The power had been knocked out. Climbing out of bed he closed his window, put on his dressing gown and slippers and opened his door. He could hear some hushed voices down below. On the main floor he met a magical sight. Gabri and Olivier had lit oil lamps and hurricane candles. The room was made up of pools of amber light. It was exquisite, a world lit only by fire. The fireplace was on and threw flickering light and heat. He moved closer to it. The furnace must have been off for hours and the house had chilled.

‘Bonjour, monsieur l’inspecteur,’ came Olivier’s cheerful voice. ‘The heat’s back on, thanks to our emergency generator, but it’ll take an hour or so for the house to warm up.’

Just then the place gave a shudder. ‘Mon Dieu,’ said Olivier. ‘It’s really kicking up outside. News last night said we could get fifty centimeters, almost two feet.’

‘What time is it?’ Gamache asked, trying to get his watch close to an oil lamp.

‘Ten to six.’

Gamache woke the others and they breakfasted as the original inhabitants of this old stagecoach inn might have. By firelight. On toasted English muffins, jam and café au lait.

‘Gabri plugged the oven and the espresso machine into the generator,’ explained Olivier. ‘No lights, but we have the necessities.’

The electricity was back on but flickering by the time they fought their way across to the Incident Room. The snow slashed out of the sky, hitting them sideways. Leaning into it and bowing their heads they tried not to lose their way in the short slog across the familiar village. The snow drove into them, finding its way up their sleeves and down their collars, into their ears and into every cranny of their clothing as though searching for skin. And finding it.

At the Incident Room they unwound their scarves, shook packed snow from their sodden tuques and kicked their boots against the building to get the worst of the snow off.

Lacoste was stuck in Montreal with the storm and would spend the day at headquarters. Beauvoir spent the morning on the phone and finally found a pharmacist in Cowansville who had recorded selling niacin in the last few weeks. He decided to head over there, even though the snow made the roads almost impassable.

‘Nothing to it,’ he said, exhilarated to be at the end of the case and heading into a storm. The hero, the hunter, challenging the odds, meeting adversity, fighting the worst snowstorm anyone had ever seen anywhere. He was astonishing.

He dashed out, only to find the new snow up to his knees. He waded through to his car and spent the next half hour shoveling it out. Still, it was fluffy and light and brought back memories of prayed-for storm days off school.