by Louise Penny
An elegant man. Clearly used to a certain authority. But then, everyone who came through that door had authority. Or they wouldn’t get past her.
“Oui, merci. I’m looking for one of your guests. Monsieur Pinot. Alain Pinot.”
“Are you a member of a reciprocal club? Perhaps the Mount Royal in Montréal?”
How subtly she’s made it clear that she’d placed him as a Québécois.
“Non. I’m just a visitor. Is Monsieur Pinot here?”
“I really cannot say.”
“I understand. If he were here, could you please give him this?”
Gamache handed her the card and saw her face open in a smile. “Bienvenue. This”—she held up the JSPS card—“is your membership. Do you mind?”
Selecting a burgundy-and-dark-blue Pierre Cardin tie, she waited while he did it up, then indicated he should follow her up the wide stairway.
At the top, in a hushed voice, she said, “Wait here, please.”
They were at the entrance to a massive room, with groupings of sofas and armchairs.
Gamache watched as she walked over to a gathering of men and women, all of whom he recognized from the GHS board.
The man looked up as the concierge bent over and handed him the card. Then he looked over.
At Gamache.
Alain Pinot rose, saying a few words to his companions, and followed the woman to where Gamache was waiting.
Corpulent and red-faced from too much wine and too much rich food over too many years. And yet, Gamache thought, there was about him a force. Here was an undeniable personality.
Pinot looked at Gamache, then said to the concierge, “Is there a private salon available?”
“Absolutely. Follow me please, gentlemen.”
The room she led them to was intimate, the walls lined with bookcases. There were two large leather armchairs with the imprints of bodies, as though the spirits of long-dead members, reluctant to leave this sanctuary, still sat there.
A small fire had been laid in the grate, and before she left, she lit it.
There was a decanter of cognac and bulbous glasses on a sideboard.
“May I bring you anything?” she asked.
“Non, Marie, merci. I think we’d like to be alone.”
“Of course, Monsieur Pinot.”
Pinot locked the door and turned to Gamache. “You were at the Lutetia earlier. Who are you? And”—he handed him back his card—“how do you have this?”
“My name is Armand Gamache.”
Pinot’s eyes widened and he grinned. “You’re Armand. The famous Armand. I’ve been jealous of you for years. Decades. Stephen’s son.”
So Pinot and Stephen did know each other, and apparently very well. Armand exhaled, almost a sigh. It was the first time he’d felt relief in what seemed ages. They were finally getting somewhere. He hoped.
“Godson,” he said.
“Stephen didn’t seem to make the distinction.”
He put out his hand, and Armand took it, feeling it both fleshy and strong. A man of immense appetite.
Alain Pinot should have been a king, might have been a king in another lifetime. Gamache could see him wrapped in miles of armor on top of some great staggering warhorse.
Leading the charge, slashing and mutilating anyone who stood between himself and whatever he wanted.
But this was now, and the closest a man like Pinot could get to that sort of power was to ride atop some great corporation. And Agence France-Presse was that. It was the power behind the power. It could make and break politicians, governments, industrialists. Corporations.
And did.
“So you do know Stephen?” said Armand, declining the offer of cognac. “I wasn’t sure.”
Taking a seat in front of the fire, he glanced at the carriage clock on the mantel.
Eleven thirty.
“He never mentioned me?” asked Pinot. “I guess not.” There was no mistaking the disappointment, even hurt. “Still, he talked about you.” Pinot leaned forward. “Is he…?”
“In hospital. Critical condition. You know what happened?”
“Yes. Hit-and-run. Terrible. I tried to visit him, but they wouldn’t let me get even close.” Pinot’s eyes, almost buried behind folds of flesh and outcroppings of skin tags, were searching. Shrewd. He examined Gamache. “I’m guessing it was no accident.”
“No. I was there. It was a deliberate attempt on his life.”
“Mon Dieu,” said Pinot, leaning back. “Merde. Who’d do such a thing?” He was silent for a moment, studying Gamache. “Do you know something about this? Stephen told me you’re now the head of the Sûreté du Québec.”
“Used to be. I’m now the head of homicide.”
Pinot raised his brows. “That doesn’t sound like a promotion.”
“It isn’t.” Gamache left it at that. “Did you hear about the body found yesterday morning in an apartment in the Seventh Arrondissement?”
“No.”
No, of course not, thought Gamache. The police hadn’t yet released the news.
“The man was murdered. The apartment is Stephen’s, and the dead man is Alexander Plessner.”
“Oh, shit. I know Monsieur Plessner. Stephen introduced us a few months ago. Jesus, what’s going on? What’s happening?”
Pinot’s face was blossoming from red to purple. Gamache wondered if, before their conversation was over, he’d have to do CPR on him.
How deeply buried was his heart? Wrapped in layers of ambition and foie gras.
“I don’t know,” said Gamache. “I’m hoping you can help.”
“How?” asked Pinot.
“What do you know about GHS Engineering?”
“Ahhh, so that’s it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gamache.
“I’m on the board. Stephen approached me about buying my shares, which would get him on the board. I asked why, but he wouldn’t tell me.”
“How long ago was this?”
