The Cruelest Month

TWENTY-TWO

Agent Robert Lemieux waited his turn at Monsieur Béliveau’s general store. At first he thought he’d find a dépanneur, filled with junk food, cigarettes, cheap beer and wine, odds and ends people suddenly found they needed, like envelopes and candles for cake. But instead he found a real grocery store. One his grand-mère would have recognized. The dark wood shelves held neatly displayed cans of vegetables and preserves, cereals and pastas and jams and jellies, soups and crackers. All good quality, all neat and orderly. No overcrowding, no gluttony. The floors were scuffed but clean linoleum and a fan moved slowly round on the tongue-in-groove ceiling.

Behind the counter a tall, older man stooped to listen while an even older woman counted out change on the counter to pay for her groceries, talking nonstop. She told him about her hips. She told him about her son. She told him about the time she’d visited South Africa and how much she’d loved it there. And finally, in a soft and kindly voice, she told him she was sorry for his loss. And she reached one spotted hand out, the veins bulging and blue, and laid it on his long, thin, very white fingers. And held it there. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t withdraw his hand. Instead he looked into her violet eyes and smiled.

‘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.

‘You’re a fool, Lemieux. Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? Why the hell did I think you could do anything against Gamache?’

‘You know,’ Lemieux said, as though he hadn’t heard the reproach, ‘it almost seems as though Chief Inspector Gamache believes those things.’

As I did once, said Brébeuf to himself. Once, when I loved Armand. When we trusted each other and pledged to protect each other. Once, when I could still admit I was wrong, I needed help, I didn’t know. When I could still say, I’m sorry.

But that was long ago now.

‘I’m not such a fool, you know,’ said Agent Lemieux softly.

Brébeuf waited for the inevitable whining, the doubts, the need for reassurance, yes we’re doing the right thing, yes Gamache betrayed the Sûreté, you’re a clever young man, I know you see through his deceit. Brébeuf had needed to repeat these things so often to the beleaguered Lemieux he almost believed them himself.

He stared at the agent and waited. But Brébeuf saw a poised, self-contained officer.

Good. Good.

But a tiny, cool breeze enveloped Brébeuf’s heart.

‘One other thing he told me,’ said Lemieux at the door now, smiling disarmingly. ‘Matthew 10:36.’

Brébeuf watched, stone-faced, as Agent Lemieux closed the door softly behind him. Then he began breathing again, shallow, fast breaths, almost gasps. Looking down he saw he’d made a fist of his hand, and filling that fist, crumpled and balled, was the paper with the four simple statements.

And filling his head, like a fist, were Lemieux’s last words.

Matthew 10:36.

He’d forgotten that too. But what he knew he’d remember for a very long time was the look on Lemieux’s face. What he’d seen there wasn’t the familiar squirrely, needy, pleading look of a man who wanted to be convinced. Instead, he’d seen the look of a man who no longer cared. It wasn’t cleverness he’d surprised there, but cunning.

Now Agent Lemieux listened and waited for Monsieur Béliveau to tell him more, but the old grocer seemed content to also wait.

‘How did your wife die?’

‘Stroke. High blood pressure. She didn’t die immediately. I was able to bring her home and care for her for a few months. But she had another one and that took her. She’s buried up behind St Thomas’s church in the old cemetery there, with her parents and mine.’

Agent Lemieux thought there would be nothing worse than to be buried here. He planned to be buried in Montreal or Quebec City, or Paris, the retired and revered President of Quebec. Up until recently the Sûreté had provided him with a home, a purpose. But Superintendent Brébeuf had unwittingly given him something else. Something missing from his life. A plan.

Robert Lemieux’s plan didn’t include being with the Sûreté long. Just long enough to rise through the ranks, make a name for himself, then run for public office. Anything was possible. Or would be, once he brought down Gamache. He’d be a hero. And heroes were rewarded.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Béliveau.’ Myrna Landers came in, filling the store with sunshine and smiles. ‘Am I interrupting?’

‘No, not at all.’ Agent Lemieux closed his notebook. ‘We were just having a small talk. How are you?’

‘Not too bad.’ She turned to Monsieur Béliveau. ‘How are you doing? I hear you had dinner with Clara and Peter last night.’

‘I did. It was a comfort. I’m doing exactly as you might expect.’

‘It’s a sad time,’ said Myrna, deciding not to try to jolly Monsieur Béliveau out of his rightful sorrow. ‘I’ve come for a paper. La Journée, please.’

‘There’s quite a call for that paper today.’

‘There’s a strange article in it.’ She wondered whether she should keep it quiet but decided that horse had bolted. She paid for the paper and flipped through the pages until she found the city column.

All three leaned over it then all three rose, like devotees after ancient prayers. Two were upset. One was ecstatic.

Just then a quacking sound took them to the swinging screen door and out onto the veranda.