The scar at Armand’s temple plowed across the other lines on his forehead. Some of the furrows were created by stress and worry and sadness. But most, like the ones showing now, were deep with amusement.

“I thought you were going to tell me what you really thought of him as a person,” said Reine-Marie. “All those flaws you witnessed after years of working together.” Reine-Marie leaned closer, in conspiracy. “Come on, Isabelle, tell me.”

Out on the green, Lacoste’s two children were fighting with Jean-Guy Beauvoir for the ball. The grown man appeared to be sincerely, and increasingly desperately, trying to control the play. Lacoste smiled. Even against kids, Inspector Beauvoir did not like to lose.

“You mean all the cruelty?” she asked, bringing her attention back inside the comfortable room. “The incompetence? We had to keep waking him up to tell him our solution to a case so he could take the credit.”

“Is that true, Armand?” Reine-Marie asked.

“Pardon? I was snoozing.”

Lacoste laughed. “And now I get your office, and the sofa.” She turned serious. “I know the Superintendent’s job has been offered to you, patron. Chief Superintendent Brunel told me in confidence.”

“Some confidence,” said Gamache. But he didn’t look put out.

Chief Superintendent Thérèse Brunel, appointed head of the Sûreté after the scandals and shake-up, had visited Three Pines a week earlier. It was, supposedly, a social visit. As they’d relaxed on the front porch one morning over coffee, she’d offered him the job.

“Superintendent, Armand. You’d head up the division that oversees Homicide and Serious Crimes and the annual Christmas party.”

He raised his brow.

“We’re restructuring,” she explained. “Gave the St-Jean-Baptiste Day picnic to Organized Crime.”

He smiled and so did she, before her eyes turned sharp again and she studied him.

“What would it take to get you back?”

It would be disingenuous for him to say he hadn’t seen this coming. He’d been expecting just such an overture since the leadership of the Sûreté had fallen into complete disarray, and the breadth and depth of the corruption he’d uncovered became clear.

They needed leadership and direction and they needed it fast.

“Let me think about it, Thérèse,” he’d said.

“I’d like an answer soon.”

“Of course.”

After Thérèse Brunel kissed Reine-Marie good-bye, she took Armand’s arm and the two old friends and colleagues walked to her car.

“The rot in the Sûreté has been removed,” she said, lowering her voice. “But now the force needs to be rebuilt. Properly this time. We both know rot can reappear. Don’t you want to be part of making sure the Sûreté is strong and healthy and on the right path?”

She examined her friend. He’d recovered from the physical attacks, that was obvious. He exuded strength and well-being and a kind of calmly contained energy. But the physical wounds, as grave as they’d been, hadn’t been the reason Armand Gamache had retired. He had finally staggered under the emotional burden. He’d had enough of corruption, of betrayal, of the back-stabbing and undermining and venal atmosphere. He’d had enough of death. Chief Inspector Gamache had exorcised the rot in the Sûreté, but the memories remained, embedded.

Would they disappear with time? Thérèse Brunel wondered. Would they disappear with distance? Would this pretty village wash them away, like a baptism?

Maybe.

“The worst is done, Armand,” she said, once they reached her car. “And now it’s time for the best, the fun part. Rebuilding. Don’t you want to be part of that? Or is this,” she looked around the village green, “enough?”

She saw the old homes circling the green. She saw the bistro and bookstore and bakery and general store. She saw, Gamache knew, a pretty, but dull, backwater. While he saw a shore. A place where the shipwrecked could finally rest.

Armand had told Reine-Marie about the job offer, of course, and they’d discussed it.

“Do you want to do it, Armand?” she’d asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

But he knew her too well for that.

“It’s too soon, I think. For both of us. But Thérèse has raised an interesting question. What next?”

Next? Reine-Marie had thought when he’d said it a week ago. And she thought it again now, in the bistro, with the murmur of conversation, like a stream, flowing by her, around her. That one bedraggled word had washed up on her banks and set down roots, tendrils. A bindweed of a word.

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