Pinot considered. “Six, seven months.”
About the time the job at GHS had been offered to Jean-Guy, thought Armand. Stephen was putting his plan in place.
“And did you agree? Without even knowing why?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked. That’s all I needed.” Pinot studied Gamache. “Would you need more?”
Armand smiled slightly and shook his head.
“I was willing to do it immediately, but Stephen wanted to wait until the last minute, until the morning of the board meeting. He swore me to secrecy. Do you have any idea what he had in mind?”
“No, but I found this in his agenda.” Armand showed Pinot the photograph of the slip of paper. “We think the AFP means Agence France-Presse. Do these dates mean anything to you?”
Pinot studied them. “Yes. This one. It’s when one of my reporters disappeared.”
“Anik Guardiola. In Patagonia.”
“You know about her?”
“I know it was called an accident. But almost certainly wasn’t. What happened?”
“I don’t know. Not for sure. I should’ve asked more questions, back when her body was found. Should’ve pushed more. That’s how I got on the GHS board, you know.”
Armand did not know. But he knew enough to keep quiet and let Pinot talk.
“The police in Patagonia said it was a hiking accident. I sent investigators. They discovered that her laptop and phone and all her notes were missing. But by then her body had been cremated. We pressured the government, but—” He lifted his beefy hands.
“What story was she on?”
“It was about water quality. We traced her steps to meetings with various corporations, including GHS. They were very open, said she’d visited the site of the proposed treatment plant and the mine that they’d closed. They seemed extremely disturbed by her death. That’s when they offered me a seat on their board. As a gesture of transparency and goodwill.”
He took a sharp breath
and a long exhale. “This was four years ago. It seems they knew me better than I knew myself. It appealed to my ego. I was dazzled by the other board members. Completely taken in.”
“When did you realize things were not as they seemed?”
“Only when Stephen asked me to give him my seat on the board.”
“Give?” asked Gamache. “He was going to pay you hundreds of millions, non? Hardly a gift.”
“You do know a lot.”
“It’s what I do,” said Gamache, his patience wearing thin. “I get information. Please stop obfuscating. We don’t have time.”
“Yes, he was paying for the shares, but it wasn’t for me. A trust has been set up for victims. Some of that has been set aside for the family of my murdered journalist. You can check.”
“Victims. Of what?”
“I don’t know. I asked Stephen, and all he’d say is that it would be clear at the board meeting.”
Armand nodded, taking this in. It sounded like Stephen, who liked to keep information to himself. “Have you ever heard of neodymium?”
“It’s a rare earth element, isn’t it? We did a series on them a couple of years ago. They’ve become a hot commodity. Why?”
“That mine in Patagonia GHS bought and Anik Guardiola investigated hasn’t been closed. They’ve been mining neodymium. I think she found out about it.”
Pinot’s brows rose. “Huh. If that’s true, it’s quite a find. GHS hasn’t announced this to the board. Why keep it a secret? Why would Anik Guardiola finding out about it be a problem? It’s not illegal, is it?”
“I think the issue isn’t the mineral, but what they’re doing with it. I think your young journalist found out too much and was murdered to keep her quiet. She also did a story, which Stephen noted, about a train derailment in Colombia. Any idea what that was about?”
“No, none. You’re going to have to remind me. What’s neodymium used for?”
“Batteries. Laptops. Hard drives,” said Gamache. “But there’s some suggestion a new use has been found. Something in telecommunications. Do you know any engineers, someone not associated with GHS, who might know?”
“My daughter-in-law’s an engineer. Works for Lavalin.” He made the call.
As far as the daughter-in-law knew, no revolutionary new uses had been found for neodymium.
“Ask her if it could cause a train to derail,” said Gamache.
Pinot did. Listening to the answer, he grimaced. Thanked her, then hung up.
“She says it would have to be a cartoon magnet to drag a train off its tracks. I think she thinks I’m nuts.”
Gamache looked again at what Stephen had written. “The derailment has something to do with the journalist’s murder. And these other dates are significant, too.”
Pinot got up. “We need to look them up. The Agence France-Presse morgue keeps all the old stories. We can go there.”
Armand also got to his feet. “Can you get access to your files from anywhere?”
“Yes. They have trusted me with the passwords,” said the owner of AFP, with a smile.
“Bon. Make your excuses to your guests and meet me at the front door.”
Pinot joined him a couple of minutes later. “Well, I just left three baffled friends including a former Prime Minister of Italy, though I suspect he’s often baffled. I might’ve suggested I was going to meet a mistress. I just hope they don’t see us together.”
“You could do worse,” said Armand.
“True.” Pinot laughed. Then, at a subtle signal, a liveried chauffeur hurried over to a limousine. “We can use my car.”
“Best not,” said Gamache, and asked the doorman to get them a taxi. Telling him where they wanted to go.
“La Défense, s’il vous plaît,” the doorman told the driver.
Pinot opened his mouth, but at a stern look from Gamache, he shut it.
A block along, Gamache leaned forward again and said, “But first, we need to go to Place de la Concorde.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“I thought we were going to my offices,” said Pinot.
“Non,” was all Gamache said.
