The simple and devastating sentence sat in the middle of their circle.

‘I used to dream I was popular,’ said Ruth into the silence. ‘And pretty.’

‘I used to dream I was white,’ said Myrna. ‘And thin.’

Peter remained mute. He couldn’t remember any fantasies he’d had as a child. Coping with reality had taken up too much of his mind.

‘And you?’ Ruth asked Gamache.

‘I used to dream I’d saved my parents,’ he said, remembering the little boy looking out the living-room window, leaning over the back of the sofa, resting his cheek on the nubbly fabric. Sometimes, when the winter wind blew, he could still feel it rough against his cheek. Whenever his parents went out for dinner he’d wait, looking into the night for the headlights. And every night they came home. Except one.

‘We all have our fantasies,’ said Myrna. ‘Was CC any different?’

‘There is one difference,’ said Gamache. ‘Do you still want to be white and thin?’

Myrna laughed heartily. ‘No way. Would never occur to me now.’

‘Or straight?’ he asked Gabri.

‘Olivier would kill me.’

‘Eventually, for better or worse, our childhood fantasies disappear or are replaced by others. But not CC. That’s the difference. She seemed to believe them, even to the extent of choosing the name de Poitiers. We don’t even know what her real name was.’

‘I wonder who her parents were?’ said Gabri. ‘She was in her late forties, right? So they’d probably be in their seventies at least. Like you.’ Gabri turned to Ruth, who waited a moment then spoke.

‘Long dead and buried in another town,

my mother hasn’t finished with me yet.’

‘From a poem?’ Gamache asked when Ruth had finished. It sounded familiar.

‘You think?’ said Ruth with a snarl.

‘When my death us do part

Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again,

Or will it be, as always was, too late?’

‘Oh, thank God. I thought we’d be without your poetry for one night,’ said Gabri. ‘Please, continue. I don’t feel quite suicidal enough.’

‘Your poetry is remarkable,’ said Gamache. Ruth looked more stricken by his kind words than Gabri’s insults.

‘Fuck off.’ She shoved Gamache aside and made for the door.

‘The Shit’s hit the Fan,’ said Gabri.

Gamache remembered where he’d heard the poem. He’d read it in the car on his way down to start the case. He carefully retrieved The Lion in Winter from the video machine.

‘Thank you,’ he said to Clara and Peter. ‘I have to get back to Inspector Beauvoir. Do you have one of your portfolios?’ he asked Clara. ‘I’d like to take it.’