Page 84

“Right.” Jean-Guy was on his feet, running for the Inn.

“And bring our coats,” Gamache shouted after him.

Drawing his shoulders in, and praying Beauvoir had heard, Gamache hunched over, trying to protect his core. He knew it didn’t take long for frostbite, then hypothermia, to take hold. Bringing out his phone, and pressing video, he continued to record while placing two calls. First to the coroner, then the officer on duty at Sûreté headquarters. In homicide. Through chattering teeth, he told him to send the Scene of Crime unit.

As he spoke, he moved so that he acted as a windbreak, protecting the body. Protecting whatever evidence he could before the elements swallowed it all up.

The body was that of a grown woman, not a teen. That much was clear, though her face was completely buried. Her neck was cold, near frozen, to the touch. She felt like marble, as though a statue had toppled off the path.

Her arms were at her sides. She’d made no attempt to break her fall.

Unconscious as she fell, he thought as he leaned closer to the wound on the back of her head, or already dead. Even with his flashlight, he couldn’t see much except the dark stain on her dark tuque. And the drops of blood still visible on the snow.

Gamache looked at his watch. It was seventeen minutes past twelve. She’d been dead, he figured, at least twenty minutes.

A gust hit him, then moved on, taking his breath and much of his body heat with it.

His face was growing numb, and his bare hands shook as he slowly, slowly moved his camera over the scene, recording and describing what he saw. Though he suspected the words were next to unintelligible as his lips and cheeks froze. A shiver, more a shudder, passed through him just as he heard a crunch on the snow behind him.

“Patron.”

He felt the parka being draped over his shoulders and strong arms lifting him to his feet. He was trembling now. As Beauvoir helped him into the thick coat, he could feel the relief immediately. The wind and cold had stopped ripping into his flesh. Winter was being chased out of his bones.

He made a noise he thought would be a slight moan of relief but came out sounding more like a squeal. It would, almost certainly, be played in open court one day. But he was beyond caring.

Beauvoir shoved a knitted tuque down over Armand’s ears, then said, “Here. Give me your hands.”

Gamache did as he was told. Beauvoir put insulated gloves on each hand, already warmed by pocket heaters. “Better?”

Gamache nodded as Beauvoir knelt to help him on with his boots.

“Non, non, I can do that,” protested Armand, but Jean-Guy was already doing it, providing his shoulder for Gamache to lean on.

Within a minute the world had gone from bitter, biting, ferocious cold to blessed warmth.

“Merci,” he mumbled, through still numb lips.

Together, they looked down at the woman at their feet. Though they hadn’t said anything, neither investigator was in much doubt who this was.

All his instincts, all his humanity, screamed at Gamache to turn Abigail Robinson over. There was something grotesque about leaving her facedown like that in the deep snow. But she was beyond saving or caring. And the best they could do for her now was to find out who’d done this to her.

“The Scene of Crime team and coroner are on the way,” he told Beauvoir.

It had begun to snow. Not big, gentle flakes of a flurry. These were tiny, vicious barbs. Searching for flesh. Invading any opening in their clothing.

The area around the body had been trampled. Not by them. They’d been careful, though they couldn’t, of course, avoid making some prints.

The young men and women who’d rushed to the body when it was discovered had, unintentionally, obscured any prints that could be evidence.

They were a hundred yards into the forest along a trail normally used for cross-country skiing. Gamache could easily make out the crisp parallel lines of the skis. Though closer to the body, they’d been trampled. And even those boot prints were being quickly filled in by the blowing snow.

The light from their phones created a world of strange, ghastly shapes in the woods that shifted as their beams moved.

“No weapon,” said Beauvoir. “How long ago did this happen?”

He’d barely touched the body, so he didn’t know.

“Dead just before midnight, I’d say,” said Gamache.