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.
It was the first time Gamache had met him, beyond a brief exchange at the gym.
Here was a fifty-three-year-old man. Large, powerfully built.
“You can take them off,” Gamache said to the agent, pointing to the cuffs around Tardif’s thick wrists. After introducing themselves, Gamache said, “We have some questions for you, sir.”
“Before we start,” said Tardif, “how’re the people taken to hospital?”
His voice was as he looked. Gruff, rough. A kind of growl. But not, Gamache thought, vicious.
“Mostly scrapes and bruises,” said Isabelle. “Shock. One man is still in hospital for observation. A suspected heart attack.”
“I hope he’s all right.”
“If he dies, you’ll be charged with murder,” said Isabelle.
“Manslaughter at most,” said Maître Lacombe.
“Shall we begin?” asked Gamache. “We hope you can clear up some things.”
He looked at Lacoste, who began.
She asked deceptively simple, easy questions to begin with, to get him relaxed. Where he lived, his age, his workplace.
“The forest,” said Monsieur Tardif, in answer to that question.
It was the simple truth, said without sarcasm. Édouard Tardif cut and hauled trees for firewood out of the forest. He did it with his horse, because the woods were too thick for a tractor.
He felled the trees, then together they dragged them out, one by one.
“Ones,” he explained, “that were about to die anyway.”
“You do this alone?” asked Gamache.
“Sometimes with my brother but mostly alone.”
“Dangerous work to do by yourself,” said Lacoste. “Deep in the woods.”
“Well, young people today don’t want to work hard. And I like it by myself. No one to bother me.”
“Or save you.”
Now Tardif looked at Jean-Guy, who’d just spoken. “There’re worse places to die than in the forest. Worse ways.”
“Like being shot or crushed in a crowded auditorium?” asked Beauvoir.
Tardif’s lower teeth gripped his upper lip, drawing it in.
“Monsieur Tardif did not mean to hurt Professor Robinson,” said his lawyer. “It was meant to scare, that’s all.”
“We’re not interviewing you, Maître Lacombe,” said Gamache. “Please let your client answer.” He turned back to Tardif. “I suspect you can speak for yourself. I also think what happened yesterday wasn’t some sudden flight of fancy. What did you intend?”
“I advise you not to answer that,” said Maître Lacombe.
Tardif looked at her, then at the three Sûreté officers. “I learned my trade from an old woodsman named Tony. I was a kid, and only knew maples. And chestnuts. And pines, of course. He taught me that there’re different types of maples, of pines, of oaks and cherry. The weed trees, the hardwoods. The evergreens. The ones that were dying and the ones that could be saved. I learned to listen to people who know more than I do. Why would I have a lawyer and not listen to her? I’ll pass on that question.”
His answer, so well reasoned, so succinctly put into context, surprised even Maître Lacombe.
“What you do in the woods,” said Jean-Guy, “choosing which trees will die soon anyway and cutting them down, that’s gotta be good for the health of the whole forest. The other trees benefit.”
“Sure.”
“So why do you have such trouble with what Professor Robinson is saying? Isn’t it the same thing? The ill, the terminal, sacrificed for the greater good?”
“I guess I have trouble with it because there’s a difference between a tree and a person.”
Maître Lacombe laughed. “Touché.”
“You’re a member of the gun club, an expert shot,” said Isabelle. “You know what guns, what bullets can do. And yet you chose to fire one off, twice, in a crowded hall. You almost caused a riot. Hundreds could’ve been killed, including children.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Bullshit,” said Beauvoir. “You’re clever. You want us to know you’re clever. And now you’re saying you didn’t think of the obvious? You just didn’t care. You didn’t care about those kids. Those elderly men and women. Who’d be killed in the riot? Probably not the young, healthy ones. It would be the vulnerable, the sick, the slower, the weaker. You’re no better than Robinson.”
Beauvoir was all but shouting at the man.
Gamache let it happen, curious to see what Tardif would do.
“I care,” exploded Tardif. “Why do you think I did it.”
“Why?” demanded Beauvoir.
“Don’t answer that,” snapped Tardif’s lawyer, laying a hand on his large arm.
“To save others. To stop her.”
Maître Lacombe moaned and sat back. “There we go.”
“Why?” demanded Beauvoir.
“Wouldn’t you? Do you want her to go killing old people? Kids? What sort of person wouldn’t want to stop her? I knew I’d be caught, and it was worth it. Someone had to do it. Someone had to try.” Now the woodsman glared at Gamache. “But you saved her.”
Those few words contained all the disgust nature had placed in this man. He all but spat at Gamache.
“I did. No one has the right to take another life without permission.” Only a slight flush gave away Gamache’s feelings. “Not Professor Robinson, not the government. And not you, Monsieur Tardif.”
Now it was Tardif’s turn to redden.
“Why were you so far back in the room?” Lacoste asked, her voice matter-of-fact.
“I didn’t expect so many cops. My plan was to be at the front and shoot from there.”
“From there you couldn’t miss,” said Lacoste.
“Don’t,” warned his lawyer.
“But when I saw so many cops, I backed off. I thought if I stood in the middle I could get away.”
“So you did want to get away,” said Beauvoir.
“If I could, yes. I didn’t want to get caught. But I expected to.”
“Who set off the firecrackers?”
“I did.”
There was silence. Until Gamache spoke.
“That’s not true, is it.”
“It is.”
“What was the purpose of the firecrackers?”
“To distract.”
“Really? And yet they had the opposite effect. Everyone was now looking in your direction. Who was your accomplice?” Lacoste asked.
“No one.”
“Someone hid the gun and firecrackers three days before the event,” said Lacoste. It was the first time Tardif looked surprised. Off balance. “While you distracted the caretaker. Who was it?”
Tardif’s face hardened.
“Was it your brother, Alphonse?”
Tardif stared at her, stone-faced.
“He left for the Abitibi the day of the attack. It’s impossible to see that as a mere coincidence.”
“He had nothing to do with what happened. I acted alone.”
“We know that isn’t true.” Her voice grew cold and hard. “Listen, despite what happened, no one was actually killed. If you cooperate, we can move forward and end this. We’ll find out soon enough. You must know that. We’re having your brother picked up. It would be better for you, for him, if you just tell us.”
Édouard Tardif crossed his huge, muscled arms over his chest. Isabelle Lacoste pushed some more, but it was obvious that the interview was over.
“The arraignment’s scheduled for tomorrow,” said Gamache as he walked Maître Lacombe to the front door of the detachment.
“Merci, Armand. I’ll be there.”
“Tell your client to cooperate,” he said. “If there’s a co-conspirator out there, we don’t want him harming Abigail Robinson, or anyone else. If he succeeds, Monsieur Tardif will be charged with murder. And that charge will hold. You know that.”
Maître Lacombe slipped on her gloves and nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”