Cruelest Month

‘Could be. Gilles Sandon seemed to be hinting it was no coincidence that two women Monsieur Béliveau was involved with should die.’

‘Yeah, a tree probably told him that,’ mumbled Nichol.

‘What was that, Agent?’ Beauvoir turned on her.

‘Nothing,’ she said. Soup had dripped from her hair onto the padded shoulders of her cheap suit and crumbs clung to her chest. ‘It’s just that I don’t think we can take seriously anything Sandon says. He’s obviously nuts. He talks to trees, for God’s sake. The same with that witch woman. She spreads salt, lights candles and talks to the dead. And you’re paying attention to anything she says?’ She directed this at Armand Gamache.

‘Come with me, Agent Nichol.’ Gamache carefully put his napkin on the table and rose. Without another word he opened the French doors to the flagstone patio at the back of the bistro, overlooking the river.

Beauvoir had a brief fantasy of the chief tossing her in, his last sight of Nichol flailing hands disappearing into the white foam, to be dumped into the poor Atlantic Ocean a week from now.

Instead the team watched Nichol gesturing wildly and actually stomping her feet while Gamache listened, face stern and serious. They could hear nothing over the roar of the river. Once he lifted his hand and she quieted down, grew very still. Then he spoke. She nodded, turned and walked away.

Gamache came back into the room, looking worried.

‘Is she gone?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘Back to the Incident Room.’

‘And then?’

‘And then she’ll come with me to the old Hadley house. I’d like you to come too,’ Gamache said to Agent Lacoste.

Jean Guy Beauvoir managed to keep silent and even listened to Isabelle Lacoste’s report, though his mind was squirreling. Why was Agent Nichol there? Why? If everything happened for a reason, what was the reason for her? There was one, he knew.

‘Madeleine Favreau was forty-four years old,’ reported Lacoste in her clear, precise voice. ‘Born Madeleine Marie Gagnon in Montreal and raised in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce quartier. On Harvard Street. Middle class, anglo upbringing.’

‘Anglo?’ asked Lemieux. ‘With a name like that?’

‘Well, semi-anglo,’ admitted Lacoste. ‘French father and English mother. Name was French but upbringing was mostly English. Went to public and high school in NDG. The school secretary actually remembered her. Said there are a few pictures of Madeleine in the main corridor. She was Athlete of the Year and president of the student council. One of those kids who simply excelled. She was also a cheerleader.’

Gamache was grateful Nichol wasn’t there. He could just imagine what she’d do with this litany of success.

‘Her grades?’ he asked.

‘The secretary’s checking them for me. Should have the answer by the time we get back to the Incident Room. After high school—’

‘Just a moment,’ Gamache interrupted. ‘What about Hazel Smyth? Did you ask about her? They went to school together.’

‘Actually I did. Hazel Lang. Also forty-four. Lived on Melrose Avenue in NDG.’

Gamache knew the area. Old and settled homes. Trees and modest gardens.

‘The secretary’s looking her up too.’

‘But didn’t remember her immediately?’

‘No, but then she wasn’t likely to after all these years. After high school Madeleine went to university, studied engineering at Queens and got a job at Bell Canada. She left four and a half years ago.’

Beauvoir stared at Gamache. He couldn’t get the confrontation with Nichol out of his head. Had any one of them spoken to him like that in a meeting they’d be out in a flash, and rightly so. And, frankly, none of them would ever consider speaking to Armand Gamache like that. Not out of some instinct for survival, but because they respected him too much.

Why did Nichol treat the boss like that, and why did Gamache allow it?

‘The woman I spoke to worked in another department and was at a lower level,’ Lacoste continued her report, ‘but she said Madame Favreau was a fair boss and very smart. People liked her. I also spoke briefly with her boss. Paul Marchand.’ Lacoste consulted her notes. ‘He’s Vice President of Research and Development. Madeleine Favreau was a department head. Product development. She also worked closely with their marketing department.’

‘So when new products like a phone or something came out,’ said Lemieux, ‘she’d work on it?’

‘Her expertise was information technology. Very hot field, IT. According to her boss she got that dossier not long before leaving.’

Gamache waited. Isabelle Lacoste was as good an agent as he’d ever worked with and should Inspector Beauvoir leave for any reason she’d be his natural choice for second in command. Her reports were thorough, clear and without ambiguity.

‘She was married to François Favreau but it didn’t work. They divorced a few years ago. But her boss doesn’t think that was the reason she left. He asked her why, but she was vague on the reason but definite about her decision and he respected that.’

‘Did he have a theory?’ Gamache asked.