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.
“Yes, when a situation gets out of control. But this would not. It was contained. One unarmed elderly man in a private apartment. There would be no mistake. Whoever killed Alexander Plessner almost certainly meant to kill Alexander Plessner.”
That sat in the room. A bald statement so certain of itself that Commander Fontaine could not think of an argument.
“What have you found out about him, the dead man?” Beauvoir asked, hoping to draw some of her fire.
Fontaine disengaged from Gamache and turned to Beauvoir.
“We’ve tracked down one of Monsieur Plessner’s colleagues in Toronto. She was, of course, shocked. The news of his murder isn’t public yet, and I have local investigators searching his office and home. As we know, Monsieur Plessner was trained as a mechanical engineer and seems to have used his training to invest in venture capital, mainly in small, apparently insignificant inventions or innovations that others dismissed, but ended up making him a fortune.”
“There can’t be many that come to anything,” said Roslyn.
“No, but if even one hits,” said Daniel, “a fortune is made.”
Reine-Marie heard Armand sigh, a long exhale of exasperation with a son who just could not shut up.
“That’s right, I’d forgotten, you’re in venture capital, too,” said Fontaine, who clearly had not forgotten.
If there was a trap to step into, Daniel would find it. If there was no trap, Daniel would create one. Then step into it.
“And yet, you don’t know Monsieur Plessner?” asked Fontaine, pleasantly.
“Never heard of him. If he’s based in Toronto, I wouldn’t. There’re a lot of people who think they can find the next Apple or Facebook. And some do. That’s where lives are changed.”
And sometimes, thought Gamache, staring at his son, lives lost.
CHAPTER 18
When the interview ended, the others went across the street to join the children and their sitter in the park. But Gamache and Beauvoir stayed behind.
Jean-Guy was dying to tell Gamache what had happened at work, and to check out what he’d recorded on his phone. But Fontaine and her number two also lingered in the apartment.
“Did you bring the box, Commander?” Gamache asked, looking around the foyer.
“The box, sir?”
“Monsieur Dussault said he’d ask you to bring Stephen’s things so we could go through them again.”
“Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“Well, yes. I wanted to look at the annual report from GHS.”
“The Prefect did ask, but I’d already left. Perhaps tomorrow.”
“Merci,” said Gamache, doubting he’d see that box the next day, or ever. He went to open the door for them, but Fontaine didn’t move.
“I’d like to speak with you. Privately, sir.” She glanced at Beauvoir.
“Yes? You can speak in front of Jean-Guy. What is it?”
He could see it was something. Something even more sensitive, it seemed, than accusing his children of murder.
They were standing in the front hall, and she pointed to the dining room. When they sat down, she said, “Are you aware of Monsieur Horowitz’s background?”
Armand opened his mouth to answer, then changed his mind. Finally saying, “I think so, but what do you know?”
“He’s German by birth.”
“Yes.”
“And fought with the French Resistance during the war,” said Fontaine. “His family was arrested for protecting Jews, and shot. Monsieur Horowitz managed to escape.”
“Oui. His family stalled the Gestapo long enough to allow him to lead the Jewish family out a hidden door in the back garden.”
This was news to Jean-Guy, who listened in astonishment. He knew about the Resistance, but not this.
“That’s the story, yes,” said Fontaine.
Gamache shifted in his seat but remained silent. He was beginning to get an inkling of what was coming.
“As you can imagine, sir, we have access to files that aren’t public. That were suppressed after the war, for all sorts of reasons.”
“Go on.”
Armand had tensed his muscles, like a boxer preparing for a body blow.
“The reports we have in the archives tell a different story,” said Fontaine. “His family was indeed killed in the war. His mother and siblings in Dresden. His father and uncle survived the war but were shot by the Russians.”
“Why?”
“They were senior Gestapo officers responsible, according to the Russians, for sending thousands to the camps.”
Armand sat perfectly still. Struck dumb. Almost blind and deaf. His senses shutting down. Not breathing. Not blinking. This was far worse than anything he could have expected or imagined. Or steeled himself against.
It was so great a lie, it staggered him.
And then an image exploded in his mind. Of his grandmother. Zora. Looking at Stephen, as though the devil himself had entered the house.
Did she know something? Sense something?
But no. That wasn’t possible. This wasn’t possible.
With a jolt, like a man coming up for air, he was back in the peaceful dining room of his son’s apartment in Paris. Diffused light came in through the sheer curtains, giving it an ethereal quality.
“That’s not true,” he finally managed to say.
“I can show you the documents.”
He nodded. Knowing he had to see them, but not wanting to. He wanted to crawl back to an hour ago, when things were just terrible, not monstrous.
“Even if it is true, about his father and uncle, that doesn’t mean Stephen was part of it. He still escaped to France. Still fought in the Resistance.”
“Did he?” asked Fontaine. “Are you so sure? If he lied about his family, maybe he lied about that, too.”
“What he told us is the truth.” Gamache’s grip was slipping. The horses straining. “The man is ninety-three, fighting for his life in a hospital bed after being attacked, and now you … you … attack him again? With wild accusations that are impossible to prove, or disprove? Jesus Christ.”
The stamping horses had broken loose.
Beside him, Jean-Guy jerked. He’d rarely heard Armand Gamache shout, and never, ever heard him swear. Not with those words anyway. Never.
And now the Chief was literally trembling with rage.
Across the table, Irena Fontaine smiled. She’d hit a nerve, just as Dussault had predicted. And not just hit but shattered a nerve.
Gamache had managed to remain calm, contained, when she’d accused his children of murder. But this accusation against Horowitz had made him lose it. Why?
Because, she thought, he’s afraid it might actually be true.
“What I know,” she said, “is that the Allies had their doubts. The leaders of the Resistance had their doubts.”
“But not enough to prosecute.”
“That’s hardly a measure of innocence, as we all know.”
She opened the slender folder and produced a grainy black-and-white photograph.
It showed German officers laughing and raising glasses. Among them a thin-lipped, humorless man who looked like a failed accountant. Heinrich Himmler. Head of the Gestapo and father of the Holocaust.
Food and drink were in front of them. A celebration in progress.
And behind Himmler, a slender hand resting comfortably on the Nazi leader’s shoulder, was a young man with a familiar grin, looking straight into the camera.
Armand felt light-headed and thought he might be sick. It was the same hand he’d gripped as a child. He’d gripped that morning in the hospital.
Stephen. Impossibly young. Happy. Joining in the fun. Joining in the joke.
Armand recognized the fresco behind them.
The photo was taken in the Hôtel Lutetia after it had been commandeered as the headquarters of the Abwehr, the Nazi counterespionage unit, in occupied Paris.