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.
Once in, Reine-Marie hugged Jean-Guy.
“You all right?” Armand asked, noticing the scrapes on Jean-Guy’s hand.
“A bit shaken, to be honest. It really is different when it’s your own family.” His eyes were wide. “Thank you for coming.”
“Annie?” asked Armand.
“Asleep. So’s Honoré.”
Despite the reassurance, Reine-Marie and Armand walked to the bedrooms, peered in, then returned to the living room.
“We brought this.” Reine-Marie held up the pastry box. “I’ll make some tea.”
They followed her into the small kitchen and put out the tea things.
“What happened,” Armand asked.
Jean-Guy described it, then said, “I’ll tell you, Armand, that guy barely touched the wall as he went over. That’s no ordinary guard. And I’m pretty sure he wanted me to recognize him.”
“Bit of psychological warfare,” said Armand.
“But the good news is, his orders were to follow me, not to do any harm to Annie or Honoré. There’s something else. He works for SecurForte.”
“The same company that has the contract with the George V,” said Gamache. “Who almost certainly doctored the tapes.”
“It gets worse. SecurForte is owned by GHS.”
Armand paused for a beat, taking that in. “How do you know?”
“I found an old article in some American mercenary magazine. Let me show you.”
They returned to the living room and took seats side by side on the sofa, in front of the laptop.
Armand read, then looked up. “What are you thinking?”
“That GHS is using SecurForte to spy on other corporations.”
“And Stephen found out. It’s possible.”
Annie walked, waddled, into the room in her bathrobe.
“What time is it? Is it morning? What’s going on?” She looked at the clock on the mantel. “It’s eleven thirty. Why’re you here? Has something happened?” Her eyes landed on the cake. “Is that an Ispahan?”
“She seems to be giving birth to questions,” said Jean-Guy.
“Careful.” Annie placed a hand over her stomach. “You don’t want the baby to join the conversation, do you?”
Once they were all sitting down, Jean-Guy told her about the GHS guard.
Annie turned white. “You chased him? Are you crazy? Are you all right?” She took his hand. “You’re hurt.”
“No, no. I’m fine. They’re just trying to scare us.”
“Are you sure?” She looked at her father, who’d been silent. “Daddy?”
She only used that word when something awful had happened, or was happening.
Just then there was a knock on the door.
Jean-Guy went to it and returned a minute later. “It’s the cop, come to guard us.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Armand said, “that maybe you need to move into Stephen’s suite at the George V.”
“But will it be any safer?” asked Reine-Marie. “SecurForte’s there, too.”
“Mom’s right,” said Annie. “They’ll be all over the George V. Why would we be safer there?”
“Because you wouldn’t be alone,” said her father. “There’ll be other guests, staff. Support.”
“You mean witnesses? I see your point.” Annie turned to Jean-Guy. “A few days in a luxury hotel? If we must…”
“Just don’t order the caviar, dear,” said Reine-Marie. “Or toast. Or anything.”
“I need to show you something on the security cameras,” said Jean-Guy. “Something they didn’t erase.”
They huddled around his laptop while he showed them the clip, gone in the blink of an eye, of a woman arriving at the George V.
“This was yesterday, late afternoon,” he said.
“It’s the head of GHS,” said Reine-Marie. “I recognize her from the annual report.”
Eugénie Roquebrune was indeed recognizable. The only woman in the lobby, perhaps in the entire hotel, maybe in all of Paris, with gray hair.
“Now,” said Beauvoir, bringing up the next clip. “This’s half an hour later. Look at the reflection in the tray the waiter’s holding.”
They watched as the uniformed waiter put a teapot and a three-tiered tower of little sandwiches and petit fours on a table. While he spoke to the guests, he lowered the large silver tray to his side. So that it reflected the guests at another table.
They watched it twice through before Armand hit pause.
“It’s Claude Dussault,” he said, and sighed, staring at the screen. “Meeting with the head of GHS. That’s it then.”
His fear confirmed.
Despite the tension that evening, and Armand’s growing discomfort with his old friend and colleague, he’d still held out hope that he’d gotten it wrong.
But he could no longer hide from the truth.
Having afternoon tea with the head of an engineering giant was hardly a crime. But he was the Prefect of Police for Paris. And GHS appeared up to its neck in this business.
The business of murder. Attempted murder. And whatever it was Stephen had discovered.
Besides, when asked directly if he knew the CEO, Claude Dussault had denied it.
He’d looked Gamache in the eye and lied.
“Who’s the other man?” asked Annie.
They could see the back of his head and a bit of his face as he turned to listen to Madame Roquebrune.
Dark hair, close-cropped. Clean-shaven.
“Madame Roquebrune’s security?” asked Reine-Marie.
“I don’t think so. A security guard wouldn’t sit down for tea with a client,” said Armand. “He’s part of whatever meeting’s happening.”
“But what is happening?” asked Reine-Marie. “I can’t imagine the CEO herself is telling the Prefect of Police, in a public place, to go kill a man.”
“They obviously didn’t know that Stephen was actually staying right there,” said Jean-Guy. “Was just a few flights above them.”
Armand leaned closer to the image. And remembered the grainy photo of Himmler in bar Joséphine.
Terrible things were discussed by confident people in public places. And there was a reason this recording had been erased. When the killings and search were bungled, they had to kick over all trace.
Innocent people holding innocent meetings didn’t erase the evidence. As SecurForte had done. And deny that it ever happened. As Claude had done.
“What would they have to offer, to get him to do it?” asked Reine-Marie.
“He talked tonight about retirement,” said Armand. “They must’ve offered him more money than he could ever make as a cop. A lifetime of peace and security for himself and his family.”
Armand rubbed his forehead, his fingers naturally finding the long, deep scar at his temple.
What would it take?
“Ummm,” said Reine-Marie. “There’s something you should know. I asked Monique—” She turned to Annie and Jean-Guy and explained, “Dr. Dussault. Claude’s wife. I asked her tonight about his cologne. I’m sorry, Armand, but it seemed the only way.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m sure you were careful.”
“I think I was. I found out that it’s called 4711. I have a bottle of it at home that I bought this afternoon at the BHV.”
“You found it?” said Armand.
“Oui. I wanted to be able to confirm it really is the same scent we smelled, and that Claude really does use it. I didn’t show Monique the bottle, I just said I was looking for a gift for you, Armand,” she said, turning to face him directly. “It is Claude’s cologne. Monique confirmed it.”
He gave a very small nod.
“She told me his second-in-command bought some for him and for herself,” Reine-Marie continued, “when they were on a trip together in Cologne. They toured the place where it’s made. Monique says Claude only puts it on when they’re going to meet.”
There was silence as they took that in.