All the Devils Are Here
- Автор: Пенни Луиза
- Серия: Chief Inspector Gamache #16
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: St. Martin's Publishing Group
- ISBN: 9781250145253
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «All the Devils Are Here». Краткое содержание книги:
On their first night in Paris, the Gamaches gather as a family for a bistro dinner with Armand's godfather, the billionaire Stephen Horowitz. Walking home together after the meal, they watch in horror as Stephen is knocked down and critically injured in what Gamache knows is no accident, but a deliberate attempt on the elderly man's life.
When a strange key is found in Stephen's possession it sends Armand, his wife Reine-Marie, and his former second-in-command at the Sûreté, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, from the top of the Tour d'Eiffel, to the bowels of the Paris Archives, from luxury hotels to odd, coded, works of art.
It sends them deep into the secrets Armand's godfather has kept for decades.
A gruesome discovery in Stephen's Paris apartment makes it clear the secrets are more rancid, the danger far greater and more imminent, than they realized.
Soon the whole family is caught up in a web of lies and deceit. In order to find the truth, Gamache will have to decide whether he can trust his friends, his colleagues, his instincts, his own past. His own family.
For even the City of Light casts long shadows. And in that darkness devils hide.
“I’m in a taxi, on my way to Daniel. We’ll be with you as soon as we can.”
“Are you all right? Is Daniel? Armand, what’s happening? Whose phone are you on?”
“Mine lost power. I’m using the taxi driver’s. I love you. I’ve got to go.”
“I love you,” she said, and then the line went dead in her hand.
Armand gave the phone to the driver, who handed back the money.
“I have a daughter, too.” And turning down an alley, he cut three minutes off the drive.
Armand stared straight ahead, trying to see the way forward and through. The exact sequence of events that had to happen. Had he guessed right?
If not, no amount of planning could possibly work.
They arrived at Stephen’s building with just over a minute to spare.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Gamache got to the door of Stephen’s apartment and pounded on it.
The door was opened by one of the SecurForte guards. Armand looked past him and saw Daniel on his feet in the middle of the living room. Girard was beside him, pressing a gun to Daniel’s temple.
Daniel’s eyes were squeezed shut, and he was trembling.
“No,” shouted Armand.
Daniel opened crazed eyes. “Dad?”
“Seconds,” said Girard, lowering the gun.
“You came back,” said Daniel as his legs buckled.
Armand stepped forward and caught his son, lowering him to the floor so that both were kneeling.
“That was probably a mistake, Armand.”
Claude Dussault’s voice, languid and soft, came across the room. He was sitting on the sofa. Legs crossed. His hand resting on the gun beside him. Perfectly at ease. Apparently not caring if Daniel was executed.
He got up slowly and, walking over to Gamache, picked the file up from where Armand had dropped it. “Let’s see what you’ve found.”
“Are you all right?” Armand asked Daniel.
He didn’t ask if they’d hurt him. Of course they had. Few knew better than Gamache that the worst wounds were not always visible. Or physical.
Daniel’s hands were trembling, and his breathing shallow. His eyes bloodshot and steady, on his father.
“You came back,” he whispered.
Armand gripped Daniel to him. Tight.
And whispered, “Always.”
Then he leaned back and, looking into Daniel’s eyes, he said, “We can do this.”
He could see that Daniel understood what “this” now might mean.
It was the tumble down the ice slide. It was the void beyond the balcony. It was the headlong fall over the edge.
But they wouldn’t have to face it alone. There was some calm, even comfort, in that.
Armand helped Daniel to his feet and shifted his gaze to Claude Dussault. His nerve endings tingling as he watched Dussault return to the sofa and open the file.
Just then Xavier Loiselle appeared at the door. Without hesitating he strode across the room, lifted his rifle, and hit Gamache across the head with the butt end, dropping him to the floor.
“Dad!” shouted Daniel, but Loiselle turned the weapon on him.
“Come on, kid. Do it.” Then he turned back to Gamache. “That’s for making me look like an asshole in front of my team.”
