How the Light Gets In

Gamache visits Ruth Zardo, and recites her famous poem “Alas” which features the line repeated throughout the novel, “Who hurt you once, / so far beyond repair / that you would great each overture / with curling lip?” (146). Because the poem is dedicated to “V,” Gamache suspects that it was written for Virginie Ouellet. In the bistro, Ruth said that Constance hadn’t told her anything, “alas,” and Gamache now realizes her hint. Ruth explains that when she was a lonely young girl during the depression, she would pretend to be “the sixth quint” (146). Constance came to visit Ruth and eventually made her weigh in with a bottle of Scotch. Constance told the poet that Virginie felt exactly how the poem described.

Thérèse visits Clara in her studio, where Clara has finished a portrait of Constance from memory. Clara agrees to connect the Brunels with the person who puts up satellite dishes but warns Thérèse that she won’t get any reception in Three Pines.

Gamache returns to Montréal to tend to his work at the Sûreté. Francoeur sends Gamache the executive summary of activities and cases, knowing that Gamache will see Beauvoir assigned to another raid. Gamache arranges a drop-in appointment with Dr. Fleury, a therapist for the Sûreté whom the whole homicide department visited after the disastrous factory raid. Gamache suspects that Dr. Fleury’s files were tampered with by Francoeur. Gamache admits that he doesn’t have anyone left to talk to now that Superintendent Brunel has abandoned him. Gamache repeats his belief that the doctor’s files were hacked, knowing that the doctor thinks he is both paranoid and a narcissist. He demands to see Beauvoir’s file, explaining that Francoeur is pushing oxycontin on him. Dr. Fleury says that Gamache is pushing himself over the edge and insists he leave. Gamache leaves contented since “he’d done what he went there to do” (157).

He returns to headquarters and descends to the sub-basement. He has debated whether to go there but feels he doesn’t have a choice. He greets a pale young agent and says, “I need your help” (158).

Back at Three Pines, Gamache joins everyone for drinks at the bistro. A villager named Gilles joins them, giving his condolences for the Quint. They go to Clara’s home for dinner, where Henri fawns over Rosa, Ruth’s pet duck. They ask Gilles, who used to be a lumberjack, whether the tallest tree on the hill can be climbed. They admit that they want to attach a dish to the tree and steal a signal. Gilles tells them it is impossible since the wind would blow the dish down even if they managed to get it up. While Thérèse is resolved to find a way, Gamache notices that Jérôme is not disappointed in the news.

In Montréal, Beauvoir goes from work to Annie’s apartment, where he watches the window, desperate to see her. At that very moment, she is parked outside his apartment, “hoping to see some sign of life” (163).

After dinner, Gamache, joined by the rest of the dinner guests, watches an old tape of the Ouellet Quints. The reel frames Dr. Bernard as a humble hero and Gamache thinks he was “perfectly cast for the role” (169). Gamache notices that Dr. Bernard mistakenly says, “no one told me there were five babies” (169), before correcting himself to use the future tense, “no one told me there would be five babies” (169). The film talks about Isidore Ouellet’s experience as a farmer being helpful to his laboring wife, which Gamache finds insulting to Marie-Harriette. Next, they watch raw footage from the National Film Board of Canada. It shows several takes from a little cottage. In the first take, the girls’ mother shoves a quintuplet out the door. She bangs on the door, crying to be let in. The other girls follow her outside, looking terrified and confused. For several takes, the girls come out of the house. Finally, the girls come out with smiles on their faces. The group watching is shocked, Ruth even cries. They realize that the girls who were portrayed as “plucked from poverty” (173) were actually deeply wounded by their fame.

Gamache wonders whether anyone tried to tell the girls apart as he watches the film. The family observes the New Year’s Day ritual of fathers blessing their children for the camera. Gamache thinks that it is a “staged event, played for effect” (176). The girls get ready to skate outside. The mother puts personalized knit hats on their heads. Gamache thinks their mother looks exhausted and wants to be alone with her children. The film ends with the father looking off camera at someone.

While everyone else watches the films, Jérôme asks Thérèse about Arnot, the former Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté, admitting that the name came up in his search. Thérèse first met Pierre Arnot when he guest-lectured for Gamache at the police academy. Arnot became powerful working at a detachment in the north, on a Cree reserve, the last remnant of their ancestral land. The reserve became “a ghetto of open sewers and disease, addiction, and despair” (175). Arnot gained the Cree’s trust and restored order, but he eventually betrayed them. A Cree woman came to Québec City, desperate to bring attention to the string of deaths among young people. No one listened until she ran into Gamache outside a hotel he was staying at. She said that the Sûreté were responsible for the killings. Gamache believed her.

The film reels conclude when the Quints are teenagers. The group wonders whether or not the girls remembered being locked outside the house—Myrna guarantees that they would at least remember the feeling. Ruth says that type of experience “turns a little girl into an ancient mariner,” (182) referring to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem. Ruth explains that the Ancient Mariner was burdened by the secret that he had killed the albatross, causing God to kill the whole crew as punishment for the death of the innocent creature. Gamache wonders what secret Constance was carrying and has a feeling that she was killed because she wanted to share it. After dessert, Gilles tells Gamache that he thinks they can connect to the internet by using the old duck blind.

At Sûreté headquarters, Francoeur meets with his second in command. Tessier thinks of the one time he met Francoeur’s boss—he could tell because of the way that Francoeur “groveled” to him. Tessier begins explaining how the raid successfully broke Beauvoir’s spirits, but Francoeur cuts him off, because “all that he cared about was that it was done” (187). Francoeur wants to send Beauvoir on another raid to get to Gamache. From Dr. Fleury’s report, influenced by Gamache’s intentionally exaggerated behavior during his visit, Francoeur thinks that Gamache is at his wit’s end. Francoeur plans to use the report, which says that Gamache suffers from “persecution mania,” against Gamache if needed. Francoeur is relieved that the Brunels have left Gamache since Dr. Brunel got so close to discovering his secret.

Gamache returns to Ruth’s home. She demands to know what’s wrong with Beauvoir and he tells her what he can, knowing that the decision to share the whole story isn’t up to him.

The Brunels walk Henri and finish discussing the Arnot case. Gamache threatened to go public when the superintendents wanted to cover it up by making Arnot resign quietly. Arnot and his agents wanted to die by suicide at a hunting camp. Gamache demanded that the case go to trial and disobeyed orders by arresting Arnot, causing the Sûreté leadership to despise him. Arnot insisted on his innocence to the end. Gamache joins the Brunels, and Jérôme admits that he saw files with Arnot’s name, although he didn’t see what they said. A car arrives with Agent Nichol, a petulant young agent whom Gamache fired from the homicide team and sent to work in surveillance. Thérèse is furious with Gamache for inviting her there since she was suspected of helping Francoeur create the leaked video.