“Dessert?” asked Armand when the waiter took their plates.
Stephen smiled and accepted the dessert menu. After they’d ordered warm apple tarts, tea ice cream, and coffee, Stephen spoke again.
“It’s the will that interests me. I’ve known families torn apart by them. Expectations. Those’re corrosive. Combined with greed or desperation, it can get pretty nasty. Go on for years.”
“Generations,” said Armand.
“Do they really believe that a title and all those possessions belong to them?”
“They say not, but—”
“What’s bred in the bone,” said Stephen. “Sometimes we think we haven’t bought into someone else’s craziness until it’s tested. They’re Jewish, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Does it matter?”
“It might. From Austria? Vienna?”
“Oui.”
Stephen was nodding.
“You have an idea?”
“Nothing as good as an idea. More like a vague thought. I just wonder if the old woman—the Baroness, you call her?—if she might’ve been right after all, without realizing it. Let me do some research.” He waved for the bill. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? For me to do some digging.”
“I wanted your company,” said Armand. “And a delicious meal.”
“You got a nice meal, and I just got fed bullshit.” He shoved the silver salver across the linen tablecloth. “Here. You can pay.”
Armand smiled and shook his head. It had always been his intention to pay. He always did. And now, it seemed, he was also, thanks to Stephen, paying for the meals of four people he didn’t even know.
“Let’s hope my suspension is over soon,” said Armand, laying down his credit card.
“Why? So you can pay for this? Don’t worry, you can afford it.”
“No.” He nodded toward the steel magnate, who, ruined over his meal of veal sweetbreads, glared at Stephen as he left. “So I can solve your murder.”
The old man laughed.
CHAPTER 28
Jean-Guy looked around the waiting room of Taylor and Ogilvy.
He was on the forty-fifth floor, but you’d never know it. There was oak paneling, and oil paintings, and even a bookcase with leather volumes, as though to say if your investment adviser could read, he was sure not to screw you.
Jean-Guy expected, when he looked out the window, to see the magnificent garden of an estate, and not Montréal from the air.
Illusion.
What was it Agent Cloutier had said?
A play. A set. Something that looked like one thing but was actually another. This place was made up to look like a solid, conservative, trustworthy firm. But was it something else?
He peered at the paintings, then got up to look at one in particular.
A numbered print.
Not exactly a fake, but not the real thing either.
“Do you like it?” a woman’s voice behind him asked.
He turned around, expecting it was the receptionist who’d spoken, only to find a very elegant and surprisingly young woman standing at the open door.
“I do,” said Beauvoir. “I’m here to see Madame Ogilvy.”
“Bernice, please.” She extended her hand. “Have I heard correctly? Tony was murdered?”
“I’m afraid it looks that way.”
Her eyes narrowed in a wince, absorbing the words. “Jesus. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“Merci.”
She turned, and he followed her down the hushed corridor. Taking in the offices on either side, where brokers, mostly men, sat speaking on telephones or tapping on laptops.
The hallway was paneled in wood and art.
“Nice paintings,” he said.
“Thank you. Most are prints, but we do have some originals,” she assured him. “Some awful things my grandfather bought, thinking they were good investments. They were not. We hide those in the offices of the partners, as a reminder.”
“Of what?”
“Of what happens when we think we know about something when we do not.” She stopped then and smiled at him. “You must run into the same danger in your profession, Chief Inspector. Only your mistakes can cost lives.”
“As can yours.”
Her smile faded. “I’m aware of that.”
She turned and continued her chat about the art. It was, he could tell, rehearsed. A patter she repeated for everyone. To put them at their ease.
“We specialize in Canadian art. Québec, wherever possible.”
“But not always originals.”
“No. The originals are often not available, so we buy numbered prints. But only the low numbers.”
He laughed, then realized she was serious. “Why’s that?”
“Well, because they’re more valuable. Everything’s an investment, Chief Inspector.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. And I don’t just mean in business. As humans, we invest not just money. We spend time. We spend effort. There’s a reason it’s put like that. Life’s short, and time is precious and limited. We need to pick and choose where we put it.”
“For maximum return?”
“Exactly. I know it sounds calculating, but think about your own life. You don’t want to waste your time with people you don’t like or doing something you don’t find fulfilling.”
Beauvoir felt there should be some clever response, but all that came to mind was to say, That’s bullshit.
A few years ago, he might’ve. But then a few years ago he wasn’t the Chief Inspector.
“What’re you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m thinking that’s bullshit.”
Oh well, if life really is short, might as well be himself.
She stopped and looked at him. “Why do you say that?”
He looked around before his attention returned to her. “It’s the sort of thing someone who works here would say. I’m not saying you don’t believe it. I’m saying most people don’t have the luxury to pick and choose. They’re just trying to make it through the day. Taking whatever shitty job they can. Trying to hold the family together. Maybe in a shitty marriage with kids who’re out of control. You live in a world of choice, Madame Ogilvy. Most don’t have investments. They have lives. And they’re just trying to get by.”
“A zero-sum game?” she asked. “That’s bullshit. And patronizing. People might not be able to choose to work here, or live in a mansion, but they still have choices. And investments of time if not money.”
They stared at each other, the strain obvious. Beauvoir didn’t care. He preferred it like this. Pushing people. Seeing what they’re really like underneath.
He found it interesting that when he’d become crass, she’d changed. Used exactly the same language. The difference was, it was natural to him. Not to her.
Here was a chameleon. Who adapted to situations, and people.
It was a useful skill. Both a defense and an offense. It was designed to lower people’s guards. I’m just like you, she was saying. And you’re “one of us.”
It was a subtle and powerful message. One that put people at ease and let her into their confidence.
Elegant and refined when called for. Foulmouthed when called for.
Demure. Scrappy. Crass. Classy.
All things. And nothing. Except calculating.
One of the many things he loved about Annie was that, while adaptable, she was always herself. Genuine.
This woman was not.
Still, this was going to be, if he was smart, a good investment of his time.
“Do you have any Clara Morrows?” he asked as they turned a corner.
“No. I tried to buy one of her Three Graces, but there were no prints left. Only the one of that old woman. Scared the merde out of me.”
“You should see the original,” said Beauvoir. “Better than an enema.”
She laughed and showed him into her office.
It was like walking from the past into the future or, at least, a very glossy present day. It was a corner office, of floor-to-ceiling glass. There, before him, spread Montréal. Magnificent. In one direction he could see the Jacques Cartier Bridge across the St. Lawrence River. In the other, Mount Royal, with its massive cross. And in between, office towers. Bold, gleaming, audacious. Montréal. Set for the future with roots deep in history. It never failed to thrill him. And the ice fog only made it more otherworldly.