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“But I thought—” began Daniel.

“He had no choice,” explained Jean-Guy. “Someone from Secur-Forte was with him. Someone way up the chain. It was clever of Loiselle to be there, too. He appeared to have informed on us, but I think he was playing the only hand he could. Solidifying his position with his superior while also protecting us. But there’s something else. I recognized the SecurForte officer. And so would you.”

“Me?” asked Gamache. “Who was he?”

“That man we saw on the security tape here at the hotel, having tea with Claude Dussault and Eugénie Roquebrune.”

Gamache absorbed that information quickly, then asked, “Did he tell you his name?”

“Yes. Thierry Girard.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir wasn’t prepared for Gamache’s reaction. Rarely had he seen his former boss and mentor so surprised.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Thierry Girard?” Gamache asked. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Madame Arbour. “Why? Do you know him?”

Instead of answering, Gamache was quiet for a moment. Thinking. Slowly leaning back until he rested against the concrete wall. His hand went to his face, and his eyes narrowed in concentration.

“Thierry Girard used to be Claude Dussault’s second-in-command. He told us last night that Girard had left the Préfecture for a job in private industry. But I didn’t know it was with SecurForte.”

He looked at Beauvoir across the storeroom. As he had across so many rooms, across so many crimes, across so many corpses, across the years.

“They were both meeting with Eugénie Roquebrune yesterday,” said Jean-Guy. “It looks like he’s still Dussault’s second-in-command, only now in SecurForte.”

His voice was gentle, knowing that Claude Dussault and Gamache went way back. And that his father-in-law considered Dussault a friend.

Though evidence was now nearly overwhelming that that was no longer true.

It looked like Claude Dussault had quietly taken over as head of SecurForte, with Thierry Girard back as his loyal second-in-command. Running the day-to-day operations of the private army, while Dussault remained at the head of the Préfecture.

His power absolute.

Had these two men, individually decent, somehow warped each other? Found, fed, magnified, justified the worst in each other? Until the unthinkable became acceptable became normal?

“Wait a minute,” said Daniel. “This Thierry Girard was the second-in-command at the Préfecture de Paris before Fontaine?”

“Oui,” said his father. “Irena Fontaine took over eighteen months ago.” Armand turned back to Beauvoir and was about to speak, when Daniel interrupted.

“I was in Fontaine’s office this afternoon. There’re posters around, including one of Copenhagen Harbor. I commented on it. Asked how she liked Copenhagen. But she said she’d never been outside France.”

Beauvoir was about to ask what that had to do with anything when he suddenly got it.

“Cologne,” he said.

“Cologne,” said Armand, nodding, and smiling at his son. “Well done.”

“I don’t understand,” said Séverine Arbour.

“Irena Fontaine couldn’t have been the one who bought the cologne for Claude,” said Armand.

“Not if she’s never been outside France,” said Daniel.

“When Monique Dussault told me that Claude’s second-in-command gave him the cologne,” said Reine-Marie, “I assumed she meant Commander Fontaine. But actually she meant Thierry Girard, who also bought some for himself. Was he the one we interrupted in Stephen’s apartment?”

“Perhaps,” said Armand.