All the Devils Are Here(56)

“I’d like to speak with you. Privately, sir.” She glanced at Beauvoir.

“Yes? You can speak in front of Jean-Guy. What is it?”

He could see it was something. Something even more sensitive, it seemed, than accusing his children of murder.

They were standing in the front hall, and she pointed to the dining room. When they sat down, she said, “Are you aware of Monsieur Horowitz’s background?”

Armand opened his mouth to answer, then changed his mind. Finally saying, “I think so, but what do you know?”

“He’s German by birth.”

“Yes.”

“And fought with the French Resistance during the war,” said Fontaine. “His family was arrested for protecting Jews, and shot. Monsieur Horowitz managed to escape.”

“Oui. His family stalled the Gestapo long enough to allow him to lead the Jewish family out a hidden door in the back garden.”

This was news to Jean-Guy, who listened in astonishment. He knew about the Resistance, but not this.

“That’s the story, yes,” said Fontaine.

Gamache shifted in his seat but remained silent. He was beginning to get an inkling of what was coming.

“As you can imagine, sir, we have access to files that aren’t public. That were suppressed after the war, for all sorts of reasons.”

“Go on.”

Armand had tensed his muscles, like a boxer preparing for a body blow.

“The reports we have in the archives tell a different story,” said Fontaine. “His family was indeed killed in the war. His mother and siblings in Dresden. His father and uncle survived the war but were shot by the Russians.”

“Why?”

“They were senior Gestapo officers responsible, according to the Russians, for sending thousands to the camps.”

Armand sat perfectly still. Struck dumb. Almost blind and deaf. His senses shutting down. Not breathing. Not blinking. This was far worse than anything he could have expected or imagined. Or steeled himself against.

It was so great a lie, it staggered him.

And then an image exploded in his mind. Of his grandmother. Zora. Looking at Stephen, as though the devil himself had entered the house.

Did she know something? Sense something?

But no. That wasn’t possible. This wasn’t possible.

With a jolt, like a man coming up for air, he was back in the peaceful dining room of his son’s apartment in Paris. Diffused light came in through the sheer curtains, giving it an ethereal quality.

“That’s not true,” he finally managed to say.

“I can show you the documents.”

He nodded. Knowing he had to see them, but not wanting to. He wanted to crawl back to an hour ago, when things were just terrible, not monstrous.

“Even if it is true, about his father and uncle, that doesn’t mean Stephen was part of it. He still escaped to France. Still fought in the Resistance.”

“Did he?” asked Fontaine. “Are you so sure? If he lied about his family, maybe he lied about that, too.”

“What he told us is the truth.” Gamache’s grip was slipping. The horses straining. “The man is ninety-three, fighting for his life in a hospital bed after being attacked, and now you … you … attack him again? With wild accusations that are impossible to prove, or disprove? Jesus Christ.”

The stamping horses had broken loose.

Beside him, Jean-Guy jerked. He’d rarely heard Armand Gamache shout, and never, ever heard him swear. Not with those words anyway. Never.

And now the Chief was literally trembling with rage.

Across the table, Irena Fontaine smiled. She’d hit a nerve, just as Dussault had predicted. And not just hit but shattered a nerve.

Gamache had managed to remain calm, contained, when she’d accused his children of murder. But this accusation against Horowitz had made him lose it. Why?

Because, she thought, he’s afraid it might actually be true.

“What I know,” she said, “is that the Allies had their doubts. The leaders of the Resistance had their doubts.”

“But not enough to prosecute.”

“That’s hardly a measure of innocence, as we all know.”

She opened the slender folder and produced a grainy black-and-white photograph.

It showed German officers laughing and raising glasses. Among them a thin-lipped, humorless man who looked like a failed accountant. Heinrich Himmler. Head of the Gestapo and father of the Holocaust.

Food and drink were in front of them. A celebration in progress.

And behind Himmler, a slender hand resting comfortably on the Nazi leader’s shoulder, was a young man with a familiar grin, looking straight into the camera.

Armand felt light-headed and thought he might be sick. It was the same hand he’d gripped as a child. He’d gripped that morning in the hospital.

Stephen. Impossibly young. Happy. Joining in the fun. Joining in the joke.

Armand recognized the fresco behind them.

The photo was taken in the H?tel Lutetia after it had been commandeered as the headquarters of the Abwehr, the Nazi counterespionage unit, in occupied Paris.

Gamache had sat at that same table with Stephen. Eating ice cream as a child, sipping scotch as an adult. Perhaps the very same drink, from the same glasses, in the very same chair, as that creature.