The Cruelest Month: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

by Louise Penny

  ‘Ephedra. It’s actually an herb, a natural substance. It’s used by people who want to diet, but it’s been banned. Too dangerous. What was your impression of the group?’

  ‘This was actually the second séance. The first was Friday night at the bistro.’

  ‘Good Friday,’ said Gamache.

  ‘There were tensions I could feel, mostly from two of the men. Not Gabri. The other two. The tall, sad man and the huge bearded one. But men are often like that at séances. They either don’t believe and are full of negative energy, or they do believe and are embarrassed by their fear. Again, negative energy. But I actually had the impression they weren’t just upset about being there. I think they didn’t like each other. The big man was more obvious about it, but that grocer man—’

  ‘Monsieur Béliveau,’ said Gamache.

  ‘There’s something dark about him.’

  Gamache looked at her with surprise. What little he knew of the man he liked. He seemed courtly and almost timid.

  ‘He’s hiding something,’ said Jeanne.

  ‘We all are,’ said Gamache.

  ‘You come here every day?’ Beauvoir asked after Sandon had finished his story. It sounded like a pickup line and Beauvoir tried not to blush.

  ‘Uh huh. To find the wood for my furniture.’

  ‘I saw some of your stuff at the store. It’s fantastic.’

  ‘The trees let me do it.’

  ‘They let you cut them down?’ asked Beauvoir, surprised.

  ‘Of course not, what do you think I am?’

  A murderer? Beauvoir completed his thought. Did he think that?

  ‘I walk the woods and wait for inspiration. I only use dead trees. I guess we have a lot in common, you and me.’

  For some reason this pleased Beauvoir, though he couldn’t think what they had in common.

  ‘We both deal in death, profit by it you might even say. Without dead trees I’d have no furniture, without dead people you’d have no job. Course, you people sometimes hurry it along.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, did you read the paper today?’ Sandon reached behind him and pulled a folded and crushed tabloid from his back pocket. He handed it to Beauvoir, pointing with one filthy finger.

  ‘See. I thought they’d put all the rotten ones in jail, but I guess there’s one still out there. Or out here, really. You seem like a decent sort. Must be tough having a dirty boss.’

  Beauvoir barely heard the comments. He felt as though he’d tumbled into the paper and was trapped by the words. One word.

  Arnot.

  Jeanne was quiet for a moment, taking in the small wooden chapel. Simple white and green lily of the valley filled it with fragrance so that the place smelled of old wood, lemon Pledge, books and flowers. And it looked like a jewel. Sunlight was made green and blue and red as it passed through the stained glass windows, the most prominent of which wasn’t the risen Christ behind the altar, but the one on the side of the chapel. With the three young men in uniform. The sun passed through them and spilled their colors onto Gamache and Jeanne, so that they were sitting in the warmth, the essence, of the boys.

  ‘Be careful.’ She turned away from Gamache and looked at a patch of red light at his feet.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All around you, I can see it. Be careful. Something’s coming.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Jean Guy Beauvoir found Gamache sitting in St Thomas’s. The chief and the witch were side by side, staring ahead. He might, he knew, be interrupting the interrogation, but he didn’t care. In his hand he held the newspaper, full of filth. Gamache turned and seeing Beauvoir he smiled and rose. Beauvoir hesitated then shoved the paper into his breast pocket.

  ‘Inspector Beauvoir, this is Jeanne Chauvet.’

  ‘Madame.’ Beauvoir took her hand and tried not to flinch. Had he known when he’d woken that morning he’d be shaking hands with a witch, well. Well, he wasn’t sure what he’d have done differently. It was, he had to admit, one of the things he loved about his job. It was unpredictable.

  ‘I was just leaving,’ said the witch, but for some reason she was holding on to Beauvoir’s hand. ‘Do you believe in spirits, Inspector?’

  Beauvoir almost rolled his eyes. He could just imagine the interrogation dissolving into the chief and the witch discussing spirits and God.

