Bury Your Dead

TWENTY–TWO

Myrna handed Clara a book.

“I think you’ll like it. It’s one of my favorites.”

Clara turned it over. Mordecai Richler, Solomon Gursky Was Here.

“Is it good?”

“No, it’s crap. I only sell crap here, and recommend it of course.”

“So Ruth was right,” said Clara. She tipped the book toward Myrna. “Thank you.”

“Okay,” said Myrna, sitting across from her friend. “Spill.”

The woodstove was heating the bookstore and keeping the perpetual pot of tea warmed. Clara sipped from her favorite mug and read the back of the book as though she hadn’t heard her friend.

“What’s going on?” Myrna persisted.

Clara raised innocent eyes. “With what?”

Myrna gave her a withering look. “Something’s up. I know you, what was all that at Dominique’s yesterday after exercise class?”

“Sparkling conversation.”

“It wasn’t that.” Myrna watched Clara. She’d been wanting to ask for several days, but the episode at the inn and spa convinced her.

Clara was up to something.

“Was it obvious?” Clara put the book down and looked at Myrna, her eyes worried.

“Not at all. I doubt anyone noticed.”

“You did.”

“True, but I’m very smart.” Her smile faded and she leaned forward. “Don’t worry, I’m sure no one else found it strange. But you were asking some unusual questions. Why were you talking about Jean-Guy and Olivier and all that?”

Clara hesitated. She hadn’t expected to be asked and had no lie prepared. Foolish, really. What were her regular lies?

I’m busy that night. The art world’s just too conservative to appreciate my work. The dog did it or, as a variation, it’s Ruth’s fault. That covered everything from smells, to missing food, to dirt through the house. To, sometimes, her art.

It didn’t, however, seem to cover this.

“I think having the Inspector here just reminded me of Olivier, that’s all.”

“Bullshit.”

Clara sighed. She’d really messed up. The one promise she’d made to Beauvoir she was about to break. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

And Clara believed Myrna but then, Beauvoir had believed her. Oh well, his mistake.

“Inspector Beauvoir’s not here to recover from his injuries. He came down to unofficially reopen Olivier’s case.”

Myrna smiled. “I’d hoped that might be it. The only other explanation was that you’d lost your mind.”

“And you weren’t sure which it was?”

“It’s so hard to tell.” Myrna’s eyes were bright. “This is the best news. So they think maybe Olivier didn’t kill the Hermit? But then, who did?”

“That’s the question. Seems it comes down to Roar, Havoc, Marc, Vincent or Old Mundin. And I have to say, what The Wife said about killing was pretty strange.”

“That’s true,” said Myrna. “But—”

“But if she or Old were really involved she’d never have talked about killing. She’d have kept quiet.”

“There you are.”

The two women looked up with a guilty start. Inspector Beauvoir was standing in the doorway that connected the bookstore to the bistro.

“I was looking for you.” He gave them a mighty frown. “What’re you talking about?”

Unlike Gamache, who could make an interrogation sound like a pleasant conversation, Beauvoir managed to make niceties sound like accusations.

Though, both women knew, he had good reason.

“Tea?” Myrna offered and busied herself pouring another cup and putting more hot water and another bag into the Brown Betty on the woodstove. This left Clara trying not to catch Beauvoir’s eye. He sat beside Clara and glared at her.

The dog did it, the dog did it.

“I told Myrna everything.” Clara paused. “It’s Ruth’s fault.”

“Everything?” Beauvoir lowered his voice.

“So, I hear we still have a murderer among us,” said Myrna, handing the mug to Beauvoir and taking her seat.

“Just about,” said Clara.

Beauvoir shook his head. Still, it wasn’t perhaps unexpected, nor was it necessarily a bad thing. Myrna had helped the Chief in the past and while Beauvoir had never, until now, wanted to ask for help from the villagers he suspected they actually had some to give. And now he had no choice.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

“I’d like to hear more. Have you found out anything new?”

He told them about his conversation with Gamache and what the chief had found out in Quebec City about Old Mundin’s family and Carole Gilbert.

“Woloshyn?” Clara repeated. “Woo?”

“Perhaps,” Beauvoir nodded.

