The Cruelest Month
‘Where’re you from?’ Gamache asked.
‘Montreal. Born and raised.’
Gamache handed her the yearbook. ‘Look familiar?’
‘It’s a yearbook. I have one too from my school. Haven’t looked at it in years. Probably lost it by now.’
‘I thought you said you never lose things,’ said Beauvoir.
‘Nothing I don’t want to lose,’ she smiled, handing Gamache back the book.
‘What high school did you go to?’ Gamache asked.
‘Gareth James High School, in Verdun. Why?’
‘Just trying to make connections.’ Armand Gamache swirled his cognac lazily in his glass. ‘People rarely murder people they don’t know. There’s something about this case.’
He let it hang there, not feeling any need to explain. After a moment Jeanne spoke.
‘There’s an intimacy about it,’ she said quietly. ‘No, there’s more. It feels crowded.’
Gamache nodded, still looking into his amber liqueur. ‘The past caught up with Madeleine Favreau on Easter Sunday, in the old Hadley house. You brought something to life.’
‘That’s not fair. I was invited to do the séance. It wasn’t my idea.’
‘You could have said no,’ he said. ‘You’ve just said you know things, sense things, see things. Couldn’t you see something coming?’
Outside the wind howled as Jeanne Chauvet thought back to that night in this very bistro. Someone had suggested another séance. Someone had suggested the old Hadley house. And something had changed. She’d felt it. A dread had crept into their happy, laughing circle.
She’d stolen a look at Madeleine, lovely, laughing Madeleine, looking weary and nervous. Madeleine hadn’t even recognized her.
Jeanne had seen then the thinly masked revulsion Mad felt at the very idea of a séance at the old Hadley house. And that had been enough. A truck could have been bearing down upon them and all Jeanne would see was a way to hurt Madeleine.
THIRTY-THREE
‘Shouldn’t you be in the studio?’ Peter asked, pouring himself another coffee and walking to the long pine table in their kitchen. He’d promised himself he’d say nothing. And certainly not remind Clara time was slipping away. The last thing she needed to hear was that Denis Fortin would be there in just a few days. To see her still unfinished work.
‘He’ll be here in less than a week,’ he heard himself saying. It was as though something had possessed him.
Clara was staring at the morning paper. The front page talked about the terrible storm that downed trees, cut off roads, caused power failures across Quebec, and then disappeared.
The day had dawned overcast and a little drizzly. A normal day in April. The snow and hail had melted by morning and the only signs of the storm were twigs blown down and flowers flattened.
‘I know you can do it.’ Peter sat beside her. Clara looked exhausted. ‘But maybe you need a little break. Take your mind off the painting.’
‘Are you nuts?’ She looked up. Her deep blue eyes were bloodshot and he wondered if she’d been crying. ‘This is my big chance. I don’t have any time left.’
‘But if you go into your studio now you might mess it up even more.’
‘Even more?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.’
‘God, what’m I going to do?’ She wiped her tired eyes with her hand. She’d been awake most of the night, at first lying in bed trying to get back to sleep. When that hadn’t worked she’d obsessed about the painting. She no longer knew what she was doing with it.
Was she so upset by Madeleine’s death she couldn’t clear her mind enough to create? It was a convenient and comforting thought.
Peter took her small hands and noticed they were stained with blue oils. Had she not cleaned them from yesterday or had she been in the studio already this morning? Instinctively he brought his thumb over to the oil and smeared it. It was from this morning.
‘Look, why don’t we have a little dinner party? We could invite Gamache and a few others. Bet he’s ready for a home-cooked meal.’
As the words came out he was stunned by the cruelty of each and every one of them. That was exactly the last thing Clara should be doing. She shouldn’t be distracted, she needed to work through this fear, needed to be undisturbed in her studio. A dinner party, right now, would be disastrous.
Was he nuts, Clara wondered? The painting was a mess and Peter was suggesting she hold a party? But while she seemed to have lost her talent, her muse, her inspiration, her courage, one thing she hadn’t lost was her certainty that Peter wanted the best for her.