Cruelest Month

‘You were here last night.’ It was a statement, not a question. He’d read the report and seen her name. In fact, she was the first on his list to question. He valued her opinion and her eye for detail, for things visible and those not. He knew he should consider her a suspect, along with everyone else at the séance, but the truth was he didn’t. He considered her a precious witness.

Clara wiped the sleeve of her cloth coat over her face and across her nose. Armand Gamache, seeing the results, brought a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She’d hoped the worst of the tears were over, but they seemed in full flood, like the Bella Bella. A run-off of grief.

Peter had been wonderful last night. Racing to the hospital, never once saying ‘I told you so’, though she’d said it often enough herself as she’d choked out the story to him.

Then driving Myrna, Gabri and her home. Offering rooms and comfort to a stricken, dumbfounded Hazel and a strangely relaxed Sophie. Was she numb with grief? Or was that giving Sophie the benefit of the doubt, as they’d always done?

The offer had been refused. Even now Clara couldn’t begin to imagine how awful it must have been for Hazel to return home, alone. With Sophie, certainly, but in reality alone.

‘Was she a friend?’ They turned and walked away from the house, toward the village.

‘Yes. She was a friend to everyone.’

Gamache, she noticed, was silent as he walked beside her, his hands clasped behind his back and his face thoughtful.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, then after a moment’s silence answered her own question. ‘You’re thinking she was murdered, aren’t you?’

They’d stopped again. Clara couldn’t walk and process this staggering thought at the same time. She could barely stand and carry it. She turned and stared at Gamache. Was she always this slow, she wondered? Of course he’d think that. Why else would the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec be there, unless Madeleine was murdered?

Gamache gestured to the bench on the village green.

‘Why all the picnic tables?’ he asked as they sat down.

‘We had an Easter egg hunt and picnic.’ Was it only yesterday?

Gamache nodded. They’d hidden eggs for Florence and then had to find them all again themselves. Next year she’d be able to do it, he thought.

‘Was Madeleine murdered?’ Clara asked.

‘We think so,’ he said. After a moment to allow her to absorb the information he asked, ‘Does that surprise you?’

‘Yes.’

‘No, wait. Please think about it. I know at first everyone’s surprised by murder. But I want you to really think about the question. If Madeleine Favreau was murdered, would it surprise you?’

Clara turned to Gamache. His deep brown eyes were thoughtful, his moustache was trim and graying, the hair under his cap groomed and curling slightly. His face was strong with laugh lines radiating from the corners of his eyes. He spoke to her in English, as a courtesy, she knew. His English was perfect and, strangely, he had a British accent. She’d been meaning each time they’d met to ask him about that.

‘Why do you speak with an English accent?’

His eyebrows rose and he turned a mildly surprised face to her.

‘Is that the answer to my question?’ he asked with a smile.

‘No, professor. But it’s something I’ve been meaning to ask and keep forgetting.’

‘I went to Cambridge. Christ’s College. Studied history.’

‘And honed your English.’

‘Learned my English.’

Now it was Clara’s turn to be surprised.

‘You didn’t speak English before arriving in Cambridge?’

‘Well, I could say two things.’

‘And those were…’

‘Fire on the Klingons, and My God, Admiral, it’s horrible.’

Clara snorted.

‘I watched American television when I could. Particularly two shows.’

‘Star Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,’ said Clara.

‘You’d be surprised how useless those phrases are in Cambridge. Though “My God, Admiral, it’s horrible” could be used in a pinch.’

Clara laughed and imagined young Gamache in Cambridge. Who goes across the world to a foreign country to go to university without knowing the language?

‘Well?’ Gamache’s face had turned serious.

‘Madeleine was lovely, in every sense. She was easy to like and I suspect easy to love. I could see loving her, had we had more time. I can’t believe someone killed her.’

‘Because of who she was, or because of who someone wasn’t?’

That was the question, thought Clara. Accepting murder meant accepting there was a murderer. Among them. Close. Someone in that room, almost certainly. One of those smiling, laughing, familiar faces hid thoughts so vile they had to kill.

‘How long has Madeleine lived here?’

‘Well, she actually lives outside the village, off that way.’ Clara pointed into the rolling hills. ‘With Hazel Smyth.’

‘Who was also there last night, with someone named Sophie Smyth.’

‘Her daughter. Madeleine came to live with them about five years ago. They’d known each other for years.’