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“And why Brian Fillmore gave all that money. It all must be connected.”
“Is it possible Macdonald Campus agreed to sell him the Wolcott collection in exchange for the donation?” mused Jean-Guy. “He was buying it.”
“But if the prof took her documents to the UK, and Morrow stole them off the wreck and hid them somewhere, they wouldn’t still be there. So, what did Fillmore want?”
“Maybe he hadn’t put it all together, and thought they’d still be at the college.”
“I need to go to Macdonald,” said Jean-Guy.
“Not without me.”
CHAPTER 50
As soon as Armand’s flight landed in Paris, he grabbed the Métro to L’école d’horticulture du Jardin du Luxembourg to speak to the botanist there, Dr. Lagacé’s friend, who’d done a study of Daisy Wolcott. But she was on leave. He got the man’s contact information and sent off an email.
On the surface, it was a wasted trip. But on the short flight to London, he found himself smiling. The evidence was razor-thin. Barely there. More a suggestion, a suspicion. A gleam in his eye.
But no less real.
A picture of what happened in Lost Nation was beginning to form. But his smile faded when he realized there was a very real possibility he’d know who the murderer was and never be able to convict them.
On landing at Heathrow, he used the lounge to shower, shave, and change into the clean clothing he kept ready in a carry-on in their Montréal apartment, along with his passport.
Feeling human again, he checked his phone.
The first message he read, the first he always read, was from Reine-Marie, asking why there was a banana peel in her shoes.
Not a peel, he replied. Leaves. And not banana. Plantain.
He laughed when he saw her reply: That’s OK then.
He definitely owed her an explanation.
Then he read the texts from Jean-Guy and Isabelle. Macdonald Campus.
Damn! Why hadn’t he thought of that?
And Daisy Wolcott had been to Québec after all. But what could this mean for their investigation?
Brilliant, he wrote back. Keep me posted.
They’d given him a lot to think about. So, Chief Inspector Gamache did the only reasonable thing for a homicide investigator pursuing a murderer. He went for a walk. Around the terminal. Around and around.
“May we help you, sir?”
Armand came out of his reverie to find himself confronted by airport security.
“I’m sorry?”
“You seem lost. Is something wrong?” Though by their stance and tone, and frankly everything about them, that was not what they really wanted to know.
“No, no. I’m just—” He went to reach for his ID when he saw them tense. “Here, can I show you my ID? I’m from Canada. This is my passport, and this is my carte d’identité.”
“Sûreté?”
“Yes.”
“Here on business?”
