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She looked into the surprised faces of the friends and neighbors. “Am I pronouncing it right?”

“Oui,” said Gabri, and got sharp elbows in both sides from Olivier and Clara.

“Good. I’m just learning. Beautiful language, French. I think ‘faible’ sounds better, softer, than the English word. And is more nuanced.”

She was speaking directly, and exclusively, to Gamache now, having disappeared the others.

“It’s what came to mind when I watched you on the news tonight, Chief Inspector. It means weak. Small. Feeble. Am I right?”

“That is the translation,” he agreed, more curious than insulted. Why would Haniya Daoud bother to insult him? To what purpose?

Haniya pushed herself up from the depths of her chair, and said, “I’m going to bed.” She looked at Clara. “I believe I’m staying with you. There’s a luxury Inn and Spa, just up the hill.”

“The Auberge, yes,” said Clara.

“Good. I will move there tomorrow. And now I give the smug-faced crowd the traditional gesture of endearment and wish you all a bonne nuit.”

She raised her middle finger.

As Gamache stepped back to let her pass, she stopped dead in front of him.

“You want to know why I call you weak.”

“To be honest, I don’t really care.”

“I wonder if that’s true. I think you care about a lot of things, including how you’re perceived. You know what that woman is preaching.”

“Abigail Robinson?” said Gamache. “Oui.”

“Mass murder. I watched the report, several times. I recognized the look in your eyes when you were watching her. It was loathing, wasn’t it.”

When he didn’t disagree, she continued.

“And yet you not only failed to stop her event, you actually saved her life. You made it look like heroics, but I know better. I know you, Chief Inspector. Met thousands of you. You’ll give money. I imagine you even donated to my cause. You’ll serve food to the needy and collect coats for the homeless. You’ll give impassioned speeches, but you won’t actually lift a finger to stop a tyrant. You want others to do it. You want me to do it. You’re small. Feeble. A hypocrite. I think . . .” She looked at him more closely. Her eyes running over his face, pausing at his own scar, at his temple. “Yes, I think you’re probably a good man, at least you like to think so. Decent. But you’re also faible. I, on the other hand, am not. I’m neither decent nor weak.” When Armand didn’t reply, she lowered her voice. “Best to get out of my way.”

“They’re thinking of giving her the Nobel Peace Prize?” said Ruth, watching her leave. “Who else is on the list? Kim Jong-un? Putin?”

Myrna turned to Armand. “You okay? Looks like she hit a nerve.”

Armand gave a short laugh. “My fault for leaving it exposed.”

The nerve she’d hit, either by a good guess or some strange insight, was his own earlier thought. Of what would have happened had he moved just a little bit slower . . .

And part of him, part of him, wished he had. And part of him wondered if maybe Haniya Daoud, the Hero of the Sudan, was right. He lacked courage.

It was the second time in as many days he’d been accused of cowardice. All to do with Abigail Robinson.

As he and Jean-Guy walked home, Armand thought of the scars on Haniya’s young face and wondered what she’d been like as a child. Before. What she would have been like had she been born and raised here.

If her cheeks had been brushed by winter winds and not sliced by machete blades. He wondered what he, what Reine-Marie, what Annie and Daniel would have been like had they been born and raised in her village.

Armand paused at the path to their home and looked up. Into the clear night sky and the stars above. Jean-Guy stopped and also looked up.

While angered by what that woman had said, Jean-Guy mostly felt relief. The weight he’d carried for so long had been at least partially lifted.

It helped that he remembered there were butter tarts in the cookie tin in the kitchen.

Armand spoke, his words directed at the Big Dipper, the huge vessel in the sky.