“No,” said Armand with a small laugh. “That was a surprise. I came in because there’s something I’ve known I should do for a while but haven’t wanted to. But after talking to Ruth, there was no way out of it.”

“What’s that?”

“I have an appointment at the SHU tomorrow morning. I need to speak to John Fleming.”

Gamache tried to make it sound like any other rendezvous, but couldn’t quite pull it off. The hand holding the tissue trembled slightly, until he closed it into a fist, crushing the moist tissue.

“I see,” said Beauvoir. And he did. He knew slightly more than the public about the Fleming case. He’d followed the trial and he’d heard the rumors swirling around Sûreté headquarters. And he knew, though he was never told outright, that there’d been a secret trial. A trial within a trial, and the Chief Inspector had been part of it, though in what capacity Beauvoir didn’t know.

“What’cha reading?” he asked, in an intentionally hyper-cheerful voice, and nodded toward the file on Gamache’s knees. “Is it about a serial killer?”

But he could see by the grim expression on Gamache’s face that he’d overstepped, in the question and in the ill-timed attempt to lighten the mood.

“It is,” said Gamache. He closed the file, resting a heavy hand on it, then he looked at Jean-Guy. “Why did you leave when Lepage was telling us about the Son My Massacre?”

“I was overcome,” he said. “I was afraid I was going to either be sick or attack him. That something awful was going to happen. I couldn’t believe anyone could do those things. And then the girl.”

His voice trailed off and he rubbed his face again.

He wanted with all his heart to tell this man everything, and he almost did. But then stopped himself.

“What did John Fleming really do, patron? What don’t we know that you do?”

Gamache felt the file folder under his hand, but didn’t look down at it.

As soon as they’d arrived home, Armand had gone to the locked room in the far corner of the basement. In the course of a long career investigating murder, he’d come across things that could not be used, were not pertinent. Other people’s secrets, their shames, even their crimes.