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.
He still saw the man who had taken his hand and kept him safe.
Others, like his grandmother Zora, saw something else.
“How’s Annie?” asked Stephen. “Are they ready for the baby?”
“As ready as anyone can be, I think.”
“It was a big decision.”
“Oui.” No use denying that. “She’s due any day now. You’ll see them tonight at dinner. I’ve made reservations for all of us at Juveniles. Eight o’clock.”
“Terrific.” Stephen unzipped his inner pocket and showed Armand the note in his slender agenda. “I assumed.”
Already written there was family, then Juveniles.
“Reine-Marie and I will swing by and pick you up.”
“Non, non. I’m having drinks with someone first. I’ll meet you there.” Stephen looked ahead of him. Staring at The Thinker.
“What’re you thinking?” Armand asked.
“That I’m not afraid to die. I am a little afraid of going to Hell.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Armand, shaken by the words.
“Just the natural fear of a ninety-three-year-old reviewing his life.”
“What do you see?”
“I see far too much ice cream.”
“Impossible.” Armand paused for a moment, before speaking. “I see a good man. A brave man. This’s a better world because you’re in it.”
Stephen smiled. “That’s kind of you to say, but you don’t know everything.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Non, not at all.” He reached out and gripped Armand’s wrist. His laser-blue eyes holding Armand’s. “I’ve always told the truth.”
“I know you have.” Armand placed his warm hand over Stephen’s cool one and squeezed gently. “When we first sat down, you said that Hell is empty and all the devils are here. What did you mean?”
“It’s one of my favorite quotes, you know that,” said Stephen.
And Armand did. Stephen loved to use the lines from The Tempest to unnerve business rivals, colleagues. Friends. Strangers on planes.
But this time was different. This time Stephen had added something. Something Armand had never heard from him before.
A specificity.
“You said the devils aren’t here, here.” Armand lifted his hands in imitation of Stephen’s gesture. “Why did you say that?”
“Who the hell knows? I’m an old man. Stop badgering me.”
“If they aren’t here, then where are they?”
The shadows had reached them now, and it was growing chilly in the shade.
“You should know.” Stephen turned to him. But not on him. It was a slow, considered movement. “You’ve met them often enough. You hunt devils for a living.” His blue eyes held Armand’s brown. “I’m very proud of you, son.”
Son.
Stephen had never called him that. Not once in fifty years.
Garçon, yes. Boy. It was said with great affection. But it wasn’t the same. As son.
Armand knew Stephen had been careful never to use that word. To not step on his late father’s memory and place in Armand’s life.
But now he had. Was it a slip? An indication of age and frailty? The defenses worn down, allowing his true feelings to escape? On that one, small, word.
“Don’t you worry about the devils, Armand. It’s a beautiful September afternoon, we’re in Paris, and your granddaughter is about to be born. Life is good.” Stephen patted Armand’s knee, then used it to push himself upright. “Come along, garçon. You can take me home.”
They paused, as they always did, at The Burghers. To look into those grim, determined faces.
“Just remember.” Stephen turned to look at his godson.
Armand held his eyes and nodded.
Then the two men walked slowly down rue de Varenne. Armand took Stephen’s arm as they crossed the streets. They ambled past antique shops and stopped at a patisserie, where Armand bought a pain aux raisins escargot for Reine-Marie, her favorite. And a croissant for Stephen to have with his breakfast.
At the large red-lacquered double door into Stephen’s building, the elderly man said, “Leave me here. I might just go across to the Hôtel Lutetia for an aperitif.”
“And by ‘aperitif’ you mean ice cream?”
It was only when Armand was crossing the Pont d’Arcole, on his way to their apartment in the Marais, that he realized he hadn’t pursued the question with Stephen. Or maybe Stephen had managed to divert his attention.
Away from the devils. That were somewhere here, here. In Paris.
CHAPTER 2
Jean-Guy Beauvoir could almost feel the chill enter the room, despite the sun streaming through his office window.
He looked up from his screen, but already knew who he’d see. Along with the lowered temperature, a slight aroma always accompanied his deputy department head. And while Beauvoir knew the chill was his imagination, the smell was not.
Sure enough, Séverine Arbour was at his door. She wore her usual delicately condescending smile. It seemed to complement, like a silk scarf, her designer outfit. Beauvoir wasn’t aware enough of fashion to say if Madame Arbour was wearing Chanel, or Yves Saint Laurent, or maybe Givenchy. But since arriving in Paris he’d come to at least know the names. And to recognize haute couture when he saw it.
And he saw it now.
In her forties, elegant and polished, Madame Arbour was the definition of soignée. A Parisienne through and through.
The only thing she wore that he could name was her scent.
Sauvage by Dior. A man’s cologne.
He wondered if it was a message and considered changing his cologne from Brut to Boss. But decided against it. Things were complex enough between them without entering into a war of fragrances with his number two.
“Lots of women wear men’s cologne,” Annie explained when he told her about it. “And men wear women’s scents. It’s all just marketing. If you like the smell, why not?”
She’d then dared him ten euros to wear her eau de toilette into work the next day. A dare he took up. As fate would have it, his own boss, Carole Gossette, chose that very day to invite him out for lunch. For the first time.
He went to her private club, the Cercle de l’Union Interalliée, smelling of Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir. The exact same scent the senior VP at the engineering giant was herself wearing.
It actually seemed to endear him to her.
In a quid pro quo, Annie went into her law offices smelling of Brut. Her male colleagues had, up to then, been cordial but distant. Waiting for the avocate from Québec to prove herself. But that day they seemed to relax. To even pay her more respect. She, and her musk, were welcomed into the fold.
Like her father, Annie Gamache was not one to turn her back on an unexpected advantage. She continued to wear the eau de Cologne until the day she took maternity leave.
Jean-Guy, on the other hand, did not put on the perfume again, despite the fact he actually preferred the warm scent to his Brut. It smelled of Annie, and that always calmed and gladdened him.
Séverine Arbour stood at the door, her face set in a pleasant smile with a base note of smoky resentment and a hint of smug.
Was she biding her time, waiting for her chance to knife him in the back? Beauvoir thought so. But he also knew that compared to the brutal culture in the Sûreté du Québec, the internal politics of this multinational corporation were nothing.