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Beauvoir waited for the rebuke for this insolence, and when none came, he smiled. He had the measure of this man. While he was certainly senior, there was nothing remarkable about Chief Inspector Gamache. Beauvoir suspected he was in the presence of a product created by the Sûreté PR machine. A solid, dull, trustworthy figure designed to win the confidence of a gullible public. Nothing more.

Beauvoir had heard rumors while in the Academy that this man didn’t even wear a gun. What sort of cop wasn’t armed?

A coward, that’s who. A weak man who depended on others to do the dangerous work.

A few minutes later they turned off the secondary highway onto a rutted and potholed dirt road. A few jarring kilometers down they finally arrived at the lake.

It was, even to Gamache, who had seen a lot of wilderness, a desolate place.

Low clouds clung to the thick forest. There were no homes, no cabins, no lights. No docks or canoes. Few came here, except bears and deer and moose. And murderers.

Agent Beauvoir went to get out of the car, but the Chief Inspector stopped him.

“There’s something you need to know.”

“Yes, I know. Don’t disturb the evidence. Don’t touch the body. You’ve told me all that.”

Pathetic dumbass.

“There are,” said the Chief, unbothered by what he’d just heard, “four statements that lead to wisdom. Do with them as you will.”

Beauvoir sat back in his seat and stared at the Chief Inspector. Do with them as you will? Who talks like that?

But, more than that oddly formal phrase, no one in Beauvoir’s experience had ever strung together more than three words without saying “fuck,” or “tabarnak,” or “merde.” Including, especially, his father. And his mother, for that matter. And they sure had never mentioned sagesse.

Wisdom.

He stared at this older man, not far off his father’s age, but as unlike his father as humanly possible. This man spoke so softly that Jean-Guy Beauvoir found himself leaning forward. Listening.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. I don’t know.” As he listed them, Chief Inspector Gamache raised a finger, until his palm was open. “I need help.”

Beauvoir looked into Gamache’s eyes, and in them he saw something else that was new. That was unexpected.

It took him a moment to place what it was. To find the word to describe the look. And when he had it, the blood drained from Beauvoir’s face, from his extremities. He felt his hands grow cold, and was suddenly light-headed.

What he saw in those eyes was kindness.

It was terrifying.

He practically fell out of the car in his haste to get away from this assault on his defenses. He didn’t understand this man, those words, that look, that threatened his carefully constructed fortress.

Though he wasn’t the only one surprised by the encounter.

Armand Gamache had gone down to the basement because he knew that was where the outliers were kept. He needed a local cop, and who better than one who was either the instigator of the trouble at the detachment, or who was not involved at all? An agent banished to the basement because the others did not trust him.

Once down there, he had not expected to recognize this wretched young agent. He’d never met the man before, Gamache was certain of that. And yet, there was a familiarity. Like unexpectedly running into someone from the distant past.

But Captain Dagenais was almost certainly right. There was a meanness about this Agent Beauvoir. Something lean and feral. Something dangerous.

This young man was trouble and troubled.

And yet, Gamache recognized him. And that had shocked the Chief Inspector.

Later, on the side of the lake, when Agent Beauvoir had let fly that barrage of insults, loudly enough for every other living human and most wildlife to hear, Gamache was forced to rethink.

He must have been wrong. Had made a mistake. It was a trick of the mind. A déjà vu. Without the déjà. Or the vu.

On that rocky shore, the spray hitting his face, Armand Gamache stared at Jean-Guy Beauvoir and was faced with a choice. One that would decide both their fates, their futures. Though at that moment Armand Gamache had no idea just how profoundly.