And now one among them was dead. And one of them had done it.
And the Conscience was nowhere to be found.
Beauvoir took a deep breath, chuckling at his overactive imagination.
But he decided to put reading about Lord of the Flies on hold and, pulling up another search, he typed in the words he’d seen that afternoon on the napkin that had fallen from Gamache’s pocket.
Burn our ships.
* * *
“May I join you?” Armand asked, gesturing to the closed toilet seat as though it were an easy chair.
“Please,” said Reine-Marie, and accepted the glass of red wine he passed her, a stalactite of bubbles from the bath she was soaking in hanging from her arm. “Nothing for you?”
“I’m afraid I’m still working,” he said, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.
“Any closer to finding out what happened?”
“Isabelle’s doing interviews. She’ll join us later for dinner. I’ve asked her and Jean-Guy to stay overnight.”
“I should get things ready.” Reine-Marie put the glass down and made to get out of the tub, but Armand waved her to stop.
“Olivier will bring something over for dinner, and I’ve checked. The beds are already made and towels out.”
“Auberge Gamache is open for business?” she asked, gliding back down, deeper into the suds.
The hint of roses from the bubble bath mixed with the steam, and Armand had the strange impression that the fog from outside had permeated their home. And as he did when he walked through the mist, he had an intense feeling of comfort.
“You okay?” he asked.
“This helps,” she said. It was clear she meant the company more than the bubbles. Or even the wine.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“It was awful, Armand. There was blood everywhere.”
She was trying not to cry, but tears streamed down her face, and he knelt beside the tub and held her hands. As she described, again, what she’d seen.
She needed to talk about it. And he needed to listen. To comfort.
“Who killed her, Armand? Was it the cobrador?”
She knew he wouldn’t have the answer, but she hoped, in the extreme privacy of their own bathroom, he might have an idea he could share with her.
“I think he’s at the center of it, yes. Whether he himself did it, I’m not sure.”
She looked into his eyes. “There was nothing you could do.”
“And that’s exactly what I did do. Nothing. But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here for you.”
He caressed her skin with his thumb.
“You did do something,” she said, ignoring what he’d just said. “You warned him. You can’t arrest someone for standing on a village green. Thank God.”
“Thank God,” murmured Armand.
He knew she was right. But he could also feel his own conscience stirring. Accusing him of following the law, in lockstep. And marching right past common sense.
Katie Evans was dead. The cobrador was missing. And Reine-Marie was soaking in the bath, the blood long gone but the stain remaining.
“The law is sometimes an ass,” he said, squeezing her warm hand.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. There are some laws that should never be upheld, enforced.”
“But you can’t be the one who decides,” she said, sitting up straighter and looking at him. “You’re the head of the Sûreté. You have to follow the law, even if it’s uncomfortable.” She held his eyes and spoke slowly, clearly. “You can’t kick someone off the public park in front of your home, Armand, just because you don’t like it.”
She made it sound so clear, so reasonable.
“What I don’t understand is how the killer knew the root cellar was there,” said Reine-Marie. “Hardly anyone ever goes in it.”
“Why did you?”
“I had some of those Chinese lantern flowers. Long stems. I wondered if there might be a vase there, even a chipped one, I could use.” She thought for a moment. “You think that’s where the cobrador went, when he disappeared at night?”
“It’s possible. Probable. The forensics report will tell us more, but it makes sense. It’s a pretty good hiding spot. There’s a bathroom, a kitchen. No windows in that little root cellar.”
“Did you find a weapon?”
He looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”
Now she looked confused. “Do you know what killed Katie?”
“The bat, of course.”
“Of course?”
In silence he regarded her, then his eyes widened.
“Can you describe again what you saw when you found the body?”
She sat up straighter in the bath, picking up on the shift in tone. She cast her mind back. “When I turned the light on I saw something dark, like a shadow, in