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.
“His name was Snowflake?” asked Haniya.
“His name was Wilson. Snowflake was an affectionate nickname.” Reine-Marie returned to the view. “Without that thick layer of snow, the crops, the flowers, even many of the animals would die. It’s insulation against a killing frost. Then in the spring it melts. Liquid gold, the farmers call it. They pray for as much as possible. Perception’s an interesting thing, non?”
“What?” said Haniya. “I wasn’t listening. Are you still talking about snow? I’ve been here three days and all you people seem to talk about is the weather.”
“And murder.”
“The two seem to dovetail, yes.”
Reine-Marie heaved a long sigh that fogged up the glass in front of her. Fully realizing she might be making a terrible mistake, she did it anyway. “I have a delicate, maybe even unpleasant task to perform, and I’m wondering if you’d like to come along.”
Haniya’s brows all but disappeared into her bright purple hijab. “Why?”
It was, of course, a very good question.
Why? Reine-Marie asked herself.
“Because I don’t think you should be alone. Because you might be a distraction.”
“Because I’m Black?”
“Because you’re annoying. It’ll make me look more reasonable.”
Haniya laughed, then considered. “Might as well. Nothing else to do except look at that.” She gestured toward the acres of snow.
As she followed Reine-Marie to the car, Haniya scooped up some snow. She stared at the flakes in her mitten. Then tried to separate one from the pack. But couldn’t. She leaned close, trying to see the patterns of each individual flake, but her breath melted them before she could see.
She raised her head and looked at the snowbanks and snowdrifts. At the snow balancing on tree limbs and sitting on the roof of the Inn, and the cars, and the stone walls.
Acres and acres.
As she got into the still warm car, Haniya realized that when Reine-Marie Gamache said she wanted her company, there was one reason she hadn’t given.
Because I like you.
Haniya had been called brave. She’d been called remarkable. She’d been called tireless and inspirational. She’d been called a hero. All of which, she knew, were true.
But no one had called her friend.
On the way over, Reine-Marie brought Haniya up to speed about Enid Horton and the commission to help the family sort Mom’s things before the sale of the home.
“You said it might be unpleasant. Why’s that? Did you find something?”
That’s when Reine-Marie told her about the monkeys. About the strange collection. The books and drawings. The etching on the bedroom wall.
But not about Ewen Cameron. She felt she should tell the family first.
“Monkeys?” said Haniya, shaking her head. “And now you have to tell the family that their mother was crazy. And you brought me along as an example of crazy?”
Reine-Marie pulled into the brick bungalow on the outskirts of Cowansville. “I’ve brought you along as proof that terrible things can happen, and we can still heal.”
“You think I’ve healed?” said Haniya, with a laugh. “You think I’m whole?”
She turned in her seat and stared at Reine-Marie. “No. What you see is a mockery, a mimic. I’m made up of bits and pieces left on the ground, from other broken people. An arm here, a leg there. A memory, an aspiration, a desire. Sewn together so that I look human, but am not quite.”
“The creature from Frankenstein,” said Reine-Marie.
Haniya laughed. “And here I thought you’d comfort me. Tell me I’m wrong. That I’m fully human and beautiful. Instead you call me a monster.”
“The creature wasn’t the monster,” Reine-Marie said, quietly. “The doctor was.” She smiled at her companion. “I told you this was going to be unpleasant, and you came anyway, to keep me company. If that isn’t whole, I don’t know what is. You are beautiful. And you are brave.”
And, and, Haniya waited, you are my friend.
When Reine-Marie didn’t say it, Haniya turned away and looked out the window.
“You say that your snow covers all sorts of wonderful things. Keeps them alive. But I suspect it covers terrible things too. Things that are better off dead, or at least hidden.” She turned back to Reine-Marie. “Perception. Who’s to say who the monsters are? And where they’re buried.”
Reine-Marie got out of the car and wondered if she was about to make a mistake, in telling the Horton family the long-buried truth she’d uncovered. About their mother. And the monkeys. And the modern monster.
Maybe Haniya was right. Some things don’t need to be brought into light. Some truths can remain unspoken.
CHAPTER 38
“I think I know what happened,” said Jean-Guy, taking a seat at the conference table.
They were once again in the basement of the Auberge. Snow from the day before had blown up against the windows, blocking out the sun.
As Jean-Guy spoke, the rough stone walls of the Old Hadley House seemed to lean closer. The specters trapped there eager to hear how a father might murder a helpless daughter.
“Oui?” said Armand. He too leaned forward.
“I think Paul Robinson didn’t kill his daughter.”
At that Armand’s brows drew down. Worried for Jean-Guy, but willing to listen.
“Go on.”
“I think he saved Abby.” Jean-Guy looked from Armand to Isabelle and saw skepticism, and not a little bewilderment. He hurried on. “At least that’s how he saw it. It came to me just now when I was with Idola. He’d never have hurt Maria—”
“Do you mean you could never hurt Idola?” asked Armand.
Jean-Guy turned to him in frustration. “No, well, yes, partly. Look, I admit, it’s hard to separate my feelings for Idola from what Paul Robinson might’ve been going through. And I’m not saying he didn’t do it.”
“What are you saying?” asked Armand, confused now.
Beauvoir regrouped. “I’m saying that I agree with you. Paul Robinson was exhausted. Drained. I think he saw that Maria was failing and in his confused state he did something that made sense at the time but that he immediately regretted. I think in a moment of sheer madness, he didn’t see it as killing her, but as freeing her. And her sister. Separating them, finally. No more Abby Maria. I’m saying he saw it as releasing both his daughters. One to peace, the other to a full life.”
He looked from one to the other, trying to read their expressions.
There was silence as Armand and Isabelle, both parents, imagined that moment when Paul Robinson looked into the abyss.
It wasn’t completely unknown. Not just with parents and suffering children, but with adult children and frail parents. With spouses. With friends. When there was interminable pain. Terrible suffering. When the end was inevitable but taking too long.
Plugs were pulled and respirators turned off. Hands were held, and prayers and promises and goodbyes whispered.
But what happened when the suffering continued? Or when there were no plugs to pull? Just a loved one wracked with uncontrollable pain and begging for help.
What happened when nature was taking its time to take its course? When the necessary permission for assisted suicide hadn’t been given in time?
Was a nudge necessary?
Did mercy sound like a soft footstep in the middle of the night? Did it look like a syringe? A pillow?
But was it always mercy?
If looked at from a certain angle, in a certain light, did the kind angel become wicked? Dispatching not a tormented loved one, but an inconvenience. Wasn’t that the debate they were locked in now, thanks to Abigail Robinson and her campaign for mandatory euthanasia?