Clara hurried into the mudroom to open the door, stepping over Lucy, who showed no interest in protecting the home. The only person she barked at was Ruth and that was only because Ruth barked back.

‘Cold enough for you?’ Clara called.

‘Snow’s coming, I hear,’ said Gamache.

Clara smiled as he spoke. She hadn’t seen him for more than a year, since Jane’s murder. She’d sometimes wondered whether, upon seeing Gamache again, some of the old hurt would also come back. Would she for ever associate him with that horrible time? Not just the loss of Jane, but those terrifying minutes trapped in the basement of the old Hadley house? But now, seeing him arrive, all she felt was gladness. And comfort. And she’d forgotten the delight of hearing perfect English, with a slight British accent, coming from a senior Sûreté officer. She’d meant to ask him where he’d learned it, but kept forgetting.

Gamache gave Clara a kiss on both cheeks and shook Peter’s hand with affection. ‘May I present Agent Robert Lemieux. He’s been seconded to us from the Cowansville Sûreté.’

‘Enchanté,’ said Lemieux.

‘Un plaisir,’ replied Clara.

‘So it was murder,’ said Peter, taking their coats. He’d gone to the hospital with CC and had known long before they’d arrived that she was dead. He’d been on the curling rink watching Mother’s magnificent last shot when he’d looked over to the bleachers and seen the crowd that should have been watching the curlers rising from their seats and watching something else entirely. He’d dropped his broom and raced over.

And there she was, CC de Poitiers, unconscious on the snow. All her muscles taut as though straining against some force.

They’d tried to revive her, had called an ambulance, and had finally concluded it was fastest to take her to the hospital themselves. So they’d piled her into the open back of Billy Williams’s pickup and bumped and jostled along at breakneck speed on the snow-covered back roads, making for Cowansville. He and Olivier and Ruth in the open truck while Billy Williams drove like a maniac. Beside Billy in the cab sat CC’s lump of a husband and their daughter. Staring straight ahead. Silent and unmoving, like snowmen. Peter knew he was being uncharitable, but he couldn’t help being annoyed at the man who did nothing to save his wife while perfect strangers did everything.