‘Not tonight,’ Beauvoir agreed. He picked up the chief’s empty glass and wandered away. Fucking Thomas. I could do better. And while the commercials were on Jean Guy Beauvoir imagined himself in net for the Canadians. But Beauvoir wasn’t a goalie. He was a forward. He liked the limelight, the puck play, the panting, the skating and the shooting. Hearing an opponent grunt as he was forced into the boards. And maybe giving him an extra elbow.

No, he knew himself enough to know he’d never make a goalie.

That was Gamache. The one they all depended on to make the save.

He took the filled wine glass back and put it on the table by the phone, Gamache smiling his thanks.

‘Bonjour?’ Gamache heard the familiar voice and his heart contracted.

‘Oui, bonjour, is this Madame Gamache, the librarian? I hear you have a book overdue.’

‘I have a husband overdue, and he is a little bookish,’ she said, laughing. ‘Hello, Armand. How are things going?’

‘Eleanor Allaire.’

There was a pause.

‘Thank you, Armand. Eleanor Allaire.’ Reine-Marie said the name as though part of the novena. ‘Beautiful name.’

‘And a beautiful woman, I’ve been told.’

He told her everything then. About Eleanor, about her friends, about India and the daughter. About being the crack in the vessel, and finding herself on the streets. About CC, taken from her home, raised by God knows who, searching for her mother and even going to Three Pines.

‘Why did she think her mother would be there?’ Reine-Marie asked.

‘Because that was the image her mother had painted on the Christmas decoration. The Li Bien ball. The only thing CC had from El. She was either told or must have guessed that the three pine trees on the ball meant the village where her mother was born and raised. This afternoon we spoke to old-timers and they remember the Allaires. Just the one daughter, Eleanor. They left almost fifty years ago.’

‘So CC bought a home in Three Pines to search for her mother? I wonder why she did it now? Why not years ago?’

‘I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure,’ said Gamache, sipping his wine. In the background he could hear the Hockey Night in Canada theme. Reine-Marie was watching the game as well this Saturday night. ‘Thomas isn’t having a good night.’

‘He should stay closer to the net,’ she said. ‘The Rangers have his number.’

‘Do you have a theory why CC would suddenly decide to search for her mother now?’

‘You said CC had approached an American company about a catalogue?’

‘What’re you thinking?’

‘I was wondering whether maybe CC waited until she felt she was a success.’

Gamache thought about it, watching the players on the television pass the puck up the ice, lose it, skate furiously backwards as the other team charged. Beauvoir and Lemieux fell back into the sofa, groaning.