“The inn and spa has a lot of antiques,” said Myrna. “Could they have found them on rue Notre-Dame?”

“In the same store where Olivier sold the Hermit’s things?” said Beauvoir. “You’re thinking if they went in, they might have recognized some of Olivier’s items?”

“Exactly,” said Myrna. “All Carole Gilbert would have to do is casually ask how the owner got them. He would have directed her to Olivier and Three Pines, and voilà.”

“No, it doesn’t work,” said Beauvoir.

“Of course it does. It’s perfect,” said Clara.

“Think about it,” Beauvoir turned to her. “Olivier sold those things to the antique shop years ago. If Carole Gilbert found them why’d they wait almost ten years to buy the old Hadley house?”

The three sat there, thinking. Eventually Clara and Myrna started batting around other theories, but Beauvoir remained lost in his own thoughts.

Of names. Of families. And of patience.

Armand Gamache folded back the sleeve of his parka so that he could see his watch.

Quarter past one. A little early for the meeting. He dropped his arm over the satchel, protecting it.

Instead of heading straight in to the Château Frontenac he decided to stroll along the Dufferin Terrace, the long wooden boardwalk that swept in front of the hotel and overlooked the St. Lawrence River. In the summer it was filled with ice cream carts and musicians and people relaxing in the pergolas. In the winter a bitter damp wind blew down the St. Lawrence River and hit pedestrians, stealing their breaths and practically peeling the skin off their faces. But still people walked along the outdoor terrasse, so remarkable was the view.

And there was another attraction. La glissade. The ice slide. Built every winter it towered above the promenade. As he turned the corner of the Château the wind hit Gamache’s face. Tears sprung to his eyes and froze. Ahead, midway along the terrasse, he could see the slide, three lanes wide with stairs cut into the snow at the side.

Even on this brittle day kids were lugging their rented toboggans up the steps. In fact, the colder the day the better. The ice would be keen and the toboggans would race down the steep slope, shooting off the end. Some toboggans were going so fast and so far pedestrians on the terrasse had to leap out of their way.

As he watched he noticed it wasn’t just kids climbing to the top, but adults as well including a few young couples. It was as effective as a scary movie to get a hug, and he remembered clearly coming to the slide with Reine-Marie early in their relationship. Climbing to the top, dragging the long toboggan with them, waiting their turn. Gamache, deathly afraid of heights, was still trying to pretend otherwise with this girl who’d stolen his heart so completely.

“Would you like me to sit in front?” she’d whispered as the people in front of them shoved off and plummeted down the slide.

He’d looked at her, a protest on his lips, when he realized here was a person he needn’t lie to, needn’t pretend with. He could be himself.

Their toboggan hurtled toward the Dufferin Terrace below, though it looked as though they were heading straight into the river. Armand Gamache shrieked and clutched Reine-Marie. At the bottom they laughed so hard he thought he’d ruptured something. He never did it again. When they’d brought Daniel and Annie it had been their mother who’d taken them while Dad waited at the bottom with the camera.

Now Chief Inspector Gamache stood and watched the kids, the couples, an elderly man and woman walk up the narrow snow steps and then shoot back down.

It comforted him slightly to hear that they too screamed. And laughed.

As he watched he heard another shout but this wasn’t from the direction of the ice slide. This came from over the side of the terrace, from the river.

He wasn’t the only one to notice. A few people drifted to the handrail. Gamache walked over and wasn’t surprised to see teams of canoeists out on the ice practicing. The race was Sunday, two days away.

“Stroke, stroke,” came the command. While there were three boats out there, only one voice was heard, loud and clear.

“Left, stroke, left, stroke.” An English voice.

Gamache strained but couldn’t make out which boat it was, nor did he recognize the voice. It wasn’t Tom Hancock. Nor did he think it was likely to be Ken Haslam. A telescope was available, and though it was all but frozen, as was he, Gamache put some money in and trained it on the river.

Not the first boat.

Not the second, though he could see the leader’s mouth moving he couldn’t hear the words.

He trained the telescope on the furthest boat. Surely not. Not from so far away. Was it possible the piercing voice had traveled this far?