“Okay,” said Girard, reaching out to stop Loiselle from taking it further, while Dussault watched from the sofa, amused. “What happened?”
Loiselle described Gamache’s escape from the archives, and heard the Prefect laugh.
“Admit it, Loiselle, he got the better of you.”
Gamache, on one knee, struggled to his feet, holding the side of his head. His hair matted with blood. “It wasn’t difficult.”
“You fucker.” Loiselle started forward again.
“All right,” said Dussault, like a grandfather calming a child who’d had too many sweets. “More important things now.”
He went back to reading. Armand watched Dussault closely. Putting his hand in his pocket, he felt the gun there.
But it wasn’t time yet. Almost. Almost. But not quite.
Instead, he brought out his handkerchief and pressed it to his head.
“Did you find the Arbour woman?” Girard asked.
“She was hiding in the museum,” reported Loiselle, bringing himself under control. “I took care of her.”
“And the others?”
“In the subbasement.”
“How many?”
“Three bodies. So far. The commander’s there overseeing the wet work.”
Three, thought Gamache. Arbour. Two others. Who’d escaped? Lenoir? De la Granger?
Pinot?
“They were unarmed,” Gamache said, glaring at Loiselle. “Hiding. No threat to you. Is it just a game to you? Hide-and-seek? Is that it? Like Daniel here used to play? Right here in this apartment. Remember, Daniel?”
Daniel, in a daze, nodded. Not sure why his father shot him such an intense look.
“When you have children of your own, young man,” Gamache said to Loiselle, his voice now uncommonly mild, “and they play hide-and-seek with you. Remember this day. Remember what you did.”
“Ah, you’re back,” said Claude Dussault. “Good.”
Their eyes shifted to the door.
Alain Pinot walked in. A little rumpled, but not as dead as he might have been.
Seeing his father’s expression, Daniel said, “Dad, what’s happening? Who is this?”
“Go on,” said Dussault. “Tell him.”
Gamache was staring at Pinot, glaring at him. “This’s the piece of merde who betrayed Stephen.”
“You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you swear, Armand,” said Dussault. Then he turned to Pinot. “You better hope he’s never in a position to get at you. I doubt you’d survive.”
“Alain Pinot owns Agence France-Presse, Daniel,” said Armand. “He’s on the board of GHS Engineering. He’s behind all this.”
“Well, I had some help,” said Pinot. “Including from Stephen himself.”
“He came to you with his suspicions,” said Gamache.
“He did.”
“He trusted you,” said Armand. “And you betrayed him. Ordered him and Plessner killed.”
“No. I handed those decisions over to my security company.” He nodded to Girard. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“He’s the one Stephen approached?” asked Daniel. “To buy his seat on the board?”
“Yes,” said Armand.
“I see the evidence was in that file after all.” Pinot nodded toward the dossier.
Dussault held it up. “All here. Memos, emails, notes in the margins of schematics. Reports by accident investigators, suppressed of course. Damning, to say the least.”
“And you brought it here, knowing what we’d do with it,” said Pinot. “I doubt your godfather would’ve approved. He was willing to die to protect it, and you just hand it over. If I betrayed him, so did you. Good thing you weren’t in the Resistance, Armand. You’d have given them all away.”
“What makes you think you won’t end up in some Parisian landfill?” Gamache asked him. “Just another piece of toxic waste.”
“Because I hold the purse strings. Those hundreds of millions Stephen paid me for the seat on the board.” On seeing Gamache’s raised brows he smiled. “Yes. He actually gave me the money on the understanding that when we met this morning, I’d sign over the board seat. Like you, he had no idea what was actually happening.”
“Are you so sure?” asked Gamache.
“Well, he’s dying, and you and your son are standing here at gunpoint. This can’t be going according to plan.”
“True. But neither is it going according to your plan. I did suspect you, but hoped I was wrong.”
“That’s bullshit,” said Pinot. “You never suspected me.”
“I did, you know. Why do you think I asked Madame Lenoir to lock you in the basement?”