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.
Gilbert could have another reason for wanting Robinson dead.
“Professor Robinson said you had no moral authority to judge her,” said Gamache. “She even compared you to Ewen Cameron. What did she mean by that?”
Gilbert shook his head. “Not much subtle about our Abigail, is there? Whenever anyone wants to smear a McGill researcher, they drag out the bones of Ewen Cameron. Guilt by association. It just shows how desperate she is.”
“She went on to say, ‘Don’t think I don’t know.’”
“A terrible double negative.”
“Yes. She meant that she does know something. What does she know?”
Gilbert laughed. “I’m not known as the Asshole Saint for nothing. She probably thinks she knows something that will embarrass me, not realizing I’m happy to own all the merde. But I’ve atoned for my sins. I live a quiet, blameless life now, deep in the woods. Away from the temptation, or even ability, to do anything immoral.”
“But not illegal. Was she blackmailing you into supporting her work?”
He laughed again. “Oh, I do like you.” He leaned toward Gamache. “Honestly? Do you think I can be blackmailed? Do you think I care what others think of me? I was once the most prominent medical researcher in Canada. The Order of Canada. The National Order of Québec. Invitations to speak at scientific conferences all over the world. Now I live in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Non, Chief Inspector, I have nothing more to lose. I gave it all away. A blackmail attempt would be amusing and diverting. It would pass the long winter days and nights. Nothing more.”
And yet, thought Armand, as he looked into those bloodshot eyes, this was a very long and detailed denial for someone who had nothing more to lose.
What, Gamache asked himself not for the first time, had driven this ego-infested man into the forest? What had he done that demanded perpetual atonement?
And when he falls, thought Gamache, he falls like Lucifer. Never to hope again.
They went through the rest of the interviews quickly. Gabri, Olivier, Clara, Myrna. None of them saw, or heard, or knew anything.
There was one interesting exchange, though, when Beauvoir asked Myrna what she thought of Professor Robinson. He’d asked them all, but Myrna’s answer was particularly penetrating.
“Did you notice that she went directly to the two people in the room who so obviously didn’t want to talk to her? The Asshole Saint and you,” Myrna said to Beauvoir. “There’s something self-loathing about a person who does that, who keeps walking into a propeller blade.”
“Then why do it?” Beauvoir asked.
“To punish herself. I think she puts on a hair shirt every day and goes out to spout crap she doesn’t necessarily support.”
“Wait a minute,” said Beauvoir. “You think she doesn’t believe in her own cause?”
“I think her head believes it, but I’m not so sure about her heart. Assuming, of course, she has one.”
“Then why’s she doing it?”
“Why does anyone do anything? Something’s compelling her.”
“Something? Someone?” asked Beauvoir.
“Either. Both. She’s like an addict. So bound to something that she can’t let it go, even though she knows it’s self-destructive.”
Jean-Guy Beauvoir nodded. He understood addiction and compulsion.
“You’re a psychologist,” said Gamache. “Do you think Professor Robinson wants to stop?”
Myrna sighed and glanced out the window. It had been a long, long horrible night. And that poor woman was still out there.
“If I had to guess, and it is just a guess, I’d say Professor Robinson is torn. I watched her try to ingratiate herself with the crowd, even you,” she said to Beauvoir. “She wants to be liked, that much was obvious. And she is, actually, likable. But she’s dragging around this big stinking albatross of an idea that repulses people. I think she’d love to let it go, but can’t.”
“Put down the cup,” said Gamache.
She examined him for a moment, taking in the thoughtful eyes, and the ghosts swirling behind them.
Here was a man who understood the desire to put down the cup. The difference was, Abigail Robinson’s cup was filled with bile.
“But why can’t she?” Beauvoir asked. “Why keep going if she doesn’t believe in it?”
“Oh, I think she does believe in it. And I think she hates herself for it. It’s not a comfortable place to be. Someone like that might be very unstable.”
“Might kill a friend?” asked Beauvoir.
Again Myrna smiled, but without amusement. “I have no idea. I’m presuming the murder wasn’t planned, is that right?”
Gamache and Beauvoir glanced at each other and nodded. They hadn’t had a chance, yet, to discuss the details, but it seemed obvious. When the murder weapon was a log, it probably wasn’t premeditated.
“Then something must have happened in the party,” said Myrna. “Was there a blowup between the friends? Did they argue?”
“Not that we saw,” said Beauvoir.
“Well, you know more about murder and motives than I do, but I’d have to say someone who’s desperate to be liked might not kill the only person who genuinely does like her.”
“Merci, Myrna,” said Gamache, getting up.
But Myrna paused, still sitting. “I’m not sure I should say this.”
“What?”
Myrna took a deep breath. “What Abigail Robinson is proposing isn’t new. It isn’t revolutionary. It’s evolutionary. It’s already happening.” When Armand went to talk, she held up a thick hand. “Québec was the first province to legalize physician-assisted suicide.”
“With strict rules and oversight,” said Armand. “That’s a choice.”
“But pulling the plug isn’t. At least not by the person about to die. It’s a choice made by relatives. And it’s a cruel position to be put in. Maybe we’d be better off if that decision was taken out of our hands. Off our conscience.”
“Are you saying you agree with her?”
“I’m saying it’s not so clear-cut. People have dug themselves into positions, but maybe we need to listen with a more open mind. I’ve had to pull a plug. I’ll never get over the trauma. Killing my own mother. That’s what it felt like. I’d have liked that cup taken from me.”
Armand had also had to make that decision. It had turned out differently, but it was still traumatic.
“I’m not saying I agree with her,” said Myrna, getting up. “I am saying I understand some of her points. Bonne nuit, Armand. Jean-Guy.”
“Good night.”
She was the last to be interviewed.
By just after four a.m. they were ready to leave too. Reine-Marie was alone in the living room, waiting for them. But there was one more thing the Sûreté officers had to do.
They’d had a text from the Scene of Crime officer.
Putting on their coats and boots, Armand and Jean-Guy walked into the woods. The wind and cold once again scraped their cheeks and stole their breaths.
They could see the tent, lit from the inside. Shadows were moving around like specters trapped.
After ducking in, they had a quiet word with the head of the forensics team. Then both Beauvoir and Gamache removed their tuques as Debbie Schneider was carried past them, on her way to the morgue.
CHAPTER 24
Isabelle Lacoste arrived in Three Pines early the next morning and went directly to the Inn.
The storm had dropped less than fifteen centimeters of snow, but it had all fallen sideways, creating huge drifts, packing snow up against homes, businesses, fences, trees. Doors.
After the bitter cold of the night before, the temperature had risen to –9 degrees Celsius. Practically balmy.