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“I have an idea, but I think we need to ask him.”

Homer Godin looked down at the printout.

He’d stared at it for a while, clearly trying to focus his mind.

They’d left Cloutier and Cameron in the kitchen while the senior officers met with Homer in Gamache’s study.

“Viv’s bank statements,” he finally said, raising his eyes to Lacoste, then over to Beauvoir.

“Yes. They show that every month since last July you transferred two thousand dollars into her account.”

“True.”

“Why?”

“She asked for it. Said they needed it to pay their mortgage. I didn’t want her to be homeless.”

“And yet, it just sat there, accumulating,” said Beauvoir. “There’s eighteen thousand dollars in that account.”

Homer shook his head. “Maybe she didn’t need it after all.”

“Then why did she keep taking it?” asked Beauvoir. When Homer didn’t answer, Jean-Guy went on. “I think she was saving up. To leave Tracey. I think that was her plan for a long time.”

“Could be,” said Homer.

“I think with a baby on the way, she decided now was the time to get out and start a new life, with the money you’d given her.”

“I hope so.” Homer seemed confused now. As though what Beauvoir described were still possible.

Beauvoir looked over at Gamache, then to Lacoste, all thinking the same thing.

Homer Godin was not a rich man. He’d labored all his life. Had a modest home he’d paid off. Lived a modest life in a small Québec town.

These sorts of sums would almost certainly clean him out. And then some.

He seemed to follow their thoughts. “She said she’d pay me back. She’d get a job when she could. What would you do?”

And there was that question again. Variations on the theme that had haunted them since this case had begun. How would they feel, if…?

What would they do, if…?

If Honoré came to his parents, in distress, and needed more money than they had?

If Annie went to her parents…?

If money would solve the problem?

They’d pay it. And more. To save their child? They’d give all they had. And more.

As Homer had.

“She called you on Saturday morning, telling you she was finally going to leave Tracey, is that right?” said Lacoste.

“Yes.”

“Think carefully, Monsieur Godin,” said Lacoste. “Did she say she was coming to you or going to someone else?”

“Me. Who else was there?”