The Cruelest Month: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

by Louise Penny

  He reached into his pocket but she whizzed off, saying, ‘No need, Inspector. Sophie! Sooophieee.’

  ‘What is it?’ came the petulant reply.

  ‘Visitors. It’s the police again.’ She seemed to sing-song it.

  Sophie appeared, clunking down the stairs with her crutches, her leg wrapped tightly now in a tenser bandage. The injury seemed to be getting worse, judging by her winces. Beauvoir wondered whether maybe she wasn’t injured after all.

  He took out the picture and showed it to both women.

  ‘That’s from the fridge,’ said Hazel, looking toward the appliance. Her energy had ebbed again and now she seemed barely able to speak. Her head was bowed as though too heavy and when she breathed it lifted slightly then drooped again.

  ‘When was it taken?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘Oh, ages ago,’ said Sophie, reaching for it. He moved it away from her. ‘Five or six years at least.’

  ‘Couldn’t have been, dear,’ said Hazel as though each word cost her an effort. ‘Madeleine’s hair is long. All grown back. It was just a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Is this you?’ He pointed to the pudgy girl.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Sophie.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Hazel.

  ‘No, Ma, no need. My ankle hurts really badly. I think I knocked it on the stairs coming down.’

  ‘Poor one.’ Hazel’s energy bopped back up. She rushed to a cupboard in the kitchen. Beauvoir could see a variety of medicine bottles. He followed her there and watched as she shoved past the first rank of pills, digging deeper. Then he stopped her hand.

  ‘May I?’

  ‘But Sophie needs an aspirin.’

  He took a bottle off the shelf. Low dose aspirin. He glanced at Hazel who was looking at him anxiously. She knows, he thought. She knows her daughter fakes her injuries and she bought the low dose on purpose. He handed a tablet to Hazel then put on his gloves, thin like membranes. Something told him there was more than aspirin in this jumble of pills. He’d decided if he was born with a caul he needed to start trusting his instincts.

  Ten minutes later he was surrounded by pill bottles. Pills for headaches, pills for backaches, pills for menstrual cramps, pills for yeast infections. Vitamins. And even a bottle of jelly beans.

  ‘Pills for visiting kids,’ Hazel explained.

  Just about the only pill ever manufactured not in the cupboard was ephedra.

  The team from the local office of the Sûreté had shown up and were well into the search of the Smyth place. Unfortunately it would probably take ten times their number to do the dump justice. It was worse than Beauvoir had thought, and he was an expert at thinking the worst.

  Two hours had gone by and the only significant thing to happen was they seemed to have lost two of their men. They were discovered wandering in the basement. Beauvoir took a break and sat on a sofa in the dining room, jammed against a breakfront which was jammed against another sofa. As soon as he landed on it the sofa threw him back. It expulsed him. He tried again, landing with less force. Now he felt the hard coils and had the impression they were recoiling, to toss him out again. He’d become a circus act.

  An agent called him upstairs and when he arrived he saw the officer holding a medicine bottle.

  ‘Where’d you find it?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘In the make-up case.’

  The agent pointed to Sophie’s room. Behind him he heard Sophie clunking quickly up the stairs, then the clunking stopped and he heard nimble feet taking the stairs two at a time.

  ‘What is it?’ came Hazel’s voice from the other direction.

  Beauvoir showed the bottle to the two women.

  ‘Ephedra,’ Hazel read on the label. ‘Sophie, you promised.’

  ‘Shut up, Mom. That’s not mine.’

  ‘It was found in your case,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘I don’t know where it came from. It’s not mine.’

  She was scared, he could tell. But was she telling the truth?

  As Gamache walked into the house he smelled toast and coffee. It felt very still and comfortable. The wide-plank wood floors were a deep amber. There was no fire in the grate, but Gamache saw ashes and a mostly consumed log. The room was cheerful and bright, even in the dull day, with large windows and French doors leading to a back garden. The furniture was old and comfortable and on the walls were landscapes from the area and a few portraits. Where there were no pictures there were bookshelves.

  Gamache would have loved to spend time in this room, under other circumstances.

  ‘The room where Madeleine was killed was broken into two nights ago,’ said Gamache. ‘We know you did it.’