  ‘No, madame, I don’t. I think it’s a hoax, a way to prey on weak minds and take advantage of grieving people. I think it’s worse than a hoax.’ He yanked his hand from her grip. He was getting himself worked up. His rage was rattling the cage and he knew it was in danger of breaking out. Not normal, healthy anger, but rage that rips and claws indiscriminately. Blind and powerful and without conscience or control.

  In his coat pocket, folded next to his chest, sat the words that would at the very least wound Gamache. Maybe more. And he was the one who had to deliver the blow. Beauvoir spewed his rage on this tiny, gray, unnatural woman in front of him.

  ‘I think you prey on sad and lonely people. It’s disgusting. If I had my way I’d put you all in jail.’

  ‘Or string us up to an apple tree?’

  ‘Doesn’t have to be apple.’

  ‘Inspector Beauvoir!’ Armand Gamache rarely raised his voice, but he did now. And Beauvoir knew he’d crossed a line, crossed it and then some.

  ‘I’m sorry, madame,’ Beauvoir sneered, barely containing his anger. But the little woman in front of him, so insubstantial in many ways, hadn’t moved. She was calm and thoughtful in the face of Beauvoir’s onslaught.

  ‘It’s all right, Inspector.’ She walked toward the door. Opening it she turned back. Now she was a black outline against the golden day.

  ‘I was born with a caul,’ she said to Beauvoir. ‘And I think you were too.’

  The door closed and the two men were left alone in the small chapel.

  ‘She meant you,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘Your powers of observation are as keen as ever, Jean Guy.’ Gamache smiled. ‘What is it? Did you want to make certain she hadn’t messed with my mind?’

  Now Beauvoir felt uneasy. The truth was, it looked as though the witch had behaved perfectly civilly. It was he who was about to mess with Gamache’s mind. Silently he took the newspaper from his breast pocket and handed it to Gamache. The Chief Inspector looked amused then meeting Beauvoir’s eyes his smile faded. He took the paper, put on his half-moon reading glasses and in the silence of St Thomas’s read.

  Gamache grew very still. It was as though the world around him had dipped into slow motion. Everything became more intense. He could see a gray hair in Beauvoir’s dark head. He had the impression he could walk forward, pluck it and return to his place without Beauvoir’s even noticing.

  Armand Gamache could suddenly see things he’d been blind to.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Beauvoir.

  Gamache looked at the banner. La Journée. A rag from Montreal. One of the tabloids that had pilloried him during the Arnot case.

  ‘Old news, Jean Guy.’ Gamache folded the paper and laid it on his field coat.

  ‘But why bring up the Arnot case?’ asked Beauvoir, trying to keep his voice as calm and reasonable as the chief’s.

  ‘Quiet news day. Nothing to report. The paper’s a joke, une blague. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Gilles Sandon gave it to me.’

  ‘You found him? Good. Tell me what he said.’

  Gamache picked up his coat and paper and Beauvoir reported on his morning’s interviews with Sandon and Odile as they walked into the sun and back to the old railway station. Beauvoir grateful for the normalcy of it. Grateful the chief had just shrugged off the comments in the paper. Now he too could pretend it meant nothing.

  The two men walked in sync, heads down. To an observer they’d look like father and son, out for a casual walk this fine spring day and deep in conversation. But something had just changed.

  I didn’t feel the aimed word hitr />
  And go in like a soft bullet.

  The smashed flesh closed over the aimed word and Armand Gamache continued to walk and listen and give his full attention to Inspector Beauvoir.

  Hazel Smyth had been off to the funeral home in Cowansville. Sophie had volunteered to go but in a voice so sulky Hazel decided she was better on her own. True, a number of her friends had said they’d go, but Hazel didn’t like to bother them.

  It was like being kidnapped and taken into a world of hushed words and sympathy for something she couldn’t yet believe had happened. Instead of the Knitters Guide meeting she was looking at caskets. Instead of taking poor Aimée to her chemotherapy session or having tea with Susan and hearing about her screwed-up kids, she was trying to word the obituary announcements.

