Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  Superintendent Francoeur sat next to Gamache. As Gamache knew he would. It was, after all, Francoeur’s place, and Gamache had chosen the seat right next to him. He hadn’t come this far to hide. He was damned if he’d cower in a corner or behind Brébeuf.

  He’d taken the seat right next to the man who wanted him gone. Preferably right off the planet. Pierre Arnot’s best friend, confidant, protégé. Sylvain Francoeur.

  ‘I’m not here to fight old battles,’ said Gamache, ‘I’m here to ask that these attacks stop.’

  ‘And what makes you think we can stop them? The press has a right to print what it wants and I can’t imagine they’d actually print anything they haven’t thoroughly researched,’ said Superintendent Francoeur. ‘If they’ve done something wrong maybe you should sue them.’

  A few guffaws were heard. Brébeuf looked furious but Gamache smiled.

  ‘Perhaps I will, though I don’t think so. We all know they’re lies—’

  ‘How do we know that?’ Francoeur asked.

  ‘Voyons, what are the chances Armand Gamache would prostitute his daughter?’ demanded Brébeuf.

  ‘What were the chances Pierre Arnot was a killer?’ asked Francoeur. ‘But according to the Chief Inspector, he is.’

  ‘According to the courts, you mean,’ said Gamache equably, leaning in to Francoeur’s personal space. ‘But perhaps that’s a part of our system you’re not familiar with.’

  ‘How dare you?’

  ‘How dare you attack my family?’

  Both men stared at each other. Then Gamache blinked and Francoeur smiled, throwing himself back comfortably in his chair.

  Gamache looked steadily at Francoeur. ‘I’m sorry, Superintendent. That wasn’t called for.’

  Francoeur nodded as a knight might to a peasant.

  ‘I haven’t come here to fight with any of you. You’ve all read the papers, seen the television reports. And it’ll only get worse, I know. As I said before, they’re lies, but I don’t expect you to believe me or trust me. Not after what I did in the Arnot case. I crossed the Rubicon. There’s no going back.’

  ‘Then what do you expect, Chief Inspector?’ Superintendent Paget asked.

  ‘I’d like you to accept my resignation.’

  Those not already sitting up did so now. All chairs tipped forward, some so quickly they threatened to spill their distinguished contents onto the table. Now all eyes were on Gamache. It was as though Mont Royal had begun to subside, to sink into the earth. Something remarkable was about to disappear. Armand Gamache. Even those who loathed him recognized he’d become legend, had become a hero both inside and outside the Sûreté.

  But sometimes heroes fall.

  And they were witnesses to that now.

  ‘Why should we?’ asked Francoeur. All eyes swung to the Superintendent. ‘Wouldn’t that let you off the hook? It’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to run away just as you did from the Arnot decision. As soon as things get difficult that’s what you do.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Brébeuf.

  ‘You believe one of us is responsible for planting those stories in the paper, don’t you?’ Francoeur said, comfortable and in command, the natural, if not assigned, leader of the group.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Voilà. See what he thinks of us?’

  ‘Not all, only one.’ Gamache stared back at Francoeur.

  ‘How dare you—’

  ‘That’s the second time you’ve asked me that and I’m tired of it. I dare because someone has to.’ He looked around the room. ‘The Arnot case isn’t over, you all know that. Someone in this room is continuing his work. Not quite to the murder stage, but it won’t be long. I know it.’

  ‘Know it? Know it? How can you?’ Francoeur shot to his feet, leaning over Gamache now. ‘It’s ridiculous to even be listening to you. A waste of time. You don’t have thoughts, you have sentiments.’

  A few chuckles were heard.

  ‘I have both, Superintendent,’ said Gamache. Francoeur towered above him, one hand on the back of Gamache’s chair, the other on the table, as though to imprison the man.

  ‘You’re fucking arrogant,’ Francoeur yelled. ‘You’re the worst sort of officer. Full of yourself. You’ve created your own little army of underlings. People who’ll worship you. The rest of us choose the best of the police grads for the Sûreté, you deliberately choose the worst. You’re a dangerous man, Gamache. I’ve known it all along.’

