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Check.

Two minutes later came the reply. No answer at the door. No activity at windows.

She forwarded the information to Inspector Lacoste, who replied immediately:

Break down the door.

No warrant.

Break down the door!

Fontaine relayed the order and waited. It didn’t take long.

No one there.

Now it was Armand’s turn to stare at the painting of the skaters on the Rideau, the canal that wound through Ottawa.

The painting had been done well over a century ago, but except for the clothing, it could have been painted last winter. Skaters still glided for miles along the frozen waterway. Some civil servants even skated to work.

He smiled. The painting brought back one of his most vivid memories of his parents. They’d come here on a bitterly cold day in February for a tour of the Parliament Buildings, but first, his mother explained, they were going skating. She knelt at Armand’s feet and did up his laces, pulling them tight. She smiled up at him as she patted the double-knotted bow.

“Ça va?”

“Oui.” He’d never skated before, but he’d watched his heroes, the Canadiens de Montréal, play hockey. It looked easy enough.

He gripped his mother’s hands and she heaved him upright.

His father took one hand, his mother the other, as he stood wobbling between them. Then they’d ventured onto the ice together until first one, then the other, had let go.

When he realized he was unmoored, he had a moment of terror. And then … off he’d glided, half tripping. His arms out to keep his balance. A wide smile on his rosy-cheeked face. What exhilaration. What freedom, what—

Even now, half a century later, he could feel the shock as he realized he was airborne, then falling. He could still feel the jarring as he hit the ice, and taste the blood as he bit his lip. But mostly what he remembered was the burning of his tears. They’d welled up partly from shock, partly from pain. Mostly from embarrassment.

And then his parents had hauled him to his feet, laughing. And sent him off again. To fall again. But each time he went further and further. And understood that falling wasn’t embarrassing, it was natural. Expected. It was okay to fall. Which he did many more times. Not just on the ice, but when learning to ride his bike. When learning to ski. When climbing the apple tree at home.

He knew his parents would always be there to—

“Patron?”

He turned. “Désolé. Just thinking.”

He saw a look pass between Isabelle and Shona and wondered if his eyes were bloodshot.

Looking down at his phone, he composed a message.

Can we meet? I need your advice.

He considered, then amended the message.

Can we meet? I need your help.

His finger hovered over the send button; then he touched it and saw the message to Jeanne Caron disappear. And felt, just for a moment, his feet go out from under him.

“You’re a fool,” said Jeanne Caron.

“They’ll never find her,” said Moretti. “Even better if they do. It’ll be a warning to the CEOs, the judges, the cops, those fucking politicians. This is how we deal with anyone who betrays us.”

“Jesus, you sound like a mob boss.”