‘Thrilled, I should think. Probably why she brought Madeleine into it in the first place. They were a good team, though quite different.’
‘How so?’
‘Well, Madeleine always made you feel good about yourself. She laughed a lot and listened well. She was a lot of fun. But if you were sick or in need, it was Hazel who’d show up.’
‘Was Madeleine superficial, do you think?’
Clara hesitated. ‘I think Madeleine was used to getting what she wanted. Not because she was greedy but just because it always happened.’
‘Did you know she had cancer?’
‘I did. Breast cancer.’
‘Do you know whether she was healthy?’
‘Madeleine?’ Clara laughed. ‘Healthier than you or me. She was in great shape.’
‘Had she changed at all in the last few weeks or months?’
‘Changed? I don’t think so. Seemed the same to me.’
Gamache nodded then continued. ‘We think the substance that killed her was slipped into her food at dinner. Did you see or hear anything at all strange?’
‘In that group? Anything normal would set off alarms. But you’re saying that someone at our dinner killed her? Gave her the ephedra?’
Gamache nodded.
Clara thought about it, replaying the dinner in her mind. The food arriving, being warmed up, prepared, set out. People sitting down. Passing round the various dishes.
No, it all seemed natural and normal. It was a terrible thought that one of them around that table had poisoned Madeleine, but not, it must be said, a surprise. If it was murder, one of them did it.
‘We all ate out of the same dishes, helping ourselves. Could the poison have been meant for someone else?’
‘No,’ said Gamache. ‘We’ve had the leftovers tested and there’s no ephedra in any of the dishes. Besides, you all helped yourselves, right? To have any control over who got the ephedra the murderer had to have slipped it to Madeleine directly. Shoved it into the food on her plate.’
Clara nodded. She could see the hand, see the action, but not the person. She thought of the people at her dinner. Monsieur Béliveau? Hazel and Sophie? Odile and Gilles? True, Odile murdered verse, but surely nothing else.
Ruth?
Peter always said Ruth was the only person he knew capable of murder. Had she done it? But she hadn’t even been at the séance. But, maybe she didn’t have to be.
‘Did the séance have anything to do with it?’ she asked.
‘We think it was one ingredient. As was the ephedra.’
Clara sipped her now cool coffee as they walked. ‘What I don’t understand is why the murderer decided to kill Madeleine that night.’
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Gamache.
‘Why give her ephedra in the middle of a dinner party? If the murderer needed a séance why not do it Friday night?’
It was a question that hounded Gamache. Why wait until Sunday? Why not kill her Friday night?
‘Maybe he tried,’ he said. ‘Did anything odd happen that Friday night?’
‘More odd than contacting dead people? Not that I remember.’
‘Who did Madeleine have dinner with?’
‘Hazel, I guess. No, wait, Madeleine didn’t go home for dinner. She stayed here.’
‘Had dinner at the bistro?’
‘No, with Monsieur Béliveau.’ She looked over at his home, a large rambling clapboard house facing the green. ‘I like him. Most people do.’
‘Most, but not all?’
‘Don’t you let anything pass?’ she laughed.
‘When I miss things or let them pass they gather in a heap then rise up and take a life. So, I try not to.’ He smiled.
‘I guess not. The only person I’ve ever seen actually cut Monsieur Béliveau was Gilles Sandon. But then Gilles’s quite a character. Do you know him?’
‘He works in the woods, doesn’t he?’
‘Makes amazing furniture, but I think there’s a reason he works with trees and not people.’
‘How does Monsieur Béliveau feel about him?’
‘Oh, I don’t think he even notices the slights. He’s such a gentle man and kind. He only went to the séance to keep Mad company, you know. I could tell he didn’t like it at all. Probably because of his dead wife.’
‘Afraid she’d come back?’
‘Maybe,’ Clara laughed. ‘They were very close.’
‘Do you think he expected her to show up?’
‘Ginette, his dead wife? None of us expected anything. Not that first night at the bistro, anyway. It was a lark. But still, I think it upset him. He didn’t sleep well that night, he said.’
‘The next séance was different,’ said Gamache.
‘We were crazy to go there.’ She had her back to the old Hadley house, but she could feel it staring at her.
Gamache turned, feeling a chill born from the inside and growing to meet the cold damp air on his skin. It was the menace on the hill, poised, waiting for the right moment to swoop down on them. But no, Gamache thought. The old Hadley house wouldn’t swoop. It would creep. Slowly. Almost unnoticed until you woke up one morning swallowed by its despair and sorrow.
‘As we were walking up the hill that night,’ said Clara, ‘something kind of strange happened. We started off all bunched up, talking, but as we got closer we stopped talking and drifted apart. I think that house creates isolation. I was almost the last. Madeleine was walking behind me.’
‘Monsieur Béliveau wasn’t with her?’
‘No, strange that. He was talking with Hazel and Sophie. He hadn’t seen Sophie in a while. I think they must be friends because Sophie made sure to sit next to him at dinner. As I walked I passed Odile standing on the road. Then I heard Odile and Madeleine talking behind me.’
‘Was that unusual?’
‘Not unheard of, but I didn’t think they had much in common. I can’t remember exactly what was said, but I have the impression Odile was sucking up. Telling Mad how lovely she was and popular. Something like that, but the funny thing is it seemed to upset Madeleine. I’m afraid I tried to hear more but couldn’t.’
‘What do you think of Odile?’
Clara laughed then stopped herself. ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t very nice. But every time I think of Odile I think of her poetry. I can’t imagine why she writes it. Do you think she thinks it’s good?’
‘It must be difficult to know,’ said Gamache, and Clara felt fear snake around her heart and into her head again. Fear that she was as delusional as Odile. Suppose Fortin shows up and laughs? He’d seen a few of her works but maybe he was drunk or not in his right mind. Maybe he’d seen Peter’s and thought they were Clara’s. That must be it. There’s no way the great Denis Fortin could really like her work. And what work? That wretched half-finished accusation in her studio?