They’d taken risks, of course. Kaye had to detach the cord and throw it clear, a bright orange cord lying where no cord should be. But they’d gambled that everyone would be so focused on CC they could gather it up again. Em did so, and threw it in the back of Billy’s truck. She’d almost gotten caught when Billy ran toward her to start the truck and clear the back for CC. She’d covered up by saying she’d had the same idea and was going to clean a spot in his pickup for CC and the resuscitation team.

The only thing Gamache had been missing was a motive. But Em and Mother had provided that.

Crie.

They had to save El’s granddaughter from the monster who was her mother. They’d heard Crie sing, and they’d heard CC crush and humiliate her. And they’d seen the girl themselves.

Crie was clearly dying, suffocating beneath layers of fat and fear and silence. She’d withdrawn into her own world so far she could barely get out any more. CC was murdering her daughter.

Now he watched as the middle dot, the smallest of them, sank to the ground. The others stumbled and tried to pull her up. To go on a little longer. Gamache felt his knees quaking and he longed to collapse onto the snow, to bury his horror in his hands. To look away as the Three Graces died.

Instead he stood erect, the snow insinuating itself down his collar and up his sleeves, plastering against his face and into his unblinking eyes. He forced himself to watch as first one then the other sank to her knees. He stayed with them, a prayer on his cracked lips, repeated over and over.

But another thought insinuated itself.

Gamache looked down at the letter crushed in his hand, then back at the black sprawls on the snow. He was frozen for a moment, stunned.

‘No,’ he screamed and started forward. ‘No,’ he shouted and spun round, looking at his car behind him half buried already in the snow. As were the women. He ran toward the car, frantic to reach it.

It was too late, he knew, but still he had to try.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Gamache turned the car and gunned it toward Williamsburg, making straight for a cantine on rue Principale.

‘I need help,’ he said at the door of the restaurant. All eyes turned to him, a large stranger covered in snow and making demands. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté. Three women are trapped on Lac Brume. We need snowmobiles to get them.’

After a moment’s pause a man rose from the crowd and said, ‘Em are ducks.’ It was Billy Williams.