Louise Penny - Cruelest Month

‘It’s a banned substance,’ said Brébeuf.

‘True, true,’ said Gamache, distracted. He was scanning the report again. After a moment he spoke. ‘This is interesting. Listen to this.’ He read from the report. ‘The subject is five foot seven and weighs 134.7 pounds. You wouldn’t think she’d need a diet pill.’ He took off his glasses and folded them up.

‘Most people don’t,’ said Brébeuf. ‘All in their minds.’

‘I wonder what she weighed a few months ago,’ said Gamache. ‘Maybe this is how she got down to 135 pounds.’ Gamache tapped his glasses on the report. ‘With the help of ephedra.’

‘Maybe,’ agreed Brébeuf. ‘It’s your job to find out.’

‘Murder or misadventure?’ Gamache went back to the paper in his hand, wondering what else it might yield. But the Chief Inspector knew that paper rarely held the answers to his questions. Was it murder? Who was the killer? Why had the killer hated or feared this woman so much he had to take her life? Why? Why? Always the why before the who.

No, the answers lay in flesh and blood, not in a book and not in a report. And so often not even in things corporeal, but in something that couldn’t be held and contained and touched. The answers to his questions lay in the murky past and in the emotions hidden there.

The paper in his hand would yield the facts but not the truth. For that he had to go to Three Pines. For that he’d have to go, yet again, into the old Hadley house.

‘Who will you take on your team?’ The question brought Gamache back to his friend’s office. Brébeuf had tried to sound casual but the oddity of his query couldn’t be hidden. Never before had he questioned Armand Gamache, his chief of homicide, about procedure and certainly not about anything as mundane as personnel assignments.

‘Why do you ask?’

Brébeuf picked up a pen and tapped it rapidly on a stack of undone paperwork.

‘You know very well why I’m asking. You’re the one who brought her behavior to my attention. Are you going to assign Agent Yvette Nichol to this case?’

There it was. The question that had hounded Gamache on the drive from Mont Royal. Should Nichol be on the team? Was it time? He’d actually sat in his Volvo in the near-empty car park of Sûreté headquarters, trying to decide. But still, he was surprised his friend had asked.

‘What’s your advice?’

‘Have you made up your mind or is there a chance I might influence you?’

Gamache laughed. They knew each other too well.

‘I’ll tell you, Michel, I’ve just about decided. But you know how much I value your opinion.’

‘ Voyons , what would you rather have right now? My opinion or a brioche?’

‘A brioche,’ admitted Gamache with a smile. ‘But so would you.’

‘ C’est la vérité. Listen.’ Brébeuf got up and came round to the other side of the desk, sitting on it and leaning down to stare at the Chief Inspector. ‘To take her, well, c’est fou . It’s nuts. I know you. You want to save her, to rehabilitate her. To turn her into a good and loyal agent. I’m right, aren’t I?’

Michel Brébeuf wasn’t smiling any more.

Gamache opened his mouth to speak but changed his mind. Instead he let his friend vent. And vent he did.

‘One day that ego of yours’ll kill you. That’s all it is, you know. You pretend it’s selfless, you pretend to be the great teacher, the wise and patient Armand Gamache, but you and I both know it’s ego. Pride. Be careful, my friend. She’s dangerous. You’ve said so yourself.’

Gamache could feel his heat rising and had to take a few breaths to keep his calm. To not match anger with anger. He knew Michel Brébeuf was saying this because he was the Superintendent, but also because they were friends.

‘It’s time the Arnot case was ended,’ said Gamache firmly.

And there it was. He’d said it out loud.

Goddamned Arnot, rotting in prison but still haunting him.

‘I thought so,’ said Brébeuf, returning to his chair.

‘Why are you here, Michel?’

‘In my own office?’

Gamache was silent, watching his friend. Finally Brébeuf leaned forward, putting his elbows on his wide desk as though he intended to crawl across and wrap himself around Gamache’s head.

‘I know what happened to you once in the old Hadley house. You were almost killed there—’

‘It wasn’t so bad.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Armand,’ Brébeuf warned. ‘I wanted to be the one to tell you about this case and see how you feel.’

Gamache was silent, deeply touched.

‘There’s something about the place,’ he admitted after a moment. ‘You’ve never been there, have you?’

Brébeuf shook his head.

‘There’s something in there. It’s like a hunger, some need that has to be met. I must sound crazy.’

‘I think there’s a need in you that’s equally destructive,’ said Brébeuf. ‘Your need to help people. Like Agent Nichol.’

‘I don’t want to help her. I want to expose her and her bosses. I believe she’s working for the faction that supports Arnot. I’ve already told you that.’

‘So fire her,’ snapped Brébeuf, exasperated. ‘The only reason I haven’t is because you asked me not to. As a personal favor. Listen, the Arnot case will never be over. It goes too deep into the system. Every officer in the Sûreté is involved in one way or another. Most support you, you know that. But the ones who don’t,’ Brébeuf now raised his palms in a simple, eloquent gesture of defeat, ‘they’re powerful and Nichol is their eyes and ears. As long as she’s near you you’re in danger. They’ll bring you down.’

‘It works both ways, Michel,’ said Gamache wearily. Talking about former Superintendent Arnot always drained him. It was, he’d thought, an old case. Long dead and buried. But now it was back. Risen. ‘As long as she’s close I can watch her, control what she sees and does.’

‘Foolish man.’ Brébeuf shook his head.

‘Prideful, stubborn, arrogant man,’ agreed Gamache, walking to the door.

‘You may have your Nichol,’ said Brébeuf, turning his back to look out the window.

‘ Merci. ’

Gamache closed the door and walked to his own office to make some calls.

Alone now Superintendent Brébeuf picked up the phone and made a call of his own.

‘It’s Superintendent Brébeuf. You’ll be getting a call soon from Chief Inspector Gamache’s office. No, he doesn’t suspect. He thinks the problem is Nichol.’

Brébeuf took a few deep breaths. He’d gotten to the stage where just looking at Armand Gamache made him want to retch.

Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir drove the Volvo over the Pont Champlain spanning the St Lawrence River and onto the Eastern Townships Autoroute, heading south toward the American border. Beauvoir had suggested the chief buy an MG when his last Volvo had finally died a year or so ago, but the chief for some reason thought he was joking.

‘So what’s the case?’

‘A woman was frightened to death last night in Three Pines,’ said Gamache, watching the countryside slip by.

‘ Sacré. So what are we looking for? A ghost?’

‘Closer than you might think. It happened at a séance. At the old Hadley house.’

Gamache turned to watch his young inspector’s lean and handsome face. It grew even tauter, the lips compressing and growing pale.

‘That fucking place,’ Beauvoir said at last. ‘Someone should tear it down.’

‘You think the house is to blame?’

‘Don’t you?’

It was a strange admission for Beauvoir. Normally so rational and driven by facts, he gave no credence to things unseen, like emotions. He was the perfect complement to his boss, who, in Beauvoir’s opinion, spent far too much time crawling into people’s heads and hearts. Inside there lived chaos, and Beauvoir wasn’t a big one for that.