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‘Do you mind if alk this way?’ She pointed in the opposite direction, away froe He looked and saw an attractive dirt road winding into the woods TheIn the su, the branches held only buds, like tiny green flares, and the sun shot through easily They walked in silence into a world of sweet aro Beauvoir remembered Gilles Sandon’s clai
Finally Lacoste was certain no one, especially Nichol, could overhear
‘Tell me about the Arnot case’
Gamache looked into the darkness and silence He’d been in the basement once before He’d opened this same door in the middle of a fierce storm, in the dark, desperate to find a kidnapped wohtness No light, no stairs
And he’d fallen As had the others with him Into a wounded and bloody heap on the floor below
The old Hadley house protected itself It seerew more and more malevolent the deeper you went Instinctively his hand went into his pants pocket, then caain, empty
But he remeh he didn’t hio to church, he knew the power of belief And syht about the other book he’d found and brought with him from the murder scene and whatever comfort he’d felt evaporated, seemed to be pulled from him and disappear into the void in front of hiht down the stairs At least this tie foot tentatively on the first rung he felt it take his weight Then he took a deep breath, and started down
‘I’m sorry?’ said Beauvoir
‘I need to know about the Arnot case,’ said Lacoste
‘Why?’ He stopped in the middle of the country road and turned to look at her She faced hi on and I want to know’
‘You must have followed it on TV or in the papers,’ said Beauvoir
‘I did And in police college it was all anyone was talking about’
Beauvoir’s mind went back to that dark time, when the Sûreté was rent When the loyal and cohesive organization started ons in a circle and shot inwards It was horrible Every officer knew the strength of the Sûreté lay in loyalty Their very lives depended on it But the Arnot case changed everything
On one side stood Superintendent Arnot and his two co-defendants, charged with murder And on the other, Chief Inspector Gamache To say the Sûreté was split in half would be wrong Every officer Beauvoir kneas appalled by Arnot, absolutely sickened But many were also appalled by what Gamache did