‘Of course I knew,’ Hazel said, surprised.
‘But you didn’t tell us.’
‘I suppose I forgot. I never thought of her as a woman who’d had breast cancer and she didn’t either. Hardly ever spoke of it any more. Just got on with her life.’
‘It must have been a shock when she first discovered it. She’d have been in her early forties.’
‘True. Women are getting it younger and younger it seems. But I didn’t know her when she was first diagnosed. She looked me up when she was already in treatment. I think that happens a lot. Old friends become more important. We hadn’t kept in touch after high school but she suddenly called and came down. It was as though no time had passed. She was weak from the chemo but as lovely as ever. She looked like her eighteen-year-old self, only bald and that only made her more beautiful. It was strange. I sometimes wonder whether chemotherapy doesn’t take people almost to another world. So many seem so peaceful. Their faces become smooth, their eyes shine. Madeleine almost glowed.’
‘Sure she wasn’t having radiation?’ Nichol asked.
‘Agent Nichol,’ Beauvoir barked. He could feel the stone he’d found by the Bella Bella and put in his pocket yearning to fly. To smash bone, to grind into that head until it hit her tiny, atrophied brain. And replace it. And who would know the difference? ‘That was uncalled for.’
‘It was only a joke.’
‘It was cruel, Agent Nichol, and you know the difference. Apologize.’
Nichol turned to Hazel, her eyes hard. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right.’
Nichol knew she’d gone too far. But she’d been told to. To aggravate, to upset, to unsettle the team, that was her job.
For the sake of the Surete she was willing to do this. For her boss, whom she adored and loathed, she’d do this. Looking at Inspector Beauvoir’s handsome face, engorged and enraged, she knew she’d succeeded.
‘Madeleine went back to Montreal and finished her chemo,’ continued Hazel after an awkward silence. ‘But she came out every weekend after that. She wasn’t happy in her marriage. There weren’t any children, you know.’
‘Why was she unhappy?’
‘She said they just grew apart. She also thought it possible he couldn’t deal with a successful wife. She excelled at everything she did, you know. Always had. That was just Madeleine.’ Hazel looked to Beauvoir like a proud mother. He thought she’d be a good mother. Kind and caring. Supportive. And yet she’d raised that spoiled child upstairs. Some kids, he knew, were just ungrateful.
‘It must be hard,’ said Hazel.
‘What must be?’ Beauvoir had become lost in his own thoughts.
‘Being around someone who was always successful. Especially if you’re insecure. I think Mad’s husband must have been insecure, don’t you?’
‘Do you know how we can find him?’
‘He’s still in Montreal. Francois Favreau’s his name. Nice man. I’ve met him a few times. I have his address and phone number if you like.’
Hazel got up from the kitchen table and went over to a chest of drawers. Opening the top drawer she rummaged through it, her back to him.
‘Why did you go to the second seance, Madame Smyth?’
‘Madeleine asked me to,’ Hazel said, moving papers around in the drawer.
‘She asked you to the first and you didn’t go. Why the second?’
‘Found it.’ Hazel turned round and handed an address book to Beauvoir who handed it to Nichol. ‘What did you ask, Inspector?’
‘The second seance, madame.’
‘Oh, yes. Well it was a combination of things, as I remember. Madeleine actually seemed to have a good time at the first. Said it was silly, but in an amusement park kind of way. You know, the way we used to scare ourselves with the roller coaster and the haunted house? It sounded like fun and I kind of regretted missing the first.’
‘And Sophie?’
‘Well that was a given from the start. A bit of excitement in this burg, as she calls it. Sophie was excited about it all day.’
Hazel’s animated face fell, slowly. Beauvoir could chart the memory of that night as it made its way across Hazel’s face until the memory of Madeleine alive became the memory of Madeleine dead.
‘Who would want to kill her?’ Beauvoir asked.
‘No one.’
‘Someone did.’ He tried to make it soft and gentle, as Gamache would, but even to his own ears the words sounded like an accusation.
‘Madeleine was,’ Hazel moved her hands gracefully in front of her, as though conducting or gently mining the air for words, ‘she was sunshine. Every life she came into she brightened. Not because she tried. I try.’ Hazel’s hand now pointed to the casserole regiment. ‘I run around trying to help people, without even being asked. And I know that can be annoying. Madeleine made people feel better just by spending time with them. It’s hard to explain.’
