The Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  ‘Do you believe in haunted houses?’ Gamache asked.

  Dr Harris was suddenly eleven and creeping through the pine forest toward the Tremblay place. It was buried in the woods, abandoned, dark, brooding.

  ‘Someone was killed there once,’ her friend had hissed into her ear. ‘A kid. Strangled and stabbed.’

  She’d heard he’d been beaten to death by his uncle, but someone else had said he’d died of starvation.

  However he went, he was still there. Waiting. Waiting to possess the body of some other kid. To come alive again, and avenge his death.

  They’d crept to within yards of the Tremblay place. It was night and the dark woods closed in and all things familiar and comforting during the day became unfamiliar. Branches cracked and footsteps approached and something creaked and little Sharon Harris had fled, running, tumbling through the forest, trees reaching out and scraping flesh from her face and behind her she heard panting. Was it her friend, abandoned by her? Or the dead boy, reaching out? She could feel his freezing hands on her shoulders, desperate to take a life.

  The faster she ran the more terrified she became until she finally broke through the trees sobbing and petrified, and alone.

  Even today, as she leaned in to the mirror, she could see the tiny scars made by the trees and her own terror. And she remembered that night she’d left her best friend to be taken instead of her. Of course, the friend had burst through the trees a moment later, also sobbing. And they both knew that dead boy had indeed stolen something. He’d stolen the trust between friends.

  Sharon Harris believed houses could be haunted, but she knew for sure people were.

  ‘Do I believe in haunted houses, Chief Inspector? Are you really asking me that? A doctor and a scientist?’

  ‘I am,’ he smiled.

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  ‘Now, you know me, doctor. I believe everything.’

  She hesitated for a moment, then decided, what the hell.

  ‘That place is haunted.’ She didn’t have to look, they both knew what she meant. ‘By what, I don’t know. Madeleine Favreau knows, but she had to die to find out. Me? I don’t want to know that badly.’

  The two sat quietly on the bench in the very center of the peaceful village. Around them, as they talked about ghosts and demons and death, people walked their dogs and chatted and gardened. Gamache waited for Dr Harris to continue, and watched as Ruth tried to coax the tiny balls of fluff into the pond.

  ‘I did a bit of research this afternoon on ephedra. It’s from the’ – she pulled a notepad from her pocket – ‘gymnosperm shrub.’

  ‘It’s an herb, isn’t it?’ said Gamache.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Agent Lemieux told me.’

  ‘It grows all over the place. It’s an old-fashioned cold remedy and antihistamine. The Chinese knew about it centuries ago. Called it Ma Huang. Then the pharmaceuticals got hold of it and started making Ephedrine.’

  ‘You say it grows all over the place—’

  ‘You’re wondering whether it grows here? It does. There’s one over there.’ She pointed to a huge tree on a front lawn. Gamache got up and walked over to it, bending down to pick up a leathery, brown leaf, fallen in the autumn.

  ‘It’s a ginkgo tree,’ said Dr Harris, joining him and picking up a leaf of her own. It was an unusual shape, more of a fan than a classic leaf, with thick veins, like sinews. ‘It’s part of the gymnosperm family.’

  ‘Could someone extract ephedra from this?’ Gamache showed her his leaf.

  ‘I don’t know whether it comes from the leaf or the bark or something else. What I do know is that being from the same family doesn’t necessarily mean it has ephedra in it. But as I said before, the combination of ephedra and a scare wasn’t enough.’

  They turned and walked back to the bench, Gamache rubbing the leaf between his fingers, feeling its skeleton in his hand.

  ‘Something else had to happen?’ he asked.

  ‘Something else had to exist,’ Dr Harris nodded.

  ‘What?’ Gamache asked, hoping she wasn’t going to say a ghost.

  ‘Madeleine Favreau had to have had a heart condition.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘She did,’ said Dr Harris. ‘According to my autopsy, she had fairly severe heart damage, almost certainly from her breast cancer.’

  ‘Breast cancer damages the heart?’

