Cruelest Month

Armand Gamache walked down the dim corridor. Something odd was happening to the old Hadley house. It was becoming familiar. He could move about without turning on his flashlight. But he stopped partway along.

Something very large was coming toward him.

Reaching into his coat he took out his flashlight and flicked the switch. There in front of him was a multi-headed creature.

‘We’ve come to rescue you,’ said Gabri, from behind Myrna. Jeanne was in the lead followed by Clara and the rest.

‘Onward pagan soldiers,’ said Jeanne with a relieved smile.

The candle was burning low. They took their seats, the same ones they’d always taken, as though this was an old and comfortable ritual, a rite of spring.

‘You were about to tell us who killed Madeleine,’ said Odile.

Gamache waited until everyone was settled then he spoke.

‘How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.’

He let the terrible words sink in.

‘Someone here had grown bitter looking at the joyous world Madeleine had created for herself. Do you know where that quote comes from?’

‘Shakespeare,’ said Jeanne. ‘As You Like It.’

Gamache nodded. ‘How’d you know?’

‘It was the school play our final year. You produced it.’ She turned to Hazel. ‘And Madeleine starred.’

‘Madeleine starred,’ repeated Gamache. ‘Always. Not because she tried but because she couldn’t help it.’

‘She was the sun,’ said Sandon, softly.

‘And someone flew too close,’ agreed Gamache. ‘Someone here is Icarus. Too close to the sun for too long. Finally the sun did what it always does. It sent this person plunging to the ground. But it took time. It took years. It actually took decades.

‘The murderer had created a fine life. Friends, a comfortable social life circle. It was a rich and happy time. But the ghosts of our past always find us. In this case the ghost wasn’t a person, but an emotion, long buried and even forgotten. But it was potent. Blinding, staggering, scorching jealousy.’ He turned to Jeanne. ‘If you thought it was hard being on Madeleine’s cheerleading squad, imagine being her best friend.’

All eyes turned to Hazel.

‘According to the yearbooks, you were a fine basketball player, Hazel, but Mad was better. She was the captain. Always the captain. You were on the debating team, but Mad was the captain.’

He picked up the yearbook and found their grad pictures.

‘She never got mad,’ he read the caption under young Hazel’s photograph, then closed the book. ‘Never got mad. I took that to mean you never got angry, but it meant something more, didn’t it?’

Hazel’s eyes were on her hands.

‘She never got Madeleine. Never caught up. And never understood. Never “got it”. Kept trying and kept failing, because you started seeing it as a competition and she never did. You were dogged by a best friend who was slightly better at everything. Once high school was out you broke away and the friendship faded. But years later, after a bout of breast cancer, Madeleine wanted to find old friends. By then you’d made a good life for yourself. A modest home in a lovely community. A daughter. Friends. A potential romance. You were involved in the ACW. But you’d learned something from high school. This afternoon at a meeting in Montreal a colleague said something to me. It was about…’ Gamache hesitated for a moment, ‘another case.’

Gamache heard the voice again, deep, commanding, authoritative. And accusing Gamache of only taking in the weak, the waste, the people no one else wanted. So that he’d always be better than them. To boost his own ego. He knew that wasn’t true. Not that he didn’t have an ego, but he knew that the people on his team were the best, not the worst. They’d proved it time and again.

But still Francoeur’s accusation had resonated. Driving back to Three Pines it clicked. It wasn’t the Arnot case. It was this case. It was Hazel.

‘You surround yourself with people who are wounded, handicapped in some way. Needy. You befriend people who are sick, or in bad marriages, alcoholics, the obese, the troubled. Because it makes you feel superior. You’re kind to them, in a condescending way. Did you ever hear Hazel refer to anyone other than “Poor” so-and-so?’

They looked at each other and shook their heads. It was true. Poor Sophie, Poor Mrs Blanchard, Poor Monsieur Béliveau.

‘The near enemy,’ said Myrna.