Pinot settled into the back of the taxi, marveling that it had been years, decades, since he’d used anything other than a limousine or a helicopter to get around Paris.
He did not like this new experience.
Once at Place de la Concorde, Gamache quickly crossed to the Fontaine des Mers. As the driver and Pinot watched, he took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers, and climbed into the fountain.
Shoving up his sleeves, he reached into the freezing-cold water and moved his hands around until he found what he was looking for.
As he got out, a woman approached and gave him a two-euro coin. “Use it for food, monsieur.”
“Merci, mais—” Gamache began, but she’d walked away, into the night.
“What was that about?” asked Pinot when Gamache returned, shivering, to the taxi. With a look of warning not to actually speak, Armand opened his hand.
Resting in his palm were two Canadian nickels. Stuck firmly together.
CHAPTER 39
Annie was catching her breath after a labor pain, and Jean-Guy took the opportunity to leave the room to get her more ice water. And to catch his own breath.
Reine-Marie followed him out.
“Armand should be here,” she said, lowering her voice. “Why isn’t he? Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Jean-Guy. “I do know he’d be here if he could.”
“Something’s happened.” Reine-Marie looked behind her, at the closed door to the small private room where her daughter was laboring to give birth to her own daughter. “I’m going to call.”
The phone rang only once before Armand picked up.
“Is everything all right?” he asked without preamble.
At the sound of his voice, concerned but nothing more, she felt herself relax. “Yes, everything’s fine. We’re still hours away. Annie’s doing well. It’s Jean-Guy who’s driving us all crazy.”
Armand managed a chuckle. “That’s what husbands and fathers do. A woman loses her water and a man loses his mind.”
Reine-Marie laughed. “You sure did. You were a lunatic. When Daniel was finally born, and they asked if you wanted to cut the cord, you cried. I didn’t think you’d ever let him go.” There was silence down the line. “Armand?”
“Yes,” he said. “I remember it well.”
“Where are you? I hear noise.”
“I’m in a taxi, but I can’t come just yet. Call me if anything happens. Give Annie my love. Tell Jean-Guy to take a deep breath in…”
“And a deep breath out. Armand?”
“Oui?”
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’ll be there. I promise.”
When he hung up, Pinot asked, “Your wife?”
“Yes. My daughter’s in labor. They’re at the hospital.”
“You should be there.”
Armand clutched the coins and made a wish as he watched Paris, beautiful, troubled, luminous Paris, slip by.
Once at the GHS tower in La Défense, he paid the driver, then grabbed Pinot, who was heading toward the building, and guided him away. To the métro.
“Hold on to your wallet,” said Gamache, “and don’t make eye contact with anyone.”
“Huh?”
If Alain Pinot didn’t much like the taxi ride, he was about to meet something far worse.
* * *
Half an hour later they popped up at the station de métro Hôtel de Ville stop. Gamache hurried through the dark, deserted streets of the Marais. Pinot trudging along behind.
“I thought we were going to AFP,” he said. For the tenth time. “This isn’t the way.”
“Just follow me.”
The roundabout journey had eaten precious time Armand couldn’t really spare, but he needed to throw off anyone tracking his movements on his phone, which wouldn’t work in t
he depths of the métro.
They’d know where he was now that they’d surfaced, but it would take a few minutes to catch up. Confusion was his friend. As long as he was not the one confused.
“This’s the Archives nationales,” said Pinot, looking up at the gates. “What’re we doing here?”
Armand asked the guard to ring Madame Lenoir, then turned to Pinot. “We’re getting help to look up those dates in your morgue and figure out what Stephen and Monsieur Plessner knew.”
Allida Lenoir hurried over and vouched for them.
“We haven’t found out anything more,” she said as she led them back to the reading room.
“Madame Arbour?” asked Gamache.
“Is still with us.”
“Good.”
She looked behind her at the large man lumbering to keep up. “You’re Alain Pinot, aren’t you? You run Agence France-Presse.”
“I own it,” he wheezed. “There’s some question as to whether I actually run it.” He stopped at the entrance to the reading room. “My God, is it…”
“Judith de la—”
“Granger,” he said, going forward, his arms out. “I haven’t seen you in years. Decades.” He kissed her on both cheeks, smiling broadly. “What’re you doing here?”
She explained, and he nodded approval, turning to Gamache. “Good. With Judith on board, we might have a chance. Best researcher in the business.”
While Allida and Judith got him organized at a terminal, Gamache waved Séverine Arbour over.
“Do you mind if I see your phone?”
Perplexed but not alarmed, she handed it over.
Alain Pinot talked as he logged in to the AFP’s own archives. “As you know, we store stories that’ve already run in the newspaper’s morgue. What you might not know is it’s where we also archive stories that were filed and never ran, as well as research and reporters’ notes.”
“My phone, please,” Madame Arbour said, holding out her hand. But instead of giving it back, he slipped it into his pocket.
She had, Gamache knew, been feeding Claude Dussault information all day. It would stop now.
All the way there on the métro, while Pinot had muttered expletives, he’d gone around and around what Dussault had said. And done.
What those coins in the Fontaine des Mers could possibly mean.
