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Over his son’s shoulder Armand could see the hill out of Three Pines where the bench, invisible in the darkness, sat. And on that bench, the words, unseen, were etched.

May you be a brave man in a brave country.

Armand Gamache realized he no longer knew what bravery might look like. What “the best” might be.

Chapter 37

Dr. Sharon Harris was having a café au lait and brioche in the bistro when Armand, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle arrived.

“I thought you’d email the answers to us,” said Armand, sitting down after greeting Gabri and Olivier. “Or call. I didn’t expect you to actually come here.”

“Though we’re not complaining about meeting you in the bistro,” said Jean-Guy. He’d slept in and missed breakfast. Now he ordered French toast, with maple-smoked bacon and syrup from the cabane à sucre down the road.

The other two had coffee.

It was a few minutes past eight on this crisp January morning. The sun was just coming up, and the bistro was just filling up. Children were beginning to hit the rink. Some literally. As parents stood in the snow, rubbing their arms, stamping their feet and glancing longingly at the bistro.

“I wanted to talk it over,” said the coroner. “The reports you sent on the three deaths in the Robinson family are . . . suggestive.”

“Of what?” Isabelle asked.

“Of something more going on,” said Sharon Harris.

“Like?” said Jean-Guy.

“I think you already know.”

Gamache held her steady gaze and said nothing.

“All right, I’ll tell you,” said Dr. Harris. “I think the doctor’s notes are right. Kathleen Robinson, the mother, killed herself. The drugs she was prescribed are consistent with depression. The report says she’d given birth a few years earlier, so it might’ve been a prolonged, extreme case of postpartum. In an unusual death like this, it would be normal to do an autopsy. But none was performed. I’m guessing it’s because the doctor and coroner knew exactly what she died of.” She glanced around the table. “You don’t look surprised.”

“We’re not,” said Lacoste. “We think it was . . .” She searched for the word. “Provoked.”

“How?”

“She came to Québec to be treated for her depression, by Ewen Cameron.”

Sharon Harris’s eyes widened and she gave a short sharp inhale. “I see.”

And what she saw was an otherwise healthy, happy woman suffering temporary, though acute, depression put into the hands of a monster. To be cured.

What she saw was that after months of torture, Kathleen Robinson was sent home to her husband and children. She’d left depressed, she returned in despair.

And killed herself.

“I see.”

What Sharon Harris saw was that it wasn’t really suicide. It was morally, if not legally, murder.

“If you knew all this, why send me the reports?”

“I think you already know,” said Gamache, with only a slight smile.

Dr. Harris gave a small grunt of amusement. “Touché.” She glanced down at the printouts. “It wasn’t about Madame Robinson’s death, was it? That was for context. It’s about the others. The husband and daughter. The report on the man’s death, Paul Robinson, also says heart failure. You’re wondering if there’s more there?” She exhaled. “Might be, but it’s impossible to tell. In his case it could really have been heart failure. He was in his early fifties, so a heart attack or stroke aren’t out of the question. Equally, he could have killed himself. Like his wife’s, the report on his death is vague.”

She hesitated, then looked directly at the Chief Inspector. “But you’re head of homicide, not head of suicide. What do you suspect, Armand?”

“You tell me.”