The boat was way out there in the middle of the river, six men sitting down, rowing. The boats could be paddled or rowed, could be in water or dragged over ice. This team was just clearing open water and heading upstream toward an ice floe.

“Stroke, stroke,” came the command again. And now, because the racers were heading forward but facing backward, Gamache could see who it was.

He stared through the lens, not daring to touch his forehead to the metal telescope in case it froze there.

The booming, clear voice belonged to Ken Haslam.

Walking back to the Château, Gamache thought about that. Why would a man whisper all through his life, in every circumstance but be able, in fact, to shout?

Louder than anyone else out there. His voice had been piercing.

Was Haslam as surprised as Gamache? Had Haslam, in his sixty-eighth year, found his voice on the ice of Québec, doing something few others would attempt?

It was always a relief to get indoors, and even more wonderful when that indoors was the Château Frontenac. In the magnificent front lobby Gamache took off his mitts, coat, hat and scarf and checked them. Then, still protecting his satchel with his arm, he walked down the long, wide corridor to the double glass doors at the far end, with the light streaming through.

Inside the St-Laurent Bar he paused. Ahead of him was the circular wooden bar and around it tables and the huge windows. Open fires roared in the two hearths.

But this wasn’t where he was expected.

Glancing to his right Gamache was surprised to see a door, one he’d never noticed before. Opening it he walked into a bright and airy side room, almost a solarium, with its own lit fireplace.

Whoever had been talking stopped as he entered. A dozen faces looked at him. All elderly, all white, all male. They were seated on the comfortable floral sofas and in wing chairs and armchairs. He’d been expecting something more formal, a boardroom, a long table, a lectern.

He’d also been expecting that the meeting wouldn’t have started. It was 1:25. Émile had said they started at 1:30 but it seemed clear the meeting was well under way.

Gamache glanced at Émile, who smiled then broke eye contact.

“Bonjour,” said the Chief Inspector. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all.” René Dallaire, as large and affable as the last time they met, greeted him. Others got to their feet as well. Gamache made the rounds, shaking hands, smiling greetings.

Everyone was cordial, pleasant, and yet he had the impression there was tension in the room, as though he’d interrupted an argument.

“Now, you wanted to speak with us?” Monsieur Dallaire said, indicating a large chair.

“Yes. It will come as no surprise that it’s about the death of Augustin Renaud.” Gamache sat down. There were sympathetic nods from some, others just stared, wary. While this wasn’t exactly a secret society, it did seem secretive.

“Actually, I’d like to start off by talking about Charles Chiniquy.”

That brought the reaction he was expecting. A few sat up in their seats, more than a few looked at each other then back to Gamache with some annoyance.

Once again René Dallaire took the lead. “Forgive me, Monsieur Gamache, but you do realize we’re not a general historical society?”

“Oui, merci, I know that you’re the Société Champlain.” As he said it something twigged. The Société Champlain. “But my story begins neither with Samuel de Champlain nor with Augustin Renaud, but somewhere in between. In 1869, to be exact, with Father Chiniquy.”

“He was a nut,” one elderly man said from the back.

“So you do know him,” said Gamache. “Yes, he was a nut to some, a hero to others. He was something else entirely in our story.”

Gamache glanced at Émile, who was looking out the window. Distancing himself from what was about to happen? Gamache wondered.

“Father Chiniquy was famous for one thing,” said the Chief. “He wanted to save alcoholics. To do that he went to where he’d find them. In the Québec of the 1860s that was rue du Petit-Champlain, directly below us.”

Indeed, if he could throw himself out that window with enough force he’d sail over the Dufferin Terrace and land on rue du Petit-Champlain below. Now a charming, cobbled street filled with lace stores and cafés and tourist shops, but back then it was the notorious Basse-Ville. Filled with drunks and blackguards and prostitutes, filled with sewage and disease.

Filled with poor French workers and Irish immigrants. And a fallen priest determined to save them and maybe himself.

“One summer’s evening Chiniquy was in a bar scouting souls when he overheard a conversation between two Irishmen. Patrick and O’Mara. They’d been hired as diggers in the Upper Town to hack out a basement under an old building. There were more than twenty laborers on the site, but it was Patrick and O’Mara who made the discovery. They found something they believed might be valuable.”