  ‘Not the cancer, but the treatment. The chemo. Breast cancer in younger women can be extremely aggressive so doctors give high doses of chemo to fight it. The women are normally consulted before it’s done, but the equation is simple. Feel wretched for months, lose your hair, risk a heart problem or almost certainly die of breast cancer.’

  ‘Jesus wept,’ whispered Gamache.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You’re looking very serious.’ Ruth Zardo had walked up to their bench. ‘Fucking up the Favreau case?’

  ‘Probably.’ Gamache rose and bowed to the old poet. ‘Do you know Dr Harris?’

  ‘Never met.’ They shook hands. This was about the tenth time Sharon Harris had been introduced to Ruth.

  ‘We’ve been admiring your family.’ Gamache nodded toward the pond.

  ‘Do they have names?’ Dr Harris asked.

  ‘The big one’s Rosa and the little one’s Lilium. They were found among the flowers by the pond.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Dr Harris, watching Rosa plop into the pond. Lilium took a step and stumbled. Ruth, her back to the birds, somehow sensed something was wrong and limped rapidly to the pond, lifting the little one out, soaking but alive.

  ‘That was close,’ said Ruth, dabbing gently at the duckling’s face with her sleeve. Sharon Harris wondered if she should say something. Surely Ruth had noticed how frail Lilium was?

  ‘Storm’s almost here.’ Dr Harris looked to the sky. ‘I really don’t want to be on the road in that. But I have one more piece of information you need.’

  ‘What is it?’ Gamache accompanied her to her car as Ruth walked home, Rosa quacking behind and Lilium in the palm of her hand.

  ‘I don’t think this contributed to her death, not directly anyway, but it is puzzling. Madeleine Favreau’s breast cancer had returned. And badly. There were lesions on her liver. Not large, but I’d say she wouldn’t have seen Christmas.’

  Gamache paused to digest this information.

  ‘Would she have known?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s possible she didn’t, but honestly? The women I know who’ve had breast cancer get so in tune with their bodies, it’s almost psychic. It’s a powerful connection. Descartes was wrong, you know. There is no division between mind and body. These women know. Not the initial diagnosis, but if it comes back? They know.’

  Sharon Harris got in her car and drove off just as the first huge drops of rain fell and the winds picked up and the sky over the tiny village grew purple and impenetrable. Armand Gamache made it to the bistro before the heavens opened. Settling into a wing chair he ordered a Scotch and a licorice pipe and gazing out the window as the storm closed in around Three Pines he wondered who would want to kill a dying woman.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘ Good book?’

  Myrna leaned over Gamache’ s shoulder. He’ d been so absorbed in his book he hadn’ t even seen her coming.

  ‘ I don’ t know,’ he admitted, and handed it to her. He’ d emptied his pockets of the books he’ d gathered. He felt like a mobile library. Where other investigators gathered fingerprints and evidence, he gathered books. Not everyone would agree it was a move in the right direction.

  ‘ Terrible storm.’ Myrna flopped into the large chair opposite and ordered a red wine. ‘ Thank heaven I don’ t have to go outside. In fact, if I wanted I’ d never have to go outside again. Everything I need is here.’

  She opened her arms happily, her colorful caftan draping over the arms of her chair.

  ‘ Food from Sarah and Monsieur Béliveau, company and coffee here�

��’

  ‘ Your red wine, your highness,’ said Gabri, lowering the bulbous glass to the dark wood table.

  ‘ You may go now.’ Myrna inclined her head in a surprisingly regal gesture. ‘ I have wine and Scotch and all the books I could want to read.’

  She lifted her glass and Gamache lifted his.

  ‘ Santé.’ They smiled at each other, sipped, and stared at the torrential rain streaming down the leaded glass windows.

  ‘ Now, what have we here?’ Myrna put on her reading glasses and examined the small leather volume Gamache had given her. ‘ Where’ d you find this?’ she finally asked, letting her glasses drop on their rope to land on the plateau of her bosom.

  ‘The room where Madeleine died. It was in the bookcase.’

  Myrna immediately put the book down, as though wickedness was communicable. It sat between them, its cover simple and striking. A small hand outlined in red. It looked like blood, but Gamache had satisfied himself it was ink.

