All the Devils Are Here(6)

They paused, as they always did, at The Burghers. To look into those grim, determined faces.

“Just remember.” Stephen turned to look at his godson.

Armand held his eyes and nodded.

Then the two men walked slowly down rue de Varenne. Armand took Stephen’s arm as they crossed the streets. They ambled past antique shops and stopped at a patisserie, where Armand bought a pain aux raisins escargot for Reine-Marie, her favorite. And a croissant for Stephen to have with his breakfast.

At the large red-lacquered double door into Stephen’s building, the elderly man said, “Leave me here. I might just go across to the H?tel Lutetia for an aperitif.”

“And by ‘aperitif’ you mean ice cream?”

It was only when Armand was crossing the Pont d’Arcole, on his way to their apartment in the Marais, that he realized he hadn’t pursued the question with Stephen. Or maybe Stephen had managed to divert his attention.

Away from the devils. That were somewhere here, here. In Paris.





CHAPTER 2




Jean-Guy Beauvoir could almost feel the chill enter the room, despite the sun streaming through his office window.

He looked up from his screen, but already knew who he’d see. Along with the lowered temperature, a slight aroma always accompanied his deputy department head. And while Beauvoir knew the chill was his imagination, the smell was not.

Sure enough, Séverine Arbour was at his door. She wore her usual delicately condescending smile. It seemed to complement, like a silk scarf, her designer outfit. Beauvoir wasn’t aware enough of fashion to say if Madame Arbour was wearing Chanel, or Yves Saint Laurent, or maybe Givenchy. But since arriving in Paris he’d come to at least know the names. And to recognize haute couture when he saw it.

And he saw it now.

In her forties, elegant and polished, Madame Arbour was the definition of soignée. A Parisienne through and through.

The only thing she wore that he could name was her scent.

Sauvage by Dior. A man’s cologne.

He wondered if it was a message and considered changing his cologne from Brut to Boss. But decided against it. Things were complex enough between them without entering into a war of fragrances with his number two.

“Lots of women wear men’s cologne,” Annie explained when he told her about it. “And men wear women’s scents. It’s all just marketing. If you like the smell, why not?”

She’d then dared him ten euros to wear her eau de toilette into work the next day. A dare he took up. As fate would have it, his own boss, Carole Gossette, chose that very day to invite him out for lunch. For the first time.

He went to her private club, the Cercle de l’Union Interalliée, smelling of Clinique’s Aromatics Elixir. The exact same scent the senior VP at the engineering giant was herself wearing.

It actually seemed to endear him to her.

In a quid pro quo, Annie went into her law offices smelling of Brut. Her male colleagues had, up to then, been cordial but distant. Waiting for the avocate from Québec to prove herself. But that day they seemed to relax. To even pay her more respect. She, and her musk, were welcomed into the fold.

Like her father, Annie Gamache was not one to turn her back on an unexpected advantage. She continued to wear the eau de Cologne until the day she took maternity leave.

Jean-Guy, on the other hand, did not put on the perfume again, despite the fact he actually preferred the warm scent to his Brut. It smelled of Annie, and that always calmed and gladdened him.

Séverine Arbour stood at the door, her face set in a pleasant smile with a base note of smoky resentment and a hint of smug.

Was she biding her time, waiting for her chance to knife him in the back? Beauvoir thought so. But he also knew that compared to the brutal culture in the S?reté du Québec, the internal politics of this multinational corporation were nothing.

This knifing would, at least, be figurative.

Beauvoir had hoped that, with the passage of time, Madame Arbour would come to accept him as head of the department. But all that had happened, in the almost five months he’d been there, was that they’d developed a mutual suspicion.

He suspected she was trying to undermine him.

She suspected he was incompetent.

Part of Jean-Guy Beauvoir recognized they both might be right.

Madame Arbour took the chair across from him and looked on, patiently.

It was, Beauvoir knew, meant to annoy him. But it wouldn’t work. Nothing could upset him that day.

His second child was due any time now.

Annie was healthy, as was their young son, Honoré.

He had a job he enjoyed, if didn’t as yet completely understand.

They were in Paris. Paris, for God’s sake.

How a snot-nosed kid went from playing ball hockey in the alleys of East End Montréal to being an executive in Paris was frankly still a bit of a mystery to him.

To add to Jean-Guy’s buoyant mood, it was Friday afternoon. Armand and Reine-Marie Gamache had arrived from Montréal, and tonight they’d all be having dinner together at one of their favorite bistros.

“Oui?” he said.

“You wanted to see me?” Madame Arbour asked.

“No. What gave you that idea, Séverine?”

She nodded toward his laptop. “I sent you a document. About the funicular project in Luxembourg.”