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“You’re saying she came here to kill him,” said Gamache.

“We talked about that, yes. Doesn’t that make the most sense? Maybe she didn’t start off with that idea, maybe it did start as only blackmail, but when she came face-to-face with him at the party, it changed. He was smug, arrogant. Mocking. She snapped. This wasn’t a murder with a whole lot of thought. A whole lot of planning.”

“So how does Debbie Schneider end up dead?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Because Gilbert gets there first. He had a whole lot of motives.” Isabelle ticked them off on her fingers. “To protect his reputation.” One tick. “To make up for what he didn’t do before.” Another. “In self-defense when he realizes what she probably has in mind for him.” A third. “He just made one mistake.”

“He killed the wrong person?” said Beauvoir.

“Did he? Maybe he knew, or suspected, that Debbie Schneider had the letter from Cameron, the proof. He had to get it back. And there was something only he could do.”

Isabelle looked from one to the other. It all seemed so obvious. Couldn’t they see it?

To his credit, she thought, the Chief Inspector did seem to be trying. There were deep creases across his forehead and his eyes had the thoughtful, slightly unfocused look of someone struggling to see something in the distance.

“The firewood,” she finally said. “Vincent Gilbert was alone in the library on New Year’s Eve. He was just about the only one who could pick up a log and—”

“Come on, Isabelle,” said Jean-Guy. “This’s all circumstantial. You have no evidence that Gilbert did it. But there is evidence that Debbie Schneider—”

Like a man warding off an attack, Gamache put up his hands and turned his head away, dropping his gaze. Asking them to give him a moment.

Instead of pulling on the thread, now he was trying to follow it. The answer was right there. He was sure of it. Gently, carefully, quietly, he traced it back.

From Debbie’s body. To Abigail’s confrontation with Vincent Gilbert at the party. To the attack in the gym.

From Abigail’s controversial research into the pandemic. To clearing out her father’s home, and finding Ewen Cameron lurking there. And, by association, Vincent Gilbert.

The agenda. The photograph. And, maybe, the copy of the strangely but carefully worded suicide note.

And finally, again and always, he came face-to-face with Abby Maria.

He stood up. “We won’t find the truth sitting here. We need to go back to the Roberge home. I think Paul Robinson trusted the Chancellor to keep his secret. To help him hide the truth. I think that was his eternal gratitude.”

“You know what that is?” asked Lacoste, getting up too. “The truth?”

“No. But I think Colette Roberge does.”

Chapter 44

It was just before six when she opened the door. She was in her housecoat, and while surprised to see them, Chancellor Roberge did not look shocked.

After she took them into the now familiar kitchen, and offered coffee, they sat at the table.

Without prelude, Armand said, “Paul Robinson trusted you with the truth, and now we need to hear it.”

“No. What Paul trusted me with, Armand, was Abigail. He loved her. He loved both his daughters more than life itself. That’s the only truth you need to know.”

“If he loved her so much, why would he tell you to show her his suicide note?” asked Isabelle. “Why would he hurt her like that?”

The Chancellor crossed one arm over her lap and rested her other elbow on it, bringing her hand to her mouth. She could not have been more armored if she’d been wearing chain mail.

Gamache could see Isabelle’s frustration, shared by Beauvoir. Shared by himself. But he also felt a frisson of elation.

This was the question.

Why would Paul Robinson write such a letter, then ask Colette to show it to his daughter? What was he trying to tell her? What was that precise man, that loving father, trying to say?

Why couldn’t he make this last connection? What couldn’t he see?