  ‘It’s a book on magic,’ said Myrna. ‘Couldn’t see a publisher or ISBN number. Probably vanity printed in small numbers.’

  ‘Any idea how old it is?’

  Myrna leaned over, but didn’t touch it again.

  ‘Leather’s cracking a bit at the spine and some pages look loose. Glue must have dried. I’d say it was made before the First World War. Is there an inscription?’

  Gamache shook his head.

  ‘Ever seen anything like it in your store?’ he asked.

  Myrna pretended to think but knew the answer. She’d remember something that macabre. She loved books. All books. She had some on the occult and some on magic. But if anything came in like the one sitting between them she’d give it away quick. To someone she didn’t like.

  ‘Nope, never.’

  ‘How about this one?’ Gamache reached into his inside pocket and brought out the book he’d recently read from cover to cover, and was loath to give up.

  He’d expected a polite, curious look. Perhaps even amusement and recognition. He hadn’t expected horror.

  ‘Where’d you find that?’ She grabbed it out of his hand and shoved it down the side of the chair.

  ‘What is it?’ Gamache asked, astonished by her reaction.

  But Myrna wasn’t listening. Instead her eyes scanned the room, resting on Monsieur Béliveau standing at the door, befuddled. Then he moved away.

  Reaching down she brought out the book and placed it on the table. Now a small stack of books sat there. The strange leather-bound volume with the red hand, a Bible, and this new one with the comic cover that had created such turmoil.

  ‘Who is Sarah Binks?’ He tapped the top book.

  ‘She’s the Sweet Songstress of Saskatoon,’ said Myrna, as though that explained everything. Gamache had already searched the internet for Sarah Binks, and knew about the book, a supposed tribute to the worst poet ever born. It was big-hearted, warm and funny, and it had been hidden by Madeleine.

  ‘I found it in the back of a drawer in Madeleine’s bedroom.’

  ‘Madeleine had it?’

  ‘You expected someone else?’

  ‘I can never keep track of books. People lend them all over the place. Bane of a bookseller’s life. Instead of buying they borrow.’

  And she did look put out, but not, he suspected, by rogue books. She was scanning the room, suddenly jumpy and ill at ease.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, then had his answer. Myrna’s eyes had stopped their travels and had settled back on the gaunt man at the bar. Monsieur Béliveau was looking sad and lost.

  ‘He’s always like that.’ She took a handful of nuts, spilling a bunch of cashews onto the table. Gamache absently picked them up and popped them into his mouth.

  ‘Meaning?’

  Myrna hesitated for a moment. ‘I know he’s had reason. His wife was sick for a long time before she died. And now Madeleine’s death. And yet he’s able to go to work, open the store and function just fine.’

  ‘Maybe he’s used to grief. Maybe for him it’s become normal.’

  ‘Maybe. If you lost your wife would you go to work the next day?’

  ‘Madeleine wasn’t his wife,’ said Gamache, hurrying to drown out the image of Reine-Marie dead.

  ‘Ginette was and he opened his store the next day. Is he brave, or are we seeing the near enemy?’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The near enemy. It’s a psychological concept. Two emotions that look the same but are actually opposites. The one parades as the other, is mistaken for the other, but one is healthy and the other’s sick, twisted.’

  Gamache put his glass down. The condensation made his fingers slightly wet. Or was it the sweat that had suddenly appeared on his palms? The noises of the storm, the rain and hail pounding frantically on the window, the conversation and laughter inside the bistro receded.

  He leaned forward and spoke, his voice low. ‘Can you give me an example?’

  ‘There are three couplings,’ said Myrna, herself leaning forward now, and whispering though she didn’t know why. ‘Attachment masquerades as Love, Pity as Compassion and Indifference as Equanimity.’

  Armand Gamache was quiet for a moment, looking into Myrna’s eyes, trying to divine from them the deeper meaning of what she’d just said. There was a deeper meaning, he knew it. Something important had just been said.

