“Then he couldn’t have liked Scotland much.” Beauvoir slid off the arm of the sofa and landed on the seat. “But if he was so interested in experimenting with landscapes, couldn’t he have done it in Paris or Venice? Why Scotland?”

“And why Dumfries?” said Gamache. He hauled himself up. “Back to bed.”

But at that moment there was a ping.

They looked at each other. An email had arrived.

*   *   *

Reine-Marie felt the bed beside her. It was cool. She sat up and looked out the window. The sun wasn’t yet up. But Armand was.

Putting on her dressing gown, she went downstairs. This time Henri followed, his toenails clicking on the wood floors.

“Armand?”

The living room was in darkness but a light was on in the study.

“In here,” came the familiar voice.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Something,” said Jean-Guy, stepping out of the way so that his mother-in-law could get a good view. “I think.”

Gamache offered her his chair.

Reine-Marie sat down and looked at the screen.

“It’s cosmic,” she read, then looked up at her husband. “I don’t understand. Do you think he means ‘comic’?”

Armand and Jean-Guy were staring at the curt message with as much puzzlement as she felt.

Constable Stuart had replied to Gamache’s email with two short words.

It’s cosmic.

*   *   *

Robert Stuart had been in the pub the night before when his iPhone buzzed. He had it programmed so that it made different sounds depending on who was trying to reach him.

This was clearly a work email, and normally it would never occur to him to check it, except that the man on the next barstool had been prattling on and on about how he’d been screwed on some tax bill.

Stuart lifted his iPhone and gave his companion an apologetic shrug, which the man ignored, and continued to babble. Stuart took his iPhone and his pint and found a seat in a quiet corner.

The message was from that man in Canada. The French guy with the weird accent. It couldn’t be important.

Constable Stuart put the device down. The email had served its purpose in allowing him to escape. The actual message could wait until the morning.

He sipped his beer and looked around, but his eyes kept falling back to the worn wooden table. Finally he picked up the device and opened the message. His eyes widened a bit in interest, then he opened the attachments.

Scrolling through the pictures quickly, he shook his head and felt vaguely disappointed. He didn’t know much about art, but he knew shit when he saw it. He was glad Apple hadn’t yet figured out how to send smells.

And yet. And yet. There was something about one of the images in particular. The Canadian man, a retired homicide investigator he said, hadn’t asked him to judge the art. Just to tell him if any of the places looked familiar.