The scene opens in the Three Pines bistro, from Gabri’s point of view. He takes in the coming blizzard and the warm banter of his friends, Clara Morrow and Myrna Landers. Gabri watches a car arrive and briefly hopes that Olivier has been released but realizes the newcomer is Jean-Guy Beauvoir, Gamache’s senior subordinate.

The point of view shifts to that of Beauvoir, hours earlier. He is restless, disconcerted by his wife’s continuing hovering concern for him. His home phone rings, and he flashes back to the phone call at his workplace that has so altered his life—and Gamache’s.

The point of view shifts again, to that of Elizabeth MacWhirter in Québec City. She dreads the inevitable media attention around the murder. She and her friends are surprised when Gamache arrives and offers help, and some are concerned about the arrival of another Francophone. As they head for the basement, where the body was found, Gamache reprimands the young Francophone officers, who make stereotypical complaints about the English.

Beauvoir, once more the narrative’s focus, recalls his last visit to the bistro, when he found the evidence that implicated Olivier in the death of the Hermit, then thought to be a Czech man named Jakob.