  But he hadn’t understood it fully. His eyes drifted to the fireplace while Myrna leaned back in her overstuffed chair and swirled her red wine in its bulbous glass.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Gamache said finally, bringing his eyes back to Myrna. ‘Can you explain?’

  Myrna nodded. ‘Pity and compassion are the easiest to understand. Compassion involves empathy. You see the stricken person as an equal. Pity doesn’t. If you pity someone you feel superior.’

  ‘But it’s hard to tell one from the other,’ Gamache nodded.

  ‘Exactly. Even for the person feeling it. Almost everyone would claim to be full of compassion. It’s one of the noble emotions. But really, it’s pity they feel.’

  ‘So pity is the near enemy of compassion,’ said Gamache slowly, mulling it over.

  ‘That’s right. It looks like compassion, acts like compassion, but is actually the opposite of it. And as long as pity’s in place there’s not room for compassion. It destroys, squeezes out, the nobler emotion.’

  ‘Because we fool ourselves into believing we’re feeling one, when we’re actually feeling the other.’

  ‘Fool ourselves, and fool others,’ said Myrna.

  ‘And love and attachment?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘Mothers and children are classic examples. Some mothers see their job as preparing their kids to live in the big old world. To be independent, to marry and have children of their own. To live wherever they choose and do what makes them happy. That’s love. Others, and we all see them, cling to their children. Move to the same city, the same neighborhood. Live through them. Stifle them. Manipulate, use guilt-trips, cripple them.’

  ‘Cripple them? How?’

  ‘By not teaching them to be independent.’

  ‘But it’s not just mothers and children,’ said Gamache.

  ‘No. It’s friendships, marriages. Any intimate relationship. Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.’

  Gamache nodded. He’d seen his share of those. Hostages weren’t allowed to escape, and when they tried tragedy followed.

  ‘And the last?’ He leaned forward again. ‘What was it?’

  ‘Equanimity and indifference. I think that’s the worst of the near enemies, the most corrosive. Equanimity is balance. When something overwhelming happens in our lives we feel it strongly but we also have an ability to overcome it. You must have seen it. People who somehow survive the loss of a child or a spouse. As a psychologist I saw it all the time. Unbelievable grief and sorrow. But deep down inside people find a core. That’s called equanimity. An ability to accept things and move on.’

  Gamache nodded. He’d been deeply affected by families who’d risen above the murder of a loved one. Some had even been able to forgive.

  ‘How’s that like indifference?’ he asked, not seeing the connection.

  ‘Think about it. All those stoic people. Stiff upper lip. Calm in the face of tragedy. And some really are that brave. But some,’ she lowered her voice even more, ‘are psychotic. They just don’t feel pain. And you know why?’

  Gamache was silent. Beside him the storm threw itself against the leaded glass as though desperate to interrupt their conversation. Hail hammered the glass and snow plastered itself there, blotting out the village beyond until it felt as though he and Myrna were in a world all their own.

  ‘They don’t care about others. They don’t feel like the rest of us. They’re like the Invisible Man, wrapped in the trappings of humanity, but beneath there’s emptiness.’

  Gamache felt his own skin grow cold and he knew goose bumps had sprung up on his arms under his jacket.

  ‘The problem is telling one from another,’ Myrna whispered, straining to keep an eye on the grocer. ‘People with equanimity are unbelievably brave. They absorb the pain, feel it fully, and let it go. And you know what?’

  ‘What?’ Gamache whispered.

  ‘They look exactly like people who don’t care at all, who are indifferent. Cool, calm and collected. We revere it. But who’s brave, and who’s the near enemy?’

  Gamache leaned back in his seat, warmed by the fire. The enemy, he knew then, was near.

  Agents Lacoste and Lemieux had left for the day and Inspector Beauvoir was alone in the Incident Room. Except for Nichol. She was hunched over her computer, her pasty face looking like something dead.

  The clock said six. Time to go. He picked up his leather coat and opened the door. Then closed it quickly.

  ‘Holy shit.’

  ‘What?’ Nichol wandered over. Beauvoir stepped back and invited her to open the door. She looked at him with suspicion then quickly did so.

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