Penny, Louise - All the Devils Are Here

“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 the 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.