He’d found Mary Fraser alone in the small library at the back of the B and B. She was in a comfortable chair, her back to the corner bookshelves and her feet on a hassock, stretched out toward the mumbling fire in the grate.

Her sweater was pilled and her big toe stuck out of one stocking. She did not bother to conceal it, nor did she seem at all embarrassed by this sartorial underachievement.

What she clearly did not want him to see, though, was the file she was reading. She closed it as soon as Gamache entered and splayed her hand over it. It was done without haste, almost languidly. But still the result was a closed and secret document.

“Old school?” he asked, indicating the dossier. “Before everything was put on computer? Or maybe some things are best left as hard copies. More easily managed. And destroyed.”

He sat down in the other comfortable chair in the library.

Mary Fraser took her feet off the hassock and replaced them in her shoes. She crossed her legs and looked at him.

“What a funny thing to say, Monsieur Gamache,” she said, a cordial smile on her face. “Most of our files are still paper. To be honest, I prefer it that way.”

“Fahrenheit 451?” he asked.

She looked baffled, and then she caught the reference and looked at him as his third-grade teacher, Madame Arsenault, had when he’d finally said something clever.

“I wasn’t planning to burn it,” she said.

“Though you could.”

“Of course. Can I help you?”

“I’m just wondering why you’re not more interested in the Supergun.”

His voice was pleasant, matter-of-fact, but his sharp eyes studied her.

Her indifferently dyed hair. Her face without makeup, except some lipstick and slightly clotted mascara. She didn’t wear contacts, preferring glasses in unfashionable frames. She hid nothing. Not wrinkles, not flawed eyesight, not even the hole in her pantyhose. And that was one of Mary Fraser’s great advantages, he was beginning to think. Being able to make artifice look genuine. Giving the impression all was revealed, when in fact very little of substance was revealed.

This CSIS woman had appeared like Mary Poppins, descending on the village to make everything all right. Only everything wasn’t all right. He knew it. And she knew it.

No, he didn’t trust Mary Fraser, but he did find her interesting.

Now she was giving him an equally assessing look.

“And I’m just wondering why you’re so interested,” she said. “In the gun.”

“Then we’re even, madame.” He sat back, crossing his legs. Settling in. “You know more about the Supergun than you’ve told us so far. I’d like to hear it.”

“Why should I tell you anything?”

“Because you’re afraid, and you need all the allies you can get.”