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.
“Why do I say that?” asked Dr. Harris. “Because of this.”
She placed her finger on a word. One single word buried, intentionally or not, among so many.
Beauvoir bent over, studying it as though examining a tiny body.
Petechiae.
He looked up at Lacoste, who’d also bent to see the word. Then they both looked at Gamache. Who had no need to read it. He’d seen the word the night before.
That was why he’d sent Dr. Harris the reports, without comment. To see what she’d think. If she’d see what he saw.
Petechiae.
Tiny red dots on the girl’s face. Like freckles, only not. They were, the homicide investigators knew, signs of strangulation or smothering.
“She choked on a peanut butter sandwich,” said Jean-Guy. “That’s how she died. It says it right there. The hemorrhages were caused by that. Not…”
He could feel his hands and feet grow cold, as though he’d been on thin ice all along. And it had given way.
He fought for control. Fought to give the impression all was fine.
Ça va bien aller.
But he was overcome with the thought that if it could happen to Paul Robinson, a loving father, it could happen to … anyone.
“The child’s condition had deteriorated,” said Dr. Harris, watching him closely. “She’d be on puréed food by then. No parent would give her a peanut butter sandwich.”
“But maybe a carer did,” Beauvoir said, his voice rising, even as his heart sank. “Someone unfamiliar with her.”
“The report says she was alone with her father,” said Dr. Harris.
Armand shifted his eyes from Dr. Harris to Beauvoir. He knew what fear looked like. Had seen it often enough in young agents. In experienced investigators. As they’d prepared for an especially dangerous action.
He saw it now in his son-in-law. And he could guess why.
“It looks to me like Maria’s father smothered her, probably with a pillow, then shoved the sandwich down her throat postmortem,” the coroner was saying.
“Non. Non,” said Jean-Guy, shaking his head. “No father would do that.”
And there it was.
“Most wouldn’t,” said Armand. You wouldn’t.
It was the nightmare, the worst fear. Not just that his child would die, but that he’d somehow be responsible for it. Even, God help him, do it. In a moment of madness.
“We’ve seen it before—” Isabelle began.
“Yes,” snapped Jean-Guy, cutting her off. Not wanting to be reminded of the terrible things they’d seen. What happened when human nature went feral.
Yes, sometimes they discovered that a parent had killed their child, though it was more often the other way around.
“Let’s leave it there,” said Armand. “Thank you for coming here, Sharon, and walking us through what might’ve happened.”
“You saw that in the autopsy, didn’t you, Armand,” Dr. Harris said, as she got up. “Petechiae. That’s why you sent all three reports to me.”
“Yes. But as you said, it’s a long time ago. There’s no way to prove any of this.”
“I can’t see how it can relate to the murder of Deborah Schneider on New Year’s Eve,” said the coroner, pulling her coat off the back of the chair.
“Neither can I,” admitted Gamache. “We’re just assembling the pieces. Most are not helpful.”
Dr. Harris turned to Beauvoir. “You might be right. It could’ve been an accident, not murder at all. With no way to prove it either way, maybe we choose to believe that.”
“Excusez-moi.” Without waiting to be excused, Beauvoir put his coat on and left.
“Forget something?” Stephen asked. He was holding Idola on his lap and reading to her. From the Financial Times.
“Yes. I just need to…” He held out his arms, and Stephen, a little surprised, handed the child to her father.
Jean-Guy felt Idola’s breath on his neck, and felt her supple body conform to his. And he knew he could never, ever hurt her.
In fact, he’d hurt anyone who tried.
That’s what he’d forgotten. For one horrific moment. That he would die before he’d let anything happen to either of his children. In fact, he would kill.
So what had happened to Paul Robinson?
Jean-Guy carried his daughter into the study and sat at the desk. On the laptop he looked up Paul Robinson. Not much came up. But there was a photograph from a conference he’d been at.
It showed a middle-aged man. Slender, geeky, with glasses and graying hair and a bow tie.
He was standing in front of an easel with a poster on it and smiling into the camera. He looked a little goofy.
Was Paul Robinson, at that moment, contemplating murdering his daughter?
Maria. Beloved, vulnerable. Ave Maria. Blessed Mary.
But there was another daughter. The Abby to her Maria.
Bright. Brilliant even. So like her father in so many ways.
Abby Maria. Conjoined sisters. Not by some cartilage or artery. They didn’t share an organ, they shared a father and a fate. That bound them forever.
He looked down at Idola, and when he made eye contact, she laughed.
Her flat features no longer said Down syndrome.
They said daughter.
As he left the house, Jean-Guy saw his father-in-law standing on the far side of the frozen pond. Watching the children play.
Armand looked up, and their eyes met. He’d been waiting. Patiently. In the cold. For him.
They didn’t speak as they walked through the bright sunshine, up the hill to the Auberge. Past the chapel. Past the New Forest. Past the bench.
May you be a brave man in a brave country.
Reine-Marie was more than halfway to Enid Horton’s home, the box in the back seat of her car, when she slowed down. Stopped. And turned around.
Parking at the Inn, she went in and found Haniya standing at the window, looking out over a field of snow, her arms wrapped around herself.
Without turning she said, “It’s so white. And cold. Everything looks dead. I don’t know why anyone lives here.”
She coughed, and Reine-Marie stopped where she was. And had to remind herself that a cough was no longer a threat. A sneeze wasn’t an attack.
The vaccine had worked. It was one of the great global shared experiences. The plague and the cure. But still, she had to force herself forward, to stand beside the young woman with the sniffles.
“Voltaire described Canada as quelques arpents de neige,” said Reine-Marie. “A few acres of snow. It was, of course, dismissive. An insult.”
“No offense. I didn’t mean to insult your home.”
Reine-Marie smiled. “I think you know the difference between an insult and a compliment.” Then she too looked out the window. Where Haniya Daoud, and Voltaire, saw a few acres of snow, of misery, she saw tobogganing. Skiing. Snowshoeing. Hockey games on frozen lakes. Sitting by a fire with a hot chocolate, while a blizzard pounded the windows and walls. Was there anything more comforting than being safe and warm inside during a snowstorm?
“Each snowflake is unique, you know.”
“Really?” It would be impossible to convey less interest.
“Oui. A fellow named Snowflake Bentley proved that, more than a century ago. He was a Vermonter. Lived not far from here. A backwoods man who was fascinated by the new invention of photography. He figured out how to take a picture of a single flake. Sounds easy, but just try to capture one, never mind take a picture of it. His photographs are amazing. Beautiful. It was only then that scientists confirmed what they suspected. That each snowflake is different. Trillions and trillions.” She turned to Haniya. “All unique. All exquisite. Each a work of art. Imagine that.”