Upstairs they heard a thump.
‘My daughter, Sophie. She’s visiting from university.’
‘She was at the séance last night, I believe,’ said Gamache.
‘It was stupid, stupid.’ Hazel hit the arm of her chair with her fist. ‘I knew better.’
‘Then why did you go?’
‘I didn’t go to the first one, and tried to stop Madeleine—’
‘The first one?’ Beauvoir sat up and actually forgot that a million little pins were sticking into his bottom.
‘Yes, didn’t you know?’
Gamache was always amazed and a little disconcerted that people seemed to think they knew everything immediately.
‘Tell us, please.’
‘There was another séance on Friday night. Good Friday. At the bistro.’
‘And Madame Favreau was at that?’
‘Along with a bunch of other people. Nothing much happened though so they decided to try another. This time at that place.’
Gamache wondered whether Hazel Smyth deliberately didn’t name the old Hadley house, like actors who call Macbeth ‘the Scottish Play’.
‘Do they do many séances in Three Pines?’ Gamache asked.
‘Never before as far as I know.’
‘So why two in one weekend?’
‘It was that woman’s fault.’ As she spoke a chunk fell from her facade and he glimpsed something inside. Not sorrow, not loss.
Rage.
‘Who, madame?’ Gamache asked, though he knew the answer.
The needles stuck deeper into Beauvoir’s bottom and were heading forward.
‘Why are you here?’ Hazel asked. ‘Was Madeleine murdered?’
‘Who are you talking about? What woman?’ Gamache repeated firmly.
‘That witch. Jeanne Chauvet.’
All roads lead back to her, thought Gamache. But where was she?