‘It’s the flu,’ Gamache said. ‘I need to leave. Here’s the cell phone, here’s a cup of tea. Here’s the wastepaper basket.’ He held the tin bucket up for Beauvoir to see, then placed it on the floor by the bed. His own mother had called it a ‘burp bowl’ when he’d been sick as a child, though they both knew burping wasn’t the problem. ‘Now rest and sleep.’

‘I’ll be dead when you get back.’

‘I’ll miss you.’ Gamache straightened the fluffy white duvet, felt the man’s forehead again, and tiptoed out. Beauvoir was already asleep.

‘How is he?’ Gabri asked as Gamache descended the staircase.

‘Asleep. Will you be here for a while?’

‘I’ll make sure I am.’

Gamache put his coat on and stood at the threshold. ‘Getting colder.’

‘Snow’s stopped. I hear tomorrow’s supposed to get down to minus twenty.’

Both men looked out the door. The sun had long since set and the trees and pond were lit. A few people were walking their dogs and skating. The bistro was throwing its welcoming light and the door opened and closed as villagers went for their late afternoon toddy.

‘Must be five,’ said Gabri, nodding toward the village green. ‘Ruth. She looks almost lifelike.’

Gamache left the warmth of the B. & B. and hurried round the Commons. He considered pausing to speak to Ruth but decided against it. Something about the woman warned against casual, or any kind of, conversation. His feet squeaked on the snow, a sure sign that the temperature was plunging. His face felt as though he was walking through a cloud of tiny needles and his eyes watered slightly. With regret he walked past the bistro. It had been his intention to sit in the bistro each afternoon with a quiet drink to review his notes and meet the villagers.

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

Gamache’s job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was to get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention. And the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual manner in a deceptively casual setting.

Like the bistro.