The Cruellest Month (36 page)

‘Changed? I don’t think so. Seemed the same to me.’

Gamache nodded then continued. ‘We think the substance that killed her was slipped into her food at dinner. Did you see or hear anything at all strange?’

‘In that group? Anything normal would set off alarms. But you’re saying that someone at our dinner killed her? Gave her the ephedra?’

Gamache nodded.

Clara thought about it, replaying the dinner in her mind. The food arriving, being warmed up, prepared, set out. People sitting down. Passing round the various dishes.

No, it all seemed natural and normal. It was a terrible thought that one of them around that table had poisoned Madeleine, but not, it must be said, a surprise. If it was murder, one of them did it.

‘We all ate out of the same dishes, helping ourselves. Could the poison have been meant for someone else?’

‘No,’ said Gamache. ‘We’ve had the leftovers tested and there’s no ephedra in any of the dishes. Besides, you all helped yourselves, right? To have any control over who got the ephedra the murderer had to have slipped it to Madeleine directly. Shoved it into the food on her plate.’

Clara nodded. She could see the hand, see the action, but not the person. She thought of the people at her dinner. Monsieur Béliveau? Hazel and Sophie? Odile and Gilles? True, Odile murdered verse, but surely nothing else.

Ruth?

Peter always said Ruth was the only person he knew capable of murder. Had she done it? But she hadn’t even been at the séance. But, maybe she didn’t have to be.

‘Did the séance have anything to do with it?’ she asked.

‘We think it was one ingredient. As was the ephedra.’

Clara sipped her now cool coffee as they walked. ‘What I don’t understand is why the murderer decided to kill Madeleine that night.’

‘What d’you mean?’ asked Gamache.

‘Why give her ephedra in the middle of a dinner party? If the murderer needed a séance why not do it Friday night?’

It was a question that hounded Gamache. Why wait until Sunday? Why not kill her Friday night?

‘Maybe he tried,’ he said. ‘Did anything odd happen that Friday night?’

‘More odd than contacting dead people? Not that I remember.’

‘Who did Madeleine have dinner with?’

‘Hazel, I guess. No, wait, Madeleine didn’t go home for dinner. She stayed here.’

‘Had dinner at the bistro?’

‘No, with Monsieur Béliveau.’ She looked over at his home, a large rambling clapboard house facing the green. ‘I like him. Most people do.’

‘Most, but not all?’

‘Don’t you let anything pass?’ she laughed.

‘When I miss things or let them pass they gather in a heap then rise up and take a life. So, I try not to.’ He smiled.

‘I guess not. The only person I’ve ever seen actually cut Monsieur Béliveau was Gilles Sandon. But then Gilles’s quite a character. Do you know him?’

‘He works in the woods, doesn’t he?’

‘Makes amazing furniture, but I think there’s a reason he works with trees and not people.’

‘How does Monsieur Béliveau feel about him?’

‘Oh, I don’t think he even notices the slights. He’s such a gentle man and kind. He only went to the séance to keep Mad company, you know. I could tell he didn’t like it at all. Probably because of his dead wife.’

‘Afraid she’d come back?’

‘Maybe,’ Clara laughed. ‘They were very close.’

‘Do you think he expected her to show up?’

‘Ginette, his dead wife? None of us expected anything. Not that first night at the bistro, anyway. It was a lark. But still, I think it upset him. He didn’t sleep well that night, he said.’

‘The next séance was different,’ said Gamache.

‘We were crazy to go there.’ She had her back to the old Hadley house, but she could feel it staring at her.

Gamache turned, feeling a chill born from the inside and growing to meet the cold damp air on his skin. It was the menace on the hill, poised, waiting for the right moment to swoop down on them. But no, Gamache thought. The old Hadley house wouldn’t swoop. It would creep. Slowly. Almost unnoticed until you woke up one morning swallowed by its despair and sorrow.

‘As we were walking up the hill that night,’ said Clara, ‘something kind of strange happened. We started off all bunched up, talking, but as we got closer we stopped talking and drifted apart. I think that house creates isolation. I was almost the last. Madeleine was walking behind me.’

‘Monsieur Béliveau wasn’t with her?’

‘No, strange that. He was talking with Hazel and Sophie. He hadn’t seen Sophie in a while. I think they must be friends because Sophie made sure to sit next to him at dinner. As I walked I passed Odile standing on the road. Then I heard Odile and Madeleine talking behind me.’

‘Was that unusual?’

‘Not unheard of, but I didn’t think they had much in common. I can’t remember exactly what was said, but I have the impression Odile was sucking up. Telling Mad how lovely she was and popular. Something like that, but the funny thing is it seemed to upset Madeleine. I’m afraid I tried to hear more but couldn’t.’

‘What do you think of Odile?’

Clara laughed then stopped herself. ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t very nice. But every time I think of Odile I think of her poetry. I can’t imagine why she writes it. Do you think she thinks it’s good?’

‘It must be difficult to know,’ said Gamache, and Clara felt fear snake around her heart and into her head again. Fear that she was as delusional as Odile. Suppose Fortin shows up and laughs? He’d seen a few of her works but maybe he was drunk or not in his right mind. Maybe he’d seen Peter’s and thought they were Clara’s. That must be it. There’s no way the great Denis Fortin could really like her work. And what work? That wretched half-finished accusation in her studio?

‘Have Odile and Gilles been together long?’ asked Gamache.

‘A few years. They’ve known each other forever but only got together after his divorce.’

Clara was silent, thinking.

‘What is it?’ asked Gamache.

