Cruelest Month

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.