FORTY-ONE
Clara’s heart was in her throat, in her wrists, at her temples. Her whole body was throbbing with the pounding of her heart. She couldn’t believe they were back in the old Hadley house.
In the darkness, except for the puny candlelight.
When Inspector Beauvoir had called and told her what Gamache wanted she’d thought he must be kidding, or drunk. Certainly delusional.
But he’d been serious. They were to meet at nine in the old Hadley house. In the room where Madeleine died.
All evening she’d watched the clock creep forward. At first excruciatingly slowly, then it had seemed to race, the hands flying round the face. She’d been unable to eat and Peter had begged her not to go. And finally her terror had found purchase, and she’d agreed to stay behind. In their little cottage, by the fire, with a good book and a glass of Merlot.
Hiding.
But Clara knew if she did that she’d carry this cowardice for the rest of her life. And when the clock said five to nine she’d risen, as though in someone else’s body, put on her coat, and left. Like a zombie from one of Peter’s old black and white movies.
And she’d found herself in a black and white world. Without street lamps or traffic lights, Three Pines became bathed in black once the sun set. Except for the points of light in the sky. And the lights of the homes around the green that tonight seemed to warn her, beg her not to leave them, not to do this foolishness.
Through the darkness Clara joined the others. Myrna, Gabri, Monsieur Béliveau, the witch Jeanne, all trudging, as though they’d given up their own will, toward the haunted house on the hill.
Now she was back in that room. She looked at the faces, all staring at the flickering candle in the center of their circle, its light reflected in their eyes, like the pilot light for the fear they carried. It struck Clara how threatening the simple flicker of a candle can be when that’s all you have.
Odile and Gilles were across from her, as were Hazel and Sophie.
Monsieur Béliveau sat beside Clara and Jeanne Chauvet took her seat beside Gabri, who was festooned with crucifixes, Stars of David and a croissant in his pocket. Myrna asked because it looked like something else.
But still their circle was broken. One chair was on its side, having tumbled into the center almost a week ago, and there it sat like a memorial, though in the uncertain light it looked like a skeleton with its wooden arms and legs and ribbed back throwing distorted shadows against the wall.
It was a calm and tranquil night, outside the old Hadley house. But inside the house had its own atmosphere, its own gravity. It was a world of groans and creaks, of sorrow and sighs. The house had taken another life, two if you count the bird, and it was hungry again. It wanted more. It felt like a tomb. Worse, thought Clara, it felt like limbo. In stepping into the house, into this room, they’d walked into a netherworld, somewhere between life and death. A world where they were about to be judged, and separated.
Out of the dark a hand reached into their circle and grabbed the skeletal chair. Then Armand Gamache joined them, sitting silently for a moment, leaning forward, elbows on his legs, his large powerful hands together, his fingers intertwined as though in prayer. His deep brown eyes were thoughtful.
She heard an exhale. The candle flickered violently, from the force of their stress released.
Gamache looked at them. At Clara he seemed to pause and smile, but Clara thought everyone probably had that impression. She wondered how he managed to make time disobey its own rules. Though she also knew Three Pines itself was like that, a village where time seemed flexible.
‘This is a tragedy of secrets,’ said Gamache. ‘It’s a story of hauntings, of ghosts, of wickedness dressed as valor. It’s a story of things hidden and buried. Alive. When something not quite dead is buried it eventually comes back,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘It claws its way out of the dirt, rancid and fetid. And hungry.
‘That’s what happened here. Everyone in this room has a secret. Something to hide. Something that came alive a few days ago. When Agent Lacoste told me about her interview with Madeleine’s husband I started to get some insight into this murder. He described Madeleine as the sun. Life-giving, joyous, bright and cheerful.’
Around the circle the glowing faces nodded.
‘But the sun also scalds. It burns and blinds.’ He looked at each of them again. ‘And it creates strong shadows. Who can live close to the sun? I thought of Icarus, the beautiful boy who with his father made wings to fly. His father gave him one warning, though. Do not fly too close to the sun. But, of course, he did. Anyone with children will understand how that can happen.’
His eyes flickered to Hazel. Her face was blank. Empty. Where once there’d been anxiety, pain, anger, now there was nothing. The horsemen had ridden through, leaving nothing standing. But Gamache thought maybe they hadn’t brought grief. The horsemen Hazel had been desperate to keep at bay carried something far more terrifying. Their burden was loneliness.
‘The most obvious suspect is Sophie. Poor Sophie, as everyone calls her. Always getting hurt, always getting sick. Though things started to get better when Madeleine arrived.’
Sophie stared at him, her brows low and glowering.
‘The house that had been so full of things and yet so empty was suddenly full of life. Can’t you just imagine?’
Suddenly they were transported to a day in their imaginations when the drab home of Hazel and Sophie was visited by sunshine. When the curtains were thrown open. When laughter stirred the decay in the rooms and sent it twirling into the rays of light.
‘But the price you paid was that your shadows were revealed. You fell in love with Madeleine, didn’t you?’
‘Love isn’t a shadow,’ said Sophie defiantly.
‘You’re quite right. Love isn’t. But attachment is. Myrna, you talked about the near enemy.’
‘Attachment masquerading as love,’ nodded Myrna. ‘But I wasn’t thinking of Sophie.’
‘No, you were thinking of someone else. But it applies here.’ He turned back to Sophie. ‘You wanted Madeleine for yourself. You went to her university, Queens, to impress her. To get her to pay more attention to you. It was bad enough to share Madeleine with your mother, but when you returned home recently and found Madeleine in a relationship with Monsieur Béliveau, that was too much.’
‘How could she? I mean look at him. He’s old and ugly and poor. He’s just a grocer for God’s sake. How could she love him? I’d gone all the way to fucking Queens for her and when I come back she’s not even around. She’s at a séance with him.’
She jabbed her crutch at Béliveau, who seemed beyond the insults.
‘When the next séance came you saw your chance. You’ve fought your weight all your life, even taking ephedra a few years ago, until it was found and taken away. But eventually the weight crept back and you ordered more pills from the internet. This photograph shows a plump girl, just two years ago.’ Gamache handed round the picture from the fridge. Each person looked at it. It seemed to have been taken on another planet. One where people laughed, and loved, and celebrated. One where Madeleine was still alive.
‘You found the pill bottle. You knew your mother threw nothing away. Inspector Beauvoir described the cupboard filled with old pills, most long out of date. We know from the lab that you didn’t use your current ephedra pills. Instead, you found the old ones. You knew Madeleine had a heart damaged by her chemotherapy treatments –’
A small murmur went around the circle.
‘– and you knew a high enough dose, combined with the bad heart, could kill her. All you needed was a scare. Something to challenge her heart, to get it pounding and racing. And one was handed to you. A séance in the old Hadley house.’
‘This is stupid,’ said Sophie, though she was looking far from confident.
‘You made sure you sat beside Madeleine at dinner, and you slipped the pills into her food.’
‘I didn’t. Mom, tell him I didn’t.’
‘She didn’t,’ said Hazel, finding the energy to come, feebly, to Sophie’s defense.
‘Of course, everything I’ve said about Sophie applies to Hazel as well.’ Gamache turned to the woman beside Sophie. ‘You loved Madeleine. Have never tried to hide it. A platonic love, almost certainly, but a deep one. You probably loved her since you were children together. And then she comes to live with you, recovers from her chemo, and your lives start again. No more dullness. No more loneliness.’