‘I was thinking of Odile. It must be difficult.’

‘What?’

‘I get the feeling she’s trying so hard. Like a rock climber, you know? But not a very good one. Just clinging on for dear life and trying not to show how scared she is.’

‘Clinging on to what?’

‘To Gilles. She only started writing poetry when they got together. I think she wants to be part of his world. The creative world.’

‘What world does she belong in?’

‘I think she belongs in the rational world. With facts and figures. She’s wonderful at running the store. Turned it around for him. But she won’t hear a compliment about that. She only wants to hear that she’s a great poet.’

‘It’s interesting she’d choose poetry when one of the greatest poets in Canada is a neighbor,’ said Gamache, watching as Ruth walked down the steps of her veranda. She paused, turned back, bent down, then straightened up.

‘I married one of the greatest artists in Canada,’ said Clara.

‘Do you see yourself in Odile?’ he asked, astonished.

Clara was silent.

‘Clara, I’ve seen your work.’ He stopped and looked at her directly and for an instant the snake retreated, her heart expanded, her head cleared, as she looked into his deep brown eyes. ‘It’s brilliant. Passionate, exposed. Full of hope, belief, doubt. And fear.’

‘I’ve got plenty of that for sale. Want some?’

‘I’m rather flush right now myself, thank you. But you know what?’ He smiled. ‘All will be as it should, if we just do our best.’

Ruth was standing on her front lawn, staring down. As they approached they saw the two baby birds.

‘Morning.’ Clara waved. Ruth looked up and grunted.

‘How’re the babies?’ Clara asked then she saw. Little Rosa was squawking around preening and parading herself. Lilium was standing still, staring ahead. She looked afraid, like that tiny bird in the old Hadley house. Gamache wondered whether maybe she’d been born with a caul.

‘They’re perfect,’ snapped Ruth, daring them to contradict her.

‘We’re having people over for dinner. Want to come?’

‘I was planning to anyway. I’m out of Scotch. You be there?’ she asked Gamache, who nodded.

‘Good. You’re like a Greek tragedy. I can take notes and write a poem. Your life will have meaning after all.’

‘You have relieved me, madame,’ said Gamache and gave her a small bow.

‘There’s someone else I’d like you to invite,’ he said as they resumed their walk. ‘Jeanne Chauvet.’

Clara kept walking, staring straight ahead.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘She scares me. I don’t like her.’

It was one of the few times Gamache had ever heard Clara say that. Above him the old Hadley house seemed to grow.

   THIRTY-FOUR   

A
gent Isabelle Lacoste was tired of hanging around the lab. The report on the fingerprints was ready, she was assured. They just couldn’t find it.

She’d already been off to interview François Favreau, Madeleine’s husband. He was gorgeous. Like a
GQ
model in midlife. Tall and handsome and bright. Bright enough to give her straight answers to her questions.

‘I heard about her death, of course. But we hadn’t been in touch for a while and I didn’t really want to bother Hazel.’

‘Not even with sympathy?’

François moved his coffee cup a half-inch to the left. She noticed that his cuticles were ragged. Worry always finds its way to the surface.

‘I just hate that sort of thing. I never know what to say. Here, look at this.’ He took some papers from a nearby desk and handed them to her. On them he’d scrawled,
I’m so sorry for your loss, it must leave a big
–

Hazel, I wish
–

Madeleine was such a lovely person, it must have been
–

On and on, for three pages. Half-finished sentences, half-baked sentiments.

‘Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?’

He stared at her with a look she knew. It was the same one her husband used. Annoyance. It was obviously so easy for her to feel and to express it. And impossible for him.

‘What went through your mind when you heard she was murdered?’ Lacoste had learned that when people couldn’t talk of feelings they
could at least talk about their thoughts, and often the two collided. And colluded.

‘I wondered who’d done it. Who could hate her that much.’

‘How do you feel about her now?’ She kept her voice soft, reasonable. Cajoling.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is that true?’

The silence stretched on. She could see him teetering on the verge of an emotion, trying not to fall in, trying to cling to the rational rock of his brain. But eventually that rock betrayed him, and both fell together.

‘I love her. Loved her.’ He put his head softly in his hands, as though cradling himself, his long, slim fingers poking out of his dark hair.

‘Why did you divorce?’

He rubbed his face and looked at her, suddenly bleary.

‘It was her idea, but I think I pushed her to it. I was too chicken shit to do it myself.’

‘Why did you want to?’

‘I couldn’t take it any more. At first it was wonderful. She was so gorgeous and warm and loving. And successful. Everything she did she was good at. She just glowed. It was like living too close to the sun.’

‘It blinds and burns,’ said Lacoste.

‘Yes.’ Favreau seemed relieved to have words. ‘It hurt being that close to Madeleine.’

‘Do you really wonder who killed her?’

‘I do, but…’

Lacoste waited. Armand Gamache had taught her patience.

‘But I’m not sure I was surprised. She didn’t mean to hurt people, but she did. And when you get hurt enough…’

There was no need to finish the sentence.

Robert Lemieux had stopped at the Tim Horton’s in Cowansville on his way to Three Pines and now a stack of Double Double coffees stood in the middle of the conference table along with cheerful cardboard boxes of doughnuts.

‘My man,’ exclaimed Beauvoir when he saw them, clapping Lemieux on the back. Lemieux had further ingratiated himself by starting the ancient cast-iron woodstove in the middle of the room.

The place smelled of cardboard and coffee, of sweet doughnuts and sweet wood smoke.