Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  Beauvoir turned and walked slowly down the road, further into the woods.

  ‘What?’ Lacoste called after him. But Beauvoir was silent. He brought his hands behind his back and held them, walking slowly and thinking it through.

  Should he tell Lacoste everything? How would Gamache feel about that? Did it matter? The chief wasn’t always right.

  Beauvoir stopped and looked behind him to Isabelle Lacoste standing firmly in the middle of the road. He gestured her to him and as she approached he said, ‘Tell me what you know.’

  The simple phrase surprised him. It was what Gamache always said to him.

  ‘I know Pierre Arnot was a superintendent in the Sûreté.’

  ‘He was the senior superintendent. He’d come up through narcotics and into serious crime.’

  ‘Something happened to him,’ said Lacoste. ‘He became hardened, cynical. Happens a lot, I know. But with Arnot there was something else.’

  ‘You want the inside story?’

  Lacoste nodded.

  ‘Arnot was charismatic. People liked him, loved him even. I met the man a few times and felt the same way. He was tall, rugged. Looked like he could take down a bear with his hands. And smart. Whip smart.’

  ‘What every man wants to see in the mirror.’

  ‘Exactly. And he made the agents under him feel powerful and special. Very potent.’

  ‘Were you drawn to him?’

  ‘I applied to his division but was turned down.’ It was the first time he’d told anyone that, except Gamache. ‘I was working in the Trois-Rivières detachment at the time. Anyway, as you’ve probably heard, Arnot commanded a near mythic loyalty among his people.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘He was a bully. Demanded absolute conformity. Eventually the really good agents dropped out of his division. Leaving him with the dregs.’

  ‘Bullies themselves or agents too scared to stand up to a bully,’ said Lacoste.

  ‘Thought you said you didn’t know the inside story.’

  ‘I don’t, but I know school yards. Same everywhere.’

  ‘This was no school yard. It started quietly at first. Violence on native reserves unchecked. Murders unreported. Arnot had decided if the natives wanted to kill themselves and each other then it should be considered an internal issue and not interfered with.’

  ‘But it was his jurisdiction,’ said Lacoste.

  ‘That’s right. He ordered his officers on the reserves to do nothing.’

  Isabelle Lacoste knew what that meant. Kids and sniff. Glue and gasoline-soaked rags inhaled until their young brains froze. Numb to the violence, abuse, despair. They didn’t care any more. About anything, or anyone. Boys shot each other and themselves. Girls were raped and beaten to death. Perhaps calling the Sûreté post desperate for help and getting no answer. And the officers, almost always a kid on his or her first assignment, were they staring at the phone with a smile knowing they’d satisfied their boss? One less savage. Or were they scared to death themselves? Knowing that more than a young native was being killed. They too were dying.

  ‘What happened then?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Everything creaks when you’re afraid. Armand Gamache remembered the words of Erasmus and wondered whether the creak he’d just heard was real or just his fear. He swung his flashlight to the stairs behind him. Nothing.

  He could see the floor was dirt, hardpacked from years of weight. It smelled of spiders and wood rot and mold. It smelled of all the crypts he’d ever been in, exhuming bodies of people taken before their time.

  What lay buried down here? He knew something was. He could feel it. The house seemed to claw at him, to cloy and smother, as though it had a secret, something wicked and malicious and cruel it was dying to say.

  There it was again. A creak.

  Gamache spun around and the puny circle of light from his flashlight threw itself against the rough stone walls, the beams and posts, the open wooden doors.

  His cell phone began vibrating.

  Taking it out he recognized the number.

  ‘Allô.’

  ‘C’est moi,’ said Reine-Marie, smiling at her colleague and walking into one of the aisles of books at the Bibliothèque Nationale. ‘I’m at work. Where are you?’

  ‘The old Hadley house.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘Hope so.’ He laughed. ‘Armand, did you see the newspaper?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. But we’ve known it was coming. It’s almost a relief.’

  Armand Gamache was never more glad he’d married this woman, who made his battles theirs. She stood steadfast beside him, even when he tried to step in front. Especially then.