Despite themselves the members of the Société Champlain had grown interested. A few still looked annoyed and impatient but even they were listening. Only Émile continued to stare out the window.

What was he thinking? Gamache wondered. Did he see what was coming, know what was coming?

But it didn’t matter. It was too late.

“Chiniquy listened to the two men and as he listened he grew more interested. Finally he joined them. The men, knowing who Chiniquy was, weren’t overly welcoming at first but once the priest offered to buy them drinks they warmed up. And after a few more drinks they told him what they’d found.

“It was a coffin. At first Chiniquy was disappointed. Old Quebec City was practically built on coffins, built on bones. Not finding one would have been unusual. Surely these workers knew that. But this one was different, they said, it was heavy.

“The two men figured this was not only unusual but perhaps even valuable. They’d dragged it from the work site down the hill to Patrick’s home. His wife refused to have it inside. He insisted, but knew he couldn’t keep it there for long. The home was little more than a shack, and already crowded with Patrick, his wife and six kids. Now there was also a dead man.”

Gamache examined his audience. They were all listening now, including Émile. They could see the scene, as could Gamache. The trampled and discouraged Irish woman. Having survived the harrowing voyage to her New World, she’d found it even worse than the humiliation and famine she’d fled and, as though life wasn’t difficult enough, her husband had brought a corpse home from work.

“The men set about opening it, carefully prying the sealed lid off,” Gamache continued the story. “Imagining why it was so heavy. It must, they felt, be filled with gold, with jewelry, with silver. This must be the coffin of a very rich person. But once opened, they were sorely disappointed. There was nothing inside except a ratty old book, a bible, and some remains. Bones and bits of clothing. It was heavy because it was lead-lined.”

There was a small stir in the room. Did they know where this was headed?

“Patrick and O’Mara had been in the bar discussing how best to strip the lead, sell it then dump the body into the river, the bible with it. They couldn’t read, so it was useless. Chiniquy asked to see the bible. At that stage the men grew wary. Then the priest tried another tack. If they would bring the coffin and the bible to the Literary and Historical Society the next night, Chiniquy could promise them a small reward.

“Why? the men had asked.

“Because they collect everything historic, especially books. This coffin might be old, Chiniquy reasoned.

“Patrick and O’Mara were already half drunk and didn’t really care. If there was money they’d be there. The next night they showed up and were met by Father Chiniquy and another man. James Douglas.”

“Is there a point to this?” one of the members of the Société Champlain asked.

“Please, Benoît,” René Dallaire looked pained. “Civility.”

“I’ll be civil when he stops wasting my time.”

“There is a point, monsieur, and we’re almost there,” said Gamache. He could feel his phone buzzing but couldn’t very well look at it now. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Dr. Douglas?”

There were nods.

“He opened the coffin and examined the contents while Father Chiniquy looked at the bible. Then James Douglas made a mistake. He offered Patrick and O’Mara five hundred dollars each. Chiniquy was furious, but said nothing. The workers immediately knew something was up. That was a small fortune, way too much for the remains of some long-dead guy and a ratty old bible.

“They refused, insisting on one thousand dollars each, and they got it but only after Douglas had secured their pledge of secrecy and found out where they lived. The Irishmen, who hated the English, also feared them. They knew what lay behind the civilized veneer. They knew what an Englishman was capable of, if crossed. Patrick and O’Mara agreed, then carried the coffin to the basement and left.”

His phone buzzed again. Still Gamache ignored it.

“How do you know all this?” someone asked.

“Because I found this.”

Gamache bent down to his satchel and removed a black leather book. As he held it he looked at Émile who looked surprised, and something else. Was that a small smile? A grin or a grimace?

“It’s Father Chiniquy’s journal for the year 1869. Augustin Renaud found it and recognizing its significance he hid it.”

“Where was it?” Émile asked.

“The library of the Literary and Historical Society,” said Gamache, staring at his mentor.

“Augustin Renaud hid the journal in a library?” asked René Dallaire.

“No,” clarified Gamache. “His murderer did.”

“Why’re you telling us all this?” Jean Hamel, slender and contained and sitting next to René Dallaire as always, asked.

“I think you know why,” said Gamache, looking the man directly in the eyes until Hamel lowered his.

