All the Devils Are Here(25)

Instinctively, Armand moved Reine-Marie behind him and took a step back. Away from the body. Toward the door. His mind working rapidly.

“Armand, if there’s someone here, someone who did that …” She looked toward the corpse. “Will he …”

“Hurt us? Non,” he whispered. “He’d just want to get away.”

He could hear her breathing. Short. Rapid. Her hand on his back was trembling. And with good reason. Despite what he’d said, they were almost certainly still in an apartment with an armed murderer.

And while he didn’t say it, Gamache knew that the surest way for the killer to get out was to kill anyone in his way.

Armand said, loudly, “Stay behind me. We’re leaving.”

As they backed away, he brought out his phone and took several quick photographs.

Once at the door, he gave her his phone, then stooped and picked up the box.

“Take this,” he whispered, so softly she could barely hear. “Go to the H?tel Lutetia. Call Claude. Send him one of the photographs.”

“You?”

But he’d already closed the door. She heard the double lock turn as she stood in the hall, holding the box.

Not waiting for the elevator, Reine-Marie took the stairs two at a time.

Armand leaned against the door, using his body to muffle the sound of the key turning in the lock. Then he replaced it in his pocket.

The intruder couldn’t leave without the key. There was a possibility he had one, but Gamache had to take that risk.

The other risk he was taking was locking himself in with someone who was almost certainly armed. He’d have disciplined any of his agents who did what he was doing. But whoever murdered this man was probably also responsible for the attempt on Stephen’s life. And Armand was not going to just let them go.

But there was another problem. Armand knew the apartment and knew there was another way out. He just hoped the intruder didn’t know.

Finding the killer was no longer his goal. Just the opposite, really.

What he needed to do was get to the kitchen, and the back stairwell. If he could lock that door from the outside, the intruder would be trapped.

He could see the kitchen, at the far end of what now seemed a very long and very narrow hallway. With nowhere to hide. Exactly the environment he taught cadets at the academy to never, ever enter.

The scent of cologne was slightly stronger now.

Bringing the keys out, he made a fist around them, the individual keys between his fingers, like brass knuckles. Not much of a defense. More psychological than practical.

He was halfway down the long hall when he heard a bang. He flinched, even as he realized it wasn’t a shot.

It was a door slamming.

“Damn.”

Racing into the kitchen, he yanked open the fire escape door and heard feet on the concrete stairs. He followed them down, taking the steps two, three at a time.

As he ran, he thought he heard a familiar sound. Muffled. A phone ringing. But not his. His was with Reine-Marie.

The sound of the intruder’s feet echoed in the enclosed stairwell. The person he was chasing was not young, Armand unconsciously noted.

But still, whoever this was, they had a head start and were moving quickly. Desperate to get away.

And it looked like they would.

If he could just catch a glimpse …

A door banged open, and he saw sunlight a few flights down. Then it disappeared as the door swung shut.

When he got to the bottom, Armand threw himself against it and staggered out onto a busy Paris sidewalk. Surprised pedestrians leaped out of the way as Armand swung around, looking this way, then that.

Nothing. Just men and women walking, some gawking. No one running.

He’d lost him.

Walking rapidly toward the Lutetia, Armand turned the corner and saw Reine-Marie hugging the cardboard box. Staring at the front door to Stephen’s building.

Willing Armand to appear.

He called to her, and she turned. Her relief was accompanied by the familiar wail of a police siren quickly approaching.





CHAPTER 9




What the hell’s going on, Armand?”

Claude Dussault and Armand Gamache were standing side by side, looking down at the body while members of the brigade criminelle fanned out in a semicircle, waiting for the Prefect to give them the go-ahead.

Since he didn’t know what the hell was going on, Gamache remained silent.

“Do you know him?”

“I don’t think so,” said Gamache. “But we’ll get a better look when he’s turned over.”

What he could see was that the man was older, perhaps mid-seventies. Caucasian. Slender. In casual but expensive clothes.

Armand lifted his eyes from the body and gazed at the shambles around him. Furniture overturned. Books taken from shelves and splayed on the floor. Drawers pulled out and tossed. Even the art had been taken from the walls, the brown paper at the back of them slashed.

Thankfully none of the art itself appeared to have been destroyed.

Dussault nodded, and the brigade went to work while the two senior officers walked from room to room. Armand hadn’t had a chance to look at the rest of Stephen’s apartment, but now he did.

“Horowitz’s bedroom?” Dussault asked.

“Oui.”

The bed had been taken apart, the mattress thrown to the floor. The doors of the huge armoire were open, and clothing lay in heaps.