The Cruelest Month

Across the road Ruth Zardo’s door opened and the elderly woman came out. She stood there for a moment and Harris had the impression Ruth was talking to some invisible person. Then she clumped down the steps and at the bottom said a few more words into the air.



Finally lost it, thought Dr Harris. Fried her brain with verse and worse.



Ruth turned and did something that horrified Dr Harris, who knew the misanthrope slightly. She smiled and waved at the young doctor. Dr Harris waved back and wondered what malevolent scheme Ruth had hatched to make her so happy. Then she saw it.



As Ruth limped across the road two tiny birds formed a very small tail behind her. One was spreading its wings and flapping, the other was limping a little and falling behind. Ruth stopped and waited, then started again, more slowly.



‘Quite a family,’ said Gamache, landing in the seat beside Dr Harris.



‘Look what I found.’



Dr Harris opened her fist and there in the cradle of her palm sat a tiny egg. A robin’s egg blue, but not actually a robin’s egg. It was also green and pink in a pattern so intricate and delicate Gamache had to put on his half-moon glasses to appreciate it.



‘Where on earth did you find that?’



‘Right here, under the bench. Can you believe it? It’s wood, I think.’ She handed it to him. He brought it up to his face and stared at it until his eyes crossed.



‘Beautiful. I wonder where it came from.’



Dr Harris was shaking her head. ‘This place. How do you explain a village like Three Pines where poets take ducks for walks and art seems to fall from the skies?’



On the mention of skies both of them looked at the storm cloud, now almost halfway up the sky.



‘I wouldn’t expect many Rembrandts from that,’ said Gamache.



‘No. More abstract than classic, I think.’



Gamache laughed. He liked Dr Harris.



‘Poor Ruth. You know she smiled at me just now.’



‘Smiled? Do you think she’s dying?’



‘No, but I think the little one is.’



Dr Harris pointed to the smaller of the ducks, struggling across the grass to the pond. The two sat on their bench and watched. Ruth went over to the straggler and walked very slowly beside it, the two limping along like mother and child.



‘What killed Madeleine Favreau, doctor?’



‘Ephedra. She had five or six times the recommended level of ephedra in her system.’



Gamache nodded. ‘That’s what the toxicology said, of course. Could it have been given to her over dinner?’



‘Had to have been. It works fairly quickly. I don’t think it’d be a problem slipping it into any of the food.’



‘But there’s more, isn’t there,’ said Gamache. ‘Not everyone who dies from ephedra has a look of horror on their faces.’



‘True. You want to know what really killed her?’



Gamache nodded.



Sharon Harris looked up from his strong, calm face and nodded to the hillside.



‘That killed her. The old Hadley house.’



‘Come along, doctor. Houses don’t kill.’ Gamache tried to sound convincing.



‘Perhaps not, but fear does. Do you believe in ghosts, Chief Inspector?’ When he was silent she went on. ‘I’m a doctor, a scientist, but I’ve been in homes that scare the hell out of me. I’ve been invited to parties in perfectly fine places. New houses even, and felt a dread. Felt a presence.’



She’d debated with herself all the way over. Should she tell him everything? Should she admit this? But she knew she had to. To find a killer, she had to expose herself. But she knew she’d never admit these things to any other Sûreté officer.



‘Do you believe in haunted houses?’ Gamache asked.



Dr Harris was suddenly eleven and creeping through the pine forest toward the Tremblay place. It was buried in the woods, abandoned, dark, brooding.



‘Someone was killed there once,’ her friend had hissed into her ear. ‘A kid. Strangled and stabbed.’



She’d heard he’d been beaten to death by his uncle, but someone else had said he’d died of starvation.



However he went, he was still there. Waiting. Waiting to possess the body of some other kid. To come alive again, and avenge his death.



They’d crept to within yards of the Tremblay place. It was night and the dark woods closed in and all things familiar and comforting during the day became unfamiliar. Branches cracked and footsteps approached and something creaked and little Sharon Harris had fled, running, tumbling through the forest, trees reaching out and scraping flesh from her face and behind her she heard panting. Was it her friend, abandoned by her? Or the dead boy, reaching out? She could feel his freezing hands on her shoulders, desperate to take a life.