‘There’s truth there, monsignor.’ Beauvoir struggled to his elbow. ‘You wouldn’t believe my wicked dreams. I even dreamt Agent Nichol was with me.’ He lowered his voice for the confession.

‘Imagine that,’ said Gamache. ‘You’re feeling better.’ He took his cool hand off Beauvoir’s cool head.

‘Much. What time is it?’

‘Midnight.’

‘Go to sleep, sir. I’m fine.’

‘Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical?’

‘Hope that’s not from my next performance evaluation.’

‘No. That’s a bit of poetry.’

If that’s poetry, thought Beauvoir, wearily subsiding once again into the welcoming bed, I can get to like it.

‘Why’re you reading the Bible?’ he mumbled, half asleep already.

‘It’s about the writing on the wall at Mother’s meditation center. Psalm 46, verse 10. It should read, Be still, and know that I am God.’

Beauvoir drifted away, comforted by the voice and the thought.

TWENTY-THREE

The bedside clock glowed 5:51. It was still dark and would be for a while. Gamache lay in bed, feeling the fresh freezing air from the slightly open window on his face, and the bed sheets warm around him.

It was time to get up.

He showered and dressed quickly in the cool room with its dark wood furniture, white walls and fluffy feather bedding. The room was elegant and way too inviting. Gamache tiptoed down the dark stairs of the B. & B. He’d put his warmest clothing on and got into his huge parka. He’d shoved his tuque and mitts into the sleeve of his parka when he’d come in the night before, and now, thrusting his right arm into the armhole, he hit the blockage. At a practiced shove the pompom of the tuque crowned the cuff followed by his mitts, like a tiny birth.

Once outside he started walking, his feet munching on the snow. It was a brittle crisp morning but without a breath of wind and Gamache thought the forecast might actually be accurate. It was going to be a cold one, even by Quebec standards. Leaning forward slightly, head down, his mittened hands clasped behind his back, Gamache walked and thought about this baffling case with its embarrassment of suspects and clues.

Puddles of anti-freeze, niacin, The Lion in Winter, booster cables, Psalm 46:10 and a long lost mother. And that was only what he’d uncovered so far. CC was two days dead and what he really needed was an epiphany.

Round the Commons the case took him in the dark, though in winter the night was never pitch black. The snow covering the ground had its own glow. Past the homes of sleeping villagers he trudged, smoke from the chimneys rising vertically, past the darkened shops, though a hint of a light in the basement of Sarah’s Boulangerie promised fresh croissants.