Penny, Louise - All the Devils Are Here

“And to make sure Horowitz didn’t regain consciousness, oui ,” said Dussault. “And to comfort you, of course.”

“Merci.”

“I came here the next morning, to look for myself,” said Dussault. “That’s when you and Reine-Marie arrived.”

“Then it was you. We weren’t sure if it was you or Girard here.”

“If it was me, you’d have been dead,” said Girard. “It was one of the few mistakes the Prefect has made.”

“He’s right,” said Dussault. “I probably should have killed you then. But then we wouldn’t have this”—he tapped the file beside him on the sofa—“would we?”

“I’ve read the evidence,” Gamache said, his voice no longer matter-of-fact. “Thousands were killed in the so-called accidents, over years. You’re the head of the Préfecture. You could have stopped it, but you didn’t. How does that happen? How could you make that choice?”

He was searching his old friend’s face, his sharp eyes flicking over to the file, then back again. Trying to find the answer to a crucial question.

“Me?” Dussault looked up. “Not me. I was still only second-in-command at the Préfecture when all this started. I had nothing to do with it. Not then.”

“Then when?”

“Turns out, when Messieurs Plessner and Horowitz had enough evidence to be suggestive but not enough to be sure, they went to my predecessor in the Préfecture. Clément Prévost. Hoping he’d be able to start an investigation. You met him.”

“I did. He wasn’t just your predecessor,” said Gamache. “He was your mentor.”

“True. While he believed Horowitz and Plessner were sincere, he needed proof. There were very powerful people involved. Some were personal friends of his. He began to ask questions. Quietly. Uncomfortable questions. But then there was that accident two years ago. Poor man was hit by a car crossing from a brasserie in broad daylight. And, voilà, I was made Prefect.”

“Were you working for them then?” asked Gamache.

“No. I knew none of this at the time.”

“So what happened? What changed?”

“I went to Monsieur Prévost’s funeral. State funeral. Impressive. You were there, too, I believe.”

“I was,” said Gamache.

“But you didn’t go to the family reception?”

“ Non. It was private. Only for the closest friends and colleagues. I was neither.”

“But I was,” said Dussault. “I went back to their apartment. It’s a small two-bedroom walk-up in the Eighteenth. Neat, tidy. Orderly, like the man. And I saw my future. All the sacrifices, Armand. My own. My wife’s. My children’s. What we gave up for people who didn’t notice and didn’t care. A two-bedroom walk-up.”

“Clément Prévost was a good man,” said Armand.

That simple statement left Dussault silent for a moment. “He was a dead man.”

“He was murdered,” said Gamache. “When did you start to work for them?”

“Girard here had left to work for SecurForte, as their second-in-command. We’d get together for drinks, and he’d talk about his day. It sounded interesting. Fascinating, in fact. The international aspect, the businesses, the clients. And, of course, the money.”

“So you recruited him?” Gamache asked Girard.

“I didn’t have to, he asked me.”

Gamache turned back to Dussault. “When did you realize—”

“That part of the job would be to cover up criminal activity?” Dussault thought for a moment. “Fairly early on. I was essentially moonlighting, but then many officers do. They work their shift as a flic, then work nights as a security guard somewhere. This was no different. I had my job as head of the Paris Préfecture, and worked on the side for the largest private security firm in Europe. As a consultant.”

“As the head of it,” said Gamache.

“That’s not what my contract says.”

“But what’s written and what’s reality are often two different things, as you know,” Gamache said to Alain Pinot, before returning his attention to Dussault. “So you did as they asked?”

“We have to go, patron ,” said Girard, tapping his wrist.

Dussault shot him an annoyed look, but otherwise ignored him.

“At first the requests were small. Fixing traffic tickets. Getting a wealthy client’s spoiled kid off a charge. And then it slowly increased. And I discovered something.”

“What?”

“That I didn’t care. That money, comfort, security, balances out all the rest.”

“They killed Clément Prévost. Your mentor. The head of the Préfecture. They murdered him. What exactly balances that out?” demanded Gamache.

“It was done,” said Dussault. “I’m a realist. There was no undoing it.”

“You were working for the people who murdered a man you admired,” said Gamache, his rage spilling out. “By then you must’ve known they were involved in other crimes, other killings. How do you justify that? Has the world gone mad?”

Dussault stood up and nodded to the guards, who raised their weapons.

Armand stepped in front of Daniel. “One thing I don’t understand. Who’s Séverine Arbour in all this? She’s working for you, or was. Why kill her?”

Dussault made a small gesture, and Loiselle and the other guards lowered their weapons a few inches.

“You’re so smart,” said Girard. “Who do you think she was?”

Gamache thought on the fly. Putting the disparate pieces together. “Her job was to kick over any evidence of the neodymium and the accidents. Make sure no one clued in.”

Girard was smiling.

I’ve got something wrong , thought Gamache. Something doesn’t fit.

He paused. Thinking. Thinking. Watching. Watching. Seeing.

Then his face opened in astonishment.

“Carole Gossette.” He could see by Dussault’s smile that he had it right. He nodded toward the file. “Those emails and notes are from her. To her. She wasn’t in on it. She suspected something was wrong. That’s why she agreed when Stephen asked that Beauvoir be hired. That’s why she hired Arbour, an accomplished engineer, and put her in the department charged with oversight. She knew if there was anything to find, Séverine Arbour would ferret it out. Madame Arbour wasn’t trying to cover up,” said Gamache. “She thought she was working for the police, to uncover wrongdoing.”

Dussault nodded. “I approached her, warned her about Beauvoir, and asked for her help. She agreed without hesitation. I am the Prefect, after all.”

“You’ve been setting Carole Gossette up,” said Gamache. “Should anything go wrong, it’ll be laid at her feet.”

“Someone has to take the blame, though I suspect she wouldn’t want to face that,” said Girard. “And might even take her own life.”

“In the archives tonight,” said Gamache, “when I confronted Arbour, she began to see the truth.”

“She called us,” said Girard. “That’s when we decided not to wait for you to find the documents, but to move in.”

“It’s almost eight,” said Dussault, and tucking the file under his arm, he nodded to the guards, who raised their rifles.

“Dad?” said Daniel.

“Wait,” said Gamache. “There’s something you’re missing. Something you don’t know. Stephen and Plessner tracked down one more piece of evidence, hard evidence. The piece of equipment made out of neodymium. The thing causing all the problems.”

“He’s lying,” said Dussault.

“I have proof,” said Gamache, trying without success to keep the desperation out of his voice. “They had it in their possession. How else could the nickels have gotten so strongly magnetized?”

“What’s a nickel?” demanded Girard. “What’s he talking about?”