  ‘You’re right. It was me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted the house to take me too,’ said Monsieur Béliveau.

  He told his story clearly, his dry hands rubbing each other as though needing human contact.

  ‘It was the day after Madeleine died. I don’t know if you’ve ever lost someone you love, Chief Inspector, but it’s as though everything familiar has changed. Food tastes different, home isn’t home any more, even friends have changed. Much as they might want to, they can’t follow you down that road. Everything seemed so far away, muffled. I couldn’t even understand what people were saying.’ He smiled unexpectedly. ‘Poor Peter and Clara. They had me over for dinner. I think they were worried about me and I don’t think I did anything to ease their minds. They wanted me to know I wasn’t alone, but I was.’

  His hands stopped their rubbing and now one hand held the other.

  ‘About halfway through dinner I knew I had to die. It hurt too much. As Peter and Clara talked about gardening and cooking and the day’s events I cataloged ways to kill myself. Then it came to me. I would go back up there and sit in that room by myself and wait.’

  Nothing stirred. Even the mariner’s clock on the mantelpiece seemed silent, as though time was standing still.

  ‘I knew if I waited in the dark long enough whatever is in that house would find me. And it did.’

  ‘What happened?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘The thing that killed Madeleine arrived.’ He said this without apology, without embarrassment. Just a fact. Something from another world arrived in his, and had come to drag him away. ‘It came down the hall. I could hear it, clawing and scraping. It was pitch black and I had my back to the door, but I knew it was there. Then it screamed, as it did that night. Shrieked right in my ear. I reached up to fight it off.’

  He waved his thin arms in their gray wool sweater about his head, as though he imagined himself back in that room.

  ‘And then I ran away. I ran screaming from that room.’

  ‘You chose life,’ said Gamache.

  ‘No I didn’t. I was just too scared to die. Not like that anyway.’ He leaned forward, his eyes intense, staring at Gamache. ‘There’s something in that house. Something that attacked me.’

  ‘Not any more, monsieur. You killed it.’

  ‘I did?’ He leaned back as though shoved by this unexpected thought.

  ‘It was a baby robin. Probably as scared as you.’

  It took Monsieur Béliveau a moment to understand.

  ‘I was right, then. The thing that brings death was in that room,’ he said. ‘It was me.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Love what you’ve done with the place,’ said Olivier as he set out the napkins and bowls at the old railway station. Putting the soup tureen on the filing cabinet under the list of murder suspects he was happy to see his name wasn’t there, and happier still to see Gabri’s was. Wait until he told him. Freak him out completely.

  A steaming chicken stew with dumplings was placed in the middle of the conference table.

  The Chief Inspector had stopped by the bistro to ask Olivier to bring them lunch.

  ‘How’s Monsieur Béliveau?’ Olivier had asked. He’d seen Gamache walk along the Common from his home.

  ‘He’s been better, I imagine,’
Gamache had said.

  ‘And worse. I remember how sad he was after Ginette died. Thank God for Hazel and Madeleine. Brought him out of himself. Invited him to everything, especially important days like Christmas. Saved his life.’

  As he’d walked back to the Incident Room Gamache wondered whether Béliveau would thank them for that. He also thought of Hazel, alone now herself, and wondered whether eventually the two would gravitate together.

  Once back at the old railway station Gamache was met by Beauvoir, just back from searching Hazel’s home. Within minutes Agent Lacoste arrived from Montreal and they gathered around the conference table. The meeting was in full swing when Olivier came with lunch.

  He took his time, but still they didn’t say a word. Inspector Beauvoir ushered him to the door and closed it firmly behind him. Olivier leaned in to the cold metal for a moment but heard nothing.

  There was, in fact, nothing to be heard, except serving spoons on porcelain as red lentil and curried apple soup and rich, chunky stew were served up. Soft drinks were popped open and Beauvoir had a beer.

  ‘Reports,’ said Gamache.

  ‘We found the ephedra,’ said Beauvoir, putting the medicine bottle on the table. ‘We took fingerprints and transmitted them to Montreal.’ He’d already reported to Gamache, but now the rest of the team heard about the search and the discovery.