  ‘I’ve tried to get Daniel but there’s been no answer. Left a message though.’

  Gamache had never questioned Reine-Marie’s judgment. It made for a very relaxing relationship. But he wasn’t sure why she’d call their son in Paris about some scurrilous article.

  ‘Annie called just now. She saw it too and said to pass on her love. She also said if there’s anyone you’d like her to kill, she’ll do it.’

  ‘How sweet.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’ she asked.

  ‘Franchement, I thought I’d ignore it. Not give it any legitimacy.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I wonder if maybe you should speak to Michel.’

  ‘Brébeuf? Why?’

  ‘Well, after the first one, I felt the same way, but I wonder whether it’s gone too far.’

  ‘The first? What do you mean?’ His flashlight flickered. He jostled it and the light burned bright again.

  ‘Tonight’s paper. The early edition of Le Journal de Nous. Armand, haven’t you seen it?’

  His flashlight flickered off, then after a long moment came back on, but the light was dim and frail. Once again he heard the creak. This time behind him. He spun round and pointed the dull light toward the stairway, but it was empty.

  ‘Armand?’

  ‘I’m here. Tell me what the paper says, please.’

  As he listened the sorrow of the old Hadley house closed in. It crept toward him and ate the last of his light, until finally he was standing in the bowels of the old Hadley house in complete darkness.

  ‘Natives killing each other wasn’t enough for Arnot,’ said Beauvoir. He and Lacoste walked side by side through the late afternoon sun as it dappled the dirt road at their feet. ‘Arnot ordered his two top officers into the reserves to stir up trouble. Agents provocateurs.’

  ‘And then?’ It was almost unbearable, but she had to know. She listened to the terrible words as they walked through the tranquil forest.

  ‘And then Pierre Arnot ordered his officers to kill.’

  Beauvoir found it hard to say. He stopped and looked into the forest, and after a moment or two the roar between his ears settled and he could make out the singing again. A robin? A blue jay? A pine? Was that what made Three Pines remarkable? Did the three giant trees on the village green sometimes sing together? Was Gilles Sandon right?

  ‘How many died?’

  ‘Arnot’s men never kept track. There’s a team from the Sûreté still trying to find all the remains. The murderers killed so many they couldn’t remember where they put all the bodies.’

  ‘How did they get away with it? Didn’t the families complain?’

  ‘To whom?’

  Lacoste dropped her head and looked at the ground between her feet. The betrayal was complete.

  ‘The Sûreté,’ she said, in a small voice.

  ‘One mother from the Cree nation kept trying. For three months she held bake sales and sold hats and mitts she’d knitted and finally raised enough money for a plane ticket. One way. To Quebec City. She’d made a sign and went to the provincial government to protest. She spent all day in front of the National Assembly but no one stopped. No one paid attention. Eventually some men kicked her off the property, but she went back. Every day for a m
onth she’d show up, sleeping on a park bench every night. And every day she was told to leave.’

  ‘The National Assembly? But they can’t do that. That’s public property.’

  ‘She wasn’t at the National Assembly. She thought she was, but she was actually picketing in front of the Château Frontenac Hôtel. No one told her. No one helped her. All they did was laugh.’

  Lacoste knew Quebec City well, and could see the turreted, majestic hotel rising from the cliffs overlooking the St Lawrence river. She could see how someone unfamiliar with the city could make that mistake, but surely there was a sign. Surely she’d ask directions. Unless.

  ‘She spoke no French?’

  ‘And no English. Only Cree,’ Beauvoir confirmed. In the silence Lacoste saw the formidable hotel, and Beauvoir saw the tiny, etched old woman with the shining eyes. A mother desperate to know what happened to her son, without the words to ask.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Lacoste.

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ asked Beauvoir. They’d stopped again and Beauvoir was looking at Lacoste, her face troubled. Then her expression cleared.

  ‘Chief Inspector Gamache found her.’

