Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  It was a baby robin. A symbol of spring, of rebirth. Dead.

  Had it too been scared to death? Gamache suspected it had. Did everything that entered this room die?

  Armand Gamache stepped in.

  Yvette Nichol began wandering around the kitchen. She couldn’t stand the talking any more. On and on the woman went. At first Hazel had sat with her at the Formica table but eventually she got up to check the cookies and put the cool ones into a cookie tin.

  ‘For Madame Bremmer.’ As though Nichol cared. While Hazel talked and worked Nichol wandered the room, looking at the cookbooks, the collection of blue and white dishes. She moved to the photo-laden fridge, covered with pictures, mainly of two women. Hazel and another. Madeleine, Nichol decided, though the smiling, attractive woman and the shrieking thing in the morgue looked not at all alike. Picture after picture. In front of the Christmas tree, at a lake, cross-country skiing, gardening in the summer, hiking. In each one Madeleine Favreau was smiling.

  Yvette Nichol knew something then, something she knew no one else would see. Madeleine Favreau was a fake, a fiction, an act. Because Nichol knew no one could possibly be that happy.

  She stared at one showing a birthday celebration. Hazel Smyth was fixated on something outside the frame and wearing a funny baby blue hat with sparklers; Madeleine Favreau was in profile, listening, her head resting on one hand. She was looking at Hazel with unmasked adoration. A fat young woman sat beside Madeleine, stuffing cake into her face.

  Nichol’s cell phone vibrated and thrusting the photograph into her pocket she walked into the stuffed living room, kicking a sofa leg as she went.

  ‘Merde. Oui, allô?’

  ‘Did you just swear at me?’

  ‘No.’ She reacted rapidly, habitually, to the rebuke.

  ‘Can you talk?’

  ‘A little. We’re at a suspect’s house.’

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’

  ‘Slowly. You know Gamache. He plods along.’

  ‘But you’re back with him now. That’s good. Don’t lose track of him. There’s too much at stake.’

  Nichol hated these calls, hated herself for answering the phone. Hated even more the excitement she felt when the phone rang. And then the inevitable letdown. Treated like a child yet again. There was no way she could admit she was really with Beauvoir. She was supposed to be with the Chief Inspector then at the last minute the two had gone into the tiny office off the Incident Room and when they’d come out Beauvoir had stridden to the door calling for her to join him.

  And so she found herself alone in the oppressive living room. It felt like the homes of so many aunts and uncles, stuffed with belongings. From the Old Country, they’d said, but who could smuggle a matching living room/dining room set out of Romania or Poland or Czechoslovakia? Where would you hide the plush pink carpets and heavy curtains and garish pictures as you stole across the border? But somehow their infinitesimal homes were crammed full of things that had become family heirlooms. Chairs and tables and sofas were scattered about like litter, dropped on the floor as another person might drop a Kleenex. Each time Nichol visited her aunts and uncles more heirlooms had appeared until there seemed little room for people. And perhaps that was the point.

  She had the same impression here. Things. Too many things. But one thing caught her eye. A yearbook, sitting on the sofa. Open.

  A shriek tore through the stillness of the room. Lacoste froze. Beside her Chief Inspector Gamache turned to face whatever caused it.

  ‘Sorry.’ Lemieux stood sheepishly at the door with a length of yellow tape in his hand, after ripping it from the wood. ‘I’ll try to do it more quietly.’

  Isabelle Lacoste shook her head and could feel her heart subsiding to its normal beat.

  ‘Has the room changed?’ Gamache asked her.

  Lacoste looked around. ‘Looks the same to me, patron.’

  ‘Someone broke in. I can’t imagine they came into this place without a purpose. But what was it?’

  Armand Gamache looked slowly around the room, now familiar though far from comfortable. Was anything missing? Why would someone break the police tape to get in? To take something? Or to replace something?

  Was there another reason?

