watched he noticed it wasn’t just kids climbing to the top, but adults as well including a few young couples. It was as effective as a scary movie to get a hug, and he remembered clearly coming to the slide with Reine-Marie early in their relationship. Climbing to the top, dragging the long toboggan with them, waiting their turn. Gamache, deathly afraid of heights, was still trying to pretend otherwise with this girl who’d stolen his heart so completely.
“Would you like me to sit in front?” she’d whispered as the people in front of them shoved off and plummeted down the slide.
He’d looked at her, a protest on his lips, when he realized here was a person he needn’t lie to, needn’t pretend with. He could be himself.
Their toboggan hurtled toward the Dufferin Terrace below, though it looked as though they were heading straight into the river. Armand Gamache shrieked and clutched Reine-Marie. At the bottom they laughed so hard he thought he’d ruptured something. He never did it again. When they’d brought Daniel and Annie it had been their mother who’d taken them while Dad waited at the bottom with the camera.
Now Chief Inspector Gamache stood and watched the kids, the couples, an elderly man and woman walk up the narrow snow steps and then shoot back down.
It comforted him slightly to hear that they too screamed. And laughed.
As he watched he heard another shout but this wasn’t from the direction of the ice slide. This came from over the side of the terrace, from the river.
He wasn’t the only one to notice. A few people drifted to the handrail. Gamache walked over and wasn’t surprised to see teams of canoeists out on the ice practicing. The race was Sunday, two days away.
“Stroke, stroke,” came the command. While there were three boats out there, only one voice was heard, loud and clear.
“Left, stroke, left, stroke.” An English voice.
Gamache strained but couldn’t make out which boat it was, nor did he recognize the voice. It wasn’t Tom Hancock. Nor did he think it was likely to be Ken Haslam. A telescope was available, and though it was all but frozen, as was he, Gamache put some money in and trained it on the river.
Not the first boat.
Not the second, though he could see the leader’s mouth moving he couldn’t hear the words.
He trained the telescope on the furthest boat. Surely not. Not from so far away. Was it possible the piercing voice had traveled this far?
The boat was way out there in the middle of the river, six men sitting down, rowing. The boats could be paddled or rowed, could be in water or dragged over ice. This team was just clearing open water and heading upstream toward an ice floe.
“Stroke, stroke,” came the command again. And now, because the racers were heading forward but facing backward, Gamache could see who it was.
He stared through the lens, not daring to touch his forehead to the metal telescope in case it froze there.
The booming, clear voice belonged to Ken Haslam.
Walking back to the Château, Gamache thought about that. Why would a man whisper all through his life, in every circumstance but be able, in fact, to shout?
Louder than anyone else out there. His voice had been piercing.
Was Haslam as surprised as Gamache? Had Haslam, in his sixty-eighth year, found his voice on the ice of Québec, doing something few others would attempt?
It was always a relief to get indoors, and even more wonderful when that indoors was the Château Frontenac. In the magnificent front lobby Gamache took off his mitts, coat, hat and scarf and checked them. Then, still protecting his satchel with his arm, he walked down the long, wide corridor to the double glass doors at the far end, with the light streaming through.
Inside the St-Laurent Bar he paused. Ahead of him was the circular wooden bar and around it tables and the huge windows. Open fires roared in the two hearths.
But this wasn’t where he was expected.
Glancing to his right Gamache was surprised to see a door, one he’d never noticed before. Opening it he walked into a bright and airy side room, almost a solarium, with its own lit fireplace.
Whoever had been talking stopped as he entered. A dozen faces looked at him. All elderly, all white, all male. They were seated on the comfortable floral sofas and in wing chairs and armchairs. He’d been expecting something more formal, a boardroom, a long table, a lectern.
He’d also