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Back Dead Cold Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. A Fatal Grace
  2. ALSO BY LOUISE PENNY
  3. A Fatal Grace
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

‘Which is why they use those electrified paddles to start the heart,’ said Lacoste.

‘And why pacemakers are implanted. Those are really just batteries, giving the heart an electrical impulse,’ agreed Beauvoir, excited by the topic. Thrilled to have facts to deal with. ‘When CC touched the metal her heart was affected within seconds.’

‘But,’ Armand Gamache spoke and all eyes turned to him, ‘Madame de Poitiers had to have been grounded.’

The room sat in silence. By now it had warmed up, but still Gamache felt a chill. He looked at Beauvoir and knew there was more to come.

Beauvoir reached into a bag at his side and plunked a pair of boots onto the table.

Before them sat CC de Poitier’s footwear, made of the youngest, whitest, finest baby seal skin. And on the bottom, where everyone else would have rubber, the investigators could see tiny claws.

Beauvoir turned one of the boots on its side so that the sole was visible. Twisted and charred and grotesque, the claws were revealed to be metal teeth, protruding from the leather sole.

Armand Gamache felt his jaw clench. Who would wear such boots? The Inuit, maybe. In the Arctic. But even they wouldn’t kill baby seals. The Inuit were respectful and sensible hunters who’d never dream of killing the young. They didn’t have to.

No. Only brutes murdered babies. And only brutes supported that trade. Sitting in front of them were the carcasses of two babies. Animals, certainly, but all senseless killing appalled Gamache. What sort of woman wore the bodies of dead babies shaped into boots, with metal claws imbedded in them?

Armand Gamache wondered whether CC de Poitiers was at that very moment trying to explain herself to a perplexed God and a couple of very angry seals.

imageFIFTEEN image

Beauvoir stood in front of another sheet of paper tacked to the wall. CC’s boots sat in the middle of the table like a sculpture, and a reminder of how strange both murderer and murdered were.

‘So, to recap, four things had to come together for the murderer to be successful.’ Beauvoir wrote as he spoke. ‘A: the victim had to be standing in water. B: she had to have taken off her gloves; C: she had to touch something that was electrified and D: she had to be wearing metal on the bottom of her boots.’

‘I have a report from the crime scene,’ said Isabelle Lacoste, who’d been in charge of the Crime Scene Unit the day before. ‘It’s preliminary, of course, but we can answer one question anyway. About the water. If you look at the photographs again you’ll see a slight blue tinge to the snow around the overturned chair.’