The Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  Hiding.

  But Clara knew if she did that she’d carry this cowardice for the rest of her life. And when the clock said five to nine she’d risen, as though in someone else’s body, put on her coat, and left. Like a zombie from one of Peter’s old black and white movies.

  And she’d found herself in a black and white world. Without street lamps or traffic lights, Three Pines became bathed in black once the sun set. Except for the points of light in the sky. And the lights of the homes around the green that tonight seemed to warn her, beg her not to leave them, not to do this foolishness.

  Through the darkness Clara joined the others. Myrna, Gabri, Monsieur Béliveau, the witch Jeanne, all trudging, as though they’d given up their own will, toward the haunted house on the hill.

  Now she was back in that room. She looked at the faces, all staring at the flickering candle in the center of their circle, its light reflected in their eyes, like the pilot light for the fear they carried. It struck Clara how threatening the simple flicker of a candle can be when that’s all you have.

  Odile and Gilles were across from her, as were Hazel and Sophie.

  Monsieur Béliveau sat beside Clara and Jeanne Chauvet took her seat beside Gabri, who was festooned with crucifixes, Stars of David and a croissant in his pocket. Myrna asked because it looked like something else.

  But still their circle was broken. One chair was on its side, having tumbled into the center almost a week ago, and there it sat like a memorial, though in the uncertain light it looked like a skeleton with its wooden arms and legs and ribbed back throwing distorted shadows against the wall.

  It was a calm and tranquil night, outside the old Hadley house. But inside the house had its own atmosphere, its own gravity. It was a world of groans and creaks, of sorrow and sighs. The house had taken another life, two if you count the bird, and it was hungry again. It wanted more. It felt like a tomb. Worse, thought Clara, it felt like limbo. In stepping into the house, into this room, they’d walked into a netherworld, somewhere between life and death. A world where they were about to be judged, and separated.

  Out of the dark a hand reached into their circle and grabbed the skeletal chair. Then Armand Gamache joined them, sitting silently for a moment, leaning forward, elbows on his legs, his large powerful hands together, his fingers intertwined as though in prayer. His deep brown eyes were thoughtful.

  She heard an exhale. The candle flickered violently, from the force of their stress released.

  Gamache looked at them. At Clara he seemed to pause and smile, but Clara thought everyone probably had that impression. She wondered how he managed to make time disobey its own rules. Though she also knew Three Pines itself was like that, a village where time seemed flexible.

  ‘This is a tragedy of secrets,’ said Gamache. ‘It’s a story of hauntings, of ghosts, of wickedness dressed as valor. It’s a story of things hidden and buried. Alive. When something not quite dead is buried it eventually comes back,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘It claws its way out of the dirt, rancid and fetid. And hungry.

  ‘That’s what happened here. Everyone in this room has a secret. Something to hide. Something that came alive a few days ago. When Agent Lacoste told me about her interview with Madeleine’s husband I started to get some insight into this murder. He described Madeleine as the sun. Life-giving, joyous, bright and cheerful.’

  Around the circle the glowing faces nodded.

  ‘But the sun also scalds. It burns and blinds.’ He looked at each of them again. ‘And it creates strong shadows. Who can live close to the sun? I thought of Icarus, the beautiful boy who with his father made wings to fly. His father gave him one warning, though. Do not fly too close to the sun. But, of course, he did. Anyone with children will understand how that can happen.’

  His eyes flickered to Hazel. Her face was blank. Empty. Where once there’d been anxiety, pain, anger, now there was nothing. The horsemen had ridden through, leaving nothing standing. But Gamache thought maybe they hadn’t brought grief. The horsemen Hazel had been desperate to keep at bay carried something far more terrifying. Their burden was loneliness.

  ‘The most obvious suspect is Sophie. Poor Sophie, as everyone calls her. Always getting hurt, always getting sick. Though things started to get better when Madeleine arrived.’

  Sophie stared at him, her brows low and glowering.

  ‘The house that had been so full of things and yet so empty was suddenly full of life. Can’t you just imagine?’

  Suddenly they were transported to a day in their imaginations when the drab home of Hazel and Sophie was visited by sunshine. When the curtains were thrown open. When laughter stirred the decay in the rooms and sent it twirling into the rays of light.

