All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #16) - Louise Penny Page 0,94
of control. Confusing. This was not at all what she’d signed up for.
* * *
“Mrs. McGillicuddy emailed me last night,” said Armand. “She should be awake now. Do you mind?”
“Non.”
He placed the call, pressing his phone to his ear in an effort to hear above the din of the restaurant. He said a few words, then listened.
Reine-Marie saw, for a split second, a look of astonishment on his face.
He hung up and stared into space. Then he made another call. This time to one of their neighbors in Three Pines.
“Oui, Clara? No, Stephen’s still in critical condition. Yes. I will, merci. But I have a question. Who do you know at the Louvre?”
Now it was Reine-Marie’s turn to look astonished.
“Séverine,” said Beauvoir. “What do you know about our company?”
“What do you mean? It’s a huge engineering firm. What else is there to know?”
He took another tack. “How could the Luxembourg funicular figure in?”
“Maybe payoffs, funds for the mine siphoned through the Freeport in the duchy. Or bribes for Chilean officials.”
Yes, thought Jean-Guy. That made sense. The financial angle. That’s how Stephen would have first suspected something was wrong.
Beauvoir put his hands behind his back and walked in silence, gazing out over Paris. The great monuments were spread out at his feet. The boy from East End Montréal, who played ball hockey among garbage cans in the alleyways, could see the curve of the earth.
And all he wanted to do was go home.
CHAPTER 30
The taxi on the way to the Louvre stopped briefly at their apartment so Armand could pick up the GHS annual report.
While he was upstairs, Reine-Marie called Daniel and convinced him to move with Roslyn and the girls to the George V. To join Annie and her family in Stephen’s suite.
“Shouldn’t we take another room?” he asked. “It’ll be a little tight.”
“You’ll be fine.”
She hadn’t told him about his name in the archive system. Not yet. Not while there was still a chance he’d go to Commander Fontaine and tell her all he knew.
Best he didn’t know that.
When Armand returned to the taxi, she told him of her success with Daniel.
“That’s good.” He sighed with relief, knowing if he’d asked, Daniel would never have agreed.
He gave the driver the directions.
“We don’t want to go to the main entrance. I’ll guide you.”
Ignoring the snorting and muttering from the front seat, Armand pointed out the way to the Porte des Lions.
“You won’t get in,” warned the driver when he dropped them off.
Armand and Reine-Marie stood between the two huge sculptures of lions, and looked up at the tall wooden doors.
“Do you think there’s a doorbell?” Reine-Marie asked.
Just as they began to think the surly driver might have been right, the doors slowly, slowly opened.
“We’re here to see Monsieur de la Coutu,” said Armand, and showed the guard his ID.
Within minutes the curator arrived, hand extended. “Madame, Monsieur Gamache. Clara Morrow phoned and asked me to help. What can I do for you?”
To be honest, Reine-Marie had the same question.
All she knew was that Bernard de la Coutu was a curator in the Louvre’s Department of Paintings.
“I’d like you to come with us,” said Armand. “I promise, it won’t take long.”
The curator raised his brows and studied the couple, then nodded. “Absolutely. I’m a huge fan of Clara’s paintings, especially her portraits. She’s become a good friend. I’ll do whatever you need.”
Daniel’s mouth dropped open. He understood why his mother wasn’t worried about them being crammed into the suite. The space, even by Stephen’s standards, was insane.
But even more striking than the suite was the officer at the door. He looked grim and held a machine gun.
He remembered the look on his father’s face, in the garden that morning.
In his outrage, he’d interpreted it as his father being afraid that Daniel knew the truth about his being a member of Task Force Two. And would tell the cops.
Now he understood that his father wasn’t afraid of him. He was afraid for him.
Leaving his family behind to explore the hotel, Daniel got into a taxi.
“Thirty-six, quai des Orfèvres, s’il vous plaît.”
“Are you sure this is smart?” asked Xavier Loiselle.
La Défense loomed up ahead, like its own great kingdom.
“It’s so stupid, it’s probably brilliant,” said Séverine Arbour. “Or it’s so brilliant, it’s stupid.”
“That gets my vote,” said Loiselle.
They’d taken the métro to the familiar stop. Once they exited the station, Loiselle dropped back and pretended to be tailing them.
Beauvoir and Arbour signed in and showed their IDs. There was a tense moment when