  The only thing obviously different about the room was the bird. Had it been killed on purpose? Was this a ritual sacrifice? But why a little bird? Weren’t sacrifices larger? Cattle or dogs or cats? He realized he was just making that up. He actually had no idea about sacrifices. The whole thing seemed macabre.

  He knelt down, his feet crunching the coarse salt on the carpet as he tilted his head to get a better look at the bird.

  ‘Should I bag it?’ Lacoste asked.

  ‘Eventually, yes. Do you have any thoughts?’

  Gamache knew Lacoste had been there that morning not to check on the scene, but to do her own private ritual.

  ‘The bird looks terrified, but that might be just my imagination.’

  ‘We have a bird feeder on our balcony,’ said Gamache, straightening up. ‘We have our morning coffee out there in good weather. Every bird who comes to it looks terrified.’

  ‘Well, you and Madame Gamache are very frightening people,’ said Lacoste.

  ‘I know she is.’ He smiled. ‘Petrifies me.’

  ‘Poor man.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we can read too much into the facial expression of the dead bird,’ said Gamache.

  ‘Good thing we still have tea leaves and entrails,’ said Lacoste.

  ‘That’s what Madame Gamache always says.’

  His smile faded as he looked down at the bird curled at his feet, a dark stain on the white salt, its eye staring black, blank. He wondered what it had last seen.

  Hazel Smyth closed the yearbook and smoothed its faux leather cover, hugging it to her chest, as though that might staunch the wound, stop whatever it was that was flowing out of her. Hazel could feel it. Could feel herself weakening. The solid, angular book bit into her soft breasts as she pressed harder and harder, no longer hugging but gripping it now, thrusting the yearbook with all their young dreams deeper and deeper into her chest. Relieved by the physical pain, she wished the edges sharper so they’d actually cut instead of simply bruise. This was pain she could understand. The other was terrifying. It was black and empty and hollow and stretched on forever.

  How long could she live without Madeleine?

  The full horror of her loss was just coming into view.

  With Mad she’d found a life full of kindness and thoughtfulness. She was a different person with Mad. Carefree, relaxed, lighthearted. She actually voiced her opinions. Actually had opinions. And Madeleine had listened. Hadn’t always agreed, but had always listened. From the outside theirs must have been an unremarkable, even dull life. But from the inside it was a kaleidoscope.

  And slowly Hazel had fallen in love with Madeleine. Not in a physical way. She had no desire to sleep with Mad, or even kiss her. Though sometimes when Mad sat on the sofa at night with her book and Hazel was in her wing chair with her knitting, Hazel could see herself getting up, walking to the sofa and putting Madeleine’s head on her breast. Just where the yearbook was now. Hazel stroked the book and imagined the lovely head lying there instead.

  ‘Madame Smyth.’ Inspector Beauvoir interrupted Hazel’s daydream. The head on her chest became cold and hard. Became a book. And home became cold and empty. Once again Hazel lost Madeleine. ‘May I see the book?’

  Beauvoir held out his hand tentatively.

  Agent Nichol had found the yearbook sitting open in the living room and had brought it into the kitchen with her, not expecting Hazel’s reaction. It was a reaction no one could have expected.

  ‘That’s mine. Give it to me,’ Hazel had growled, approaching Nichol with such venom the young agent handed it over without hesitation. Hazel took it and sitting down she hugged it to her. For the first time since they’d arrived the room was silent.

  ‘May I
?’ Beauvoir reached for it. Hazel seemed not to understand. She looked as though he wanted her to detach her arm. Finally she let go of the book.

  ‘It’s from our graduating year.’ Hazel leaned across him and flipped the pages to the graduation pictures. ‘Here’s Madeleine.’

  She pointed to a smiling, happy girl. Below her picture was typed, Madeleine Gagnon. Most likely to end up in Tanguay.

  ‘It was a joke,’ said Hazel. Tanguay was the women’s prison in Quebec. ‘Everyone knew Mad would be a success. They were poking fun at her.’

  Jean Guy Beauvoir was willing to accept that Hazel believed it, but he knew most jokes had some basis in truth. Did some of Madeleine’s high school friends see something else in her?