  ‘Sophie Smyth denies the stuff’s hers,’ said Beauvoir, ‘but she would. She’s admitted strong, maybe obsessive feelings for Madeleine. And she’s a liar. I wasn’t sure about her injured leg, but when she had to she sure ran on that ankle fast enough. You should have seen her mother’s face.’

  ‘Angry about the faked ankle?’ asked Lemieux.

  ‘You can’t really be that stupid,’ said Nichol and Lemieux shot her a look of unmistakable loathing.

  ‘Agent Nichol, I’m warning you,’ said Gamache.

  ‘No really,’ said Nichol. ‘How are you possible?’ she asked Lemieux, who was gripping the table. ‘Hazel Smyth was stunned to see the ephedra bottle in her daughter’s possession,’ Nichol said very slowly into Lemieux’s face. ‘This is a murder investigation. Not a doctor’s office. Who the fuck cares about her ankle, except a moron.’

  ‘That’s it. Come with me.’ Gamache walked across the room to the door, taking the medicine bottle with him. Nichol caught Lemieux’s eyes and jerked her head in Gamache’s direction.

  ‘He means you, asshole.’

  Lemieux made to get up.

  ‘Agent Nichol,’ Gamache called, his voice cold and carrying.

  Nichol smirked at Lemieux and shook her head as she got up, mumbling ‘Fucking loser’ as she walked by.

  ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ she asked at the door. Her cockiness had vanished with her audience. It was just the two of them now.

  ‘You’re going too far. You have to leave.’

  ‘You’re firing me?’

  ‘Not yet. I’m sending you to Kingston, to ask questions about Sophie Smyth at Queens University.’

  ‘Kingston? But that’s half a day away. I won’t get there ’til dark.’

  ‘Later than that. You need to drop this at the lab on your way through Montreal. I want the results tomorrow morning.’

  Nichol stared at him then finally spoke, her voice low. ‘I think you’re making a mistake, sir.’

  Gamache met her eyes. His voice when he spoke was calm, steady, but still Nichol stepped back a half-pace from his intensity. ‘I know what I’m doing. You need to leave. Now.’

  From the door he watched her go. Never full of grace, Agent Nichol slouched across the bridge, kicking a stone as she went.

  Gamache returned to the meeting. The place seemed lighter without Agent Nichol. Gamache was happy to see Lemieux looking more relaxed.

  Olivier had also brought a platter of brownies and date squares for dessert. Over coffee and dessert they heard about Monsieur Béliveau.

  ‘He went there to die?’ said Agent Lacoste, putting her brownie down. ‘That’s so sad.’

  Sad. There was that word again, thought Gamache. Poor, sad Monsieur Béliveau. But unexpectedly what came to mind wasn’t the tired old grocer but the baby bird. Its shriek magnified by fear. Killed because it wanted company.

  Then it was Lacoste’s turn to report on her trip to Montreal.

  ‘The school secretary gave me these.’ She put two dossiers on the conference table. ‘Madeleine and Hazel’s school records. I haven’t gone through them yet. Madeleine seems to have been a bit of a legend in that school.’

  Beauvoir reached for the dossiers while Lacoste ducked under the table again and came up holding a stack of yearbooks.

  ‘I tried to get out of it, but she also gave me these.’ She put the year-books on the table and reached for her brownie again. It was rich and homemade and instead of icing on the top it had a thick layer of fluffy marshmallow, grilled under the broiler.

  ‘You spoke to Madeleine’s former husband?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘François Favreau wasn’t much help. Madeleine was the one who asked for the divorce but he admits he forced her into it by behaving badly. He also admits he still loves her, but he said living with her was like living too close to the sun. It was glorious, but painful.’

  They sat in silence, eating and thinking. Lacoste thought about a woman killed for being brilliant, Lemieux about murdering Nichol, Beauvoir about Sophie who probably killed the woman she loved; and Armand Gamache thought about Icarus.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir drove while Armand Gamache looked out the window and tried not to notice the potholes and ruts and chasms in the road. Entire towns could be thriving in some of them.

  He brought his mind back to the case.

