All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,137
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.”