  How to describe herself? Dear friend? Dear companion? Much missed by… Why were there no words that felt? Words that when you touched them you’d feel what was intended? The chasm left by the loss of Madeleine? The lump in the throat that fizzed and ached. The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she’d relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.

  ‘Mom,’ Sophie called from the kitchen. ‘Mom, are you there? I need your help.’

  Hazel came back from a great distance and made her way to her daughter, slowly at first then with increased speed as the words penetrated.

  I need your help.

  In the kitchen she found Sophie leaning against the counter, her foot raised and a pained expression on her face.

  ‘What is it? What happened?’ Hazel bent to touch the foot but Sophie pulled it away.

  ‘Don’t. It hurts.’

  ‘Here, sit down. Let me see it.’

  She managed to coax Sophie over to the kitchen table and into a chair. Hazel put a cushion on another chair and tenderly lifted her daughter’s leg so that it was resting on the chair and cushion.

  ‘I twisted it in a pothole on the driveway. How many times have I told you to get those holes filled?’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I was getting your mail, and this happens.’

  ‘Let me just see.’ Hazel bent and with gentle practiced fingers began to explore the ankle.

  Ten minutes later she had Sophie propped on the sofa in the living room, the television wand in her hand, a ham and cheese sandwich on a plate and a diet soda on a tray. She’d bound Sophie’s sprained ankle in a tenser bandage and found a pair of old crutches from the last time her daughter had hurt herself.

  Strangely enough the light-headedness, the distraction and befuddlement had lifted. Now she concentrated on her daughter, who needed her.

  Olivier delivered the sandwich platter to the back room of his bistro. He’d also put a pot of mushroom and coriander soup and an assortment of beers and soft drinks on the sideboard. As the Sûreté team arrived for lunch Olivier took Gamache by the elbow and led him aside.

  ‘Did you see today’s paper?’ Olivier asked.

  ‘La Journée?’

  Olivier nodded. ‘They mean you, don’t they?’

  ‘I think they do.’

  ‘But why?’ Olivier was whispering. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Do they do this sort of thing often?’

  ‘Not often but it happens.’ He said it so casually Olivier relaxed.

  ‘If you need anything, let me know.’

  Olivier hurried off to his lunch hour rush and Gamache got himself a bowl of soup, a grilled vegetable and goat cheese sandwich on panini and sat down.

  His team sat around him, sipping soup, eating sandwiches and darting looks in his direction. Except for Nichol, who kept her head down. Somehow, though they were sitting in a circle, she managed to look as though she was at a separate table in a different room entirely.

  Had he made a mistake bringing her here?

  He’d worked with her for a couple of years now and nothing seemed to have changed. That was the most worrisome. Agent Nichol seemed to collect resentments, collect and even manufacture. She was a perfect little producer of slights and sores and irritations. Her factory went night and day, churning out anger. She turned good intentions into attacks, gifts into insults, other people’s happiness into a personal attack. Smiles and even laughter seemed to physically hurt her. She held on to every resentment. She let nothing go, except her sanity.

  And yet Agent Yvette Nichol had shown an aptitude for finding murderers. She was a sort of idiot savante, who had that one ability, perhaps sensing a like mind.

  But there was a reason she was on this case now. A reason he had to keep to himself.

  He watched as Yvette Nichol leaned so close to her soup her hair dipped into it. It hung down and created an almost impenetrable curtain. But between the clumps he could just see her spoon sputter and spill its contents as it shook its way to her mouth.

  ‘You’ve probably all seen this.’ He held up a copy of La Journée.

  They nodded.

  ‘They’re referring to me, of course, but it means nothing. It’s just a slow news day after a long weekend and they decided to resurrect the Arnot case. That’s all. I don’t want this interfering with your work. D’accord?’

  He looked around. Agent Lemieux was nodding agreement, Agent Nichol was soaking soup from the ends of her hair with a paper napkin and appeared not to have heard. Inspector Beauvoir was looking at him intently, then nodded curtly and picked up a huge roast beef and horseradish sandwich on a croissant.