  Gamache stood up too, slowly, forcing Francoeur to back away.

  ‘My team has solved almost every murder it’s investigated. They’re brilliant and dedicated and courageous. You set yourself up as judge and you toss out those who don’t conform. Fine. But don’t blame me for picking up your garbage and seeing value in it.’

  ‘Even Agent Nichol?’ Francoeur had lowered his voice and now the rest had to strain to hear the words, but not Gamache. They were loud and clear.

  ‘Even Agent Nichol,’ he said, staring into the cold, hard eyes.

  ‘You tossed her back once as I remember,’ said Francoeur, his voice almost a hiss. ‘Fired her and she landed in my division. Narcotics. She took to it.’

  ‘Then why send her back to me?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘What is it you like to say, Chief Inspector? There’s a reason for everything. Very deep. There’s a reason for everything, Gamache. Figure it out. Now I have a question for you.’ His voice lowered even further. ‘What was in that envelope you were passing so secretively to your son? Daniel’s his name, I believe. Daughter, Florence. Wife. Did I hear she’s pregnant?’

  Now no one else in the room could hear, the words were spoken so softly. Gamache had the strangest impression Francoeur hadn’t even spoken out loud, but had inserted them directly into his head. Sharp, stabbing, intended to wound and warn.

  He inhaled sharply and tried to contain himself, to not bring his fist up and smash the leering, smug, wretched face.

  ‘Do it, Gamache,’ hissed Francoeur. ‘To save your family, do it.’

  Was Francoeur inviting him to attack? So that he’d be arrested, imprisoned? Exposed to any ‘accident’ that might happen in the cells? Was that the price Francoeur was proposing for backing off his family?

  ‘Fucking coward.’ Francoeur smiled and stepped back, shaking his head. ‘I think the least Chief Inspector Gamache can do is explain himself,’ he said in a normal voice. The faces, strained and nervous, relaxed a little now that they could hear again. ‘I think before we can even consider acting on his behalf, or accepting his resignation, we need to know a few things. Like what was in the envelope he was passing to his son. Voyons, Chief Inspector, it’s a reasonable question.’

  Around the conference table there were nods of agreement. Gamache looked over at Brébeuf who cocked his brow as though to say it was a strangely benign request. They’d get off easy if this was all the council wanted.

  Gamache remained silent for a moment, thinking. Then he shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s private. I can’t tell you.’

  It was over, Gamache knew. He bent down and placed his papers in his satchel, then made for the door.

  ‘You’re a stupid man, Chief Inspector,’ Superintendent Francoeur called after him, smiling broadly. ‘You walk out of here now your life will be in ruins. The media will keep picking at you and your children until even the bones are gone. No careers, no friends, no privacy, no dignity. All because of your pride. What was it one of your favorite poets said? Yeats? Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.’

  Gamache stopped, turned and deliberately walked back. With each step he seemed to expand. The officers around the table, wide-eyed, leaned out of his way. He walked to Francoeur, whose smile had disappeared.

  ‘This center will hold.’ Gamache pronounced each word slowly and clearly, his voice strong and low and more menacing than anything Francoeur had ever heard. He tried to recover himself as Gamache turned and walked through the door, but it was too late
. Everyone in the room had seen fear on Francoeur’s face and more than one wondered whether they’d backed the wrong man.

  But it was too late.

  As Gamache strode down the corridor, men and women on each side smiling hello and nodding to him, his mind settled. Something Francoeur said had jogged something loose. Some piece of information had twisted in that instant and he’d seen it in a different way. But in the stress of the moment Gamache had lost it. Was it to do with Arnot? Or was it the case in Three Pines?

  ‘Well, that went well. For Francoeur,’ said Brébeuf, catching up with him as they waited for the elevator. Gamache said nothing, but stared at the numbers, trying to recall what had struck him as so significant. The elevator came and the two men stepped in, alone.

  ‘You could have told him what was in the envelope, you know,’ said Brébeuf. ‘It can’t possibly be that important. What was in it anyway?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Michel, what did you say?’ Gamache brought himself back to the present.