  ‘Do you mind if we take this with us? You’ll get it back.’

  Hazel very obviously minded, but shook her head.

  The book reminded Beauvoir of something else. Something Gamache had asked him to ask Hazel.

  ‘What do you know about Sarah Binks?’

  He could see by Hazel’s face the question sounded like nonsense. Blahdity-blah, blah-binks.

  ‘The Chief Inspector found a book called Sarah Binks in Madeleine’s bedside drawer.’

  ‘Really? That’s odd. No, I’ve never heard of it before. Was it a—’

  ‘A dirty book? I don’t think so. The Chief Inspector’s been reading it and laughing.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help.’ It was said politely but Beauvoir could see something else at work. Hazel was disconcerted. By the book or the fact her best friend had kept something secret?

  ‘You’ve told us about the night Madeleine died, but there was another séance, a few days earlier.’

  ‘On Friday night at the bistro. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘But Madame Favreau was. Why?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you this before? With the Chief Inspector?’

  It was all a bit of a blur to Hazel.

  ‘You did, but sometimes people’s minds are a little cloudy when we first talk to them. It’s good to hear the story again.’

  Hazel wondered if that was true. Her mind, far from clearing, was becoming more and more befuddled.

  ‘I don’t really know why Mad went. Gabri had put up a notice in the church and the bistro telling everyone that the great psychic Madame Blavatsky was staying at his place and had agreed to bring back the dead. For one night only.’ Hazel smiled. ‘I don’t think anyone took it seriously, Inspector. Certainly not Madeleine. I think it was just a fun evening. Something different.’

  ‘But you didn’t approve?’

  ‘I think there’re some things best not toyed with. At best it would be a waste of time.’

  ‘And at worst?’

  Hazel didn’t answer right away. Instead her eyes flitted around the kitchen as though seeking some place safe to land. But finding nothing she returned to his face.

  ‘It was Good Friday, Inspector. Le Vendredi saint.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Think about it. Why is Easter the most important Christian holy day?’

  ‘Because that’s when Christ was crucified.’

  ‘No. Because that’s when Christ rose.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  As Lacoste snapped pictures in the bedroom of the old Hadley house and Lemieux bagged the tape Gamache opened and closed drawers in the cabinets, bedside table and vanity. Then he walked over to the bookcase.

  What had someone wanted in here so much they’d been desperate enough to break the Sûreté cordon?

  Gamache smiled as he saw Parkman’s Works, that odious history of Canada, taught in schoolhouses more than a century ago to kids willing to believe natives were shifty savages and Europeans actually brought civilization to these shores.

  Gamache opened one of the volumes at random.

  In the form of beasts or other shapes abominable and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at the branches of the sylvan dwelling.

  Gamache closed the book and looked again at the cover, astonished. Was this really Parkman’s Works? Parched and dry and guaranteed to kill of ennui? The brood of hell? It was Parkman’s Works, he confirmed. And the section he’d opened was about Quebec.

  ‘Agent Lacoste, could you come here?’

  When she did he handed her the book. ‘Could you open it, please?’

  ‘Just open it?’

  ‘S’il vous plaît.’

  Isabelle Lacoste held the cracked leather volume between her hands then slowly splayed the cover. The frail pages fanned then after a stunned moment they fell, until the book was open. Gamache leaned over and read, In the form of beasts or other shapes abominable and unutterably hideous …

  The book opened itself to that page.

  Gamache stared then finally replaced it on the bookcase and took down the one next to it. A Bible. He wondered if it was coincidence, or whether the hand that placed the books together knew the one needed the other. But which needed which? He glanced at the Bible and slipped it into his pocket. He knew what he still needed to do, and every little bit helped. The dark slit in the bookcase, where the Bible had sat, revealed the cover of the next book. A book that was blank on its spine.

  Lacoste was back at work and didn’t see Gamache slip the second book into his pocket too. But Lemieux did.

  Gamache knew he was wasting time. The sun would soon set and he sure didn’t want to do it in the twilight.

