‘According to Mother, Kaye saw it all, and what she didn’t see they figured out later. For instance, they didn’t see Crie slip niacin into her mother’s tea. But they did see her spill windshield washer fluid behind the chair. And Émilie saw her hanging around Billy Williams’s truck. None of these things meant anything at first but when Kaye saw Crie deliberately put the chair off balance, and hook up booster cables to it, her curiosity was piqued, though she didn’t expect murder. CC was concentrating on what was happening on the ice, of course, but when she grabbed the chair and was electrocuted Kaye knew at once what had happened. After all, she’d worked all her life in a logging camp. She knew about generators and boosters. Before going to help CC Kaye unhooked the cables and tossed them aside. In all the excitement they were stepped on and buried under the snow. While you were all working on CC Kaye started gathering up the cable. Em saw her and asked what she was doing. Kaye didn’t have time to tell her everything; all she said was she had to get the booster cable back into Billy’s truck. Émilie didn’t need more of an explanation.’

‘So they knew Crie had killed her mother,’ said Myrna. ‘But did they know that CC had killed her own mother?’

‘No. Not until I told Em the other day. No, the death of CC had nothing to do with her killing her own mother. Not in a literal way anyway. Mother would probably say it was karma.’

‘So would I,’ said Clara.

‘Crie killed her mother out of self-defense. She was finally so hurt she couldn’t take it any more. It happens with children sometimes. They either kill themselves, or they kill their abuser. Émilie described Crie as deceptive, though not in an underhanded way. She meant Crie appeared flat, without a spark or talent. But she wasn’t.’

‘We heard her sing on Christmas Eve,’ said Olivier. ‘It was sublime.’

They all nodded.

‘She’s also a straight A student. Quite brilliant, especially in sciences. In fact, for the past few years she’d been in charge of lighting for the school plays.’

‘Losers always are,’ said Ruth. ‘I was too.’

‘This year her class studied, among other things, vitamins and minerals. The B complex. Niacin. She got ninety-four per cent on the Christmas exam. Crie was well equipped to know how to kill her mother.’

‘I wonder whether the notion of an electric chair appealed to her,’ said Myrna.

‘Might have. We may never know. She’s in a near catatonic state.’

‘So you knew it wasn’t the Three Graces, but how did you figure out it was Crie?’ asked Peter.

‘CC’s boots. Only two people knew about them. Richard and Crie. I wanted to believe Richard had done it. He made the perfect suspect, after all.’