  ‘The envelope, Armand. What was in it?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’

  ‘For God’s sake, man, why not tell him?’

  ‘He didn’t say please.’ Gamache smiled.

  Brébeuf scowled. ‘Do you ever listen to yourself? All the advice you give others, does any of it penetrate your own thick skull? Why keep this secret? It’s our secrets that make us sick. Isn’t that what you always say?’

  ‘There’s a difference between secrecy and privacy.’

  ‘Semantics.’

  The elevator door opened and Brébeuf stepped out. The meeting had gone better than he’d dared dream. Gamache was almost certainly out of the Sûreté, but more than that, he was humiliated, ruined. Or soon would be.

  Inside the elevator Armand Gamache stood rooted like one of Gilles Sandon’s trees. And had Sandon been there he might have heard what no one else could, Armand Gamache screaming as though felled.

  Behold I show you a mystery.

  The haunting words of St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians swirled around Gamache’s head. The words had been prophetic. In the twinkling of an eye his world had changed. He could see clearly something that had been hidden. Something he never wanted to see.

  He’d stopped at the high school in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and just caught the secretary as she left for the day. Now he sat in the parking lot staring at the two things she’d given him. An alumni list and another yearbook. She’d wondered why in the world he needed so many, but Gamache had mumbled apologies and she’d relented. He thought she might assign him lines. I will not lose another yearbook.

  But it hadn’t been lost. It’d been stolen. By someone who’d been at school with Madeleine and Hazel. Someone who’d chosen to keep their identity secret. Now, looking at the alumni list and the yearbook, Gamache knew exactly who that was.

  Behold I show you a mystery. Ruth’s crumbling voice came to him as she’d read the magnificent passage. And hard on that another voice. Michel Brébeuf. Accusing, angry. It’s our secrets that make us sick.

  It was true, Gamache knew. Of all the things we keep inside the worst are the secrets. The things we are so ashamed of, so afraid of, we need to hide them even from ourselves. Secrets lead to delusion and delusion leads to lies, and lies create a wall.

  Our secrets make us sick because they separate us from other people. Keep us alone. Turn us into fearful, angry, bitter people. Turn us against others, and finally against ourselves.

  A murder almost always began with a secret. Murder was a secret spread over time.

  Gamache called Reine-Marie, Daniel and Annie, and finally he called Jean Guy Beauvoir.

  Then he started his car and turned it toward the country. As he drove the sun went down and by the time he arrived in Three Pines it was dark. In his headlights he saw the dirt road thick with bouncing frogs, trying to get across the road for a reason he knew would remain a mystery to him. He slowed right down and tried not to run over them. Up they jumped into his headlights as though joyfully greeting him. They looked exactly like the frogs on Olivier’s rather silly old plates. For a moment Gamache wondered whether he might buy a couple of them, to remind him of the spring and the dancing frogs. But then he knew he probably wouldn’t. He’d want nothing that would remind him of what happened today.

  ‘I’ve called everyone,’ said Beauvoir as soon as Gamache walked into the Incident Room. ‘They’ll be there. Are you sure you want to do it this way?’

  ‘I’m sure. I know who killed Madeleine Favreau, Jean Guy. It seems right that this case that started with a circle should come full circle. We meet at the old Hadley house at nine tonight. And we find a murderer.’

  FORTY-ONE

  Clara’s heart was in her throat, in her wrists, at her temples. Her whole body was throbbing with the pounding of her heart. She couldn’t believe they were back in the old Hadley house.

  In the darkness, except for the puny candlelight.

  When Inspector Beauvoir had called and told her what Gamache wanted she’d thought he must be kidding, or drunk. Certainly delusional.

  But he’d been serious. They were to meet at nine in the old Hadley house. In the room where Madeleine died.

  All evening she’d watched the clock creep forward. At first excruciatingly slowly, then it had seemed to race, the hands flying round the face. She’d been unable to eat and Peter had begged her not to go. And finally her terror had found purchase, and she’d agreed to stay behind. In their little cottage, by the fire, with a good book and a glass of Merlot.

  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?’