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“You look like something out of Dickens,” said Jean-Guy.

“I don’t think we want to get into what each of us looks like, do you?”

In sweats and unshaved, he looked like some bedraggled mess cops on an overnight shift brought in. And kept downwind.

Putting the plate on the counter, she greeted Gamache, who looked pretty much as he always did. Or at least a variation on the same theme.

A university professor woken up out of a deep sleep. Also unshaven, his beard would be almost completely gray, she saw, if he chose to grow one again. Unlike Jean-Guy, he’d at least made an effort to brush his hair, but one side still stood up.

“I saw Isabelle’s light on over at the B&B,” Armand explained, pouring milk into a jug, “and texted her to join us.”

It was 2:53.

Lacoste took off the towel to reveal an assortment of breakfast pastries. “Courtesy of Gabri and Olivier.”

“Do they know how generous they’re being?” asked Armand.

“Not yet.”

While the tea steeped, Armand went into the study and returned with the documents he’d brought from the Incident Room. Jean-Guy spread them out on the kitchen table. Mugs in front of them, the three Sûreté officers ate pain au chocolat and studied the pages.

It was like Jean-Paul Roberge’s jigsaw puzzle. Though, when correctly assembled, this would not show a basket of puppies.

The problem was, they seemed to have a few puzzles mixed together.

There was Vincent Gilbert’s involvement in Ewen Cameron’s experiments on innocent men and women. Including Abigail’s mother.

There was the question of Maria’s death.

There were the violent reactions to Abigail Robinson, and the people, including Gilbert and maybe the Chancellor, who’d do anything to stop her campaign for euthanasia.

And then there was the outlier. The puzzle that was their visitor. Haniya Daoud. Who talked of moral courage and committed murder under cover of darkness.

Were they separate puzzles, Gamache wondered, or all part of the same picture? One part forest, another sky, some water, some buildings? Appearing unconnected, spurious even, but combined they formed a single image.

Or maybe he had the analogy wrong. Not a puzzle, but what he’d thought earlier. One long thread. That started with Cameron and ended decades later with the body of Debbie Schneider.

The tug he’d given earlier had revealed Colette Roberge. The recipient of Paul Robinson’s oddly vague letter. And his eternal gratitude.

Had she earned it for looking after his daughter when the suicide note arrived, or was it more expected? Was the commitment ongoing?

Picking up his mug, Armand strolled over to the windows at the far end of the kitchen and gazed out. “Why was Paul Robinson so grateful to Colette?”

His words formed steam on the cold window.

Turning around, he looked back at Beauvoir and Lacoste. This was far from the first time they’d found themselves sleepless and poring over a homicide in their pajamas.

“He was grateful to her for looking after Abigail,” suggested Isabelle.

“Possible, but ‘eternal’ gratitude? That seems excessive.” After rekindling the fire in the woodstove, he returned to the table and brought the copy of the suicide note closer to him. “It’ll be interesting to get the handwriting and DNA analysis.”

“You think he didn’t write it?” Jean-Guy asked.

“I’m wondering, not thinking.”

“But if he didn’t, who did?”

“Abigail and Colette were both in Oxford when he died,” said Isabelle. “Who does that leave—” She stopped. “Debbie Schneider? Why would she?”