Cruelest Month

After a moment Reine-Marie asked, ‘How?’

‘I’ll resign if necessary. They win. I can’t endanger the family.’

‘I’m afraid they’ll no longer be satisfied with your resignation, Armand.’

He’d thought of that too.

Gamache called Michel Brébeuf and asked him to call a meeting of the senior Sûreté council for that afternoon.

‘Don’t be a fool, Armand,’ Brébeuf had said. ‘It’s what they want.’

‘I’m not a fool, Michel. I know what I’m doing.’

Both men hung up, Gamache grateful his friend would help, and Brébeuf knowing Gamache was indeed a fool.

The morning meeting was brief and tense.

Agent Lacoste reported on her conversation with Madeleine’s doctor. She’d had an appointment two weeks before she was killed. The doctor confirmed that Madeleine’s cancer had returned and spread to her liver. She’d told Madame Favreau. She’d arranged for palliative treatments, but those hadn’t started by the time she was killed.

She’d come to the appointment alone. And yes, the doctor had the impression that while the diagnosis was devastating it wasn’t a complete surprise.

Agent Nichol hadn’t returned from Kingston yet and there wasn’t a report from the lab on the contents of the ephedra bottle, though there was one on fingerprints. Sophie’s and only Sophie’s.

‘Well, that seems to cinch it,’ said Lemieux. ‘She killed Madeleine Favreau out of jealousy. Came home, saw the opportunity with the séance, slipped her a few pills over dinner, and waited for the Hadley house to do the rest.’

Everyone was nodding. Through the window of the old railway station Gamache could see Ruth and Gabri walking slowly across the Commons and onto the village green. It was early, with the first freshness of day still holding the village. Behind Ruth came a bouncy little ball, spreading its wings. Alone.

‘Sir?’

‘I’m sorry, I beg your pardon.’

Everyone stared at Gamache. This was the most unsettling thing to happen yet. In all the years Beauvoir had known him Gamache had never, ever looked away from a conversation or meeting. He held their eyes and made them feel they were the only people on earth. He made his team feel precious and protected.

But today his attention wandered.

‘What were you saying?’ Gamache asked, turning back to the group.

‘It seems clear Sophie Smyth is the murderer. Should we bring her in?’

‘You can’t.’

The voice came from behind them. There, next to the immense red fire engine, stood a very small woman. Hazel. Though barely recognizable. Grief had finally caught her. Now she looked shrunken, her eyes large and desperate.

‘Please. Please don’t.’

Gamache went to her, nodding to Beauvoir, and together they led Hazel into the tiny back room used for storage by the Three Pines volunteer fire department.

‘Do you know something, Hazel, that would help us?’ asked Gamache. ‘Something that would convince us your daughter didn’t kill Madeleine, because it certainly looks like it.’

‘She didn’t do it. I know that. She couldn’t have.’

‘Madeleine was given ephedra. Sophie had ephedra, and she was there.’ Gamache spoke very slowly and clearly though he doubted much of this was going in.

‘I can’t go on much longer,’ she whispered. ‘And I can’t lose Sophie too. If you arrest her I’ll die.’

Gamache believed it.

Jean Guy Beauvoir looked at Hazel. The exact same age as Madeleine though you’d never know it. She now seemed a fossil, something coughed up by the mountains around Three Pines. One of Gilles Sandon’s murmuring stones. No, not a stone. They were strong. This woman was more like what they’d been trying not to step on during their walk. And were about to crush now.

‘When the ephedra was found on Sophie you said, “Sophie, you promised,”’ said Beauvoir. ‘What did you mean?’

‘I said that?’ Hazel thought, trying to remember what she could possibly have meant. ‘Yes, I did. Madeleine had found a bottle of ephedra pills in Sophie’s bathroom a couple of years ago. It was just after one of the athletes had died and it was all over the news. Probably what gave Sophie the idea of using diet pills.’

It was like dragging a memory from the bottom of the sea, yanking it up with great effort.

‘She sent away for them from some internet company. Madeleine found the bottle and took it away.’

‘How did Sophie react?’

‘Like any nineteen-year-old. She was angry. Mostly angry she said about her privacy being violated, but I think she was mostly embarrassed.’

‘Did it affect their relationship?’ Gamache asked.

‘Sophie loved Madeleine. She could never kill her,’ said Hazel. She had one message left and she’d say it over and over. Her daughter was no killer.

‘We won’t talk to Sophie just yet,’ said Gamache. He reached out and lifted Hazel’s head so that she was looking him in the eyes. ‘Do you understand?’

Hazel looked into his deep brown eyes and willed him never to look away. But, of course, he did. And she was alone again.