How the Light Gets In

Gamache, Olivier, and Gabri walk from the Longpré home to the Bistro. Gamache thanks Olivier for his “performance” on the phone earlier and feels relief that everyone is safe. He listened to the Sûreté frequency and believes the raid was a bust. He admires the homey Longpré house that Olivier prepared for them. He can’t express “how that home looked to weary travelers who’d come to the end of the road” (103). He walks to pick up Henri from Clara’s house. When she mentions that she doesn’t mind dogs on furniture like her estranged husband, Peter, Gamache asks how she is doing. She admits that she loves Peter but doesn’t know whether the marriage is over. Gamache advises that she get on with her life so that she will know “you’re enough on your own” (104). He realizes that this is the same advice he gave Annie when she kicked Beauvoir out of their home.

Back at the Longpré home, Gamache and the Brunels settle in. He compliments Thérèse for the ruse in her office, claiming that it fooled even him. They explain to Jérôme that Thérèse slipped Gamache a note warning that they were being watched and that their homes and offices were bugged. Gamache returned the note with instructions to go to the airport as though they were going to visit their daughter in Vancouver, but to take a taxi to a meeting place instead. As Jérôme hears this, he wants to tell Thérèse and Armand that the watcher has caught him.

At Sûreté headquarters, Beauvoir returns from the raid. Just as he feels safe, Tessier informs him that Francoeur feels bad that there weren’t any bikers after all and will put Beauvoir on the next raid. When Tessier leaves, Beauvoir puts his head in his hands and cries.

Gamache and the Brunels clean up after a homecooked dinner in the cozy home. While Thérèse turns in early, Gamache and Jérôme go for a walk in the wintry night air. Gamache points out that Three Pines is a complete “dead zone” for cellular service. They walk to the bistro for a nightcap and thank Olivier and a few villagers for helping prepare the Longpré home for them. As they sip cognac, Jérôme says he can’t remember the last time he felt safe. Jérôme points out that while Three Pines is hidden, they’re stuck there. They’ll need to build their own internet tower. Jérôme points out that he can’t make progress without internet. For a moment, Jérôme considers telling Armand about “What he’d found. Who he’d found” (114). But, looking at the fire and Christmas decorations, he wants to enjoy the evening and tell Gamache tomorrow.

Gamache visits Myrna at her bookstore and shares what he has found about Constance. While Constance’s past is extraordinary, often killers are upset by everyday furies. Myrna describes how her therapy patients would come in because an event had caused distress, and she often discovered how much “the problem was almost always tiny and old and hidden” (118). Gamache has seen how murders start as resentments that grow and consume people. This is why he so precisely examines the emotional context of a case and often finds the killer in plain sight. Gamache shares what he found going through the archives. Constance’s parents went 10 years without having a child, which was uncommon at that time, since “any couple that failed to conceive would be shunned” (119). The Ouellets were desperate to conceive. Eight years into their marriage, Marie-Harriette Ouellet journeyed to Montréal and went to Saint Joseph’s Oratory where people came to be healed by Brother Andrew. Marie-Harriette crawled up the stone stairs, saying a Hail Mary with every step. She gave birth to the quintuplets eight months later.

Gamache shows Myrna a photo of Isidore Ouellet standing beside his quintuplet babies. A midwife is in the background of the photo, looking “weary and happy” (123). In a later famous photo that introduced the quintuplets to the world, Dr. Bernard, the physician who supposedly delivered the babies, stands next to them. Gamache believes that Dr. Bernard was made a “poster boy for competence” (124) for Québec but wasn’t actually at the birth. Gamache shows Myrna the photo of the four sisters as young women. The fifth sister, Marie-Virginie, died in her early twenties. The report claims that Constance and Helene saw her fall. Gamache suspects that she died by suicide. He remembers the woman he saw on the side of the Champlain Bridge only days before. Myrna explains that Constance came for therapy because she felt like “everyone else lives in a more vibrant world” (128). Myrna thinks that the sisters became too private and lonely. She stopped going to therapy because she couldn’t let anyone in. The two still remained friends, and Myrna thought that she might finally open up now that her last sister had died. Myrna thinks that Ruth might have the book Dr. Bernard wrote on the Quints, so Gamache instead purchases Ruth’s book of poetry with her famous poem with the line “who hurt you once?” (146).