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“I wonder.” Her eyes were shrewd, calculating. “Was this your plan?”

“How could it be? I had no idea Professor Robinson and Dr. Gilbert had left the Auberge.”

“True, but once that was clear, I think you manipulated both Madame Daoud and me. You wanted us here, all together, but you also needed time to manage the situation.”

Gamache raised his brows. “I’m not sure you could call this ‘managed’ and I doubt either of you is that easily manipulated.”

“Everyone can be manipulated. Even you.”

There was a stillness in the air, and Gamache wondered if that was what had happened. What was happening still. Was he being manipulated?

He looked again at the rifle and thought maybe he had been, this whole time. From the first moment that call had come through, asking him to provide security for an obscure little event. All the way along. To this moment.

The case was bookended by this woman, Chancellor Roberge. Who’d requested he head up security at the gym, and now stood warming herself by the woodstove.

“You could’ve had that agent in the car stop us, but you didn’t,” Colette said. “Instead you pivoted. Moved the meeting to here. By your emphasis to me, and your tone to Haniya, you knew we’d come. Very clever. That flexibility, that creativity, is something not encouraged in scientists. We plod along, following facts to a conclusion. Then we stick the landing.”

“Maybe if statistics carried guns, you’d learn to pivot,” said Haniya.

Colette smiled. “Probably true.”

“But statistics are a weapon,” said Gamache. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“I wonder how much you really know about why we’re here,” said Abigail.

“I know,” said Haniya. “I know that Gilbert brought you here to finish what he started.”

“And what was that?” asked the Asshole Saint.

“To kill you,” Haniya said to Abigail.

“Why would he want to do that?”

“Why did I slit men’s throats in the middle of the night? To prevent an even bigger outrage.”

Half the people there gaped at Haniya in surprise.

“You did?” asked Abigail.

“You make it sound noble, Madame Daoud, the Hero of the Sudan,” said Gilbert. “The truth is, you did it to escape. To survive.”

“Of course I did. Who wouldn’t,” said Haniya. “You think it’s easy? It’s sometimes a necessity, but that’s all. You can’t tell me you haven’t sighted another person and pulled the trigger. Was it easy? Or did it add another measure of bile to your cup?”

Isabelle Lacoste began to speak, to defend him, but Gamache raised his hand to request quiet. To let Haniya continue. To see if she’d plunge right over the edge. She might take him with her, but at least then they’d know.

“I warned you, when we first met,” said Haniya. “That it takes courage to stop a monster. Courage you clearly don’t have.”

“But you do.”

“Why do you think they’re going to give me the Peace Prize? It’s for the courage to do what’s necessary. There’s no peace without courage.”

Isabelle couldn’t take it anymore. “What works at night with a machete in Sudan doesn’t work here. There’s no moral high ground in Canada for murder.”

Haniya turned to Isabelle, her stare intense.

“Because you’re so much more civilized, is that it? The true north, strong and free. You just bash each other over the head at parties. And shoot each other in bistros. Must be nice to be so evolved. But just so you know, your high ground is actually a hole.”

“Jesus,” said Abigail. “Do we live in the Dark Ages? Where a scientist is condemned to death for telling the truth? I’m just compiling statistics from the pandemic. The study was commissioned by the federal government, for God’s sake.”