All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,76

she there, and why had she been erased? Could she have been the one Stephen was meeting before dinner Friday night?

He got up and walked around the living room, unable to settle. What could this mean?

Had Stephen sat across from her, looked her in the eyes, and told the president of GHS Engineering that he’d found out about their industrial espionage?

Was that what he was going to announce at the board meeting on Monday?

Is that why they tried to have him killed? That might explain the lack of finesse in both attacks. They were ordered at the last minute.

But something wasn’t quite right.

For a man who’d survived the war as a member of the Resistance. Who’d been cunning then and throughout his long life. Why would he make such a foolish strategic error now? Effectively signing his own death warrant.

Presumably he was in the George V to hide. Why invite over the very person he was hiding from?

After another circuit of the small living room, Jean-Guy sat back down and went through the video again. The lobby. The hallway to the elevator. The elevators, including the service elevators.

Nothing. Eugénie Roquebrune had disappeared.

He broadened the search.

And that’s where he found her. In the reflection of a waiter’s large silver tray. Polished and gleaming. It showed, for 2.7 seconds, three guests at a private corner table in the Galerie lounge.

The head of GHS Engineering sat with two male companions. Stephen Horowitz and Alexander Plessner?

Back and forth Jean-Guy went, over and over the footage. Until he was certain that he recognized one of the men at the table.

Just hours before the attacks, Claude Dussault, the Prefect of Police, was having tea with Eugénie Roquebrune.

Beauvoir got to his feet. It was almost ten thirty. He could call, but …

Dussault was at the Gamaches’. He didn’t want to say anything that might be overheard.

A man naturally given to action, Jean-Guy had come late to the value of pausing.

“It is solved by walking,” Gamache had often said.

In the middle of a stressful case, the Chief would leave his office, and instead of doing something, he’d go for a walk. Often just up and down the corridors of Sûreté headquarters, hands clasped behind his back, occasionally muttering, while Beauvoir, figuratively, danced Tigger-like around him.

Gamache had patiently explained, over and over, over the years, that he was doing something.

He was thinking.

It had taken Beauvoir years to see the power of pausing. And of patience. Of taking a breath to consider all options, all angles, and not simply acting on the most obvious.

After looking in on Annie and Honoré, he put on a light jacket and went out for a walk.

CHAPTER 24

When the men returned to the living room with dessert and coffee, Reine-Marie nodded toward the box. “Find anything interesting?”

“Look at this,” said Armand. “And tell us what you think.”

He handed them the GHS annual report, open to the page listing the board of directors. “My God. The former President of France?” said Monique. “An ex–American Secretary of State?”

“Look, a Nobel laureate,” said Reine-Marie. “I read her book. Formidable.”

They scanned the list of diplomats, world leaders, philosophers, and artists.

“Anything strike you?” asked Armand.

“Besides the caliber of members?” said Monique. “GHS must be incredibly powerful to attract such people.”

“Yes,” said Armand. He was watching Reine-Marie as she stared at the list. Then, after taking a large forkful of creamy cake, she turned to the President’s Report. There was a photo of the CEO, Eugénie Roquebrune. And below it a précis of their corporate philosophy.

“Seems interesting to me,” she said slowly, “who’s not on the board.”

“What do you mean?” Monique reexamined the names.

“This’s an engineering firm, right?” said Reine-Marie. “So why aren’t there any engineers? There’re no scientists of any kind. Nobel laureates, but not in economics or physics. They’re in literature. And why aren’t there any accountants? Anyone who could read a financial statement and see if there’s anything wrong? They’re all politicians and diplomats. Minor royalty and celebrities. There’s this one fellow, head of a media empire, but that doesn’t mean he can read a spreadsheet even if he wanted to.”

And that, thought Armand, was the crux. How much did these people actually want to know?

“Not exactly the checks and balances you’d hope for in a board of directors,” said Monique.

The photo of Madame Roquebrune smiled out at them. She seemed pleasant enough, but did not give the impression of immense power or even authority.

But then, that might’ve been the idea. Gamache suspected nothing, no word, no image,