Gamache turned to the back wall. Written in fine calligraphy across the top was Be Calm. The name of Madame Mayer’s center was Be Calm. Coincidentally, it was also what CC had called her business and her book.

Be Calm.

Ironically, neither woman, from what he could tell, was gifted with calm.

Below the words there was more writing on the wall. The sun had set and the room was lit discreetly. He couldn’t make out the writing from where he was so he moved closer but as he approached Mother arrived, her purple caftan billowing behind her and her hair sticking out like a firestorm.

‘Hello, welcome. Have you come for the five o’clock class?’

‘No, madame.’ Gamache smiled. ‘We came to visit you, to ask for your help.’

Mother stood in front of him, warily. She seemed a woman used to traps, or at least to imagining them.

‘It’s obvious to me you’re a woman of sensitivities. You see and feel things others don’t. I hope I’m not being presumptuous.’

‘I don’t think I’m any more intuitive than anyone else,’ she said. ‘If anything I’ve been blessed to have been able to work on myself. Probably because I needed it more than most.’ She smiled at Gamache and ignored Beauvoir.

‘The enlightened are always the last to say it,’ said Gamache. ‘We wanted to speak to you in private, madame, to get your help. We need your insights on Madame de Poitiers.’

‘I didn’t know her well.’

‘But you wouldn’t have to, would you? You’re a teacher; you see so many people from all walks. You probably know them better than they know themselves.’

‘I try not to be judgmental, Chief Inspector.’

‘Not judgment, madame, discernment.’

‘CC de Poitiers was, I believe, in a lot of pain.’ Mother led them over to a gathering of pillows and indicated one. Gamache sat, more or less falling the last third of the way down. He only just stopped himself from tumbling over backwards. Beauvoir decided not to risk it. Besides, it was ridiculous and perhaps even insulting to offer a homicide investigator a pillow to sit on.

Mother lowered herself expertly, landing in the center of the crimson pillow like a paratrooper. Granted, she hadn’t all that far to fall.

‘A lost soul, I believe. Had she not been murdered and had she had the humility to ask I believe I could have helped her.’

Beauvoir thought maybe he was going to throw up.

‘She came here once, you know. I was heartened to see her, imagining she’d come to seek guidance. But I was wrong.’

‘What did she want?’