Billy gunned his machine along a path and onto a street, not yet cleared of snow, though empty of vehicle traffic. Gamache looked for his car, knowing he had a long drive ahead of him to Cowansville hospital. But Billy had taken them another way.

Damn the man, thought Gamache. He’s gotten us lost on the lake and now God only knows where we are.

‘Loudspeaker,’ shouted Billy, and gestured ahead.

There was a huge blue lighted sign. H. Hospital.

Billy Williams had taken them through the storm, across the lake and straight to the hospital.

‘How did you know?’ Beauvoir asked Gamache as the two men looked down at Kaye Thompson. She was hooked up to machines and IVs and bundled in a silver heating blanket. She looked like a baked potato. Like her father before her, she’d faced certain death and beaten the odds.

Gamache took from his pocket a balled up and sodden piece of paper. Handing it to Beauvoir, Gamache turned back to stare at Kaye and wonder what the last few days must have been like for her. Knowing what they almost certainly would do.

Beauvoir sat down and gently pried apart the paper until it again resembled a letter. It was written in a clear, old-fashioned hand, in beautiful French, by Émilie. It explained it all. How Crie had reminded Émilie of her son, David. So gifted, so joyous when creating music. When they’d heard CC attack Crie after the Christmas Eve service they knew they had no choice. They had to kill CC to save Crie.

‘That explains a lot,’ said Beauvoir, finishing the letter. ‘The complexity of the crime, why Kaye claimed not to have seen anything. It all makes sense. It needed all three of them. The niacin was in Mother’s tea, Émilie controlled when Mother would make all that noise at the curling, drawing everyone’s attention away from CC. Kaye leaned on the chair, making it crooked. They knew CC would have to straighten it.’ Beauvoir pointed to the letter on his lap. ‘Madame Longpré begs you to let them kill themselves, and you were going to.’

He had no gift for subtlety, but he tried to make it sound less harsh than it was.

Gamache moved out of the emergency room and into the busy hallway. Doctors and nurses were rushing up and down, the emergency room clogged with car accident victims, skiers with broken bones, people suffering hypothermia and frostbite from the storm. The two men found a couple of chairs and sat down.