Cruelest Month

‘Nothing’s changed, so yes, I think she did it. I take it you don’t?’

‘I think she had motive, opportunity and probably has the anger.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

Gamache stopped tiptoeing and turned to look at Beauvoir. It felt as though the day belonged to them. No one else was stirring yet in the pretty village. For a moment Gamache indulged in a fantasy. Of giving the Arnot people what they wanted. It would be so easy to drive into Montreal today and hand in his resignation. Then he’d pick up Reine-Marie from her job at the Bibliotheque Nationale and drive down here. They’d have lunch on the terrasse of the bistro overlooking the Riviere Bella Bella, then go house-hunting. They’d find a place in the village, and he’d buy one of Sandon’s lyrical rocking chairs and he’d sit in it reading his paper each morning and sipping his coffee and villagers would come to him when they had little problems. A sock missing from the clothes line. A family recipe mysteriously made by a neighbor for a party. Reine-Marie would join Arts Williamsburg and finally sign up for those courses she was longing to take.

No more murder. No more Arnot.

It was so tempting.

‘Did you look at The Dictionary of Magical Places?’

‘I did. You so subtly told me to look at the stuff on France.’

‘I’m very clever,’ agreed Gamache. ‘And did you?’

‘All I saw were caves they discovered about fifteen years ago. Had all these weird drawings of animals. Apparently cave men drew them thousands of years ago. I read for a while but frankly didn’t see why it was so important. There’re other caves with drawings. It’s not as if that was the first they found.’

‘True.’

Gamache could still see the images. Elegant, plump bison, horses, not one at a time but a lively herd, flowing across the rock face. Archeologists had been astonished by the images when they were first discovered, less than twenty years ago, by hikers in the woods of France. So detailed, so alive were the drawings archeologists first thought they must be the very pinnacle of the cave man’s art. The last stage before man evolved further.

And then came the astonishing discovery. The drawings were actually twenty thousand years older than anything they’d found before. It wasn’t the last, it was the first.

Who were these people who managed what their descendants couldn’t? To shade, to make three-dimensional images, to so gracefully depict power and movement? And then the final, staggering discovery.

Deep inside one of the caves they found a hand, outlined in red. Never before in all the other cave drawings was there an image of the artist, or the people. But the person who created these had a sense of self. Of the individual.

In the book last night, The Dictionary of Magical Places, Armand Gamache had stared at that one image. Of the hand, outlined in red. As though the artist was declaring himself alive, after thirty-five thousand years.

And Gamache had thought of another image, not quite so old, on a book he’d found in a damned and decaying house.

‘What makes them different is that they seem to be art for the pleasure of it. And magic. Scientists think the drawings were meant to conjure the actual beasts.’

‘But how do they know?’ asked Beauvoir. ‘Don’t we always say something’s magic when we don’t understand?’

‘We do. That’s what the witch-hunts were about.’

‘What was it Madame Zardo called it? The burning times?’

‘I’m not so sure they’re over,’ said Gamache, looking up at the old Hadley house then dragging his eyes back to the lovely and peaceful village. ‘What interested me most, though, about those cave drawings was the name of the cave itself. Do you remember it?’

Beauvoir thought. But he knew no answer would be coming.

The chief turned back to his walk, and continued to tiptoe between the squiggling worms. Beauvoir watched him for a moment, the tall, elegant, powerful man, avoiding the worms. Then he too started walking, tiptoeing, so that from any of the mullioned windows around the village green they looked like two grown men in an awkward, though familiar, ballet.

‘Do you remember the name?’ Beauvoir asked when he caught up with the chief.

‘Chauvet. They’re the caves at Chauvet.’

When they got back to the B. & B. they were met by the aroma of fresh-brewed cafe au lait, maple-cured back bacon and eggs.

‘Eggs Benedict,’ announced Gabri, rushing to greet them and take their coats. ‘Yummy.’

He pushed them along through the living room and into the dining room where their table was set up. Gamache and Beauvoir sat down and Gabri placed two steaming, frothy bols of coffee in front of them.

‘Patron, did you see a stack of books in the living room when you came down?’ Gamache asked, taking a sip of the rich brew.

‘Books? No.’

Gamache put his bol down and walked into the living room. Through the archway Beauvoir watched as he walked round and finally returned, replacing his white linen napkin on his lap.

‘They’re gone,’ he said, though he didn’t look upset.