“Where did you say the Irish workers were digging?” a member asked.

“I didn’t, but I can tell you. It was under the Old Homestead.”

The room grew very quiet. Everyone stared at Gamache.

“You found the other book, didn’t you,” said Émile into the silence.

“I did.”

Gamache reached into the satchel, now on his lap. The satchel he’d spent the last few hours protecting.

“Last year the Literary and Historical Society sold a number of boxes of books, boxes they hadn’t bothered to examine. Augustin Renaud bought some of them. When he went to see what he had he found they were from the collection of Father Charles Chiniquy. Not very promising, for a Champlain scholar—”

The use of the word “scholar” brought some harrumphs.

“—so he didn’t hurry to read them. But eventually, scanning them, he came across something extraordinary. He made mention of it in his own diary, but in true Renaud fashion he was”—Gamache searched for the word—“guarded.”

“Don’t you mean demented?” asked Jean Hamel. “Nothing he said or wrote can be trusted.”

“No, I mean guarded. And he was quite right. What he’d found was staggering.”

Gamache withdrew another black leather book. This one was larger, thicker than the first. Frayed and brittle, but in good condition. It had not seen the sun for hundreds of years then, dug up, it had sat anonymously on the bookshelves of Father Chiniquy’s home for thirty years until his death.

“This,” Gamache held up the book, “was Father Chiniquy’s secret, and in the end the secret had died with him so that when his housekeeper packaged up his books and sent them to the Lit and His more than a century ago, no one knew what treasures they contained.

“In reading Chiniquy’s journals Augustin Renaud found the report of the fateful encounter one July evening in 1869. And among the many religious books, the hymnals, the sermons, the family bibles in the box of used books he found this.”

Gamache laid his large hand on the plain leather cover, barely recognizable for what it was.

Once again his phone buzzed. It was his private line. Few knew the number, but it hadn’t stopped ringing for the past ten minutes.

“May I?” Émile reached out.

“Oui.” Gamache stood and handed the book to his mentor and watched as Émile did exactly what he himself had done an hour earlier. Exactly what he imagined Augustin Renaud had done a month ago. What Father Chiniquy had done a century ago.

Émile opened the simply tooled leather book to the inscription page.

There was a sharp intake of breath then Émile sighed and with the sigh two words escaped. “Bon Dieu.”

“Yes,” said the Chief. “Good God.”

“What is it?” Jean Hamel asked, stepping out from the convenient shadow of his friend René. It was clear now who was the real leader of the Société Champlain.

“They’d found Champlain,” said Émile, staring at Gamache. It wasn’t a question, it was beyond question. “It was Champlain’s coffin the Irish workers found beneath the Old Homestead.”

“Ridiculous,” said the ornery member. “What would Champlain be doing buried under the Old Homestead? We all know he was either buried in the chapel, which burned, or in the cemetery, not hundreds of yards away in a field.”

“Champlain was a Huguenot,” said Émile, his voice barely audible. “A Protestant.” He held out the book. A bible.

“But that’s impossible,” snapped Jean. There was a hubbub of agreement. Hands snatched at the bible and the uproar subsided as it made the rounds and the men saw the evidence.

Samuel de Champlain, inscribed in ink. The date, 1578.

It was an original Huguenot bible, a rare find. Most had been destroyed in the various Inquisitions, burned along with their owners. It was a dangerous book, to the church and to whoever possessed it.

Champlain must have been a devout man indeed to have kept such a thing, and to have been buried with it.

The room was quiet, just the mumbling and crackling of the fire. Gamache took the bible back and replacing it in his satchel along with Chiniquy’s journal he said, “Excusez-moi,” to the group lost in their own thoughts, and left the room.

Outside he took the call and noticed there’d been twenty-seven calls from a variety of people. Reine-Marie, his son Daniel and daughter Annie. From Superintendents Brunel and Francoeur and Agent Isabelle Lacoste. From various friends and colleagues, and from Jean-Guy Beauvoir whose call was now coming in.

“Bonjour, Jean-Guy. What’s happened?”

“Chief, where’ve you been?”

“In a meeting, what’s going on?”

