Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  ‘No children?’ asked Lemieux.

  Lacoste shook her head and reached for a chocolate mousse, whipped high above the cut-glass dish, and decorated with real cream and a raspberry. She dragged a dark, rich coffee toward her, satisfied with her report, and her lunch.

  Beauvoir noticed there was just one mousse left. Lemieux had taken a fruit salad, which Beauvoir was relieved to see but viewed with some suspicion. Who would choose fruit over chocolate mousse? But now he himself was left with a terrible dilemma, a culinary Sophie’s Choice. One mousse. Should he take it for himself or leave it for Gamache?

  He stared at the mousse then lifting his eyes he saw Gamache also looking. Not at the dessert. At him. He had a very small smile on his face and something else. Something Beauvoir had rarely seen there.

  Sadness.

  Then Beauvoir knew. Knew everything. Knew why Nichol was still on the team. Knew why Gamache was even taking her with him that afternoon.

  If officers loyal to Arnot wanted ammunition to bring down Gamache how best to do it? Plant someone on his team. Armand Gamache would know that. And instead of firing her, he decided to play a dangerous game. He kept her on. And more than that. He kept her close. So he could watch her. So he could also keep her away from the rest of them. Armand Gamache was throwing himself onto the grenade that was Yvette Nichol. For them.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir reached out and, picking up the dessert, he placed the chocolate mousse in front of Armand Gamache.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Clara Morrow dragged her hands through her hair and stared at the work on the easel. How had it gone from brilliant to crap so quickly? She picked up her brush again, then put it down. She needed a finer one. Finding it she dabbed it in the green oil paint, gave it just a touch of yellow and approached the painting.

  But she couldn’t. She no longer knew what she wanted to do.

  Clara’s hair stood out at the sides of her head with streaks of blue and yellow paint in it. She could have made a living as Clara the Clown. Even her face was streaked with color, though her eyes would scare any child who came close.

  Haunted, fearful eyes. Less than a week now before Denis Fortin showed up. He’d called that morning and said he’d like to bring some colleagues with him. Colleagues was a word that always excited and intrigued Clara. Painters didn’t have colleagues. Most barely had friends. But now she hated the word. Hated the phone. And hated the thing on the easel that was supposed to lift her from obscurity and make the art world finally take notice.

  Clara backed away from the easel, afraid of her work.

  ‘Look at this.’ Peter’s head appeared at her door. She’d have to consider closing it, she thought. No more interruptions. She never interrupted him when he was working so why did he think it was OK to not only speak to her, but expect her to leave the studio to look at what? A piece of bread with a hole in it that looked like the Queen? Lucy lying with her head under the carpet? A cardinal at their bird feeder?

  Anything, as long as it was insignificant, was reason enough for Peter to interrupt her work. But she knew she was being unfair. If she knew one thing it was that Peter, while not necessarily understanding her work, was her biggest supporter.

  ‘Come on, quick.’ He gestured to her excitedly and disappeared.

  Clara took off her pinafore, smearing oil paint on her shirt as she did, and left the studio, trying to ignore the relief she felt as she turned off the light.

  ‘Look.’ Peter practically dragged her over to the window.

  There was Ruth on the village green, talking to someone. Only she was alone. There was nothing odd about that. It actually would have been strange had there been someone willing to listen to her.

  ‘Wait for it.’ Peter could sense her impatience. ‘Look,’ he said triumphantly.

  Ruth said one last thing then turned and walked very slowly back across the green toward her home, carrying a canvas bag of groceries. As she walked two rocks seemed to move with her. Clara looked more closely. They were fuzzy sort of rocks. Birds. Probably the ubiquitous chickadees. Then the one in front flapped its wings and lifted up a little.

  ‘Ducks,’ said Clara, smiling, the tension disappearing as she watched Ruth and her two ducklings walk in line back to the small home on the other side of the green.

  ‘I didn’t see her go across to Monsieur Béliveau’s for groceries, but Gabri did. He called and told me to look. Apparently the little guys waited outside the store for her, then followed her to the green.’

  ‘I wonder what she was saying to them.’

  ‘Probably teaching them to swear. Can you imagine? Our own little tourist destination, the village with ducks that speak.’

