‘I got there just as the curling started,’ said Clara.

‘Where did you sit?’

‘In the stands, between Myrna and Olivier.’

‘And where was CC?’

‘In one of the chairs by the lamp.’ Clara smiled very slightly.

‘What is it?’ Gamache asked.

Clara blushed a little at being caught in a private moment. ‘I was remembering CC. It was like her to take the best seat. In fact, the one she chose was closest to the lamp. It’s the one Kaye should have had.’

‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ he asked.

‘No. I thought she was cruel and selfish,’ said Clara. ‘Still, she didn’t deserve to be killed.’

‘What did she deserve?’ he asked.

The question staggered Clara. What did CC deserve? She gave it some thought, staring into the fire, watching the flames leap and pop and play. Lemieux shifted his position and almost said something, but Gamache caught his eye and he shut his mouth.

‘She deserved to be left alone. That should have been her punishment for treating people with such disdain, for causing such hurt.’ Clara was trying to keep her voice firm and calm, but she could feel it wavering and quivering and hoped she wasn’t about to cry. ‘CC couldn’t be trusted in the company of others.’

Gamache was silent, wondering what CC could have done to have hurt this fine woman so much she’d visit such a horror on her. Because Gamache knew, as did Clara, that isolation was far worse than death.

He knew then that this case wouldn’t be solved easily. Anyone so damaged as to cause this much harm led a life full of secrets and full of enemies. Gamache moved a little closer to the fire. Outside the sun had set and night had fallen on Three Pines.

ELEVEN

‘She wasn’t so bad,’ said Ruth Zardo, slapping the cork back into a bottle of wine. She’d poured herself another while offering her guests none.

Gamache and Lemieux were sitting in the white resin pre-formed garden chairs Ruth called her dining set in her near freezing kitchen. Ruth wore a couple of moth-eaten sweaters, while the men had kept their parkas on.

Agent Lemieux rubbed his hands together in a ball-and-socket motion and tried to resist the urge to blow on them. He and Gamache had crossed the village green after interviewing the Morrows and made for the smallest house Agent Lemieux had ever seen. It looked little more than a shack, with two windows on the main floor and a single window up top. The white paint was chipping and one of the porch lights was out.

The door was opened by a ramrod. Straight and scraggly, everything about her was thin. Her body, her arms, her lips and her humor. As they made their way down the dim corridor lit with low voltage bulbs, he tripped a few times over stacks of books.

‘I see the Sûreté is now hiring the handicapped,’ said Ruth, waving her cane at him. ‘Still, he’s got to be better than the last one you brought round. What was her name? Doesn’t matter. Complete disaster. Very rude. Sit if you must but don’t get too comfortable.’

Lemieux rubbed his hands again, then took up his pen and began writing.

‘I’ve heard CC de Poitiers described as cruel and selfish,’ said Gamache, surprised he couldn’t see his breath.

‘So?’

‘Well, that doesn’t sound very good.’

‘Oh, she wasn’t very good, but she wasn’t so bad either. I mean, really,’ the old poet took a gulp of her wine, then put the glass back on the round plastic table, ‘who isn’t cruel and selfish?’

Gamache had forgotten the complete joy that was Ruth Zardo. He laughed out loud and caught her eye. She started laughing too.

Robert Lemieux didn’t get it.

‘What did you think of Madame de Poitiers?’

‘I think she was bitter and petty and yes, very cruel. But I suspect there was a reason for it. We just didn’t know her well enough, yet, to figure it out.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘Just over a year. She bought Timmer Hadley’s old place.’ Ruth watched Gamache closely as she said this for a reaction, but she was to be disappointed. His reaction had come half an hour earlier at Clara and Peter’s home. Clara had told him about CC buying the old Hadley place. They’d all sat silently then, and again Agent Lemieux was left to wonder what he was missing.

The last time Armand Gamache had been in the Hadley place it had almost killed him along with Peter, Clara and Beauvoir. If there was ever a house that wept it was that one.

Gamache would never forget that basement and the darkness. Even now in front of the cheery fire, with a warm mug in his hands and friends and colleagues around him, Gamache felt a tremor of fear.