“A gap in your security system,” said Gamache.

“She sat there.” Ruth pointed to his plastic chair. “And I sat here. And we drank.”

“At what stage did she tell you who she was?”

“She didn’t really. She told me I had the poem right. I asked her which poem and she quoted it to me. Like you did. Then she said that Virginie had felt exactly like that. I asked what Virginie she had in mind, and she said her sister. Virginie Ouellet.”

“And that’s when you knew?” Gamache asked.

“God, man, the fucking duck knew then.”

Ruth got up and returned with the Bernard book on the Quints. She threw it on the table and sat back down.

“Vile book,” she said.

Gamache looked at the cover. A photograph, in black and white, of Dr. Bernard sitting in a chair, surrounded by the Ouellet Quints, about eight years of age, looking at him adoringly.

Ruth was also looking at the cover. At the five little girls.

“I used to pretend I was adopted out and one day they’d come and find me.”

“And one day,” Gamache said quietly, “Constance did.”

Constance Ouellet, at the end of her life, at the end of the road, had come to this falling-down old home, to this falling-down old poet. And here, finally, she’d found her companion.

And Ruth had found her sister. At last.

Ruth met his eyes, and smiled. “Or will it be, as always was / too late?”

Alas.

NINETEEN

Chief Inspector Gamache drove in to Montréal, and now sat at his computer reading the weekly roundup from Inspector Lacoste, from his homicide agents, from detachments around the province.

It was Saturday morning and he was alone in the office. He responded to emails, wrote notes, and sent off thoughts and suggestions on murder investigations under way. He called a couple of inspectors in remote areas with active cases, to talk about progress.

When all that was done, he looked at the last daily report. It was an executive summary of activities and cases from Chief Superintendent Francoeur’s office. Gamache knew he didn’t have to read it, knew if he opened it he was doing exactly as Sylvain Francoeur wanted. It was sent to Gamache not as information, and certainly not as a courtesy, but as an assault.

Gamache’s finger rested on the open message command.

If he pressed down it would be flagged as opened, by him. At his desk, on his terminal. Using his security codes.

Francoeur would know he’d bested Gamache, again.

Gamache pressed anyway, and the words sprang up on the page.

He read what Francoeur wanted him to see. And he felt exactly what Francoeur wanted him to feel.

Impotent. Angry.

Francoeur had assigned Jean-Guy Beauvoir to another operation, this time a drug raid that could easily have been left to the RCMP and border guards. Gamache stared at the words and took a long, slow, deep breath in. Held it for a moment. Then he released it. Slowly. He forced himself to re-read the report. To take it in, fully.

Then he closed the message and filed it.

He sat at his chair and looked through the glass between his office and the open room beyond. The empty room beyond. With its bedraggled strings of Christmas lights. The half-hearted tree, without gifts. Not even fake ones.

He wanted to swing his chair around, to turn his back on all that and stare at the city he loved. But instead he contemplated what he saw, and what he’d read. And what he felt. Then he made a call, got up, and left.

*   *   *

He probably should have driven, but the Chief wanted fresh air. The streets of Montréal were slushy underfoot and bustling with holiday shoppers, bumping each other and wishing each other anything but peace and goodwill.

The Salvation Army was performing carols on one of the corners. As he walked, a boy soprano sang, “Once in Royal David’s City.”

But Chief Inspector Gamache heard none of it.

He wove his way between the shoppers, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Deep in thought. Finally the Chief arrived at an office building, pressed a button and was buzzed in. An elevator took him to the top floor. He walked down the deserted corridor and opened a door into a familiar waiting room.

The sight of it, the scent of it, turned his stomach, and he was slightly surprised by the force of the memories that hit him, and the wave of nausea.

“Chief Inspector.”

“Dr. Fleury.”

The two men shook hands.

“I’m glad you could see me,” said Gamache. “Especially on a Saturday. Merci.”

“I’m not normally in on a weekend. I was just clearing my desk before heading off for holiday.”