  ‘I’m going to search the house. Are you all right here?’

  Lacoste and Lemieux looked at him as his children Daniel and Annie had when he’d told them it was time they tried to swim across the bay without life jackets.

  ‘You’re strong enough swimmers.’

  But still they couldn’t believe he’d ask this of them.

  ‘And I’ll be right beside you in the rowboat.’

  He could still see the hesitation in Daniel’s eyes. But Annie dived right in. There was no way Daniel was going to be left behind so in he went too.

  Daniel, sturdy and athletic, had swum the bay easily. Annie had barely made it. She was small and scrawny, as Reine-Marie had been at her age. But unlike Daniel, she lost no energy to fear. Still, she was so young and the bay so wide, she’d barely made it, sputtering the last few meters, her father encouraging her and practically dragging her to shore with his words, like ropes attached to the beloved little body. Twice he’d almost reached in and plucked her from the waters, but had waited and she’d found the strength to carry on.

  Sun-warmed towels were wrapped around small excited bodies and Armand Gamache, holding and rubbing his children in his big, strong arms, had wondered if he’d made a mistake, having Annie try at the same time as Daniel. Not because Annie almost didn’t make it, but because she had. In his arms he could feel Daniel pull away at first, then finally subside and agree to be held and comforted and congratulated.

  Daniel, for all his bulk and strength, was the fragile one. The needy one. And still was.

  Looking at Lacoste and Lemieux he had the same impression. But which was strong and which was needy? And did it matter? As with his children, he believed in them both.

  ‘Would you like some help?’ Lacoste asked, resolved to the terrible task, if he wished it.

  ‘You have enough to do, thank you. When you’re finished go back to the Incident Room. I’m hoping the coroner will have something.’

  Isabelle Lacoste watched him disappear into the darkness as though swallowed by the house.

  He was gone and she was alone. With Lemieux. She liked Robert Lemieux. He was young and enthusiastic. There was never any struggle for power with him. Unlike Nichol, he was a pleasure to work with. Nichol was a complete disaster. Smug, sullen, self-absorbed. What disturbed Lacoste was why Chief Inspector Gamache kept her around. He’d fired her once, but when Nichol had been reassigned to homicide he’d simply given in. Without a fight.

  And here she was again. Gamache could have assigned Nichol to cases in far-flung regions. He could have giv
en her administrative jobs at Sûreté headquarters. But instead he assigned her to the most difficult field cases. With him.

  Everything happens for a reason, Gamache said. Everything. And Lacoste knew there was a reason for this. She just wished she knew what it was.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ Lemieux asked.

  ‘Almost finished. You?’

  ‘A couple more things I need to do. Why don’t you head back?’

  ‘No, I’ll wait.’ Lacoste didn’t want to abandon Lemieux in this terrible place.

  Lemieux’s phone had been vibrating for five minutes now. All he wanted to do was answer it. Why wouldn’t she leave? ‘Why?’

  ‘Can’t you feel it?’

  He knew he should at least pretend to be uncomfortable but the truth was the old Hadley house did nothing to him. But he could see the others, even Gamache, perhaps especially Gamache, react to it.

  ‘It’s like there’s something here with us,’ said Lacoste. ‘As though something’s watching us.’

  They stood still, Lacoste hyper-vigilant, paying attention to every creak, every cranny, Lemieux riveted on the phone vibrating in his pocket.

  ‘Careful,’ he said. ‘You’ll scare yourself to death.’

  ‘The murderer chose well. This place would scare the devil himself.’

  ‘Look, you have a ton of work back at the Incident Room. I’m fine. Really.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked, desperate to believe it.

  Leave, he wanted to scream.

  ‘Really. I’m too stupid to be afraid.’ He smiled. ‘I don’t think the devil takes stupid people.’

  ‘I think he only takes stupid people,’ said Lacoste, and wished they weren’t standing in the old Hadley house talking about the devil. ‘Okay, I’ll see you later. You have your cell in case—’