The Cruelest Month

‘Merci, Madame Ferland.’



Lemieux watched her leave, grateful she’d finally stopped talking, then took her place.



‘Nice lady.’ He smiled at Monsieur Béliveau, who was watching Madame Ferland swing open the door to the store, stand on the veranda, look both ways as though lost, then walk very slowly away.



‘Oui.’



The whole village knew that Madame Ferland had lost her son the year before, though she chose not to talk about it. Until today. When she talked about him to Monsieur Béliveau, who recognized the gift of sorrow shared.



Now he turned back to the fresh young man in front of him. His dark hair was conservatively cut, his face clean-shaven and likeable. He looked nice.



‘My name is Robert Lemieux. I’m with the Sûreté.’



‘Oui, monsieur. I gathered that. You’re here about Madame Favreau.’



‘I understand you had a special relationship with her.’



‘I did.’ Monsieur Béliveau saw no reason to deny it now, though he wasn’t sure exactly what his relationship had been with Madeleine, at least not her side. He was certain only about how he’d felt.



‘And what was that relationship?’ Agent Lemieux asked. He wondered whether he was being too blunt, but he also knew he might not have this man’s attention for long. Another customer would walk in at any moment.



‘I loved her.’



And there the words sat in the space between them, where Madame Ferland’s loose change had warmed a spot.



Agent Lemieux was ready for this response. It’s what the chief had told him was probably the case. Or at least that their relationship was more than casual. Still, looking at the gaunt, gray, solemn old man in front of him he couldn’t figure it out. This man must be over sixty and Madeleine Favreau had been in her early forties. But age wasn’t the difference that surprised him. From the pictures he’d seen of the victim she’d been beautiful. All of them had her smiling or laughing, enjoying herself. Full of life and delight. Lemieux suspected she could have had anyone she wanted. So why had she chosen this caved-in man, this elderly, stooped, quiet man?



Perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps he’d loved her and she’d felt differently. Perhaps she broke his heart, and he’d attacked hers.



Had this one who smelled of crackers and looked like a dried-up washcloth killed Madeleine Favreau? For love?



Young Agent Lemieux couldn’t believe it.



‘Were you lovers?’ The very thought disgusted him, but he put on his sympathetic face and hoped he’d remind Monsieur Béliveau of a son.



‘No. We had not made love.’ Monsieur Béliveau said it simply, without embarrassment. He was beyond caring about things like that.



‘Do you have a family, monsieur?’



‘No children. I had a wife. Ginette. She died two and a half years ago. October twenty-second.’



Chief Inspector Gamache had sat Robert Lemieux down when he’d first joined homicide, and given him a crash course in catching killers.



‘You must listen. As long as you’re talking you’re not learning, and this job is about learning. And not just the facts. The most important things you learn in a homicide investigation you can’t see or touch. It’s how people feel. Because,’ and here the Chief Inspector had leaned forward and Agent Lemieux had had the impression this senior officer was about to take his hands. But he didn’t. Instead he looked squarely into Lemieux’s eyes. ‘Because, we’re looking for someone not quite right. We’re looking for someone who appears healthy, who functions well. But who is very sick. We find those people not by simply collecting facts, but by collecting impressions.’



‘And I do that by listening.’ Agent Lemieux knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear.



‘There are four statements that lead to wisdom. I want you to remember them and follow them. Are you ready?’



Agent Lemieux had taken out his notebook and, pen poised, he’d listened.



‘You need to learn to say: I don’t know. I’m sorry. I need help and I was wrong.’



Agent Lemieux had written them all down. An hour later he was in Superintendent Brébeuf’s office, showing him the list. Instead of the laughter he’d expected the Superintendent’s lips had grown thin and white as he clenched his jaws.



‘I’d forgotten,’ said Brébeuf. ‘Our own chief told us those things when we first joined. That was thirty years ago. He said them once and never again. I’d forgotten.’



‘Well, they’re hardly worth remembering,’ said Lemieux, judging that was what the Superintendent wanted to hear. He was wrong.