI. The Brigade de recherche et d’intervention. The serious crimes squad.
It was also where the Prefect chose to have his main office.
As Gamache approached the door, his phone vibrated.
Before he even had a chance to bring it to his ear, he heard a gravelly voice say, “Is it Mr. Horowitz? Has something happened?”
It was Agnes McGillicuddy.
“He’s alive, but he was hit by a van last night.”
“Is he all right?”
He could hear the fear, and delusion, in that question.
How could a ninety-year-old man be all right after that?
“He’s in a coma,” Armand went on. His voice gentle. Though he knew nothing could soften the blow he was about to deliver to an eighty-year-old woman who also loved Stephen. “He might not recover.”
As he spoke, Armand walked away from the 36, down the stone ramp to the walkway along the Seine.
“How could you let this happen?” Mrs. McGillicuddy demanded.
Armand opened and closed his mouth. Surprised by the accusation and trying to work out an answer. Should he have, could he have, prevented it?
“I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say. “I didn’t see it coming. Mrs. McGillicuddy, do you know why Stephen was in Paris?”
“To see you, of course. And because of the baby. He wants to be there to support you all.”
“He isn’t here just for that. Stephen’s also in Paris for a board meeting.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“We found the annual report on his desk. For the engineering company GHS. It’s in his agenda.”
“Not in the one I have.”
“His personal agenda.”
“Mr. Horowitz isn’t on any boards anymore. He gave them all up.”
“Why?”
“Most corporations have bylaws saying board members must step down at a certain age. Mr. Horowitz passed all those ages. And then some.”
Bikers pedaled by. Kids on scooters passed. Pedestrians walking dogs glanced at the man staring into the river.
“Why would he have the annual report then?”
“He liked reading annual reports, like others like reading celebrity magazines.”
“Was he ever on the board of GHS Engineering?”
“No.”
“Does he own shares in the company?”
“I’d have to check.” He heard clicking as she looked it up on her laptop. “No. It’s privately owned. Not publicly traded on the stock exchange.”
“Did he ever talk about Luxembourg?”
“Luxembourg? The country? Or is it a city-state? Why would he talk about that?”
Armand sighed. “I don’t know.”
There was a pause before she spoke again, softly, almost gently. “You think this was no accident, don’t you, Armand?”
He hesitated. Considering.
Stephen Horowitz had trusted Agnes McGillicuddy with his business and personal life for decades. If anyone knew his secrets, it would be her.
If Stephen trusted her, so could he.
“I’m certain of it. Stephen knew something. We need to find out what it was. He never gave you anything, any documents, for safekeeping?”
“No.”
No, thought Armand. Even as he asked the question, he had known that Stephen would never drag her into this. Just as he hadn’t mentioned it to him, or Jean-Guy, or anyone else.
Except Monsieur Plessner, and he was dead. Confirming Stephen’s worst fears, and his need for extreme caution.
“And you have no reason to suspect he’d found something out, something extremely damaging, about a corporation?”
“No, and he’d normally crow to me if he had. He loved having a secret, and loved nothing better than knowing the shit was about to hit the fan.” She hesitated before going on. “If he didn’t tell me, that means it must be really bad. And they tried to kill him to stop him?”
“I think so. You have his business agenda?”
“I do. What do you want to know?”
“What he was doing between September eleventh and the twenty-first.”
“I don’t see anything here. But he must’ve been spending time with you.”
“Reine-Marie and I only arrived in Paris yesterday.”
There was a pause and then she said, “Oh.”
“So you have no idea what he was doing in those ten days?”
“No.” Now she was clearly confused. Something new for Mrs. McGillicuddy. “I didn’t book anything for him. No dinner reservations. No theater or opera tickets. And I don’t have the meeting next week. He might’ve made that plan since arriving in Paris.”
“Did you make a reservation for him at the George V?”
“No. I just told you. No dinner reservations.”
“Not at the restaurant. For a suite.”
“A suite? At the George V? Have you lost your mind?”
Well, that answered that, thought Gamache. He began to pace back and forth along the riverfront as they talked.
The great medieval buildings of île de la Cité rose behind him, while across the Seine he saw the Rive Gauche. The historic home of artists and writers.
Over the centuries, people looking out of those windows had seen far more shocking things than a man walking back and forth along the riverfront.
They’d have witnessed the Terror, for instance.
This was more like watching the Agitation.
Though if they could see his thoughts, his feelings, they’d have drawn the curtains and locked their doors.