The doorbell peeled and Richard Lyon jumped out of his skin.

What an idiot. You knew they were there. You should have gone to the door to let them in as they approached. Now they’ll think you’re rude. God, what a loser.

Armand Gamache stood at the door, Lemieux behind him, trying not to remember the last time he was there. Trying to see the old Hadley house as just a building. And buildings, he told himself, were just everyday materials. The same materials went into this house as his own in Outremont. There was nothing special about this place. But still the house seemed to moan and shiver.

Armand Gamache braced himself, putting his shoulders back a little and lifting his head more. He was damned if he was going to let a house get the better of him. Still, part of him felt like a six-year-old who’d approached the haunted house on a dare and now wanted to run home as fast as his desperate legs would take him.

Wouldn’t that be a sight, he thought, imagining Lemieux watching as Chief Inspector Gamache ran shrieking past him and down into the village below. Best not to do that. Not just yet.

‘Maybe they’re not home.’ Lemieux was looking around hopefully.

‘They’re here.’

‘Hello.’ The door suddenly yanked open, startling Lemieux, and a short, squat man stood there speaking in a very low voice. He sounded to Gamache like a person just recovering from laryngitis. The man cleared his throat and tried again.

‘Hello.’ It came out in a more healthy register.

‘Mr Lyon? My name is Armand Gamache. I’m the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec. I’m sorry to intrude.’

‘I understand,’ said Lyon, pleased with his tone and his words. They didn’t sound rehearsed. ‘A terrible, terrible day. We’re devastated, of course. Come in.’

To Gamache’s ear the man sounded rehearsed. But not, perhaps, quite enough. He had the words right but the tone wrong, like a poor actor speaking from his head and not his heart.

Gamache took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. He was almost surprised to find that ghosts and demons weren’t swirling around his head, that something cataclysmic and catastrophic didn’t happen.

Instead, he found himself in a dreary front hall. He almost laughed.

The house hadn’t changed all that much. Its dark wood paneling still greeted guests in the unwelcoming entrance hall. The cold marble floors were spotless. As they followed Lyon through the hall into the living room Gamache noticed there didn’t seem to be any Christmas decorations up. Nor were many lights on. A few pools of light here and there, but not nearly enough to take the gloom from the room.