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It was the last thing he’d discovered. But the first thing that had happened.
“A month before Anik Guardiola disappeared, she wrote a story about the derailment of several train cars in Colombia,” said Judith, as the others crowded around. “It was a minor story, so wasn’t picked up by Agence France-Presse until a week later and sent out as a brief.”
“Colombia? Not Patagonia?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Non. See here? Colombia.”
“Was anyone killed?” asked Allida.
“Non,” said Judith, scanning. “No one died. It was a freight train.”
“Carrying ore from the neodymium mine?” asked Jean-Guy.
“Non. Grain.”
“So why was Anik Guardiola interested?” asked Judith.
“Why was Stephen?” asked Reine-Marie.
Jean-Guy picked up his phone. It was time to call Armand.
“Oui?”
“Patron? We’ve found something.”
Jean-Guy did not identify himself. While he suspected this precaution was meaningless, it made him feel slightly better about breaking their silence.
Gamache and Madame Arbour were in a taxi moving across Paris. The light turned red, and in the pause he watched patrons in a brasserie, spilling out onto the sidewalk, drinking and eating.
Carefree.
Though he knew very few people were ever really carefree. But there were moments of bliss. He thought of his last moment of bliss. Walking along after dinner Friday night. Before …
Like all those locked in a nightmare, he wished he could wind back the clock. Set down the cracked cup.
Then the light changed and the taxi moved on through the night. As he listened to Jean-Guy.
“It looks like Stephen did mean Agence France-Presse when he wrote AFP.”
He told Gamache about the derailment in Colombia. The disappearance of the reporter who’d written the story and that her body was eventually found in a gorge in Patagonia.
“Near the mine?”
“We’re trying to find out. The local police dismissed it as a hiking accident.”
“She was alone?”
“It seems so. AFP sent people to investigate. They discovered that neither her phone nor her laptop were found on her, or in her hotel room.”
“She was murdered.”
“Looks like it, though the local authorities never agreed and didn’t investigate. And eventually the story died.”
“Really?”
“The local cops must’ve been paid off.”
“She was on to something,” said Gamache. “But what? Might be the derailment, or might not. Have you figured out the other dates?”
