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.
Minimizing it, he began typing, and up came the file on Luxembourg.
Beauvoir knew that their cybersecurity unit could find out who had accessed which files, and on which terminal.
If anyone wanted to know who was snooping around the Luxembourg dossier, on a Saturday, all they’d see was Séverine Arbour. Not him.
He couldn’t get into her emails, he’d need her password for that, but he could get into the main files and bring up internal reports.
Which is what he did.
He was just about to send it to himself when he stopped. That would be a fatal error. Instead, he hit print.
Out in the main office, over by the wall, a large industrial printer sprang to life.
Now he needed to find the emails between the engineer on-site and the executive overseeing the project. Scanning the file, he found the name of the engineer.
And the name of the executive.
Carole Gossette.
He sat back, staring at the name. Madame Gossette. Head of operations. His boss. His mentor.
Now why would such a senior executive be overseeing such an apparently minor project? Because, he thought, it wasn’t such a minor project after all.
There was a soft ding.
“Merde,” he whispered, his heart leaping in his chest. He recognized that sound.
The elevator door at the end of the hallway opened. Without glancing up, Beauvoir tried to stop the printer, but it wouldn’t be put on pause. Hitting the button several times, Beauvoir eventually gave up and put the screen to sleep.
Across the large open room, the Luxembourg file was still printing out. And the guard was getting closer.
There was no way to get to the printer before the guard arrived. Instead, Jean-Guy quickly left Arbour’s office and ducked into his own, leaving the door open.
In the background, he could hear the large machine making what now sounded like a racket.
And then it stopped, and there was silence just as the guard entered the offices.
“Monsieur Beauvoir,” he said. “I’d heard you were in.”
The man was in his late twenties. Tall and sturdy. Fit.
He stopped just outside Beauvoir’s office. Then he turned toward the printer before returning his gaze to Beauvoir.
“Working?”
In his early days at the company, Jean-Guy had come in on weekends, when it was quiet and he could bumble around without anyone seeing. Never had a guard shown any interest.
So why was this guard here. Now. Very interested.
The look, while disconcerting, wasn’t threatening. He seemed to be puzzled, trying to work something out.
“Oui. Can I help you?” Beauvoir asked, looking up from his laptop, as though interrupted.
“No, sir. I’m just checking.”
“Checking what?”
“To make sure everything’s as it should be.”
“Well, it’s not. I should be outside, playing with my son. Instead I’m here.” He smiled and got up.
“Why are you here, sir?”
Beauvoir had never had a guard ask him that. It wasn’t any of his business. And yet the guard seemed to think it was. And maybe, thought Beauvoir with some unease, it was.
“I have a baby coming any day now. Little girl.” He picked up his mug, and the guard stepped aside to let him pass. “When she’s born, I’ll be on leave. I just need to get some of the crap out of the way before the blessed event.”
He’d remembered that the coffee maker was on the wall farthest from the copier. He walked over there now.
“Coffee?”
“No, sir.”
The guard did as Beauvoir had hoped. He followed him to the espresso machine.
“You have children?” Beauvoir peered at the guard’s nametag. “Monsieur Loiselle?”
“No.”
Not a big talker. Now Loiselle began to turn around.
“I was a cop once, you know,” said Beauvoir, desperate to stop the man from turning completely. And possibly seeing the papers the printer had coughed up. “In Québec, as you can probably hear.” Jean-Guy had intentionally broadened his accent, giving his words a twang. He’d been in Paris long enough to know that they viewed the Québécois as slightly thick country cousins.
While this was insulting and ignorant, he now found it useful.
“Got tired of being shot at,” Jean-Guy continued. “And with a family coming…” He left it at that.
The guard’s stare was now intense. Scrutinizing him. Practically, Jean-Guy felt, dissecting him.
Beauvoir could see past Loiselle, into Arbour’s office. Something was happening. The computer had come back to life, and images were flashing across the screen.
Even from a distance, he could see what it was. Emails. Schematics. Being erased.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck, thought Beauvoir. Shit.
But his face remained placid, and his eyes returned to the guard.
“You don’t happen to know how this works?” he said, pointing to the espresso machine. “Trust them to have something you need an engineering degree to work. All I’ve managed to figure out in five months is how to grind the beans.”
“Sorry. Can’t help,” Loiselle said.
With one final look around, he turned away.
Jean-Guy pretended to play with the machine while watching the guard walk back to the elevator.
Come on, come on. Hurry up.
When the elevator doors opened and finally closed, Beauvoir sprinted across the room, bringing out his phone as he ran. He knew he couldn’t stop the files from being erased, so he did the next best thing.
He recorded the messages as they flashed up and disappeared.
CHAPTER 16
“Merci,” said Gamache when Claude Dussault’s assistant put the espresso in front of him.
“Je vous en prie,” said the young man, and withdrew from the office.
Armand had been in the famed 36 many times, and in this very office quite often. With its grimy old windows, long since painted shut. No doubt with lead-based paints. The coal-burning fireplace thankfully no longer worked. And there was probably asbestos in the ceiling.
It smelled musky, as though there might be dead things mummified in the walls.
The building was damp and chilly in winter, and stifling in summer. And yet it contained so much history, it thrilled Gamache every time he entered.
He could understand the need to modernize, and that meant moving to a new location, but he’d been glad to hear the Prefect had maintained an office here.
Claude’s desk had framed pictures of his wife and children. And dog. The walls were covered with photos of colleagues, though not one, he noticed, of Dussault’s predecessor, Clément Prévost.
Dussault accepted his espresso with thanks, then dismissed his assistant with a nod. Leaning forward, he asked, “How’re you doing, Armand?”
“I’m holding it together.”
“Are you?”
Dussault could see the strain around his friend’s eyes and the slight pallor that came from little sleep and a lot of worry.
Does he know Horowitz is going to die?
Does he know why?
What exactly does Gamache know?
Armand took a long sip of his espresso. It was rich and strong and exactly what he needed.
He regarded the man in front of him and wondered, What exactly does Claude Dussault know?
“I just spoke to Stephen’s assistant,” he said, leaning back and crossing his legs. “Agnes McGillicuddy. I’ll give you her coordinates. She’s probably someone you’d like to connect with. But it was…” Armand paused to gather his thoughts. “Difficult. Emotional. She’s in her eighties and has been with Stephen almost since the beginning.”