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“But there are always fireworks,” said Gamache, and saw her smile.

“Want to know what I see when I look at you?” Haniya asked.

“Not really.”

“I see the lion.”

Chapter 23

Before the next guest arrived to be interviewed, Beauvoir asked, “Fox?”

“The Fable de La Fontaine, I think,” said Gamache. “ ‘Les Animaux Malades de la Peste.’ ”

The Animals Sick of the Plague.

“Oh, right. I was really only watching Honoré. He was a terrific rabbit.”

“One of the greats,” agreed Armand.

“So who was the fox?”

“The cunning one who convinces the others that someone innocent is actually guilty. Blaming the victim.”

“That does sound like the professor. At least Madame Daoud saw you as the lion.”

Gamache wasn’t so sure it was the compliment Beauvoir believed.

The lion, while nominally in charge, had actually been taken in by the fox.

He wondered who Haniya Daoud would be, in that fable.

She’d asked how he thought she’d survived the rapes and torture. He honestly didn’t know, but he did wonder if two things in particular compelled her to survive. A burning desire for revenge that incinerated despair, and her ability, her willingness, to be as brutal, when the time came, as her captors.

It was a life hard to shake once back in polite society, as many warriors knew. As the fox would know.

“Well, there is one piece of good news,” said Jean-Guy, holding up his phone. A message had just come in from the detachment in Abitibi. “They picked up Tardif’s brother, at a hunting cabin outside Val-d’Or. They’re bringing him down tomorrow morning.”

Vincent Gilbert arrived just then. He looked more than usually disheveled, with bags under his eyes, gray hair sticking out, and patchy white stubble around his chin.

Beauvoir rubbed his hand over his own face and felt the scratch. And saw his father-in-law’s salt-and-pepper growth of beard.

Then he looked at the young agent. As fresh as the moment she’d arrived at work, sixteen hours earlier. She looked over at them, bright-eyed, at 3:35 in the morning.

“Thank you for staying up,” said Gamache.

“Are you telling me I had a choice?” Gilbert sat down with a tired groan. “This’s a terrible thing to happen.”

“Yes, very sad,” said Gamache.

“Can’t be good for business,” said Dr. Gilbert, clearly not thinking of the same tragedy as Gamache. “There’s already the persistent rumor that the place is haunted. Bullshit, of course. There’s no such thing. But try to convince the great unwashed.”

Armand suddenly felt the need to shower.

At a glance from Gamache, Beauvoir took the lead and asked Dr. Gilbert about his movements just prior to, and just after, midnight.

He was a little vague. He’d been in the living room for a while. He’d been outside for a while. He’d even been in the library. For a while.

“Hiding, I’m not ashamed to say. I hate parties. Only come to this to support Marc and Dominique. People expect me here.”