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.
Because of the vantage point, he could see almost all the audience, as well as the stage. Granted, he only saw their backs, but it was enough.
He’d suffered through Abigail Robinson’s talk again and again, with its odd combination of dull facts building to an electrifying conclusion.
“Too late! Too late!” half the auditorium chanted, while the other half jeered.
And then the firecrackers went off.
Gamache strode to center stage and tried to calm everyone, but couldn’t be heard above the growing panic. Grabbing the microphone, his voice clear and commanding, he managed to settle everyone down.
Then Beauvoir saw the man in the middle of the auditorium raise his arm and point the gun. Even though he knew what happened next, it was still shocking.
The podium between Gamache and Robinson exploded.
Then the second shot rang out. How it missed them, Beauvoir couldn’t guess. Thankfully, agents tackled the gunman before he could get off a third shot.
Beauvoir watched it again, slower this time. Focusing on the firecrackers. On who might have set them off.
His view of that moment was blocked by a man in a Montreal Canadiens tuque. Beauvoir began to wonder if, maybe, he was the one who’d set off the firecrackers, not Tardif.
The man had his back to the camera, of course. Beauvoir moved the video forward, frame by frame. Just as the shots were fired, the tuque man ducked. And as he did, he turned his head just enough for Beauvoir to see who it was.
“Holy shit,” he whispered, looking at the face frozen on his screen.
“I’m sorry,” said Reine-Marie, getting off the bed as quickly as though it was on fire. “I was told it was all right to look around the house.”
“And to lie on my mother’s bed?” the man at the door demanded.
Reine-Marie smoothed her slacks and felt her cheeks getting warm. “No, I just wanted to see something.”
“Who are you?”
“Reine-Marie Gamache.” She walked toward him, her hand extended. “I’m the archivist.”
“Archivist?” he said, staring at her. Angry, but also perplexed.
“Oui. You’re James Horton? Madame Horton’s son?”
“Yes.”
“Your sister contacted me and asked if I’d help her sort through your mother’s papers. She found boxes of things in the attic and she wasn’t sure what should be kept for the family records and what could be thrown out. I understand the house has been sold and there’s a time issue.”
“She had no right to do that without asking me. Those are personal, private family papers.” He looked at her. “And?”
“And?”
“What did you find?”
She knew she should tell him. Knew his sister probably would. But something in the way he demanded to know told her not to say anything.
“So far just bills and pictures. Mother’s Day cards. The usual.”
“Why were you on her bed?”
“I am sorry. I hadn’t planned to, but I saw something on the wall and wanted to check it out.”
“What?”
She took him there and pointed.
“I don’t see anything.”
“It’s a few lines scratched into the wallpaper between the bed and the nightstand.”
“What business is that of yours?” he asked.
“You’re right. None.”
And he actually was right, Reine-Marie knew. It was none of her business.
James Horton escorted her out and insisted the archival box of their mother’s things stay with them.
“Send us your bill,” he said, while Susan stood behind her brother, her face full of embarrassment and apology.
“No need. I wasn’t much help.”
It was snowing more heavily now, but not blowing. It was a heavy fall of light snow.
Reine-Marie brushed off her car and thought about Mrs. Horton on her deathbed. With the last of her strength, she’d drawn a monkey.
This was becoming less amusing by the moment.
She almost felt bad that she hadn’t mentioned to Susan or James that their mother had another box, as yet unopened, that sat in the study of the Gamache home.
On her way back to Three Pines from speaking to Édouard Tardif at the courthouse, Isabelle Lacoste’s phone buzzed. It was a message from Jean-Guy.
Making sure not to get stuck in a snowbank, Isabelle pulled over and read, Vincent Gilbert was at Robinson’s talk.
“The official biography on your website doesn’t mention a sister,” said Gamache, looking into the bloodshot eyes of Abigail Robinson.
“No. I try to keep my personal life private.”
“Private, or secret?”
“What do you think would happen if it comes out that I had a severely disabled sister? People would think that influenced my findings. My conclusions.”
“Did it?”
“You don’t think I’ve asked myself that? It was painful, yes. I saw what having a severely disabled child did to my parents. Their exhaustion, their constant worry. But I loved my sister. My findings, my research, have nothing to do with Maria, and everything to do with the future of the social safety net in this country. We don’t have enough resources to go around and—” She put up her hands, and smiled. “There I go again. You know my arguments. It’s statistics. Cold hard facts. It has nothing to do with Maria.”
Gamache turned to Colette. “You knew about the sister?”
“Yes. Abby’s father told me. Her death was obviously devastating. It wasn’t a secret, Armand. It was a private family tragedy.” She looked at him. “You don’t talk about the death of your parents.”
“True. But I do talk about their lives.” But that reminded him of something. He turned back to Abigail. “I’ve heard about your father, but not your mother.”
“She died when I was quite young. Before Maria died.”
“I’m sorry. That’s difficult. Can you tell me how she died?”
There was a pause, and he was pretty sure one of them would ask to know how it could matter. And he knew he couldn’t answer that. Because it probably did not.
“A heart attack. She was only in her mid-thirties. That left my father and me to look after Maria.”
He could sense the resentment, still smoldering after all these years. Not against her sister, he thought. But the mother. For leaving them behind, even if it wasn’t her choice.
A wild thought passed rapidly across Gamache’s mind. Like some feral idea.
Or maybe it was. A choice.
CHAPTER 27
Isabelle Lacoste turned her car around.
Within twenty minutes she was again talking to Édouard Tardif.
She showed him the image Beauvoir had sent from the video and saw him squint, raise his brows, then shake his head.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“You know who that is.”
“I don’t. Never seen him before.”
Lacoste placed her phone on the table, angled so that it looked like Vincent Gilbert was staring at Tardif.
“Is he your accomplice? Did he set off the firecrackers?”
Tardif shook his head and repeated, “I’ve never seen him before.”
“How well do you know Vincent Gilbert?” Gamache asked.
His phone had buzzed with the message from Beauvoir. He’d glanced down just long enough to take it in.
“Dr. Gilbert?” said Abigail Robinson. “I hadn’t met him before last night.”
“But you knew of him? You even compared him to Ewen Cameron. An infamous, even notorious, doctor and researcher.”