  ‘And what would they say?’ Clara looked at Peter with amusement.

  ‘Fuck!’ they both said at once.

  ‘Only a poet would have a duck that said fuck,’ said Clara, laughing. Then she noticed the Sûreté officers leaving the bistro and heading to the old railway station. She was considering going over to say hello, and maybe picking up some information, when she saw Inspector Beauvoir take Chief Inspector Gamache aside. From what Clara could see the younger man was talking and gesturing and the Chief Inspector was listening.

  ‘Is that what you’re doing?’ Beauvoir tried to keep his voice down. He reached into Gamache’s jacket and took the folded newspaper from where it protruded from his pocket. ‘This isn’t nothing. It’s something, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gamache admitted.

  ‘It’s Arnot, isn’t it? It’s always fucking Arnot.’ Beauvoir’s voice was getting louder.

  ‘You need to trust me with this, Jean Guy. This Arnot thing has been around far too long. Time to stop it.’

  ‘But you’re not doing anything. He’s brought the fight to you, with this.’ Beauvoir waved the paper.

  From their window Peter and Clara saw the newspaper waved like a baton. Clara knew if they were watching so were others. Gamache and Beauvoir could not have chosen a more public place for their argument.

  ‘You’ve known for months, years, that it wasn’t over,’ continued Beauvoir. ‘But still you stayed silent. You’re no longer consulted on major decisions—’

  ‘But that’s different. The senior officers aren’t doing that because they agree with Arnot. They’re punishing me for going against their decision. You know that. It’s different.’

  ‘But it’s not right.’

  ‘You think not? Do you really think when I arrested Arnot I didn’t expect this to happen?’ Now Beauvoir’s arm stopped flapping and he grew very still. Gamache seemed to envelop him in a sort of bubble. His brown eyes were so intense, his voice so deep and forceful. He held Beauvoir there, riveted. ‘I knew that it would happen. The senior council couldn’t allow me to disobey orders and get away with it. This is their punishment. And it’s right. Just as what I did was right. Don’t confuse the two, Jean Guy. The fact that I’ll never get another promotion, the fact I’m not involved in deciding the direction of the Sûreté any more, is not important. I saw that coming.’

  Gamache reached out and took the newspaper from Beauvoir and held it gently in his large hands. He lowered his voice almost to a whisper. Nothing in Three Pines moved. It was as though the squirrels and chipmunks and even the birds were straining to hear. And he knew perfectly well the people were.

  ‘This is different.’ He held the paper up. ‘This is the work of Pierre Arnot and the people still loyal to him. This is revenge, not censure. This isn’t Sûreté policy.’

  Let’s hope not, thought Beauvoir.

  ‘I didn’t see this coming,’ admitted Gamache, looking at the newspaper. ‘Not years after the arrest and trial. Not after the Arnot murders were made public. I’d been warned the Arnot case isn’t over, but I failed to appreciate the loyalty he still commands. I’m surprised.’

  He steered Beauvoir toward the stone bridge and over the Bella Bella. Once across he stopped and for a moment watched the frothing waters rush by, leave
s and clumps of mud caught up in the force of the normally gentle river.

  ‘He’s caught you off guard, sir,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘Not completely,’ said Gamache. ‘Though I must admit I was surprised by this.’ He patted his pocket where the article sat again. ‘I knew he’d try something, but I didn’t know what or when. I thought the attack would be more direct. This shows a subtlety and a patience I didn’t know he had.’

  ‘But Arnot’s not doing it. Not directly. He must have people inside the Sûreté. Do you know who they are?’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘Superintendent Francoeur?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jean Guy. I can’t talk about it. It’s just suspicion on my part.’

  ‘But Nichol used to work with Francoeur in narcotics. Francoeur and Arnot were best friends. He just missed being arrested himself for being an accessory to the murders. At the very least he probably knew what Arnot was doing.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ repeated Gamache.

  ‘And Nichol worked with him. He was the one who had her transferred back to homicide. I remember you argued with him about that.’

  Gamache remembered that too. That cloying, reasonable voice moving like syrup down the telephone line. Gamache had known then. Known that there was a reason Nichol was sent back to him after he’d fired her once.