  Sophie Smyth had the ephedra. She’d been at the second séance but not the first, which would explain why the murder had happened then. And she admitted to intense feelings for Madeleine. And there was one more thing. Something Clara had told him that morning that Gamache hadn’t paid attention to, but that further condemned Sophie. A question that nagged him was how the murderer put the ephedra in Madeleine’s food. Clara said Sophie had hurried to take the seat right next to Monsieur Béliveau. But that would also put her next to Madeleine. Sophie had deliberately seated herself between them.

  Why?

  Two possible reasons. She was so jealous of their relationship she wanted to come between them, literally. Or, she wanted to be able to give Madeleine the ephedra.

  Or both.

  She had motive and opportunity.

  After lunch Gamache had ordered a patrol car to watch the Smyth house, but he wouldn’t act until he had proof the bottle belonged to Sophie. In the morning they’d make an arrest.

  In the meantime there were answers to other questions he needed.

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘The first editions of the paper will be out in an hour,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Monsieur Béliveau will keep one for us.’

  ‘Merci.’

  ‘I’m glad you sent Nichol away. Things will be easier.’

  When Gamache didn’t answer Beauvoir continued. ‘You’ve never told me what happened when you realized what Arnot was doing. Some came out in court, of course. But I know there’s more.’

  Gamache saw the countryside going by. The trees just coming alive. It was like witnessing the moment life began.

  ‘An emergency meeting of the senior council was called,’ said Gamache, his eyes no longer seeing the miracle of new life but seeing the cold conference room at Sûreté headquarters. The officers arriving. No one except Brébeuf and himself aware of why the meeting was called. Pierre Arnot smiling urbanely and laughing with Superintendent Francoeur as the two took swiveling chairs side by side.

  ‘I dimmed the lights and projected pictures on the wall. Pictures of boys from the school yearbooks. Then pictures of them dead. One after another. Then I read the witness reports, and the lab reports. Everyone was confused. Trying to figure out what I was getting at. Then one by one they grew quiet.
Except Francoeur. And Arnot.’

  He could see the blue eyes, cold like marbles. And he could sense the brain, active, rushing from fact to fact, desperate to refute them. At first Arnot had been relaxed, confident in his superiority, sure no one could ever get the better of him. But as the meeting progressed he grew restive, furtive.

  Gamache had done his homework. Had worked on the case for almost a year, quietly, in his spare time and on holidays. Until every single escape route Arnot might try was locked and barred and blocked, and locked again.

  Gamache knew he had only one shot, and that was this meeting. If Arnot walked free Gamache and many others, Brébeuf included, were doomed.

  He’d marshaled his facts but he knew there was one potent weapon Arnot would use. Loyalty. Officers of the force would rather die than be disloyal, to each other and to the Sûreté. Arnot commanded great loyalty.

  And Arnot had won.

  Faced with the facts he’d admitted the crimes of incitement to murder and actual murder. But he’d prevailed upon the council, in recognition of his position and his years of service, to allow him and the two officers implicated with him to not be arrested. Not yet. They’d put their affairs in order, make things right for their families, say their goodbyes, and then go to Arnot’s hunting camp in the Abitibi region. And kill themselves.

  Avoid the shame of a trial. Spare the Sûreté the public humiliation.

  Gamache had argued ferociously against such folly. But he’d been defeated by a council afraid of Arnot and afraid of the public.

  To Gamache’s astonishment Pierre Arnot had walked free. At least for a while. But a man like that can create a lot of grief in very little time.

  ‘And that’s when we took the case in Mutton Bay?’ asked Beauvoir.

  ‘As far from Montreal as we could get, yes,’ admitted Gamache. He’d sent Reine-Marie away and asked his friend Marc Brault with the Montreal police to assign officers to protect his children. Then he himself had taken a ski plane to Quebec City then on to Baie Comeau, then Natashquan, Harrington Harbour and finally the tiny fishing village of Mutton Bay. And there he’d looked for a murderer and found himself. In a dingy diner on the rocky shore of the village. It smelled of fish, both fresh and fried, and a ragged, craggy fisherman, as though made from the rocks themselves, sitting alone in a booth had looked over and given Gamache a smile of such unexpected radiance Gamache had immediately known what he had to do.