The Cruelest Month
‘You’ve told us about the night Madeleine died, but there was another séance, a few days earlier.’
‘On Friday night at the bistro. I wasn’t there.’
‘But Madame Favreau was. Why?’
‘Didn’t I tell you this before? With the Chief Inspector?’
It was all a bit of a blur to Hazel.
‘You did, but sometimes people’s minds are a little cloudy when we first talk to them. It’s good to hear the story again.’
Hazel wondered if that was true. Her mind, far from clearing, was becoming more and more befuddled.
‘I don’t really know why Mad went. Gabri had put up a notice in the church and the bistro telling everyone that the great psychic Madame Blavatsky was staying at his place and had agreed to bring back the dead. For one night only.’ Hazel smiled. ‘I don’t think anyone took it seriously, Inspector. Certainly not Madeleine. I think it was just a fun evening. Something different.’
‘But you didn’t approve?’
‘I think there’re some things best not toyed with. At best it would be a waste of time.’
‘And at worst?’
Hazel didn’t answer right away. Instead her eyes flitted around the kitchen as though seeking some place safe to land. But finding nothing she returned to his face.
‘It was Good Friday, Inspector. Le Vendredi saint.’
‘So?’
‘Think about it. Why is Easter the most important Christian holy day?’
‘Because that’s when Christ was crucified.’
‘No. Because that’s when Christ rose.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
As Lacoste snapped pictures in the bedroom of the old Hadley house and Lemieux bagged the tape Gamache opened and closed drawers in the cabinets, bedside table and vanity. Then he walked over to the bookcase.
What had someone wanted in here so much they’d been desperate enough to break the Sûreté cordon?
Gamache smiled as he saw Parkman’s Works, that odious history of Canada, taught in schoolhouses more than a century ago to kids willing to believe natives were shifty savages and Europeans actually brought civilization to these shores.
Gamache opened one of the volumes at random.
In the form of beasts or other shapes abominable and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury, tore at the branches of the sylvan dwelling.
Gamache closed the book and looked again at the cover, astonished. Was this really Parkman’s Works? Parched and dry and guaranteed to kill of ennui? The brood of hell? It was Parkman’s Works, he confirmed. And the section he’d opened was about Quebec.
‘Agent Lacoste, could you come here?’
When she did he handed her the book. ‘Could you open it, please?’
‘Just open it?’
‘S’il vous plaît.’
Isabelle Lacoste held the cracked leather volume between her hands then slowly splayed the cover. The frail pages fanned then after a stunned moment they fell, until the book was open. Gamache leaned over and read, In the form of beasts or other shapes abominable and unutterably hideous …
The book opened itself to that page.
Gamache stared then finally replaced it on the bookcase and took down the one next to it. A Bible. He wondered if it was coincidence, or whether the hand that placed the books together knew the one needed the other. But which needed which? He glanced at the Bible and slipped it into his pocket. He knew what he still needed to do, and every little bit helped. The dark slit in the bookcase, where the Bible had sat, revealed the cover of the next book. A book that was blank on its spine.
Lacoste was back at work and didn’t see Gamache slip the second book into his pocket too. But Lemieux did.
Gamache knew he was wasting time. The sun would soon set and he sure didn’t want to do it in the twilight.
‘I’m going to search the house. Are you all right here?’
Lacoste and Lemieux looked at him as his children Daniel and Annie had when he’d told them it was time they tried to swim across the bay without life jackets.
‘You’re strong enough swimmers.’
But still they couldn’t believe he’d ask this of them.
‘And I’ll be right beside you in the rowboat.’
He could still see the hesitation in Daniel’s eyes. But Annie dived right in. There was no way Daniel was going to be left behind so in he went too.
Daniel, sturdy and athletic, had swum the bay easily. Annie had barely made it. She was small and scrawny, as Reine-Marie had been at her age. But unlike Daniel, she lost no energy to fear. Still, she was so young and the bay so wide, she’d barely made it, sputtering the last few meters, her father encouraging her and practically dragging her to shore with his words, like ropes attached to the beloved little body. Twice he’d almost reached in and plucked her from the waters, but had waited and she’d found the strength to carry on.