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It was only when she was almost at the barn to find Haniya Daoud that she had another thought. Turning around, she retraced her boot prints in the deepening snow and once again knocked on Dominique’s door.

“Do you hire extra staff for the New Year’s Eve party?”

“Yes. We give a lot of our regular employees time off around Christmas and New Year’s.”

“Do you have a list of those who worked the party?”

Five minutes later she walked into the dining room and spotted the Chief Inspector deep in conversation with Vincent Gilbert.

“Would you believe me, Armand, if I said when I saw the gun I was shocked? Too stunned to act?”

Armand shook his head. “In almost anyone else, I might believe it, but you’re a doctor. A surgeon. You spent your career dealing with the unexpected. I suspect you also spent shifts in Emergency.”

Gilbert nodded.

“Your whole training is to react quickly,” said Armand. “And yet you didn’t. Or”—he examined the man in front of him—“more likely, you did react. You just didn’t act. You saw what was about to happen and let the gunman fire.”

“I’m not going to admit that, not to you. But I think I owe you some possible explanation, since what happened could’ve cost you your life. That was never ever intended, and I’m sorry.”

And he looked it.

“What was intended, Vincent?”

He took a while to answer. When he finally did, Gilbert could not look Armand in the eyes.

“I was a coward. During those long months of the pandemic, I stayed in my cabin. People brought me food and drink. Supplies.”

“Oui. Reine-Marie among them.”

“Is that right? I never looked out. I was too afraid.”

“Of what? The virus didn’t spread by sight.”

“No, but shame does. As long as a bag mysteriously appeared, I could pretend I wasn’t hiding in there. But if I saw someone helping, when I should also be, then . . .”

Then.

“I’m a doctor. I should’ve been treating the sick. Administering tests. Doing something useful. But I hid.”

“You’re in your seventies,” said Armand. “You’re in the age group ordered to shelter in place. You couldn’t have helped.”

“But I didn’t try.” Vincent raised his voice, angry now. “So when I saw the gun, aimed at Abigail Robinson, aimed at the person convincing others that the sick and the elderly, and now even babies, should die, as they had in the pandemic, well . . .”

Well . . .

“Patron?”

Both men looked up.

“Désolée, but may I see you for a moment?” Lacoste asked.

“Do you mind?” he asked Vincent, who shook his head.

Dominique joined Lacoste and Gamache in the far corner of the dining room and pointed.

When their waiter took their bill to the table, Armand broke away and rejoined Gilbert.

“It’s on me, remember?”