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“You mean witnesses? I see your point.” Annie turned to Jean-Guy. “A few days in a luxury hotel? If we must …”

“Just don’t order the caviar, dear,” said Reine-Marie. “Or toast. Or anything.”

“I need to show you something on the security cameras,” said Jean-Guy. “Something they didn’t erase.”

They huddled around his laptop while he showed them the clip, gone in the blink of an eye, of a woman arriving at the George V.

“This was yesterday, late afternoon,” he said.

“It’s the head of GHS,” said Reine-Marie. “I recognize her from the annual report.”

Eugénie Roquebrune was indeed recognizable. The only woman in the lobby, perhaps in the entire hotel, maybe in all of Paris, with gray hair.

“Now,” said Beauvoir, bringing up the next clip. “This’s half an hour later. Look at the reflection in the tray the waiter’s holding.”

They watched as the uniformed waiter put a teapot and a three-tiered tower of little sandwiches and petit fours on a table. While he spoke to the guests, he lowered the large silver tray to his side. So that it reflected the guests at another table.

They watched it twice through before Armand hit pause.

“It’s Claude Dussault,” he said, and sighed, staring at the screen. “Meeting with the head of GHS. That’s it then.”

His fear confirmed.

Despite the tension that evening, and Armand’s growing discomfort with his old friend and colleague, he’d still held out hope that he’d gotten it wrong.

But he could no longer hide from the truth.

Having afternoon tea with the head of an engineering giant was hardly a crime. But he was the Prefect of Police for Paris. And GHS appeared up to its neck in this business.

The business of murder. Attempted murder. And whatever it was Stephen had discovered.

Besides, when asked directly if he knew the CEO, Claude Dussault had denied it.

He’d looked Gamache in the eye and lied.

“Who’s the other man?” asked Annie.

They could see the back of his head and a bit of his face as he turned to listen to Madame Roquebrune.

Dark hair, close-cropped. Clean-shaven.

“Madame Roquebrune’s security?” asked Reine-Marie.

“I don’t think so. A security guard wouldn’t sit down for tea with a client,” said Armand. “He’s part of whatever meeting’s happening.”

“But what is happening?” asked Reine-Marie. “I can’t imagine the CEO herself is telling the Prefect of Police, in a public place, to go kill a man.”

“They obviously didn’t know that Stephen was actually staying right there,” said Jean-Guy. “Was just a few flights above them.”

Armand leaned closer to the image. And remembered the grainy photo of Himmler in bar Joséphine.

Terrible things were discussed by confident people in public places. And there was a reason this recording had been erased. When the killings and search were bungled, they had to kick over all trace.

Innocent people holding innocent meetings didn’t erase the evidence. As SecurForte had done. And deny that it ever happened. As Claude had done.

“What would they have to offer, to get him to do it?” asked Reine-Marie.

“He talked tonight about retirement,” said Armand. “They must’ve offered him more money than he could ever make as a cop. A lifetime of peace and security for himself and his family.”