  ‘She’s working for Francoeur, isn’t she,’ said Beauvoir, a statement not a question. ‘She’s here to spy on you.’

  Gamache stared at Beauvoir, taut and tight.

  ‘Do you know what a caul is?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Jeanne Chauvet said she’d been born with one and she thought you had too. Do you know what it is?’

  ‘Not a clue and I don’t care. She’s a witch. Are you really going to listen to her?’

  ‘I listen to everybody. Be careful, Jean Guy. These are dangerous times and dangerous people. We need all the help we can get.’

  ‘Including witches?’

  ‘And maybe the trees,’ said Gamache, smiling and raising his brows in a mock-arch expression. Then he pointed to the rushing water, whose noise had prevented others from hearing their conversation. ‘The water’s our ally. Now if we can just find some talking rocks we’ll be undefeatable.’

  Gamache looked around on the ground. Beauvoir found himself looking too. He picked up a rock, warm from the sun, but by then the chief was walking slowly toward the Incident Room, his hands held comfortably behind his back, his face tilted up. Beauvoir could just see the small smile on it. He was about to chuck the rock into the river but hesitated. He didn’t want to drown it. Fuck, he thought, tossing the rock up and down in his hand as he too walked to the Incident Room, once the seed is planted it really screws up your life. How was he supposed to chop down trees or even mow the grass if he was afraid of drowning a rock?

  Goddamned witch.

  Goddamned Gamache.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Hazel Smyth backed away from the door, wiping her hands on her gingham apron.

  ‘Come in,’ she smiled politely, but no more.

  Beauvoir and Nichol followed her into the kitchen. Every pot was out, either in use or in the sink. On the stove stood a brown earthenware jar with handles on either side. Beans baked in molasses and brown sugar and pork rinds. A classic Québécois dish. The room was filled with the rich, sweet aroma.

  Baked beans were a lot of work, but it looked as though Hazel’s drug of choice today was hard work. Casseroles lined the counter, like a battalion of tanks. And Beauvoir suddenly knew which battle they were fighting. The war against grief. The heroic and desperate effort to stop the enemy at the gates. But it was futile. For Hazel Smyth the Visigoths were on the hill and were about to sweep down, burning and destroying everything. Unrelenting, without mercy. She might delay grief, but she wouldn’t stop it. She might even make it worse by running away.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir looked at Hazel and knew she was about to be overcome, overwhelmed, violated. Her own heart would finally betray her, and open the gates to grief. Sorrow, loss, despair were snorting and trampling, rearing and gathering for the final charge. Would this woman survive, Beauvoir wondered? Some didn’t. Most at the very least were changed forever. Some grew more sensitive, more compassionate. But many grew hard and bitter. Closed off. Never again risking this loss.

  ‘Cookie?’

  ‘Oui, merci.’ Beauvoir took one and Nichol took two. Hazel’s hands flew toward the kettle, the tap, the plug, the teapot. And she talked. Putting out a covering fire of words. Sophie had twisted her ankle. Poor Mrs Burton needed a drive to her chemo later this afternoon. Tom Chartrand was poorly and of course his own children would never come down from Montreal to help. On and on she went until Beauvoir didn’t know about grief, but he himself was about to surrender.

  The tea was placed on the table. Hazel had made up a tray and was carrying it to the stairs.

  ‘Is that for your daughter?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘She’s in her room, poor one. Can’t move very easily.’

  ‘Here, let me.’ He took the tray and mounted the narrow stairs, lined with old floral wallpaper. At the top he walked along to a closed door and knocked with his foot. He heard two heavy steps and the door opened.

  Sophie was standing there, a bored look on her face, until she saw him. Then she smiled, cocked her head to one side slightly and slowly, slowly lifted her hurt foot.

  ‘My hero,’ she said, limping backward and motioning him to put the tray on a dresser.

  He looked at her for a moment. She was attractive, there was no denying that. Slim, her skin clear and her hair shiny and full. Beauvoir found her revolting. Sitting in her bedroom faking an injury and expecting her grieving mother to wait on her. And Hazel did. It was insane. What sort of person, what sort of daughter, did this? Granted Hazel was difficult to be around just now, what with the maniacal cooking and rapid-fire talking, but couldn’t Sophie at least be with her? She didn’t have to help necessarily, but she sure didn’t have to add to her mother’s burden.

