All the Devils Are Here(110)
But she already knew the answer. Then a thought occurred to her.
“Are there any board members with the initials AFP?” she asked, reaching for the report.
They began putting the names into the searches. Sure enough Annette Poppy, a former British Foreign Secretary, turned out to be Annette Forrester Poppy.
Jean-Guy looked at his watch. It was ten past seven.
“I know this man,” came the voice of the Chief Librarian over Jean-Guy’s shoulder.
Madame de la Granger was pointing to a member of the GHS Engineering board. “He’s the son of an old family friend. We were at the Sorbonne together.”
She moved her finger so they could read his name. Alain Pinot.
Alain Flaubert Pinot.
They stared at the photo of the middle-aged man. Thinning hair and fleshy face.
“His father owned newspapers,” said Madame de la Granger. “He asked if I’d tutor his son. As a favor, I agreed. What a waste of time.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Because Alain Pinot was as dumb as they come,” said the Chief Librarian. “If stupid was sand, he’d be half the Sahara.”
They looked at her.
“What? It’s true. This guy’s father knew I was into research. He hoped I could teach the kid how to track down information. Prepare him for a job at the newspapers. But all he was interested in was partying. And yet …”
They waited, as Madame de la Granger cast her mind back.
“I quite liked him. He was a couple of years younger than me, spoiled, entitled, thick but harmless. He had a poor brain but a good heart.” She looked again at the photo. “Just before he flunked out of the Sorbonne, his father had him transferred to another university, and I lost track of him.”
“Where to?” asked Beauvoir.
“I have no idea. Far away from the distractions of Paris is all I know.”
“Université de Montréal?” said Reine-Marie, looking at Jean-Guy. She entered Alain Flaubert Pinot’s name into the archive database, and up came his biography. “Yes. Says here he studied in Montréal. But not at UdeM. McGill.”
Reine-Marie and Jean-Guy stared at each other.
An unruly young man sent far from home to study? It seemed more than likely his father would contact a friend in Montréal to watch over his idiot son.
Was Stephen Horowitz that family friend? Was this the connection?
They called up more information on this A. F. Pinot.
Married with three children.
Father died of cancer fifteen years ago.
Son took over the company and, against the wishes of his board, immediately expanded into cable, telecom, tech companies.
He’d bought low, after the tech bubble burst, and turned hundreds of millions into billions.
“Jesus, maybe the guy’s an idiot savant,” said Madame de la Granger. “Though I saw no evidence of the savant part.”
“There,” said Allida Lenoir, pointing to her screen. “Six years ago. Pinot’s company bought a controlling interest in—”
“Agence France-Presse,” said Reine-Marie, triumphant. “That must be it.”
Jean-Guy was shaking his head. “We still don’t have a connection between this guy and Stephen. We don’t know whether AFP in his notes means Alain Pinot, or Agence France-Presse, or Plessner, or someone else.”
“Something’s missing,” said Madame de la Granger. “Some link.”
“I’m going to write Mrs. McGillicuddy,” said Reine-Marie, “and find out if Stephen knew the Pinot family, and especially Alain Pinot.”
The four of them sat in individual pools of light, their fingers tap-tap-tapping on the keyboards, like the soft patter of feet, sneaking up on a killer.
*
Daniel stared at the screen, jotted some notes. Then he looked up another file. And made more notes.
He’d been at it for almost an hour, exploring avenues and dead ends. Eliminating possibilities, narrowing options. He’d started by trying to track down the numbered companies, with limited success.
Then he went into the sell and buy orders, the ones stored for execution Monday morning. There were thousands. Listed not by investor, but by investment.
He needed to scroll through them all. His eyes were bloodshot, his concentration wavering.
He stopped. Went back. Something he’d passed needed another look.
Daniel stared at the screen.
A buy order had popped up. Placed by Stephen Horowitz late Friday, to be executed first thing Monday morning.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
He’d found out what Stephen was going to do with his billions. But it didn’t tell him why.
So absorbed was Daniel that he didn’t hear the click of the door behind him.
The rapid tapping of his fingers on the keyboard masked the soft approach of footsteps.
He didn’t hear the murmured voice, advising the weekend supervisor to go back to his office. And stay there.
But he did feel the warm breath on his neck.
“Neodymium is fairly common,” Madame Arbour read off her phone. “In China. Less so elsewhere. The find in Patagonia would be significant.”
“Why?” asked Gamache. Though he believed he knew the answer.
Geopolitics. China was an authoritarian regime that could be as thin-skinned as it was brutal. Agreements were vulnerable to political machinations. Regime change. Subject to trade wars and tariffs. And a Western government that actually put human rights above profit.