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“You don’t think I’ve asked myself that? It was painful, yes. I saw what having a severely disabled child did to my parents. Their exhaustion, their constant worry. But I loved my sister. My findings, my research, have nothing to do with Maria, and everything to do with the future of the social safety net in this country. We don’t have enough resources to go around and—” She put up her hands, and smiled. “There I go again. You know my arguments. It’s statistics. Cold hard facts. It has nothing to do with Maria.”

Gamache turned to Colette. “You knew about the sister?”

“Yes. Abby’s father told me. Her death was obviously devastating. It wasn’t a secret, Armand. It was a private family tragedy.” She looked at him. “You don’t talk about the death of your parents.”

“True. But I do talk about their lives.” But that reminded him of something. He turned back to Abigail. “I’ve heard about your father, but not your mother.”

“She died when I was quite young. Before Maria died.”

“I’m sorry. That’s difficult. Can you tell me how she died?”

There was a pause, and he was pretty sure one of them would ask to know how it could matter. And he knew he couldn’t answer that. Because it probably did not.

“A heart attack. She was only in her mid-thirties. That left my father and me to look after Maria.”

He could sense the resentment, still smoldering after all these years. Not against her sister, he thought. But the mother. For leaving them behind, even if it wasn’t her choice.

A wild thought passed rapidly across Gamache’s mind. Like some feral idea.

Or maybe it was. A choice.

And then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again,

or will it be, as always was, too late?

Chapter 27

Isabelle Lacoste turned her car around.

Within twenty minutes she was again talking to Édouard Tardif.

She showed him the image Beauvoir had sent from the video and saw him squint, raise his brows, then shake his head.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“You know who that is.”

“I don’t. Never seen him before.”

Lacoste placed her phone on the table, angled so that it looked like Vincent Gilbert was staring at Tardif.

“Is he your accomplice? Did he set off the firecrackers?”

Tardif shook his head and repeated, “I’ve never seen him before.”

“How well do you know Vincent Gilbert?” Gamache asked.

His phone had buzzed with the message from Beauvoir. He’d glanced down just long enough to take it in.

“Dr. Gilbert?” said Abigail Robinson. “I hadn’t met him before last night.”

“But you knew of him? You even compared him to Ewen Cameron. An infamous, even notorious, doctor and researcher.”

Abigail gave a single snort of laughter. “I did, didn’t I.”

“Why?”

“It just came out. I was angry. It’s the worst thing any researcher can be accused of. Being as morally bankrupt, as cruel as Cameron. Are you familiar with his work?”