THE CRUELLEST MONTH

FIFTEEN

 

 

Armand Gamache opened the door to Madeleine Favreau’s bedroom. He knew this was as close as he would ever come to meeting the woman.

 

‘So, was Madeleine murdered?’

 

The words came along the upstairs hallway and met them at the bedroom door.

 

‘You must be Sophie,’ said Beauvoir, walking toward the young woman who’d spoken, her long dark hair moist from a recent shower. Even a few paces away he could smell the fruity, fresh fragrance of the shampoo.

 

‘Good guess.’ She smiled fully at Beauvoir and cocked her head to one side, extending her hand. Sophie Smyth was slim and dressed in a white terrycloth robe. Beauvoir wondered if the young woman knew the effect this had.

 

He smiled back and thought she probably did.

 

‘Now, you were asking about murder.’ Beauvoir looked thoughtful, as though he was seriously contemplating her question. ‘Do you have many dangerous thoughts?’

 

She laughed as though he’d said something both riotous and clever and pushed him playfully.

 

Gamache slipped into Madeleine’s room, leaving Jean Guy Beauvoir to work his dubious magic.

 

The bedroom smelled slightly of perfume, or more likely an eau de toilette. Something light and sophisticated. Not the fulsome, heady aroma of young women that he’d caught in the hallway.

 

He turned around, taking it in. The room was small and bright, even in the waning sun. Slight white curtains framed the window and were meant to obscure, not block, the light. The room was painted a clean, refreshing white and the bedspread was chenille, with its tell-tale bumps. The bed was a double – Gamache doubted larger would have fitted – and brass. It was a good antique and as he walked by it he allowed his large hand to drag along the cool metal. Lamps stood on the bedside tables, a stack of books and magazines on one, an alarm clock on the other. The digital clock said 4:19 p.m. He pulled a hanky from his pocket and pressed the alarm button. It flashed to 7 a.m.

 

In her closet hung rows of dresses and skirts and blouses. Most size 12, one a size 10. In the honey pine chest of drawers the top one contained items of underwear, clean but not folded. Next to those were bras and socks. In other drawers were some sweaters and a few T-shirts though it was clear she hadn’t yet made the switch from winter to summer. And wouldn’t now.

 

‘So,’ Beauvoir leaned against the hallway wall, ‘tell me about last night.’

 

‘What do you want to know?’ Sophie leaned as well, about a foot from him. He felt uncomfortable, his personal space violated. Still, he knew he’d asked for it. And it was better than that sofa with its pricks.

 

‘Well, why did you go to the séance?’

 

‘Are you kidding? Three days here, in the middle of nowhere with two old women? Had they said we were going to swim in boiling oil I’d have gone.’

 

Beauvoir laughed.

 

‘I’d actually been looking forward to coming home. You know, like, with laundry and stuff. And Mom always makes me my favorite food. But, God, after a few hours, enough already.’

 

‘What was Madeleine like?’

 

‘When, this weekend or always?’

 

‘Was there a difference?’

 

‘When she first came here she was nice, I guess. I was only here for about a year then went to university. Only saw them on holidays and in the summer after that. I liked her at first.’

 

‘At first?’

 

‘She changed.’ Sophie turned from her side and leaned her back against the wall, her chest and hips thrust out, and stared at the blank wall opposite. Beauvoir was quiet. Waiting. He knew there was more and he suspected she wanted to tell him.

 

‘Not as nice this time. I don’t know.’ She looked down, her hair falling in front of her face so that Beauvoir could no longer see her expression. She mumbled something.

 

‘Pardon?’

 

‘I’m not sorry she’s dead,’ Sophie said into her hands. ‘She took things.’

 

‘Like what? Jewelry, money?’

 

‘No, not those things. Other things.’

 

Beauvoir stared at Sophie’s hair then lowered his gaze to her hands. One clasped the other as though she needed to be held and no one else was offering.

 

Gamache picked up the books on Madeleine’s bedside table. English and French. Biographies, a history of Europe after World War Two, and a work of literary fiction by a well-known Canadian. An eclectic taste.

 

Then he shoved his long arm between box-spring and mattress, sweeping it up and down. In his experience, if people were going to have books, or magazines, that embarrassed them, this was where they were hidden.

 

The next hiding place was less for ‘hiding’ and more for simple privacy. The drawer in the bedside table. Opening it up he found a book there.

 

Now why didn’t she keep it with the rest? Was it a secret? It looked harmless enough.

 

Picking it up he looked at the cover photo of a smiling elderly woman in tweeds and long, exuberant necklaces. In one eloquent hand she held a cocktail. Paul Hiebert’s Sarah Binks, the cover said. He flipped it open and read at random. Then he sat on the side of the bed and read more.

 

Five minutes later he was still reading and smiling. At times laughing out loud. He looked around guiltily, then closed the book and slipped it into his pocket.

 

After a few minutes he’d completed his search, ending up at the dresser by the door. Madeleine kept a few framed photographs there. He picked one up and saw Hazel with another woman. She was slim with very short dark hair and gleaming brown eyes. Doe eyes, made larger by the haircut. Her smile was full and without artifice or agenda. Hazel was also relaxed and smiling.

 

They looked natural together. Hazel calm and content and the other woman radiant.

 

At last Armand Gamache had met Madeleine Favreau.

 

*

 

‘Sad house,’ said Beauvoir, looking in the rearview mirror. ‘Was it ever happy, do you think?’

 

‘I think it was a very happy house once,’ said Gamache.

 

Beauvoir told the chief about his conversation with Sophie. Gamache listened then looked out the window, seeing only the odd light in the distance. Night fell as they bumped back to Montreal.

 

‘What was your impression?’ Gamache asked.

 

‘I think Madeleine Favreau squeezed Sophie out of her own home. Not on purpose, maybe, but I think there wasn’t enough room for her. There’s barely room in there to move and the addition of Madeleine was too much. Something had to give.’

 

‘Something had to go,’ said Gamache.

 

‘Sophie.’

 

Gamache nodded into the darkness and thought about a love so all-consuming it ate up and spat out Hazel’s own daughter. How would that daughter feel?

 

‘What did you find?’ Beauvoir asked.

 

Gamache described the room.

 

‘But no ephedra?’

 

‘None. Not in her room, not in the bathroom.’

 

‘What do you think?’

 

Gamache picked up his cell phone and dialed. ‘I think Madeleine didn’t take the ephedra herself. She was given the dose.’

 

‘Enough to kill.’

 

‘Enough to murder.’