‘Sometimes there’s just nothing to find.’

The two of them picked up fresh folders and resumed reading in companionable silence. It had become their Boxing Day tradition. They’d take a picnic lunch of turkey sandwiches, fruit and cheese to Gamache’s office in the homicide division and spend the day reading about murder.

She looked across at her husband, head buried in a file, trying to tease from it the truth, trying to find in the dry words, in the facts and figures, a human form. For in each of these manila folders there lived a murderer.

These were the unsolved murders. A few years earlier Chief Inspector Gamache had approached his opposite number in the Montreal Metropolitan Police and over cognac at the Club Saint-Denis had made his proposal.

‘An exchange, Armand?’ Marc Brault had asked. ‘How would that work?’

‘I suggest Boxing Day. It’s quiet at Sûreté headquarters and probably in your office as well.’

Brault had nodded, watching Gamache with interest. He, like most of his colleagues, had immense respect for the quiet man. Only fools underestimated him, but Brault knew the service was full of fools. Fools with power, fools with guns.

The Arnot case had proved that beyond doubt. And had almost destroyed the large, thoughtful man in front of him. Brault wondered whether Gamache knew the whole story. Probably not.

Armand Gamache was speaking, his voice deep and pleasant. Brault noted the graying of the dark hair at the temples and the obvious balding head, without attempt to comb it over. His dark moustache was thick, well trimmed and also graying. His face was lined with care, but also laughter, and his deep brown eyes, looking at Brault over his half-moon glasses, were thoughtful.

How does he survive? Brault wondered. Brutal as the world inside the Montreal police could be, he knew the Sûreté du Québec could be even worse. Because the stakes were higher. And yet Gamache had risen to run the largest and most distinguished department in the Sûreté.

He’d go no further, of course. Even Gamache knew that. But unlike Marc Brault, who was ambition itself, Armand Gamache seemed content, even happy with his life. There had been a time, before the Arnot case, when Brault had suspected Gamache was a bit simple, a bit beyond his depth. But he didn’t think that any more. He knew now what was behind the kind eyes and calm face.

He had the strangest feeling just then that Gamache understood everything that was going on, in Brault’s head and in the labyrinthine minds at the Sûreté.

‘I suggest we give each other our unsolved cases and spend a few days reading over them. See if we can find something.’

Brault took a sip of his cognac and leaned back in his chair, thinking. It was a good idea. It was also unconventional and would probably cause a stink if anyone found out. He smiled at Gamache and leaned forward again.

‘Why? Don’t you have enough work through the year? Or maybe you’re desperate to get away from your family at Christmas.’

‘Well, you know if I could I’d move into my office and live off vending machine coffee. I have no life and my family despises me.’

‘I’ve heard that about you, Armand. In fact, I despise you.’

‘And I you.’

The two men smiled. ‘I would want someone to do this for me, Marc. It’s pretty simple and pretty selfish. If I was murdered I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort. How could I deny someone else that?’

It was simple. And it was right.

Marc Brault reached out and shook Gamache’s large hand. ‘Done, Armand, done.’

‘Done, Marc. And if anything happened to you, it wouldn’t remain unsolved.’ It was said with great simplicity and it surprised Brault how much it meant.

And so for the past few years the two men had met in the parking lot at Sûreté headquarters to exchange boxes, ironically, on Boxing Day. And each Boxing Day Armand and Reine-Marie opened the boxes and looked for murderers inside.

‘Now this is odd.’ Reine-Marie lowered her dossier and caught him staring at her. She smiled and continued. ‘Here’s a case from just a few days ago. I wonder how it made it into the pile.’

‘Christmas rush. Someone must have made a mistake. Here, give it to me and I’ll put it in the out tray.’ He held out his hand, but her eyes had dropped once again to the file and she was reading. After a moment he lowered his hand.

‘I’m sorry, Armand. It’s just that I knew this woman.’

‘No.’ Gamache set his own dossier aside and came beside Reine-Marie. ‘How? What’s the case?’