“We had a pleasant catch-up, that’s all. We’ve known each other for years. Worked a few cases together.”

“Of course,” said Lacoste.

Beauvoir had been listening closely, watching his old boss. He’d make a very good intelligence officer, Jean-Guy realized. He suspected Gamache had been approached, maybe even for the top job, and was considering it.

Welcome to CSIS.

Gamache was just about to tell them what he’d found in Highwater, when Adam Cohen interrupted.

“I have information on Al Lepage,” he said, sitting down. “Do you want me to give it to you now?”

Lacoste looked over at Gamache, who gestured to the young man to continue. Cohen seemed so anxious, any delay might make him combust.

“Laurent’s father is not Al Lepage.”

“Quoi?” asked Beauvoir, rocking forward in his chair and leaning across the table toward Agent Cohen. “Then who is Laurent’s father?”

“No, sorry, I put that badly. I didn’t mean biologically…”

He could see he’d already confused them.

“Let me start again. Al Lepage is not his real name. We sent his fingerprints to police across Canada and into the U.S., and since he was a draft dodger, we also sent them to the Department of Defense in Washington.”

“Right,” said Lacoste. “It turned up nothing.”

“Which was strange,” said Cohen. “He admits he’s American, a draft dodger. There should have been something. But then I tried the Judge Advocate General’s office. It’s the legal part of the U.S. Army, based in Washington, and look what I found.”

He handed a printout to Chief Inspector Lacoste, who read it, her face growing graver and graver. After taking a deep breath, she handed it to Beauvoir, and then turned to Cohen.

“Show me.”

She followed him to his computer while Beauvoir read, then handed the page to Gamache.

Al Lepage’s real name was Frederick Lawson. A private in the U.S. Army.

“Not a draft dodger,” said Gamache, looking at Beauvoir over his reading glasses. “A deserter.”

“Keep reading,” said Jean-Guy, his face solemn.

Gamache did. He could feel his cheeks grow cold, as though a window had been left open a crack and an ill wind had slipped in.

“Not just a deserter,” said Beauvoir, when Gamache had lowered the page to the table. “He was about to be tried for his part in a massacre.”

“The Son My Massacre,” said Gamache. “You’re too young to remember, but I do.”

Isabelle Lacoste had sunk into a chair and was scrolling through photographs on Cohen’s computer. Beauvoir joined her, as did Gamache, reluctantly. He’d seen them once before, as a young man, barely more than a child. Photographs of the atrocity were on the evening news in the late 1960s. It was something you never forgot.