“There’s a video, gone viral on the Internet. I just heard about it from Peter Morrow, then Lacoste called and a few friends. More calls are coming in. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“What is it?” But even as he asked he could guess, and felt a sickening feeling in his stomach.

“It’s from the tapes, the ones recorded at the raid.”

Everyone had worn tiny cameras integrated into their headsets, to record what happened. Investigators had long realized a verbal debrief wasn’t enough. Even well-intentioned cops would forget details, especially in the heat of the moment, and if things went badly, as they often did, cops could stop being “well intentioned” and start lying.

This made lying harder, though not impossible.

Each camera showed what each officer saw, and what each officer did, and what each officer said. And, like any film, it could be edited.

“Chief?” Beauvoir asked.

“I see.” He felt like Beauvoir sounded. Upset, suddenly exhausted, bewildered that anyone would do this and that anyone would want to see such a thing. It was a violation, especially for the families. His officers’ families.

“I’ll call,” he said.

“I can, if you’d like.”

“No, merci. I’ll do it.”

“Who would do this?” Beauvoir asked. “Who even has access to the tapes?”

Gamache lowered his head. Was it possible?

He’d been told there were three gunmen. But there’d been more, many more. Gamache had assumed it was a mistake. Dreadful, but unintentional.

He’d doubled the number of suspects, and assumed instead of three there were six.

Knowing that to be on the safe side.

He’d been wrong.

He’d brought six agents with him. Chosen them. Handpicked. And he’d brought Inspector Beauvoir. But not Agent Yvette Nichol. She’d stood there, her tactical vest already on. Her pistol on her belt. Her eyes keen. She would go with them into the factory. The place she’d found by following the sounds. By listening more closely than she’d ever listened in her life.

To the trains. To their frequency. To their cadence. Freight trains. A passenger train. A plane overhead. A hoot in the background. A factory.

And whispers. Ghosts in the background.

Three of them, she’d said.

With Inspector Beauvoir’s furious help they’d narrowed and narrowed. Winnowed, whittled. Pored over train timetables, over flight paths, over factories old enough to still use whistles.

Until they knew where Agent Paul Morin was being held.

But there was another goal. The La Grande dam. To save the young agent would be to alert the suspects that their plot against the dam had been discovered. And if they realized that they might destroy it right away, before the tactical squad could be moved into place.

No. A choice had to be made. A decision had to be made.

Gamache could see Agent Nichol standing by the door. Ready. And her rage when told his decision.

“Are you going to watch?” Beauvoir asked.

Gamache thought. “Yes. You?”

“Maybe.” He also paused. “Yes.” There was a silence as both men considered what that meant. “Oh, God,” sighed Beauvoir.

“When you do, don’t be alone,” said Gamache.

“I wish—”

“So do I,” said Gamache. They both wished the same thing. That if they had to relive it, they could at least be together.

Sitting heavily in one of the leather wing chairs of the St-Laurent Bar, Chief Inspector Gamache asked for a glass of water and called Reine-Marie.

“I was trying to get you.” She sounded stressed, upset.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’ve been in a meeting. Jean-Guy just told me. How did you hear?”

“Daniel called from Paris. A colleague told him. Then Annie called. It apparently appeared about noon and has gone wild. Journalists have been calling for the past half hour. Armand, I’m so sorry.”

He heard the strain in her voice and he could have happily killed whoever had done this. Forcing Reine-Marie to relive it, forcing Annie and Daniel and Enid Beauvoir. And worse. The families of those who died.

He wanted to reach down the line and hold Reine-Marie, hug her to him. Rock her and tell her it would be all right, that this was just a phantom from the past. The worst was over.

But was it?

“When will you be home?”

“By tomorrow.”

“Who would do this, Armand?”

“I don’t know. I need to watch it, but you don’t. Can you wait until I come home? If you still want to see it we can watch together.”

“I’ll wait,” she said. She could wait.

She remembered fragments of that day. Armand hadn’t been home. Isabelle Lacoste had contacted her and explained the Chief was working on a case and couldn’t even, in fact, speak with her. Not for a day.

She’d never gone twenty-four hours without hearing her husband’s voice. Not once, in more than thirty years together. Then, next morning, at just after noon a coworker at the Bibliotheque Nationale arrived at work, her face stricken.

