Gamache came back into the room, looking worried.

‘Is she gone?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘Back to the Incident Room.’

‘And then?’

‘And then she’ll come with me to the old Hadley house. I’d like you to come too,’ Gamache said to Agent Lacoste.

Jean Guy Beauvoir managed to keep silent and even listened to Isabelle Lacoste’s report, though his mind was squirreling. Why was Agent Nichol there? Why? If everything happened for a reason, what was the reason for her? There was one, he knew.

‘Madeleine Favreau was forty-four years old,’ reported Lacoste in her clear, precise voice. ‘Born Madeleine Marie Gagnon in Montreal and raised in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce quartier. On Harvard Street. Middle class, anglo upbringing.’

‘Anglo?’ asked Lemieux. ‘With a name like that?’

‘Well, semi-anglo,’ admitted Lacoste. ‘French father and English mother. Name was French but upbringing was mostly English. Went to public and high school in NDG. The school secretary actually remembered her. Said there are a few pictures of Madeleine in the main corridor. She was Athlete of the Year and president of the student council. One of those kids who simply excelled. She was also a cheerleader.’

Gamache was grateful Nichol wasn’t there. He could just imagine what she’d do with this litany of success.

‘Her grades?’ he asked.

‘The secretary’s checking them for me. Should have the answer by the time we get back to the Incident Room. After high school—’

‘Just a moment,’ Gamache interrupted. ‘What about Hazel Smyth? Did you ask about her? They went to school together.’

‘Actually I did. Hazel Lang. Also forty-four. Lived on Melrose Avenue in NDG.’

Gamache knew the area. Old and settled homes. Trees and modest gardens.

‘The secretary’s looking her up too.’

‘But didn’t remember her immediately?’

‘No, but then she wasn’t likely to after all these years. After high school Madeleine went to university, studied engineering at Queens and got a job at Bell Canada. She left four and a half years ago.’

Beauvoir stared at Gamache. He couldn’t get the confrontation with Nichol out of his head. Had any one of them spoken to him like that in a meeting they’d be out in a flash, and rightly so. And, frankly, none of them would ever consider speaking to Armand Gamache like that. Not out of some instinct for survival, but because they respected him too much.

Why did Nichol treat the boss like that, and why did Gamache allow it?

‘The woman I spoke to worked in another department and was at a lower level,’ Lacoste continued her report, ‘but she said Madame Favreau was a fair boss and very smart. People liked her. I also spoke briefly with her boss. Paul Marchand.’ Lacoste consulted her notes. ‘He’s Vice President of Research and Development. Madeleine Favreau was a department head. Product development. She also worked closely with their marketing department.’

‘So when new products like a phone or something came out,’ said Lemieux, ‘she’d work on it?’

‘Her expertise was information technology. Very hot field, IT. According to her boss she got that dossier not long before leaving.’

Gamache waited. Isabelle Lacoste was as good an agent as he’d ever worked with and should Inspector Beauvoir leave for any reason she’d be his natural choice for second in command. Her reports were thorough, clear and without ambiguity.

‘She was married to François Favreau but it didn’t work. They divorced a few years ago. But her boss doesn’t think that was the reason she left. He asked her why, but she was vague on the reason but definite about her decision and he respected that.’

‘Did he have a theory?’ Gamache asked.

‘He did.’ Lacoste smiled. ‘Six years ago Madeleine Favreau was diagnosed with breast cancer. Monsieur Marchand thinks that, perhaps combined with the divorce, was the reason. He was sorry about it. I could hear it in his voice, he liked her.’

‘Loved her?’ asked Gamache.

‘I don’t know. But there was affection there, I think, that went beyond simple respect. He was sorry she left.’

‘And then she came here,’ said Gamache, leaning back in his chair. Olivier knocked and brought in coffees and a tray of desserts. He took slightly more time than Gamache would have thought necessary then finally left, having to satisfy himself with baguette crumbs but not a single crumb of information.

‘No children?’ asked Lemieux.