  ‘But the price you paid was that your shadows were revealed. You fell in love with Madeleine, didn’t you?’

  ‘Love isn’t a shadow,’ said Sophie defiantly.

  ‘You’re quite right. Love isn’t. But attachment is. Myrna, you talked about the near enemy.’

  ‘Attachment masquerading as love,’ nodded Myrna. ‘But I wasn’t thinking of Sophie.’

  ‘No, you were thinking of someone else. But it applies here.’ He turned back to Sophie. ‘You wanted Madeleine for yourself. You went to her university, Queens, to impress her. To get her to pay more attention to you. It was bad enough to share Madeleine with your mother, but when you returned home recently and found Madeleine in a relationship with Monsieur Béliveau, that was too much.’

  ‘How could she? I mean look at him. He’s old and ugly and poor. He’s just a grocer for God’s sake. How could she love him? I’d gone all the way to fucking Queens for her and when I come back she’s not even around. She’s at a séance with him.’

  She jabbed her crutch at Béliveau, who seemed beyond the insults.

  ‘When the next séance came you saw your chance. You’ve fought your weight all your life, even taking ephedra a few years ago, until it was found and taken away. But eventually the weight crept back and you ordered more pills from the internet. This photograph shows a plump girl, just two years ago.’ Gamache handed round the picture from the fridge. Each person looked at it. It seemed to have been taken on another planet. One where people laughed, and loved, and celebrated. One where Madeleine was still alive.

  ‘You found the pill bottle. You knew your mother threw nothing away. Inspector Beauvoir described the cupboard filled with old pills, most long out of date. We know from the lab that you didn’t use your current ephedra pills. Instead, you found the old ones. You knew Madeleine had a heart damaged by her chemotherapy treatments –’

  A small murmur went around the circle.

  ‘– and you knew a high enough dose, combined with the bad heart, could kill her. All you needed was a scare. Something to challenge her heart, to get it pounding and racing. And one was handed to you. A séance in the old Hadley house.’

  ‘This is stupid,’ said Sophie, though she was looking far from confident.

  ‘You made sure you sat beside Madeleine at dinner, and you slipped the pills into her food.’

  ‘I didn’t. Mom, tell him I didn’t.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ said Hazel, finding the energy to come, feebly, to Sophie’s defense.

  ‘Of course, everything I’ve said about Sophie applies to Hazel as well.’ Gamache turned to the woman beside Sophie. ‘You loved Madeleine. Have never tried to hide it. A platonic love, almost certainly, but a deep one. You probably loved her since you were children together. And then she comes to live with you, recovers from her chemo, and your lives start again. No more dullness. No more loneliness.’

  Hazel nodded.

  ‘If Sophie could find the ephedra so could you. You were on Madeleine’s other side at dinner. You could have slipped it to her. But one nagging question was why not kill Madeleine at the first séance? Why wait?’

  He let the question sink in. There seemed now to be no world beyond their circle of light. The known world had disappeare

d over the edge of the darkness.

  ‘The séances were different in three ways.’ Gamache counted them on his fingers. ‘The dinner at Peter and Clara’s, the old Hadley house, and the Smyths’.’

  ‘But why would Hazel kill Madeleine?’ Clara asked.

  ‘Jealousy. That picture?’ He gestured to the photo, now in Gabri’s hand. ‘Madeleine was looking with great affection at Hazel and Hazel was looking with even more open affection. But not at Madeleine or Sophie. She was looking off camera. And I remembered something Olivier said. He said how kind Hazel had been to Monsieur Béliveau after his wife died. He was invited to all celebrations, especially the big ones. The hat Hazel wore was white and blue, the cake had blue frosting. It was a man’s birthday. It was yours.’

  He turned to Béliveau, who looked perplexed. Gabri handed him the photograph and the grocer studied it for a few moments. In the silence they heard more creaks. Something seemed to be coming up the stairs. Clara knew it was all in her mind. Knew what she’d felt before had only been the baby bird, not the monster of her imagination. That bird was dead now. So nothing could be coming up the stairs. Nothing could be on the landing. Nothing could be creaking along the corridor.

