How the Light Gets In

Gamache and Lacoste return to Montréal. Gamache sees the spot where Audrey Villeneuve jumped from the Champlain Bridge and realizes her family will have been told by now. Gamache thinks that telling families that their loved one has died is “a sort of murder” in its own sense (35). At Constance’s home, Gamache notices that hers is the only house with unlit Christmas lights. When no one answers the door, they inspect the house. Through the bedroom window, they see an elderly woman’s body. They call the Montréal police and wait for them to take over the investigation. When the agents arrive, they are shocked to see Gamache, the famous inspector that any police officer would want to work with—except for his current agents. Gamache explains to his colleague, Marc Brault, that the woman is Constance Ouellet. Brault is shocked and asks if she is “the last one” (40). Examining the scene, they determine that she was struck with a lamp. Either the murder was premeditated, or the murderer was familiar with the room. Gamache wonders if the murderer knew who Constance was. Brault is overwhelmed, admitting that his team is swamped. Gamache offers to take the case over, since he isn’t leaving for Paris for a week. Brault asks if Gamache is going to resign, admitting that he would have by now. Gamache asks if Brault would wonder why “if your bosses wanted you out that badly” (43). Brault encourages Gamache to take retirement and enjoy Christmas with his family in Paris. In Three Pines, Myrna tells Clara that Constance’s real last name was Ouellet. Like everyone else who hears the last name, Clara is dumbfounded. She says that she thought “they were all dead” (42).

Gamache and Lacoste pick up Gamache’s German Shepherd, Henri, before returning to headquarters. At the Sûreté, they run to catch the elevator before realizing that Jean-Guy Beauvoir is inside, clicking the “close” button to no avail. Lacoste quietly studies Beauvoir and feels rage radiating from him. When Beauvoir was her mentor, he was “energetic, frenetic at times” (46). He and Gamache had a unique bond, and Beauvoir dated Gamache’s daughter, Annie. Henri passes gas in the elevator and looks up at Beauvoir. As they exit the elevator, Henri licks Beauvoir’s hand, and Beauvoir recoils. Gamache could have stopped Henri but allowed the “small kiss.” When Gamache looks at his empty department, he remembers when it was full of eager, hardworking agents. He knows that the pain he felt in the elevator was great enough to cause someone to take a life. He tells Lacoste to go home, and that he and Henri will head to Three Pines. Gamache remembers the factory raid in which he and Beauvoir were shot, and Lacoste saved them. She had held his head as he whispered his wife’s name, Reine-Marie. Many agents died that day. Although Beauvoir survived, Gamache knows that while Beauvoir entered the factory, “something else had come out” (50).

When Beauvoir gets off the elevator into his new department, agents scowl at him for the stink. His new boss, Chief Superintendent Francoeur, doesn’t even look up when the agents enter his office. Francoeur is important and well-connected. Unlike Gamache, he doesn’t care how his agents complete work as long as they get it done. Beauvoir appreciates that the agents can “decide who was who, know what to do about it” (49). Beauvoir tries to rub Henri’s lick off his hand and thinks about “the things he should have said, could have said, to his former Chief” (50). Francoeur notes that some drugs went missing from the evidence of the team’s last raid. Beauvoir is anxious until Francoeur has it removed from the case file. The team has been feeding rival gangs information on each other, allowing them to kill each other off. One raid backfired, killing a seven-year-old girl. Francoeur’s second-in-command, Tessier, recommends they carry out another raid. As they leave, Francoeur hands Tessier a pill bottle and tells him to put Beauvoir on the raid. Tessier gives the bottle to Beauvoir, who has already taken OxyContin that day.