ELEVEN
‘She wasn’t so bad,’ said Ruth Zardo, slapping the cork back into a bottle of wine. She’d poured herself another while offering her guests none.
Gamache and Lemieux were sitting in the white resin pre-formed garden chairs Ruth called her dining set in her near freezing kitchen. Ruth wore a couple of moth-eaten sweaters, while the men had kept their parkas on.
Agent Lemieux rubbed his hands together in a ball-and-socket motion and tried to resist the urge to blow on them. He and Gamache had crossed the village green after interviewing the Morrows and made for the smallest house Agent Lemieux had ever seen. It looked little more than a shack, with two windows on the main floor and a single window up top. The white paint was chipping and one of the porch lights was out.
The door was opened by a ramrod. Straight and scraggly, everything about her was thin. Her body, her arms, her lips and her humor. As they made their way down the dim corridor lit with low voltage bulbs, he tripped a few times over stacks of books.
‘I see the S?reté is now hiring the handicapped,’ said Ruth, waving her cane at him. ‘Still, he’s got to be better than the last one you brought round. What was her name? Doesn’t matter. Complete disaster. Very rude. Sit if you must but don’t get too comfortable.’
Lemieux rubbed his hands again, then took up his pen and began writing.
‘I’ve heard CC de Poitiers described as cruel and selfish,’ said Gamache, surprised he couldn’t see his breath.
‘So?’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound very good.’
‘Oh, she wasn’t very good, but she wasn’t so bad either. I mean, really,’ the old poet took a gulp of her wine, then put the glass back on the round plastic table, ‘who isn’t cruel and selfish?’
Gamache had forgotten the complete joy that was Ruth Zardo. He laughed out loud and caught her eye. She started laughing too.
Robert Lemieux didn’t get it.
‘What did you think of Madame de Poitiers?’
‘I think she was bitter and petty and yes, very cruel. But I suspect there was a reason for it. We just didn’t know her well enough, yet, to figure it out.’
‘How long have you known her?’
‘Just over a year. She bought Timmer Hadley’s old place.’ Ruth watched Gamache closely as she said this for a reaction, but she was to be disappointed. His reaction had come half an hour earlier at Clara and Peter’s home. Clara had told him about CC buying the old Hadley place. They’d all sat silently then, and again Agent Lemieux was left to wonder what he was missing.
The last time Armand Gamache had been in the Hadley place it had almost killed him along with Peter, Clara and Beauvoir. If there was ever a house that wept it was that one.
Gamache would never forget that basement and the darkness. Even now in front of the cheery fire, with a warm mug in his hands and friends and colleagues around him, Gamache felt a tremor of fear.
He didn’t want to go back into that dark place, but he knew now he’d have to.
CC de Poitiers had bought it. And that spoke more eloquently about the woman than any number of adjectives.
‘She used it only on weekends,’ Ruth continued when her bombshell proved a dud. ‘Came down with her husband and daughter. Now, there were a couple of losers. At least CC had some spark to her. Some life. Those two looked like great lumpen masses of indulgence. Fat and lazy. And dull. Very dull.’
For Ruth Zardo, dull was one of the greatest insults. It ranked right up there with kind and nice.
‘What happened at the curling?’ Gamache asked.
Talking about CC’s family seemed to have angered Ruth. She became even more curt and abrupt.
‘She died.’
‘We’re going to need more than two words,’ Gamache said.
‘Em’s team was losing, as usual. Then CC died.’ Ruth sat back in her chair and glared at Gamache.
‘Don’t play games with me, Madame Zardo,’ he said pleasantly, contemplating her with interest. ‘Do we really have to do this again? Don’t you ever tire of it?’
‘Of anger? It’s as good as this.’ She raised her glass to him in a mock salute.
‘But why are you angry?’
‘Doesn’t murder anger you?’
‘But you’re not angry at that,’ he said thoughtfully, almost kindly. ‘Or at least, not exclusively. There’s something else.’
‘Clever boy. I bet you heard a lot of that at school. What time is it?’
Gamache seemed unfazed by the abrupt change of topic. He looked at his watch.
‘Quarter to five.’
‘I have to go in a few minutes. Appointment.’
‘What happened at the curling?’ Gamache tried again. Lemieux held his breath. He didn’t know why, but this seemed an important moment. The old poet stared at Gamache, her face and figure full of loathing. Gamache simply stared back, his face open and thoughtful and strong.
Ruth Zardo blinked. Literally. It seemed to Lemieux she’d closed her eyes in rage then opened them to a new world. Or at least a new attitude. She took a deep breath and nodded her gray hair. She smiled slightly.
‘You bring out the worst in me, Chief Inspector.’
‘You mean you’re about to be decent?’
‘I’m afraid so.’