  ‘Agent Lacoste?’

  Isabelle Lacoste was staring at him, unmoving. Not eating, not nodding, not speaking. Just staring.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Gamache, folding his hands in his lap, away from his food, giving her his full attention.

  ‘I think it’s something, sir. You always say everything happens for a reason. I think there’s a reason that was put into the paper.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘You know, sir, what that reason is. It’s what it’s always been. They want to get rid of you.’

  ‘Who are “they”?’

  ‘The people in the Sûreté still loyal to Arnot.’ She didn’t even hesitate, didn’t have to think about that. It helped, of course, that she’d spent all morning thinking about it and coming to that conclusion.

  She watched as he absorbed her words.

  Armand Gamache looked across the table and straight into her eyes. His own brown eyes were steady and thoughtful and calm. Through all the chaos, through all the threats and stress, through all the attacks, verbal and physical, they’d endured in trying to find murderers, this was what she always remembered. Chief Inspector Gamache, calm and strong and in charge. He was their leader for a reason. He never flinched. And he didn’t flinch now.

  ‘Their reasons are their own,’ he finally said. ‘I don’t have to care.’ He looked around at the others. Even Agent Nichol was looking at him, her mouth slightly open.

  ‘What about others?’ asked Lacoste. ‘The people here? Or other agents in the Sûreté? People will believe it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, it could hurt us.’

  ‘What would you have me do? Take out an ad saying it’s not true? There are two things I can do. I can get upset and worry about it, or I can let it go. Guess which one I choose?’

  He smiled now. The tension left the room for the first time and they were able to get on with their lunch and their reports. By the time Olivier cleared their plates and brought in the cheese course Beauvoir and Gamache had brought them up to speed. Robert Lemieux had reported on his interview with Monsieur Béliveau.

  ‘What do we know of his wife?’ Beauvoir asked. ‘Ginette was her name?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ said Lemieux, ‘except that she died a few years ago. Is it important?’

  ‘Could be. Gilles Sandon seemed to be hinting it was no coincidence that two women Monsieur Béliveau was involved with should die.’

  �
�Yeah, a tree probably told him that,’ mumbled Nichol.

  ‘What was that, Agent?’ Beauvoir turned on her.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. Soup had dripped from her hair onto the padded shoulders of her cheap suit and crumbs clung to her chest. ‘It’s just that I don’t think we can take seriously anything Sandon says. He’s obviously nuts. He talks to trees, for God’s sake. The same with that witch woman. She spreads salt, lights candles and talks to the dead. And you’re paying attention to anything she says?’ She directed this at Armand Gamache.

  ‘Come with me, Agent Nichol.’ Gamache carefully put his napkin on the table and rose. Without another word he opened the French doors to the flagstone patio at the back of the bistro, overlooking the river.

  Beauvoir had a brief fantasy of the chief tossing her in, his last sight of Nichol flailing hands disappearing into the white foam, to be dumped into the poor Atlantic Ocean a week from now.

  Instead the team watched Nichol gesturing wildly and actually stomping her feet while Gamache listened, face stern and serious. They could hear nothing over the roar of the river. Once he lifted his hand and she quieted down, grew very still. Then he spoke. She nodded, turned and walked away.

  Gamache came back into the room, looking worried.

  ‘Is she gone?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘Back to the Incident Room.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then she’ll come with me to the old Hadley house. I’d like you to come too,’ Gamache said to Agent Lacoste.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir managed to keep silent and even listened to Isabelle Lacoste’s report, though his mind was squirreling. Why was Agent Nichol there? Why? If everything happened for a reason, what was the reason for her? There was one, he knew.

  ‘Madeleine Favreau was forty-four years old,’ reported Lacoste in her clear, precise voice. ‘Born Madeleine Marie Gagnon in Montreal and raised in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce quartier. On Harvard Street. Middle class, anglo upbringing.’