  ‘May I ask you a few questions?’

  ‘Depends.’ She tried to make the word seductive. She was, Beauvoir decided, the artless sort who tried to make every word seductive, and failed.

  ‘Did you know Madeleine had had breast cancer?’ He placed the tray on the dresser, shoving a make-up bag to the edge.

  ‘Yeah, but, I mean, she’d gotten over it, right? She was fine.’

  ‘Really? I thought it took five years before people were given the all clear, and it hasn’t been that long, has it?’

  ‘Almost. She seemed fine. Told us she was.’

  ‘And that was enough for you.’ Were all twenty-one-year-olds this self-absorbed? This callous? She really didn’t seem to care that a woman who’d shared her home and her life had had cancer and had just been brutally murdered, right in front of her.

  ‘What was it like living here after Madeleine arrived?’

  ‘I dunno. I went away to university, didn’t I? At first Madeleine made a big deal when I came back, but after a while she and Mom didn’t care.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that’s true.’

  ‘Well it is. I wasn’t even going to go to Queens. I’d been accepted at McGill. Mom wanted me to go there. But Madeleine had been to Queens and she’d talked so much about it. The beautiful campus, the old buildings, the lake. She made it sound so romantic. Anyway, I applied without telling anyone and got accepted. So I decided to go to Queens.’

  ‘Because of Madeleine?’

  Sophie looked at him, her eyes hard, her lips white. It was as though her face was changing to stone. And he knew then. While her mother was desperately fighting to keep grief at a distance, Sophie had another battle. To keep grief in.

  ‘Did you love her?’

  ‘She didn’t care for me, not at all. She just pretended. I did everything for her, everything. Even changed my fucking school. Went all the way to Kingston. Do you even know where that is? It’s eight f
ucking hours’ drive away.’

  Beauvoir knew Kingston wasn’t eight hours away. Maybe five or six.

  ‘Takes a day to get home.’ Sophie seemed to be losing control, the rock turning to lava. ‘At McGill I could’ve come home every weekend. I finally understood. God, I was so stupid.’ Sophie turned now and slapped the side of her head so hard it hurt even Beauvoir. ‘She didn’t care for me. She only wanted me out of the way. Far away. It wasn’t me she loved. I finally got that.’ Now Sophie balled up her fists and pounded them into her thigh. Beauvoir stepped forward and held her hands. He wondered how many bruises she carried, out of sight.

  Armand Gamache stood at the bedroom door and looked in. Beside him the two agents stood, uneasily.

  Mid-afternoon sunlight seeped in through the windows of the old Hadley house and seemed to stall part way. Instead of making the place bright and even cheerful, the shafts of light were thick with dust. Months, years, of neglect and decay swirled in the light, twisting as though alive. As the three officers had progressed further into the house the decay and dust grew thicker, kicked up by their steps, until the light itself dimmed.

  ‘I’d like you to look around and tell me if anything’s changed.’

  The three officers stood at the door, the yellow police tape torn and hanging from the door frame. Gamache reached out and picked up a strand. It had been ripped and stretched. Not cut cleanly. Someone had clawed at it.

  Beside him he could hear Agent Isabelle Lacoste breathing heavily, as though trying to catch her breath. On his other side Agent Robert Lemieux shifted from foot to foot.

  Framed by the door was the murder scene. The heavy Victorian furniture, the fireplace with its dark mantelpiece, the four-poster bed that looked recently slept in though Gamache knew no resident had been in it in years. All those things were oppressive, but natural. Then his eyes shifted to the unnatural.

  The circle of chairs. The salt. The four candles. And the addition. The tiny bird, fallen on its side, its small wings spread slightly as though struck down in flight. Its legs up around its reddish chest, its tiny eyes wide and staring. Had it stood on the chimney with its brothers and sisters, staring at the whole wide world in front of them, prepared to fly? Had the others, teetering on the edge, finally taken off? But what had happened to this little one? Instead of flying, had it fallen? Does one always fail, always fall?