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.
Who would?
“But if she knew something definite,” said Beauvoir, “wouldn’t she come right out and say it? Why just hint?”
“She could’ve been toying with him,” said Isabelle. “Like a cat with a wounded bird.”
Armand could not see the Asshole Saint as a wounded bird. He was more likely the cat. Still, it was a good point. And a possible motive.
“You found nothing definite?”
“No, nothing,” said Beauvoir.
“They’d still be alive,” said Isabelle.
“Who?” asked Beauvoir.
“Cameron’s victims. Gilbert’s victims. Most must’ve been from Québec. Maybe even from around here.”
“They’d be quite old by now,” said Beauvoir. “This was years ago.”
Armand looked toward Clara’s home. Where Ruth had gone.
Ruth?
Did they have their answer?
“When I had lunch with Dr. Gilbert,” said Gamache, “he admitted he’d been at Abigail Robinson’s talk in the gym.”
“Could hardly deny it,” said Beauvoir.
“True. He also admitted that he saw the gun in Tardif’s hand. He says he froze.”
“But?” said Isabelle.
“When pressed, he all but admitted he wanted it to happen, wanted her to be killed,” said Gamache. “It was a split-second choice. He hadn’t done anything to protect people in the pandemic. He saw his chance to make up for it.”
“Not just in the pandemic,” said Isabelle. “He didn’t do anything to protect people from Cameron. Seems like a pattern in his life.”
Gamache was nodding. Had Gilbert finally decided to act?
Like a battlefield surgeon, had he, last night, decided to amputate the leg in order to save the body? Kill Abigail Robinson in order to save thousands?
Or was the motive, as it often was with Gilbert, far more complex, more selfish? Was it to protect himself? To stop Abigail Robinson from revealing his one great secret. His great shame.
“Of course,” said Beauvoir, “it’s possible he didn’t stop Tardif from shooting because they were working together.”
“I have news on that,” Isabelle said to Jean-Guy. “While you were in Montréal, we found the accomplice. Not Gilbert, not the brother. The son.”
She brought Jean-Guy quickly up to speed about Simon Tardif.
Beauvoir immediately understood the important detail. “He also worked the party. Kids were going in and out of those woods all night long. One more wouldn’t be noticed. Simon Tardif could’ve tried to finish the job his father started.”
“The thing is, I’m not convinced,” said Lacoste. “I don’t think he’d have the nerve.”
“Neither do I,” said Gamache. “But I’ve been surprised before.”
CHAPTER 33
Within moments of taking the lid off the final box, Reine-Marie knew that this contained the motherlode. The earliest items from Enid Horton’s life.
No more report cards, Mother’s Day cards, Christmas cards from her children.
These cards were from, and about, Enid herself.
The world receded around Reine-Marie as the librarian and archivist stepped from her life into Enid’s.
There were cracked and faded photos of her as a child, running in an immense snowsuit and dragging a long, frozen wool scarf behind her, outside an old Québécois chalet in the Laurentian Mountains.
Photos of her sitting between two siblings. An older sister and younger brother.
A little white Bible was dedicated to Enid Blythe, on the day of her christening. Given to her by a godmother.
And there were letters. Lots of them.
Taking out a pile and smoothing them on her lap, Reine-Marie picked up the top one and wondered, not for the first time, what the next generation of archivists and biographers would do. No one wrote letters anymore. No one had printed photographs and albums for historians, or even family members, to pore over. Everything was in a cloud and needed a password.
But that wasn’t her concern, not today at least.
At first Reine-Marie read every word of the letters, but then she started to skim.
Here was Enid, growing up with all the natural questions and insecurities of a girl. Of a young woman. Of a young bride. Of a young mother.
But … then …
Reine-Marie turned the page and looked at the next letter.
Her eyes first went to where it was from. Then who it was from.
And then they stopped. At the doodle in the margin.
She almost shoved the paper off her lap, as though some snake had landed there.
But it wasn’t a snake. It was a monkey.
Ruth stood in the middle of the studio staring at the canvas on the easel.
Without turning around she said, “What is it? Oh, wait, don’t tell me. Is it a bunny?” Before Clara could answer, Ruth had cocked her head and raised her hand for silence. “No, I’ve got it. It’s a car. It’s a bunny in a car.”
She turned astonished eyes on Clara, who was standing, arms crossed, at the door to her studio.
“You’re exhibiting signs of creativity,” said Ruth. “It’s still shit, of course, but at least it’s unexpected merde.”
“If I paid you to kill her,” Clara said to Haniya, “would that cost you the Peace Prize?”
“I doubt it. I’m up against a brutal dictator and a man who ordered that refugees be separated from their children and put into cages.”
“You’re kidding,” said Clara. “For the Nobel Peace Prize?”
“I think it’s not about how much good a person’s done, but how much worse they could have been.”
Clara, who knew who Haniya was talking about, muttered, “Not much worse.”
“No, wait,” said Ruth. “Rosa thinks it’s a Bundt cake. Are we getting close?”
“I think,” said Haniya, “it might even work in my favor.”
Clara smiled and turned away. “Tea?”
They walked back into the large country kitchen. “Why do you put up with her?”
“Ruth?” said Clara, putting on the kettle and opening a tin with butter tarts. “Maybe she’s my peace prize. It’s not about how good she is, but how much worse she could be.”
The truth was, Clara had put that especially horrible canvas up just for Ruth. It was a running joke between them. Each morning Clara would work on her actual painting. Then, just before stopping for the day, she’d put the other canvas up and slop paint on it, choosing colors and brushstrokes at random.
The real painting would be carefully placed against the wall of the studio, hidden under a sheet. Clara was very protective of her works, and even more so since those scathing reviews of her last exhibition had all but destroyed her career.
She heard the front door open and still, to this day, half expected it to be her husband, Peter. Instead a familiar voice called out, “Bonjour? Clara?”
“In the kitchen, Armand.”
He greeted the two of them, then looked around. “Where’s Ruth?”
“In my studio.”
“Do you mind?” he asked, cocking his head toward it.
“Not at all.”
He found Ruth staring at a canvas propped against the wall. She turned quickly, dropping the sheet so that it fell back over the painting.
“What do you want?”
“I’d like to talk.”
“About?”
“About Ewen Cameron.”
There was a pause, then Ruth said, “I smell blood and an era of prominent madmen.”