‘Look, I don’t have any love for the man,’ she said. ‘Someone over a period of years has screwed Crie up to the point where she’s almost comatose. At first I thought she might be autistic, but after spending a few minutes with her I don’t think so. I think she’s run away, inside her head. And I think Richard Lyon’s to blame.’

‘Tell me.’ Gamache picked up his warm mug. He could smell the rum and the spices.

‘Well, let me be careful here. In my opinion Crie’s been emotionally and verbally abused all her life. I think CC was the abuser, but there are generally three parties to child abuse. The abused, the abuser and the bystander. One parent does it but the other knows it’s happening and does nothing.’

‘If CC emotionally abused her daughter, would she also have abused her husband?’ Gamache remembered Lyon, frightened and lost.

‘Almost without a doubt. Still, he’s Crie’s father and he needed to save her.’

‘And didn’t.’

Myrna nodded. ‘Can you imagine what it was like living in that house?’ Myrna’s back was to the window and she couldn’t see the old Hadley house, but she could feel it.

‘Should we call Family Services? Would Crie be better somewhere else?’

‘No, the worst is over, I think. What she needs is a loving parent and intense therapy. Has anyone spoken to her school?’

‘They say she’s bright, in fact her grades are very high, but she doesn’t fit in.’

‘And probably never will now. Too much damage done. We become our beliefs, and Crie believes something horrible about herself. Has heard it all her life, and now it haunts her, in her own mother’s voice. It’s the voice most of us hear in the quiet moments, whispering kindnesses or accusations. Our mother.’

‘Or our father,’ said Gamache, ‘though in this case he said nothing. She said too much and he said not enough. Poor Crie. No wonder it led to murder.’

‘We live in a world of guided missiles and misguided men,’ said Myrna. ‘Dr Martin Luther King, Junior.’

Gamache nodded, then remembered something else.

‘Your beliefs become your thoughts

Your thoughts become your words

Your words become your actions

Your actions become your destiny.

Mahatma Gandhi,’ he said. ‘There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.’

‘I didn’t know the Mahatma was so chatty, but I agree with him. Very powerful. It starts with our beliefs, and our beliefs come from our parents, and if we have a sick parent we have sick beliefs and it infects everything we think and do.’

Gamache wondered who CC’s mother was and what beliefs she’d filled her daughter with. He sipped his toddy, his chilled body finally warming up, and looked around.