All the Devils Are Here(125)

She tried to rally. “What tracking? Has someone tampered with my phone?”

He raised his brows and stared at her.

She paled. “It’s not what it seems.”

“Really? Because it seems you’ve been passing information to the very people who’ve murdered their way across Paris. The very people we’ve been desperate to avoid. You’ve given them information that led to my son being picked up, beaten, and now held at gunpoint.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t mean—” Now she looked both panicked and confused.

“Tell me now, what do you know about GHS? What’ve you been hiding?”

“Nothing. I don’t know anything.”

“You’re lying.”

He took a step toward her and she cringed.

And Armand Gamache, a good, decent man, understood how good, decent people could resort to torture. If time was too short and the stakes too high.

Because he wanted to do that now. To do whatever was necessary to get the information out of her and save Daniel.

He was so shocked by this realization, so horrified by his temptation, that he took a step away. And clutched his hands behind his back, in case …

“Tell me what you know. Now.”

Séverine Arbour was looking at him, clearly terrified.

She thinks I’m going to beat the information out of her.

And yet, despite her terror, there was resolve. She would not talk. Not easily.

What could be so important that she’d endure torture rather than talk?

“Come with me,” he said and, taking her by the arm, they returned to the others.

“I’m sorry,” said Pinot. “There’s nothing.”

“We can’t find anything connecting any of these dates and stories,” said Judith de la Granger.

Pulling up a chair, Gamache sat down and scanned the pages, going from one date to the next to the …

Then he sat back, as though softly shoved. His mouth had dropped open slightly.

“What is it?” asked Madame de la Granger. She’d seen that look before when researchers finally found what they’d spent decades searching for. Usually some apparently trivial line in an obscure text that illuminated everything.

She leaned closer to read the story that had so struck the Chief Inspector.

It was about a plane crash in Ukraine a year and a half ago. She remembered reading about it. The passenger plane had hit the center of a town. Three hundred and thirty killed.

But Gamache was onto the next date and the next series of stories.

Then he turned to Arbour. “What’s GHS Engineering building in Luxembourg?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “It’s a funicular, isn’t it.”

“But there’s no story about a funicular, Armand,” said Pinot.

“Non,” he said. “Not yet. But there is that.”

It was a news brief, about an elevator that had plummeted thirty-two stories, in Chicago, killing the two people inside.

He got up and looked at his watch. Just over three hours left.

Séverine Arbour saw him coming and backed away, but he walked right by her, as though in a trance. And began pacing the reading room. Almost prowling. Like a great cat in captivity. Looking for the way out. Up and back. Up and back.

What did Claude Dussault say?

Think. Think.

Calm. Calm. Think. Think.

With every step forward he threw his mind back. To what the head of the Préfecture de Paris had said as they’d sat in the corridor of the section d’urgence.

Then, later, over the body of Alexander Plessner.

In his office at the 36 and in the suite at the Lutetia.

Their dinner the night before.

His conversation at the fountain.

Their exchange in the elevator of Stephen’s building as they went up to see Daniel and his captors.

Armand put his hands in his pockets. His right hand felt the gun. It had almost certainly been placed in his apartment by Claude Dussault. Or on Dussault’s orders.

In the other he felt the nickels. Stuck together with a magnet more powerful than anything else known to engineers. Known to engineering and design.

They’d been tossed into the fountain. By Dussault.

Everywhere Gamache looked, there was the Prefect.

Despite his efforts not to be manipulated, was that what was happening? In thinking he was carving his own path, was he really only doing their bidding? Dussault’s bidding?

He walked on, in the dim room, lit by pools of light at each reading station. Time was short, but he couldn’t be rushed. Patience. Patience. With patience comes power.

He needed to think. Think.

Dussault, in what appeared to be a rant against Gamache’s arrogance, had demanded to know what was different between the deaths GHS had caused and what other industries did. Killing people by the tens of thousands and getting away with it. In full view.

Airlines that flew planes they knew were dangerous.

Pharmaceuticals that allowed dangerous drugs to remain in circulation.

The entire tobacco industry.

Elevators that plunged to the ground.

Engineers using faulty materials.

He stopped in his tracks and stared into the darkness. Then turned toward the others, sitting in the pools of light. Watching him.

Faulty materials.