  ‘He was staying at the Château Frontenac,’ said Beauvoir. ‘He’d seen the woman when he’d gone out in the morning, and noticed she was still there when he returned. He spoke to her.’

  Isabelle Lacoste could see the whole scene. The chief, solid and courtly, approaching the solitary native woman. Lacoste could see the fear in her dark eyes as yet another official approached and wanted to move her along, out of sight of decent people. And she wouldn’t understand Chief Inspector Gamache. He’d try French then English and she’d just stare up at him, wizened and worried. But one thing she would understand. He was kind.

  ‘Her placard was in Cree, of course,’ Beauvoir continued. ‘The chief left her and brought back tea and sandwiches and an interpreter from the Aboriginal Center. It was early fall and they sat on the side of the fountain in front of the hotel. You know it?’

  ‘In the park? Under the old maple trees? I know it well. I sit there too whenever I visit Vieux Québec. The street performers are just down the hill in front of the cafés.’

  ‘They sat there,’ Beauvoir nodded, ‘drinking tea and eating sandwiches. The chief said the elderly woman said a little prayer before eating, blessing their food. She was obviously starving, but she paused for prayer.’

  Beauvoir and Lacoste were no longer looking at each other. They were facing each other on the dirt road, in the sunshine, but staring in opposite directions. Off into the woods, each in their own thoughts, playing out in their heads the scene in Old Quebec.

  ‘She told him her son was missing. She told him he wasn’t the only one. She told him about her village on the shores of James Bay, which until a year earlier had been dry. No alcohol, by decision of the band council. But the chief had been killed, the elders intimidated, the council of women disbanded. And then the alcohol had arrived, flown in by float plane. Within months their peaceful village was in ruins. But that wasn’t the worst.’

  ‘She told him about the murders,’ said Lacoste. ‘Did he believe her?’

  Beauvoir nodded. Not for the first time he wondered what he’d do in the same situation. And not for the first time the ugly little answer came. He’d have been one of the ones snickering at her. And assuming he’d had the decency to approach, would he have believed her tale of intimidation and betrayal and murder?

  Probably not. Or worse, he might have, but would have turned his back on her anyway. Pretended he hadn’t heard. Hadn’t understood.

  He hoped that was no longer true, but he didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that the elderly Cree woman’s luck had turned.

  At first Gamache had told no one about this encounter, not even Beauvoir.

  He’d spent weeks flying from reserve to reserve across Northern Quebec. The snow was beginning to fall by the time he had his answers.

  From the moment he’d looked into her eyes, sitting in that park in Old Quebec, he’d believed her. He was sickened and appalled, but he was in no doubt she was telling the truth.

  Policemen had done this. She’d watched as these men had led the boys into the woods. The men had returned but the boys hadn’t. Her son, Michael, was one of them. Named for the Archangel, he’d fallen in the woods and she’d searched and searched but couldn’t find him.

  Instead she’d found Armand Gamache.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Gamache stood stock-still. His eyes had adjusted and his ears were attuned.

  The creaking increased and grew closer. He tried not to think about what Reine-Marie had just told him, but to focus on the sound which seemed to be all around him.

  Finally, something slightly darker appeared from behind one of the basement doors. The black toe of a black shoe. Then a leg swung slowly into view. He saw with complete clarity the leg, the hand, the gun.

  Gamache didn’t move. He stood in the very middle of the room and waited.

  Now they were facing each other.

  ‘Agent Lemieux,’ said Gamache softly. He’d known as soon as he’d seen the revolver. But that hadn’t eased the danger. He knew once a gun was drawn the gunman was committed to a course of action. A sudden fright could make him jerk his hand.

  But Agent Lemieux’s hand wavered not at all. He stood square in the rectangle of the room, the gun at waist level, pointing at the Chief Inspector.

  Then, slowly, the muzzle lowered.

  ‘Is that you, sir? You gave me a fright.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me calling?’

  ‘Was that you? I couldn’t make out the words. It just sounded like a moan. I think this house is getting to me.’

  ‘Do you have a flashlight? Mine’s gone out,’ said Gamache, walking toward Lemieux.

