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Armand nodded. “She fell far from the tree.”

It took Jean-Guy a moment to understand the reference, and then he smiled a little and looked out the frosted window. At the village green. At the three huge pines.

“But maybe not so far,” he said quietly, and felt lighter than he had in a long time. Perhaps, he thought, the burden wasn’t Idola. It was the shame.

“You know, don’t you,” Armand said, “that almost every parent feels like you do at some stage. Wishes they could go back to a carefree life. I can’t tell you how often Reine-Marie and I looked at Daniel and Annie throwing tantrums and wished they were someone else’s children. How many times we preferred the dogs to the kids.”

For some reason, hearing that made Jean-Guy want to weep. With relief.

“There’s a difference between what you just said about struggling to decide whether to keep Idola,” said Armand, his voice steady, certain, “and the mandatory abortion of any fetus that isn’t perfect. That’s what Professor Robinson is moving toward, what she’s now hinting at. It’s couched in different language, but it’s still a form of eugenics. Can you imagine the people we’d lose?”

Armand could feel his rage threatening to become outrage.

And what Abigail Robinson was advocating went far beyond that.

After studying the statistics on who died in the pandemic, and doing the cost-benefit analysis, she’d concluded there was a way to kill two birds with one stone. And Abigail Robinson was, in her pleasant way, happy to throw that stone.

What if those in unimaginable and uncontrollable pain, the dying, those left bedridden and vegetative by strokes, the frail and sick, what if they could be helped? Their suffering eased? With an injection. They’d be spared suffering, and society would be spared the expense. The burden.

Though that word was never actually used, it was understood. That was the code.

If what had happened by mistake in the pandemic, the wholesale deaths of hundreds of thousands of elderly men and women, were to become policy, wouldn’t that be a mercy? A kindness? Humane even?

After all, don’t they put down suffering animals? Wasn’t that considered an act of love? What could be the difference?

The Royal Commission, when given Robinson’s report, had refused to hear it. To legitimize any such suggestion.

But . . .

But then she’d gone on tour, put up her graphs and shown in her calm, measured way the surprisingly clear correlation between money saved and money needed for rebuilding after the economic ruin of the coronavirus.

If they did what her findings suggested, all would be well.

And wasn’t assisted suicide already legal in Canada? This was just one step further.

Of course, if Professor Robinson’s findings were implemented, it meant the right to die became the obligation to die, but sacrifices needed to be made. In a free society.

And recently, emboldened by growing support, Professor Robinson was delicately turning her attention to the other end of life. Babies. With birth defects.

And how their suffering might be relieved.

It felt now to Gamache as though they were locked in a sort of passion play, the outcome of which would decide their direction for generations to come.

Though there was one way to stop it. If the person leading, legitimizing, the campaign were to . . .

“I’ve written my report about the events this afternoon,” said Gamache, interrupting his own thoughts. “There’ll be an inquiry, of course.”

“I’ll—” Jean-Guy was about to say, . . . have my letter of resignation to you in the morning. But was interrupted.

“How?” Gamache asked, leaning forward, his arms on the table, his hands clasped lightly together. “How did the firecrackers get in? And the gun? How did it get into the shooter’s hands? Tell me honestly, at what stage did you leave the front door?”

“Not until everyone was in, and the doors had been closed. No one came in behind me, patron. And everyone who did get in was thoroughly searched. I know that.”

Gamache believed him. “Then someone must’ve planted it there. Someone who had access to the building beforehand.”

“Tardif’s brother.”

“Yes. Probably. But we need to look further afield. To someone who knew early on that the event was going to happen and could get into the old gym.”