A bulletin on Radio-Canada. A shootout. Officers of the Sûreté among the dead, including a senior homicide officer. The race to the hospital, not listening to the reports. Too afraid. The world had collapsed to this imperative. To get there. To get there. Get there. Seeing Annie in the emergency room, just arrived.

The radio said Dad—

I don’t want to hear it.

Comforting each other. Comforting Enid Beauvoir, Jean-Guy’s wife, in the waiting room. And others arriving she didn’t know. The grotesque pantomime, strangers comforting each other while secretly, desperately, shamefully praying the other will be the one with bad news.

A paramedic appearing through the swinging doors from the emergency room, looking at them, looking away. Blood on his uniform. Annie grabbing her hand.

Among the dead.

The doctor, taking them aside, away, separating them from the rest. And Reine-Marie, light-headed, steeling herself to hear the unbearable. And then those words.

He’s alive.

She didn’t really take in the rest. Chest wound. Head wound. Pneumothorax. A bleed.

He’s alive was all she needed to know. But there was another.

Jean-Guy? she’d asked. Jean-Guy Beauvoir?

The doctor hesitated.

You must, tell us, Annie said, far more insistent than Reine-Marie expected.

Shot in the abdomen. He’s in surgery now.

But he’ll be all right? Annie demanded.

We don’t know.

My father, you said a bleed, what does that mean?

From the head wound, a bleed into his head, the doctor had said. A stroke.

Reine-Marie didn’t care. He’s alive. And she repeated that to herself now as she had every hour of every day since. It didn’t matter what the damned video showed. He’s alive.

“I don’t know what could be on it,” Gamache was saying. And that was the truth. He’d forced himself to remember, for the inquiry, but mostly what he was left with were impressions, the chaos, the noise, the shouting and screams. And gunmen, everywhere. Far more than expected.

The rapid gunshots. Concrete, wood exploding from the bullets all around. Automatic weapons fire. The unfamiliar feel of his tactical vest. An assault weapon in his hands. The people in his sights. The report as he fired. Aiming to kill.

Scanning for gunmen, issuing orders. Keeping order even in the storm.

Seeing Jean-Guy fall. Seeing others fall.

He woke at night with those images, those sounds. And that voice.

“I’ll find you in time. Trust me.”

“I do. I believe you, sir.”

“I’ll be home tomorrow,” Gamache said to Reine-Marie.

“Be careful.”

That was also something she never said before. Before all this happened. She’d thought it, he knew, every time he left for work, but never said it. But now she said it.

“I will. I love you.” He hung up, pausing to gather himself. In his pocket he felt the bottle of pills. His hand went to it, closing over it.

He closed his eyes.

Then taking his empty hand from his pocket he started calling the officers who’d survived, and the families of those who hadn’t.

He talked to their mothers, their fathers, their wives and a husband. In the background he could hear a young child asking for milk. Over and over he called, and listened to their rage, their pain, that someone could release a video of this event. Not once did they blame him, though Armand Gamache knew they could.

“Are you all right?”

Gamache looked up as Émile Comeau lowered himself into the seat opposite.

“What’s happened?” Émile asked, seeing the look on Gamache’s face.

Gamache hesitated. For the first time in his life he was tempted to lie to this man who had lied to him.

“Why did you say the Société Champlain meets at one thirty when it clearly meets at one?”

Émile paused. Would he lie again? Gamache wondered. But instead the man shook his head.

“I’m sorry about that Armand. There were things we needed to discuss before you came. I thought it was better.”

“You lied to me,” said Gamache.

“It was just half an hour.”

“It was more than that, and you know it. You made a choice, chose a side.”

“A side? Are you saying the Champlain Society is on a different side than you?”

“I’m saying we all have loyalties. You’ve made yours clear.”

Émile stared. “I’m sorry, I should never have lied to you. It won’t happen again.”

“It already has,” said Gamache getting to his feet and putting down a hundred dollars for the water and the use of the quiet table by the fireplace. “What did Augustin Renaud say to you?”

Émile got to his feet too. “What do you mean?”