  ‘Hazel’s always been very kind,’ Monsieur Béliveau finally said, looking over at Hazel who’d all but disappeared.

  ‘You fell in love with him,’ said Gamache. ‘Didn’t you?’

  Hazel shook her head slightly.

  ‘Mom? Did you?’

  ‘I thought he was nice. I once thought maybe…’

  Hazel’s voice petered out.

  ‘Until Madeleine showed up,’ said Gamache. ‘She didn’t mean to, almost certainly had no idea how you felt about him, but she stole Monsieur Béliveau from you.’

  ‘He wasn’t mine to steal.’

  ‘We say that,’ said Gamache, ‘but saying and feeling are very different. You were two lonely people, you and Monsieur Béliveau. In many ways a much more natural match. But Madeleine was this magnificent, lovely, laughing magnet and Monsieur Béliveau was mesmerized. I don’t want to give the impression Madeleine was malicious or mean. She was just being herself. And it was hard not to fall in love with her. Am I right, Monsieur Sandon?’

  ‘Moi?’

  At the sound of his own name Sandon’s head jerked up.

  ‘You loved her too. Deeply. As deeply and totally as unrequited love can be. In many ways it’s the deepest because it’s never tested. She remained the ideal for you. The perfect woman. But then the perfect woman faltered. She fell in love with someone else. And worse. The one man you despise. Monsieur Béliveau. The bringer of death. The man who allowed a venerable old oak to die in agony.’

  ‘I could never kill Madeleine. I can’t even cut down a tree. Can’t step on a flower, can’t crush an earwig. I can’t take a life.’

  ‘But you can, Monsieur Sandon.’ Armand Gamache grew very silent and leaned forward again, staring at the huge lumberjack. ‘You said so yourself. Better to put something out of its misery than allow it to die a long and painful death. You were talking about the oak. But you were prepared to kill it. Put it out of its misery. If you knew Madeleine was dying, perhaps you’d do the same for her.’

  Sandon was speechless, his eyes wide, his mouth wide.

  ‘I loved her. I couldn’t kill her.’

  ‘Gilles,’ Odile whispered.

  ‘And she loved someone else.’ Gamache moved in closer, thrusting his words home. ‘She loved Monsieur Béliveau. Every day you saw it, every day it was in your face, undeniable, even for you. She didn’t love you at all.’

  ‘How could she?’ He rose from his chair, his massive hands clenched like mallets. ‘You don’t know what it was like, to see her with him.’ He turned to look at meek Monsieur Béliveau. ‘I knew she couldn’t care for someone like me, but…’

  He faltered.

  ‘But if she couldn’t love you, she couldn’t love anyone?’ said Gamache softly. ‘It must have been horrible.’

  The lumberjack collapsed into his chair. They waited for the crack as the wood gave way, but instead it held him, as a mother might a hurt child.

  ‘But the stuff that killed her was in the Smyths’ medicine cabinet,’ said Odile wildly. ‘He couldn’t get it.’

  ‘You’re right. He didn’t have access to their home.’ Gamache turned to Odile. ‘I mentioned the lab report. It said the ephedra that killed Madeleine wasn’t from a recent batch. It was much more natural. I’d been a fool. Over and over people had told me and it never registered. Ephedra’s an herb. A plant. Used for centuries in Chinese medicines. Maybe Gilles didn’t need access to their home. Maybe you didn’t either. You know what I took from your store?’

  He stared at Odile, who stared back, frantic and frozen.

  ‘Ma Huang. An old Chinese herb. Also known as Mormon’s tea. And ephedra.’

  ‘I didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. He didn’t love her. She was a bitch, a horrible, horrible person. She tricked people into thinking she cared.’

  ‘You spoke to her, warned her, as you were walking here that night, didn’t you? You told her she could have anyone, but Gilles was the only man you ever wanted. You pleaded with her to stay away from him.’

  ‘She told me not to be so stupid. But I’m not stupid.’

  ‘By then it was too late. The ephedra was already in her.’ Gamache looked at the circle of staring faces. ‘You all had reason to kill her. You all had the opportunity to kill her. But there was one more necessary ingredient. What killed Madeleine Favreau was ephedra and a fright. Someone had to provide the fright.’