  A beam of light appeared at Gamache’s feet.

  ‘Is your gun in your holster now?’

  ‘Yes sir. Wait until people hear I drew on you.’ Lemieux gave a strained little laugh. Gamache didn’t. Instead he continued to stare at Lemieux. Then he finally spoke, his voice stern.

  ‘What you just did is grounds for dismissal. You must never, ever draw your gun unless you’re going to use it. You know that and yet you chose to ignore your training. Why?’

  Lemieux had intended to spy on Gamache. But the chief’s hearing was too good. Surprise was lost, but something else might be gained. Since Gamache was rattled by the house, why not rattle him a little more? He wondered how Brébeuf would react if he got rid of the Gamache problem by giving him a fatal heart attack. He’d tossed small stones and seen Gamache spin round. He’d moved a piece of rope so that something appeared to slither, and seen Gamache step back. And finally, he’d drawn his gun.

  But Gamache had called his name, almost as though he’d known it was him. And the advantage had been lost. Worse than that, Chief Inspector Gamache seemed to have expanded. He stood absolutely unwavering in front of Lemieux, radiating not rage nor even fear, but power. Authority.

  ‘I asked you a question, Agent Lemieux. Why did you draw your gun?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lemieux stammered, falling back on the time-tested recipe of contrition and confession. ‘I got scared, being here all alone.’

  ‘You knew I was here.’

  Gamache wasn’t crumbling before this wretched display.

  ‘And I was looking for you, sir. I heard something. Voices, and I knew you wouldn’t be talking to anyone so I thought maybe there was someone else. Maybe the person who broke the police tape. Maybe you needed help. But,’ Lemieux hung his head and shook it, ‘there’s no excuse. I could have killed you. Do you want my gun?’

  ‘I want the truth. Don’t lie to me, son.’

  ‘I’m not lying, sir, really. I know it sounds pathetic, but I just got scared.’

  And still Gamache was silent. Was this not going to work, Lemieux wondered?

  ‘Oh, God. I’m a total screw-up. First the ephedra thing and now this.’

&n
bsp; ‘It was a mistake,’ said Gamache, his voice still hard but not as hard as before.

  He’d won. What had Brébeuf said? ‘Everyone loves a sinner, but none more than Gamache. He believes he can save the drowning. Your job is to drown.’

  And so he had. He’d purposely left the ephedra clue up on Gabri’s computer, to be caught and forgiven, and now he’d been caught again. Drawing his gun had been stupid, but he’d managed to turn a mistake into an advantage. And Gamache, pathetic, weak Gamache, was actually forgiving him for drawing his gun. That was Gamache’s drug of choice, his weakness. He loved to forgive.

  ‘Did you find anything, sir?’

  ‘Nothing. This house isn’t ready to give up its secrets.’

  ‘Secrets? The house has secrets?’

  ‘Houses are like people, Agent Lemieux. They have secrets. I’ll tell you something I’ve learned.’

  Armand Gamache dropped his voice so that Agent Lemieux had to strain to hear.

  ‘Do you know what makes us sick, Agent Lemieux?’

  Lemieux shook his head. Then out of the darkness and stillness he heard the answer.

  ‘It’s our secrets that make us sick.’

  Behind him, a small creak broke the silence.

  THIRTY

  ‘What happened then?’ asked Lacoste. They were on their way back to the Incident Room. Once out of the canopy of trees they could see the storm cloud rising. It now blocked a quarter of the sky. Its progress was slow, but determined.

  ‘Pardon?’ Beauvoir asked, distracted by the sight of the cloud.

  ‘The Chief Inspector? He had the evidence against Arnot and the others, what’d he do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You must know. He told you all the other stuff. The story about the Cree woman never came out in court.’

  ‘No. They decided to keep that quiet, in case she became a target. You can’t tell anyone.’

  Lacoste was about to protest that anyone who might care was locked up, but then she remembered the morning’s newspaper article. Someone still cared.

  ‘I won’t.’