Cruelest Month

As he watched Gamache and Beauvoir walk to their car Lemieux hit the speed dial on his cell phone.

‘Superintendent Brébeuf? It’s Agent Lemieux.’

‘Anything?’ the confident voice came down the line.

‘A couple of things I think might be helpful.’

‘Good. Any sign of Agent Nichol?’

‘Not yet. Should I ask?’

‘Don’t be a fool, of course you shouldn’t. Tell me everything.’

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Brébeuf clenched his jaw. He was not a patient man, though he’d waited this long to get Gamache. They’d grown up together, joined up together, risen through the ranks together. They’d both gone after the Superintendent’s job, Brébeuf remembered with satisfaction. It was the little gift he kept in the back of his mind and unwrapped in moments of stress. Now he did it again. Unfolding the layers of his smiling, nodding, forelocktugging manner toward his best friend. And then he reached the great and unexpected gift. He’d prevailed. He’d won the promotion over the great Armand Gamache. And it had been enough, for a while. Until the Arnot case. Quickly he replaced the wrapping and shoved the comforting thought to the back of his mind. He needed to focus, to be careful now.

‘You know, son, why we’re doing this.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Don’t be charmed by him, don’t be fooled. Most are. Superintendent Arnot was, and look what happened to him. You need to focus, Lemieux.’

When Lemieux had related the events of the day Brébeuf paused, thinking.

‘There’s something I want you to do. It’s a risk, but not, I think, a very big one.’ He gave Lemieux his instructions. ‘This will all be over soon,’ he said kindly, ‘and when it is, the officers with the courage to stand up for what they believe in will be rewarded. You’re a brave young man and, believe me, I know how difficult this is.’

‘Yes sir.’

Brébeuf hung up. As soon as this case was over he’d have to figure out what to do with Robert Lemieux. The young agent was really too impressionable.

Agent Lemieux hung up, a strange sensation in his chest. Not the tightening he’d had ever since Superintendent Brébeuf had appealed for his help, but a loosening, a euphoria.

Had Superintendent Brébeuf just offered him a promotion? Could he do what was best and benefit at the same time? How far up could he ride this? It might turn out all right after all.

Hazel Smyth was waiting for Madeleine to come home. Each footfall, each creak of the floorboards, each turn of a knob was her.

Then not. Every minute of the day Hazel lost Madeleine again. And now the door to the living room opened and Hazel looked up, expecting to see Mad’s cheery face and a tea tray – it was tea time after all. But instead she saw her daughter’s cheery face.

Sophie stepped in holding a huge glass of red wine for herself and made her way around the crowded room until she’d reached the sofa.

‘So, what’s for dinner?’ she said, flopping into a chair and picking up a magazine.

Hazel stared at this stranger. It was as though she’d lost both of them last night. Madeleine dead and Sophie possessed. This wasn’t the same girl. What had happened to morose, selfish Sophie?

The thing in front of her was radiant. It was as though the spirit of Madeleine had entered Sophie. Only without the heart. Without the soul. Whatever was radiating from Sophie wasn’t joy or love or warmth.

But it was happiness. Madeleine was dead, horribly, grotesquely dead. And Sophie was happy.

It scared Hazel almost to death.

Beauvoir drove while Gamache navigated, trying to read the map while the car bounced along the heaved and holed road. He saw nothing of their progress except lurching squiggles and dots. It was fortunate he didn’t get car sick.

‘It’s just beyond here.’ Gamache folded the map and looked through the windshield. ‘Watch out.’

Beauvoir yanked the steering wheel but they hit the pothole anyway.

‘You know I was doing just fine before you looked up,’ he said.

‘You hit every hole between here and Three Pines. Watch out.’

The car rammed into another hole and Gamache wondered how long his tires would hold.

‘We go through the village of Notre-Dame-de-Roof Trusses and out the other side. There’s a turn off to the right. Chemin Erablerie.’

‘Notre-Dame-de-Roof Trusses?’ Beauvoir couldn’t believe his ears.

‘You expected maybe St-Roof Trusses?’

At least Three Pines made sense, thought Beauvoir. Williamsburg and St-Rémy made sense. Weren’t Roof Trusses something to do with building?

Goddamned English. Trust them to choose a name like that. Like calling a village Royal Bank or Concrete Foundation. Always building, always bragging. And what was with this case? Didn’t anyone die a normal death in Three Pines? And even their murders weren’t normal. Couldn’t they just haul off and stab each other, or use a gun or a bat? No. It was always something convoluted. Complicated.

Very unQuébécois. The Québécois were straightforward, clear. If they liked you they hugged. When they murdered you they just whacked you over the head. Boom, done. Convicted. Next.

None of this ‘is it’ or ‘isn’t it’ shit.