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Armand managed a chuckle. “That’s what husbands and fathers do. A woman loses her water and a man loses his mind.”

Reine-Marie laughed. “You sure did. You were a lunatic. When Daniel was finally born, and they asked if you wanted to cut the cord, you cried. I didn’t think you’d ever let him go.” There was silence down the line. “Armand?”

“Yes,” he said. “I remember it well.”

“Where are you? I hear noise.”

“I’m in a taxi, but I can’t come just yet. Call me if anything happens. Give Annie my love. Tell Jean-Guy to take a deep breath in …”

“And a deep breath out. Armand?”

“Oui?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’ll be there. I promise.”

When he hung up, Pinot asked, “Your wife?”

“Yes. My daughter’s in labor. They’re at the hospital.”

“You should be there.”

Armand clutched the coins and made a wish as he watched Paris, beautiful, troubled, luminous Paris, slip by.

Once at the GHS tower in La Défense, he paid the driver, then grabbed Pinot, who was heading toward the building, and guided him away. To the métro.

“Hold on to your wallet,” said Gamache, “and don’t make eye contact with anyone.”

“Huh?”

If Alain Pinot didn’t much like the taxi ride, he was about to meet something far worse.

Half an hour later they popped up at the station de métro Hôtel de Ville stop. Gamache hurried through the dark, deserted streets of the Marais. Pinot trudging along behind.

“I thought we were going to AFP,” he said. For the tenth time. “This isn’t the way.”

“Just follow me.”

The roundabout journey had eaten precious time Armand couldn’t really spare, but he needed to throw off anyone tracking his movements on his phone, which wouldn’t work in the depths of the métro.

They’d know where he was now that they’d surfaced, but it would take a few minutes to catch up. Confusion was his friend. As long as he was not the one confused.

“This’s the Archives nationales,” said Pinot, looking up at the gates. “What’re we doing here?”

Armand asked the guard to ring Madame Lenoir, then turned to Pinot. “We’re getting help to look up those dates in your morgue and figure out what Stephen and Monsieur Plessner knew.”

Allida Lenoir hurried over and vouched for them.

“We haven’t found out anything more,” she said as she led them back to the reading room.

“Madame Arbour?” asked Gamache.

“Is still with us.”

“Good.”

She looked behind her at the large man lumbering to keep up. “You’re Alain Pinot, aren’t you? You run Agence France-Presse.”