“You think she suspected him?” asked Cohen.

“I’m not sure, but it’s possible. What is clear is that Brian started and even fueled the controversy surrounding the Fleming play. He was the one who told us Fleming wrote it. And he continued to support her in producing it, when everyone else backed away.”

“He wanted the controversy and the distraction,” said Beauvoir.

“A killer hides in chaos,” said Cohen, and the homicide investigators smiled.

“I was hampered by a misconception,” Lacoste admitted. “I was sure the killer had to have been connected to Gerald Bull. Had to have been involved with Project Babylon either as a scientist or as another arms dealer or one of the intelligence agents. But that would put the person well into their fifties. It didn’t occur to me the killer could be someone younger, who’d become obsessed with finding the gun. But once I set all that aside and just looked at the facts, all the confusion cleared away.”

“Brian says he didn’t mean to kill Antoinette,” said Beauvoir. “He says she came home and found him searching. In the argument she fell and hit her head.”

“Do you believe him?” asked Cohen.

“It might be true,” said Lacoste. “But I think he’d have killed her anyway. He’d have had to. For the same reason he killed Laurent. To keep her quiet.”

“He’d been quietly searching the home for years,” said Beauvoir. “That’s how he found the Fleming play. And he took a job surveying the area. That gave him an excuse to look for the gun. He admits he even came within yards of it, but missed it because of the camouflaging.”

“He’d all but given up, when Laurent showed up in the bistro,” said Lacoste.

“Did you suspect him, sir?” Cohen asked Gamache, who’d been sitting quietly, listening.

“Not for a long time. I thought it was strange, though, that everyone else was upset by the Fleming play, except Brian. He said he was just being loyal to Antoinette, but it was more than that. He really didn’t care. For him it was just a tool, a kind of stink bomb he tossed into the case. As it turns out, of course, he should have paid more attention to the play. The very thing he was searching for, had killed for, was in the one thing he dismissed. Fleming’s play. She Sat Down and Wept.”

“I take it John Fleming was not pleased about being taken back to the SHU,” said Beauvoir, but on seeing the look on Agent Cohen’s face, he immediately regretted his near-jovial tone.

“It was awful.” Even Cohen’s lips were white and Jean-Guy wondered if the young man might wake up with white hair the next morning. “I’ve never believed in the death penalty, but as long as John Fleming’s alive I’m going to be afraid.”