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A doctor. Right out of central casting.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir returned to the basement.

Reine-Marie Gamache stared into the flames, then looked down at her fist.

She was clutching the paper, the letter. Crushing it in her hand. Opening it, she smoothed the paper out, read it again, then got up.

She had to find Armand. Had to show him this.

He was, she knew, at the bistro.

Putting on her coat and boots, she tried to explain to Henri and Fred that she’d take them out soon, but not now.

They didn’t understand.

“Join the club,” she muttered, as she shoved her hat down over her ears and went out into the snowy evening.

She got partway to the bistro when she heard her name through the flurries. “Reine-Marie!”

She saw Armand jogging across the road from Clara’s home. They met in front of the pines, their faces lit by the Christmas bulbs.

“I have to tell you . . . ,” they both began.

“You first,” he said.

“No, you.”

“I was just talking to Ruth. It took a while, she didn’t want to tell me, but finally she did. That woman whose documents you’ve been going through, Enid Horton—”

“She was a patient, a victim of Ewen Cameron,” said Reine-Marie. “I just realized that myself. I have to show you something.”

Armand and Reine-Marie sat in the small study off their living room.

Beyond the closed door they could hear Stephen greeting Daniel and Roslyn. They could hear Annie return home with Idola.

The comforting sounds of normality. Of a family doing what families did. Just outside the door.

While inside, Armand and Reine-Marie looked at the paper Enid Horton had kept and Reine-Marie had found.

It was on Allan Memorial letterhead. A fairly polite but firm request that an earlier bill be paid. It was for the services of Dr. Ewen Cameron. For twenty-three days of inpatient treatment of postpartum depression for Enid Horton.

In the margin was a doodle. A monkey. As yet barely formed. Just taking shape. The first crude attempt. The head, ears, curling tail. And the wide, terrified eyes.

The letter was signed by Dr. Vincent Gilbert.

“Monsieur Tardif,” said Isabelle Lacoste, as the prisoner was led into the interview room.

His avocat had been summoned and had had a brief word with the Sûreté Inspector before they joined Édouard Tardif.

“We’ve arrested your son,” said Lacoste.

There was a long silence as Édouard Tardif opened his mouth, not to speak, but to catch his breath.

“It’s not his fault,” he said, softly. “He didn’t know. He thought . . . I told him . . . He believed the gun had blanks. I told him I just wanted to interrupt her talk. He didn’t know.”

“And your brother?”

“He had nothing to do with it.”