All the Devils Are Here(120)

Armand turned to Daniel. “I have to leave, but I’ll be back in time. I promise.”

He pulled Daniel to him, in a bear hug. And whispered, “I’m so proud of you. I love you.”

Daniel nodded.





CHAPTER 38




Armand unlocked the door to their apartment in the Marais and quickly went over to the bookcase.

The gun was still there.

Slipping it into his coat pocket, he locked up and left.

But where to? He had no idea where Stephen and Plessner had hidden the evidence, if there even was any.

Had Stephen and Plessner uncovered a scam, claiming to use neodymium in next-generation telecommunications where actually it didn’t work? Taking investor’s money on false pretenses?

Or maybe it was real, and GHS needed to protect a breakthrough that would net them billions.

Was it corporate espionage? Fraud? Money laundering?

What had that young journalist found in the mountains of Patagonia? And how could the derailment of a train in Colombia four years ago have anything to do with it?

There was something. Something terrible enough to murder. And now he had just hours to find it.

Armand stood on the sidewalk outside their door and looked this way, then that.

He honestly had no idea where to go next.

He turned toward the Seine and started walking, his mind racing. Though he tried to slow it down, to marshal his thoughts.

What did they know?

For one thing, Claude Dussault had let slip that he knew that they’d talked about Patagonia in the subbasement of the George V.

Which meant he knew everything they’d discussed. Which meant there was an informant in their midst.

And that could be only one person. Séverine Arbour.

What had Dussault said? That the deaths Gamache knew about weren’t even the tip of the iceberg. GHS was responsible for many, many more. On a scale almost unimaginable.

Gamache stopped, realizing he was standing across from the h?pital H?tel-Dieu. Where Annie was busy giving birth, and Stephen was busy dying.

He took a step off the curb, toward the entrance. Then he stepped back.

No. He couldn’t give in to the nearly overwhelming temptation to go in.

In an act so painful he was trembling, Armand Gamache turned his back on them and walked on, sparing a glance at Notre-Dame.

Then he turned his back on that, too, though he allowed his thoughts to linger on the heroics of the men and women who’d run in to save the artifacts. Who’d fought the fire at risk to themselves.

Hell might be empty, but there was evidence of the divine in their midst, too. The trick, as Stephen had taught him in the garden of the Musée Rodin so many years ago, was to see both.

Dreadful deeds were obvious. The divine was often harder to see.

And which, he heard Stephen’s voice and still felt the tap on his chest, would have more weight with you, gar?on?

He was essentially alone now, on the Pont des Coeurs. The Bridge of Hearts.

He stopped to peer over the edge. To cool and calm his thoughts. Reaching out, he felt the old stone, the cold stone, wall and looked down at the dark water.

Claude Dussault had suggested he make a wish. And perhaps he should have also thrown a coin into the Fontaine des Mers. It was ironic, of course. To call a site where the Terror had taken so many lives the Place de la Concorde. The Place of Agreement.

How many wishes, how many fervent prayers, had gone unanswered? Unless the slide of the guillotine was the answer. He wondered now what Dussault had wished for.

Gamache turned toward Place de la Concorde. His mind finally settling. Coming to a halt.

Why had Dussault asked to meet him there, of all places? In front of that fountain? In front of the famous column. That marked the guillotine.

Armand went over what Dussault said. What Dussault did.

Gamache’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, my God,” he whispered.

He hailed a taxi. He had to get back to the Place de la Concorde, but on the way he stopped at the H?tel Lutetia.

Alain Pinot was no longer in bar Joséphine. Nor was he in any of the other bars or restaurants of the grand hotel.

The front desk called Pinot’s room, but there was no answer.

Gamache approached the concierge. “Has Monsieur Pinot asked for a restaurant reservation for tonight?”

“Non, monsieur.”

Armand knew that might not be true. Discretion was a vital part of a concierge’s job.

“I’d very much appreciate your help in finding a restaurant for this evening,” he said, sliding a hundred-euro note across the marble top.

“Most of our guests belong to private clubs.”

“I’ve always wanted to join one. Any suggestions?”

He walked out of there with a short list. Any the concierge’s fingerprint smudging one name.

Cercle de l’Union Interalliée. What General de Gaulle had called the French embassy in Paris.

“May I help you, monsieur?” the well-dressed woman asked in a hushed voice as he entered the private members club.

Gamache had heard about this place but had never been in it.

The Cercle, in the Eighth Arrondissement, was a hub for diplomats, political leaders, industrialists. The elite of Paris.

In other words, the boards of directors of most of the major corporations in Europe.

Armand quickly, instinctively, took in his surroundings.