“SC in Renaud’s journals. I’d taken it to mean an upcoming meeting with someone, maybe Serge Croix. A meeting he’d never make because he was murdered. But I was wrong. SC was the Société Champlain, and the meeting was for today at one. Why did he want to meet the Society?”

Émile stared, stricken, but said nothing.

Gamache turned and strode down the long corridor, his phone buzzing again and his heart pounding.

“Wait, Armand,” he heard behind him but kept walking, ignoring the calls. Then he remembered what Émile had meant to him and still did. Did this one bad thing wipe everything else out?

That was the danger. Not that betrayals happened, not that cruel things happened, but that they could outweigh all the good. That we could forget the good and only remember the bad.

But not today. Gamache stopped.

“You’re right. Renaud wanted to meet with us,” said Émile, catching up to Gamache as he retrieved his parka from the coat check. “He said he’d found something. Something we wouldn’t like but he was willing to bury, if we gave him what he wanted.”

“And what was that?”

“He wanted to join the Société and have all the credibility that went with it. And when the coffin was found he wanted us to admit he’d been right all along.”

“That was all?”

“That’s it.”

“And did you give it to him?”

Émile shook his head. “We decided not to meet him. No one believed he’d actually found Champlain, and no one believed he’d found anything compromising. It was felt that having Augustin Renaud in the Société would cheapen it. He was blackballed.”

“An elderly man comes to you wanting acceptance, just acceptance, and you turn him away?”

“I’m not proud of it. That’s what we needed to discuss privately. I wanted them to tell you everything and said if they didn’t I would. I’m so sorry Armand. I made a mistake. It’s just that I knew it couldn’t matter to the investigation. No one believed Renaud. No one.”

“Someone did. They killed him.”

The meeting of the Société Champlain had been filled with elderly Québécois men. And what held them together as a club? Certainly their fascination with Champlain and the early colony, but did that explain a lifetime’s loyalty? Was it more than that?

Samuel de Champlain wasn’t simply one more explorer, he was the Father of Québec, and as such he’d become a symbol for the Québécois of greatness. And freedom. Of New Worlds and new countries.

Of sovereignty. Of separation from Canada.

Gamache remembered the extremes of the late 1960s. The bombs, the kidnappings, the murders. All done by young separatists. But the young separatists of the 1960s became elderly separatists, who joined societies and sat in genteel lounges and sipped aperitifs.

And plotted?

Samuel de Champlain was found and found to be a Protestant. What would the church make of that? What would the separatists make of that?

“How did you find the books?” Émile asked, dropping his eyes to the bag at Gamache’s side.

“It was his satchel. Why carry it just for a small map? There must have been something else in it. Then when we couldn’t find the books I realized he probably kept them with him. Augustin Renaud would have refused to let them out of his possession, even for a moment. He must have taken them to the Literary and Historical Society when he met his murderer. But they weren’t on his body. That meant the killer must have taken them. And done what?”

Émile’s eyes narrowed, his mind moving along the path Armand had laid out. Then he smiled. “The murderer couldn’t take them home with him. If they were found in his possession they’d incriminate him.”

Gamache watched his mentor.

“He could have destroyed them, I suppose,” Émile continued, thinking it through. “Thrown them into a fireplace, burned the books. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. So what did he do?”

The two men stared at each other in the crowded hall of the hotel. People swirled around them like a great river, some bundled against the cold, some in formal wear off to a cocktail party. Some in the colorful, traditional sashes of the Carnaval, les ceinture fléchée. All ignoring the two men, standing stock-still in the current.

“He hid them in the library,” said Émile, triumphantly. “Where else? Hide them among thousands of other old, leather, unread, unappreciated volumes. So simple.”

“I spent this morning looking and finally found them,” said Gamache.

The two men walked out of the Château, gasping as the cold hit their faces.

“You found the books, but what happened to Champlain?” Émile asked, blinking his eyes against the freezing cold. “What did James Douglas and Chiniquy do with him?”

“We’re about to find out.”

“The Lit and His?” Émile asked, as they turned left past the old stone buildings, past the trees with cannonballs still lodged in them, past the past they both loved. “But why didn’t the Chief Archeologist find Champlain when he looked a few days ago?”

“How do you know he didn’t?”