Gamache knew she was sincere but doubted she did know. He looked down at his hands, loose fists on the table. He was silent, and into that silence, as always, crept the young voice. More familiar now than those of his own children.

“And then at Christmas, we visit both Suzanne’s family and my own. We go to hers for réveillon and mine for Mass on Christmas morning.” The voice went on and on about trivial, minute, mundane events. The things that made up an average life. A voice that was no longer tinny in his ears, but living now in his brain, his mind. Always there, talking. Ad infinitum.

“I’m sorry, madame, I can’t help you.”

He watched the older woman across the table. Mid-seventies, he guessed. Slim, with beautiful bone structure. She wore little makeup, just some around the eyes, and lipstick. If less was more, she had a great deal. She was the image of cultured restraint. Her suit wasn’t the latest fashion, but it was classic and would never be out of style.

She’d introduced herself as Elizabeth MacWhirter and even Gamache, not a native of Quebec City, knew that name. The MacWhirter Shipyards. MacWhirter paper mills in the north of the province.

“Please. We need your help.”

He could tell this plea had cost her, because she knew what a position it put him in. And still, she’d done it. He hadn’t quite appreciated how desperate she must be. Her keen blue eyes never left his.

“Désolé,” he said, softly but firmly. “It gives me no pleasure to say that. And if I could help, I would. But . . .” He didn’t finish. He didn’t even know what would come after the “but.”

She smiled. “I’m so sorry, Chief Inspector. I should never have asked. Forgive me. I’m afraid my own needs blinded me. I’m sure you’re right and Inspector Langlois will be just fine.”

“I understand that the night is a strawberry,” said Gamache, smiling slightly.

“Oh, you heard about that, did you?” Elizabeth smiled. “Poor Winnie. No ear for languages. Reads French perfectly, you know. Always the highest marks in school, but can’t seem to speak it. Her accent would stop a train.”

“Inspector Langlois might have thrown her off by asking about her birth.”

“That didn’t help,” Elizabeth admitted. Her mirth disappeared, to be replaced by worry once again.

“You have no need for concern,” he reassured her.

“But you don’t know everything, I think. You don’t know who the dead man is.”

She’d lowered her voice and was whispering now. She sounded as Reine-Marie did when reading their infant granddaughters a fairy tale. It was the voice she used not for the fairy godmother, but the wicked witch.

“Who is it?” he asked, lowering his own voice.

“Augustin Renaud,” she whispered.

Gamache sat back and stared. Augustin Renaud. Dead. Murdered in the Literary and Historical Society. Now he knew why Elizabeth MacWhirter was so desperate.

And he knew she had reason to be.

FOUR

Gabri sat in the worn armchair by the roaring fire. Around him in the bistro he now ran he heard the familiar hubbub of the lunch crowd. People laughing, chatting. At some tables people were quietly reading the Saturday paper or a book, some had come in for breakfast and stayed through lunch, and might very well be there for dinner.

It was a lazy Saturday in February, the dead of winter, and the bistro was mumbling along with conversation and the clinking of silverware on china. His friends Peter and Clara Morrow were with him, as was Myrna, who ran the new and used bookstore next door. Ruth had promised to join them, which generally meant she wouldn’t be there.

Through the window he could see the village of Three Pines covered in snow, and more falling. It wouldn’t be a blizzard, not enough driving wind for that, but he’d be surprised if they got less than a foot by the time it was finished. That was the thing with a Québec winter, he knew. It might look gentle, beautiful even, but it could take you by surprise.

The roofs of the homes surrounding the village were white and smoke curled from the chimneys. Snow was lying thick on the evergreens and on the three magnificent pines clustered together at the far end of the village green like guardians. The cars parked outside homes had become white lumps, like ancient burial mounds.

“I tell you, I’m going to do it,” Myrna was saying, sipping her hot chocolate.

“No you’re not,” laughed Clara. “Every winter you say you will and you never do. Besides, it’s too late now.”

“Have you seen the last-minute deals? Look.” Myrna handed her friend the Travel section from the weekend Montreal Gazette, pointing to a box.