  All eyes turned to Jeanne Chauvet. Her own were hooded, sunken and dark.

  ‘You were all trying to get me to consider Jeanne a suspect. You told me you didn’t trust her, didn’t like her. Were frightened of her. I’d put it down to a kind of hysteria. The stranger among you. The witch. Who else would you want to be guilty?’

  Clara stared at him. Gamache had put it so simply, so clearly. Had they really thrown this mousy woman to the inquisition? Turned her in? Lit the pyre and warmed themselves by it like smug Puritans, confident the beast wasn’t one of them. No thought for the truth, no thought for the woman.

  ‘I’d all but dismissed her as being too obvious. But dinner last night changed my mind.’

  Clara thought she heard creaking again, as though the house had woken up, could sense a kill. Her heart thudded and the candle began flickering as though trembling itself. There was something about in the old Hadley house. Something had come to life. Gamache seemed to sense it too. He cocked his head to one side, a puzzled look on his face. Listening.

  ‘Ruth Zardo was talking about the burning times and called you Joan of Arc,’ he said to Jeanne. ‘And I remembered that Jeanne is French for Joan. Joan of Arc becomes Jeanne d’Arc. A woman burned for hearing voices and seeing visions. A witch.’

  ‘A saint,’ corrected Jeanne, her voice detached, far away.

  ‘If you prefer,’ said Gamache. ‘That first séance you thought was a joke, but the next one you took seriously. You made sure it was as atmospheric, as frightening, as possible.’

  ‘I’m not responsible for other people’s fears.’

  ‘You think not? If you jump out of the dark and say boo, you can’t blame the person for being frightened. And that’s what you did. Deliberately.’

  ‘No one forced Mad to come that night,’ said Jeanne, then stopped.

  ‘Mad,’ said Gamache quietly. ‘A nickname. Used by people who knew her well, not by someone who’d only just met her. You knew her, didn’t you?’

  Jeanne was silent.

  Gamache nodded. ‘You knew her. I’ll come back to that in a moment. The final element for murder was the séance. But no one here was going to lead one, and who’d expect a psychic to show up for Easter? It seemed far too fortuitous to be chance. And it wasn’t. Did you send this?’

  Gamache handed Gabri the brochure for the B. & B.

  ‘I’ve never sent these out,’ said Gabri, barely looking at the brochure. ‘Only made them to satisfy Olivier who said we weren’t doing enough advertising.’

  ‘You’ve never mailed any out?’ Gamache persisted.

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘You’re a B. & B.,’ suggested Myrna. ‘A business.’

  ‘That’s just what Olivier says, but we get enough people. Why would I want more work?’

  ‘Being Gabri is work enough,’ agreed Clara.

  ‘It’s exhausting,’ said Gabri.

  ‘So you didn’t write that across the top of the brochure.’ Gamache pointed to the glossy paper in Gabri’s large hand. Leaning into the candlelight Gabri strained to see.

  ‘Where lay lines meet – Easter Special,’ he read, guffawing. ‘As if. Is that what you meant when you said I wouldn’t get laid?’ he asked Jeanne, shifting his croissant.

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said ley lines don’t meet here.’

  ‘I thought you said they don’t work here,’ said Gabri, relieved. ‘But I never wrote that.’ He handed the brochure back to Gamache. ‘Don’t even know what it means.’

  ‘You didn’t type those words and you didn’t send it. So who did?’ It was clear he wasn’t expecting an answer. He was talking to himself. ‘Someone who wanted to lure Jeanne to Three Pines. Someone who knew her well enough to know talk of ley lines would pique her interest. But someone who doesn’t themselves know enough about ley lines to spell it correctly.’

  ‘I’d have to say that means all of us,’ said Clara. ‘Except one.’ She looked at Jeanne.

  ‘You’re thinking I wrote it myself? So that it only looks as though someone tried to trick me into coming? And even misspelled the word? I’m not that clever.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Gamache.

  ‘That first séance, Gabri,’ said Clara, ‘you put up posters saying Madame Blavatsky would be contacting the dead. You lied about her name –’

  ‘Artistic license,’ explained Gabri.

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