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.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
She had a lump in her throat now. Remembering those images.
That experience in the pandemic would become part of their DNA. His DNA. Part of every perception, every sight, every sound, every meal, every celebration. Every moment.
Every decision. For the rest of his life. Including this one. Couldn’t help but.
“You beat yourself up for not being there earlier. I know you do. And now I think you’d do just about anything to make up for it. I think you see Abigail Robinson threatening tens of thousands of people, including, maybe, Idola. And, like Dr. Gilbert, you want to stop her. You can’t kill her, but you can imprison her.”
Armand could feel his rage trying to claw its way out. Becoming outrage.
From an adversary, and he had plenty, this charge would be insulting enough, but from a trusted ally? A colleague he’d brought not only into the department, but into his life. His home. His family.
He stared at her, speechless. No, not speechless. Afraid to say anything, for fear of what he might say.
And to her credit, though he wasn’t yet willing to give her any, Isabelle Lacoste did not back away. She sat still, in the full force of his glare. And waited.
“Merci,” he finally said.
“Patron,” she began, sensing that something precious had just torn. “I—”
“Thank you,” he said, turning away.
She’d been dismissed.
But …
But her words had not been. As he stared at his screen, he knew that what he was really feeling wasn’t anger, it was fear.
He was afraid that what she said was true. That he wanted to stop Abigail Robinson and the only weapon he could use was his office. As head of homicide.
He could arrest her for murder. Whether she committed that actual crime or not would be immaterial. She was in the process of planning hundreds, thousands, of murders. And he wouldn’t let her.
He would act. He would protect Idola. He would protect Stephen and Ruth. He would protect those unborn, and those born long ago.
Was that really it? Was Isabelle right? Was he trying to make up for his earlier failure, in the pandemic, to protect the most vulnerable?
Gamache stared straight ahead, straight at the thing uncurling before him. Was it the truth? Or was it residual guilt?
And then his eyes focused, and he realized that what he was really staring at was the photo Jean-Guy had found from the conference just days, maybe hours, before Maria had died. He was staring into the eyes of Paul Robinson. And then his gaze shifted and he leaned closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes and zooming in.
Beauvoir interrupted his thoughts. “Patron?”
“Yes, what is it?” Gamache looked up.
Jean-Guy had pulled up a chair. “Let’s say Abigail did kill Debbie in revenge for the death of her sister, why did it take so long? Maria died years ago.”
Chief Inspector Gamache looked from Beauvoir to Lacoste. Here was his chance. To change course. All he had to do was tell Beauvoir to drop that line of inquiry. That the death of Maria was sad but not pertinent. They were going to focus on the most likely suspect in the murder of Debbie Schneider. Vincent Gilbert.
Beauvoir waited. Lacoste looked up.
Except …
“I think Ruth gave me the answer to that.”
Jean-Guy turned to Isabelle. “This should be good.”
Gamache pushed away from his desk, away from Paul Robinson’s stare. He’d been slow to see it, and only now did it all come together.
“She and I were talking about Reine-Marie’s work, going through Madame Horton’s possessions, and the fact that when someone dies it falls to family to sort through their things.”
“Right,” said Jean-Guy. “All the crap in closets and drawers.”
“Attics and basements,” said Isabelle.
“Exactly. There are hundreds of decisions to be made. Often painful ones, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. Items become charged with emotion, with memories. So relatives often just pack the stuff up and put it away. That’s what happened when Paul Robinson died. Abigail was young, in shock. She packed up his things and put them in the attic, and didn’t think of them again until her home was sold.”
“Six weeks ago,” said Jean-Guy. “That’s when she found the letter from Ewen Cameron demanding payment for the treatment.”
“That’s when she realized what had happened to her mother,” agreed Gamache. “And that Gilbert had been part of it. But suppose she also found that photograph.”
He nodded to the one on his desk. The one of the four people at the seashore.
“But if Abigail found the picture, why did Debbie have it?” asked Isabelle. “And why would she lock it in her desk?”
“There must be something incriminating in it,” said Jean-Guy. “Something that proves Debbie killed Maria.”
They stared down at the photograph. But it still just looked like a happy family, and a friend.
“If there is something there that we can’t see, but they can, why would Abigail give it to Debbie? And why choose the New Year’s Eve party to kill her?”
“Something must’ve provoked it,” said Jean-Guy.
“‘Abby Maria.’”
They looked at Gamache. “I’m sorry,” said Jean-Guy. “What?”
“Debbie kept repeating it, then had to apologize since it so clearly upset Abigail. But why the anger? Why the apology? She said it again at the party, this time in front of the worst possible person. Vincent Gilbert. That was just before she was killed.”
“But Abigail already explained that,” said Isabelle. “She didn’t want anyone to know about Maria. She thought it would undermine her arguments.”
“That was a lie. Maria wasn’t a secret. Lots of people knew about her. No, there’s another reason it upset, angered, Abigail.”
“You think Debbie killed Maria,” said Beauvoir. “And every time she used that pet name it felt to Abigail like she’d been stabbed.”
“I think it’s possible. Something provoked the attack that night.”
“What provoked it was Abigail threatening Vincent Gilbert,” said Isabelle. “And he killed her, or rather, he killed Debbie by mistake. It had nothing to do with Maria or her death.”
“Okay,” said Beauvoir, “but maybe it does. Suppose Abigail has her suspicions of Debbie but nothing concrete. All this talk of Abby Maria pushes her past the breaking point. She needs to have it out with Debbie.”
Since Isabelle wasn’t encouraging, he turned to Gamache, who was listening closely.
Beauvoir leaned forward. “Abigail goes outside, and when the Chancellor leaves, she catches up with Debbie and confronts her. Demands the truth about Maria. And Debbie admits it. Probably knew it was coming. Ever since Abigail gave her the picture.”
As Jean-Guy spoke, Armand found himself standing in the snow, just off the path. In the dark. In the woods. Watching the two women, while Roman candles burst overhead and children stood around the bonfire, trying to write their names in sparkles.
He watched as Abigail Robinson demanded the truth and Debbie Schneider admitted her crime. She might have even been relieved to finally tell Abby.
Would she show remorse? Beg forgiveness?
Or maybe she did neither.
“If Debbie really did kill Maria,” said Gamache, “I think it’s possible that she believed she’d done Abigail a favor. Freed her to go to Oxford to pursue her dreams. Maybe she even convinced herself she’d done Maria a favor. But she misjudged. Abigail loved her sister. You only have to look at the photograph to see it.” He picked it up and looked at it again. “I think that’s why it was locked away. Not because Debbie felt guilty and couldn’t look at Maria, but because she didn’t want to see the love there.”