Unlike Gamache, Francoeur gave his agents freedom. He didn’t worry about how they got results. Just get it done, was what he said.

The only real law was Chief Superintendent Francoeur. The only line not to be crossed was drawn around him. His power was absolute and unquestioned.

Working with Gamache was always so complicated. So many gray areas. Always debating what was right, as though that was a difficult question.

Working with Chief Superintendent Francoeur was easy.

Law-abiding citizens were safe, criminals weren’t. Francoeur trusted his people to decide who was who, and to know what to do about it. And when a mistake was made? They looked out for each other. Defended each other. Protected each other.

Unlike Gamache.

Beauvoir rubbed his hand, trying to erase the lick, like a lash. He thought about the things he should have said, could have said, to his former Chief. But hadn’t.

*   *   *

“Just drop your things and head home,” said Gamache at the door to his office.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive down with you?” asked Lacoste.

“I’m sure. As I said, I’ll probably stay over. Thank you, Isabelle.”

As he looked at her now he saw, as he almost always did, a brief image. Of Lacoste bending over him. Calling to him. And he felt again her hands gripping either side of his head as he lay sprawled on the concrete floor.

There’d been a crushing weight on his chest and a rush in his head. And two words that needed to be said. Only two, as he stared at Lacoste, desperate for her to understand him.

Reine-Marie.

That was all there was left to say.

At first, when he’d recovered and remembered Isabelle’s face so close to his, he’d been embarrassed by his vulnerability.

His job was to lead them, to protect them. And he’d failed. Instead, she’d saved him.

But now when he looked at her, and that brief image exploded between them, he realized they were fused together forever by that moment. And he felt only great affection for her. And gratitude. For staying with him and hearing those barely whispered words. She was the vessel into which he’d poured his last thoughts.

Reine-Marie.

Armand Gamache would always remember the enormous relief when he’d realized she’d understood. And he could go.

But, of course, he hadn’t gone. In large part thanks to Isabelle Lacoste, he’d survived. But so many of his agents hadn’t, that day.

Including Jean-Guy Beauvoir. The swaggering, annoying smartass had gone into that factory, and something else had come out.

“Go home, Isabelle,” said Gamache.

*   *   *

The Superintendent continued to read the document in front of him, slowly turning a page.

Beauvoir recognized the report on the raid he’d been on a few days earlier.

“I see here,” Francoeur said slowly in his deep, calm voice, “that not all the evidence made it to the locker.”

He met Beauvoir’s eyes, which widened.

“Some drugs seem to be missing.”

Beauvoir’s mind raced, while the Superintendent again lowered his eyes to the report.

“But I don’t think that will affect the case,” Francoeur said at last, turning to Martin Tessier. “Remove it from the report.”

He tossed the paper across to his second in command.

“Yessir.”

“I have a dinner in half an hour with the Cardinal. He’s very worried about the biker gang violence. What can I tell him?”

“It’s unfortunate that girl was killed,” said Tessier.

Francoeur stared at Tessier. “I don’t think I need to tell him that, do you?”

Beauvoir knew what they were talking about. Everyone in Québec did. A seven-year-old child had been blown up along with a few members of the Hell’s Angels when a car bomb exploded. It was all over the news.

“Up until then, we’d been pretty successful at feeding rival gangs information,” said Tessier, “and having them go at each other.”

Beauvoir had come to appreciate the beauty of this strategy, though it had shocked him at first. Let the criminals kill each other. All the Sûreté had to do was guide them a little. Drop a bit of information here. A bit there. Then get out of the way. The rival gangs took care of the rest. It was easy and safe and, above all, effective. True, sometimes a civilian got in the way, but the Sûreté would plant suggestions in the media that the dead man or woman wasn’t perhaps as innocent as their family claimed.

And it worked.