Cruelest Month

‘It’s all right, Inspector.’ She walked toward the door. Opening it she turned back. Now she was a black outline against the golden day.

‘I was born with a caul,’ she said to Beauvoir. ‘And I think you were too.’

The door closed and the two men were left alone in the small chapel.

‘She meant you,’ said Beauvoir.

‘Your powers of observation are as keen as ever, Jean Guy.’ Gamache smiled. ‘What is it? Did you want to make certain she hadn’t messed with my mind?’

Now Beauvoir felt uneasy. The truth was, it looked as though the witch had behaved perfectly civilly. It was he who was about to mess with Gamache’s mind. Silently he took the newspaper from his breast pocket and handed it to Gamache. The Chief Inspector looked amused then meeting Beauvoir’s eyes his smile faded. He took the paper, put on his half-moon reading glasses and in the silence of St Thomas’s read.

Gamache grew very still. It was as though the world around him had dipped into slow motion. Everything became more intense. He could see a gray hair in Beauvoir’s dark head. He had the impression he could walk forward, pluck it and return to his place without Beauvoir’s even noticing.

Armand Gamache could suddenly see things he’d been blind to.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Beauvoir.

Gamache looked at the banner. La Journée. A rag from Montreal. One of the tabloids that had pilloried him during the Arnot case.

‘Old news, Jean Guy.’ Gamache folded the paper and laid it on his field coat.

‘But why bring up the Arnot case?’ asked Beauvoir, trying to keep his voice as calm and reasonable as the chief’s.

‘Quiet news day. Nothing to report. The paper’s a joke, une blague. Where did you get it?’

‘Gilles Sandon gave it to me.’

‘You found him? Good. Tell me what he said.’

Gamache picked up his coat and paper and Beauvoir reported on his morning’s interviews with Sandon and Odile as they walked into the sun and back to the old railway station. Beauvoir grateful for the normalcy of it. Grateful the chief had just shrugged off the comments in the paper. Now he too could pretend it meant nothing.

The two men walked in sync, heads down. To an observer they’d look like father and son, out for a casual walk this fine spring day and deep in conversation. But something had just changed.

I didn’t feel the aimed word hit

And go in like a soft bullet.

The smashed flesh closed over the aimed word and Armand Gamache continued to walk and listen and give his full attention to Inspector Beauvoir.

Hazel Smyth had been off to the funeral home in Cowansville. Sophie had volunteered to go but in a voice so sulky Hazel decided she was better on her own. True, a number of her friends had said they’d go, but Hazel didn’t like to bother them.

It was like being kidnapped and taken into a world of hushed words and sympathy for something she couldn’t yet believe had happened. Instead of the Knitters Guide meeting she was looking at caskets. Instead of taking poor Aimée to her chemotherapy session or having tea with Susan and hearing about her screwed-up kids, she was trying to word the obituary announcements.

How to describe herself? Dear friend? Dear companion? Much missed by… Why were there no words that felt? Words that when you touched them you’d feel what was intended? The chasm left by the loss of Madeleine? The lump in the throat that fizzed and ached. The terror of falling asleep knowing that on waking she’d relive the loss, like Prometheus bound and tormented each day. Everything had changed. Even her grammar. Suddenly she lived in the past tense. And the singular.

‘Mom,’ Sophie called from the kitchen. ‘Mom, are you there? I need your help.’

Hazel came back from a great distance and made her way to her daughter, slowly at first then with increased speed as the words penetrated.

I need your help.

In the kitchen she found Sophie leaning against the counter, her foot raised and a pained expression on her face.

‘What is it? What happened?’ Hazel bent to touch the foot but Sophie pulled it away.

‘Don’t. It hurts.’

‘Here, sit down. Let me see it.’

She managed to coax Sophie over to the kitchen table and into a chair. Hazel put a cushion on another chair and tenderly lifted her daughter’s leg so that it was resting on the chair and cushion.

‘I twisted it in a pothole on the driveway. How many times have I told you to get those holes filled?’

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

‘I was getting your mail, and this happens.’

‘Let me just see.’ Hazel bent and with gentle practiced fingers began to explore the ankle.

Ten minutes later she had Sophie propped on the sofa in the living room, the television wand in her hand, a ham and cheese sandwich on a plate and a diet soda on a tray. She’d bound Sophie’s sprained ankle in a tenser bandage and found a pair of old crutches from the last time her daughter had hurt herself.