Page 39

Armand had come down and gone, unnoticed, to his study. Standing at the window, he’d watched Reine-Marie and Honoré on their walk.

It was going to be a brilliant, bitterly cold day. A day where it felt like the air itself was crystalizing.

Then he sat at his laptop and read the messages that had come in overnight.

Sûreté patrols were out on snowmobiles, looking for Édouard Tardif’s brother. Without luck so far. It was a huge area, with many trails and cabins in the forests.

The videos sent in by spectators so far revealed nothing useful. No indication yet who might be an accomplice. Who might have set off the fireworks, if not Tardif himself.

And Tardif was refusing to talk. Gamache would go in and interrogate him later that day.

He heard Reine-Marie and Honoré return and his granddaughters race downstairs on their way to breakfast.

After reviewing all his messages and making notes on the day ahead, he joined the others in the kitchen.

When she’d woken up that morning, Annie had known, instinctively, that she was alone in the bed. Drowsily sneaking her hand over, to confirm, she felt the bedding cool. Not cold. He hadn’t been gone long.

Throwing on a dressing gown, she went to the room next door and found Jean-Guy at Idola’s crib, looking down at her.

“Where’s Honoré?” she asked, sleepily.

Jean-Guy nodded toward the window.

“On the roof?” she asked as she strolled over. “Brilliant.”

There was just enough light for Annie to make out the two figures.

She smiled as she watched little Honoré walking beside his grandmother. The two deep in conversation. And she remembered doing the same thing with her mother. Walking hand in hand through the park near their apartment in Montréal. Telling her mother how the world worked.

It wasn’t until she was in her twenties, and at the Université de Montréal law school, that she’d begun to listen.

“I know it’s your turn to get her up,” said Jean-Guy, “but do you mind if I do it this morning?”

“Are you kidding,” said Annie, turning back to him. “I’d pay you. But”—she looked at him more closely—“are you okay?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering if you’re getting a cold. Is your nose blocked?”

Since the pandemic, even though they’d all had the vaccine, even though there hadn’t been a new case in months, they still worried every time someone coughed.

“Why do you ask? Oh, God, don’t tell me. Is it that bad?” He bent over Idola and inhaled. “I don’t smell anything.”

“Not even bacon?”

“It smells like bacon?”

Now that would be a miracle, he thought before he realized what Annie was saying.

She was smiling at him. “If anyone could have a child whose merde smelled of smoked meat, it would be you, but no. It comes from downstairs. Normally when you smell bacon, it’s all I can do to get you decent before you head down.”

She watched as he finished what he was doing and picked their daughter up, protecting her floppy head as the doctors had shown them. It now came naturally.

Holding Idola secure in his arms, he looked at Annie, who was staring at him with those thoughtful eyes, so like her father’s.

“Everything okay?” she asked again.

“There’s something I need to tell you.”