She’d already been off to interview Francois Favreau, Madeleine’s husband. He was gorgeous. Like a
‘I heard about her death, of course. But we hadn’t been in touch for a while and I didn’t really want to bother Hazel.’
‘Not even with sympathy?’
Francois moved his coffee cup a half-inch to the left. She noticed that his cuticles were ragged. Worry always finds its way to the surface.
‘I just hate that sort of thing. I never know what to say. Here, look at this.’ He took some papers from a nearby desk and handed them to her. On them he’d scrawled,
On and on, for three pages. Half-finished sentences, half-baked sentiments.
‘Why don’t you just tell her how you feel?’
He stared at her with a look she knew. It was the same one her husband used. Annoyance. It was obviously so easy for her to feel and to express it. And impossible for him.
‘What went through your mind when you heard she was murdered?’ Lacoste had learned that when people couldn’t talk of feelings they could at least talk about their thoughts, and often the two collided. And colluded.
‘I wondered who’d done it. Who could hate her that much.’
‘How do you feel about her now?’ She kept her voice soft, reasonable. Cajoling.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is that true?’
The silence stretched on. She could see him teetering on the verge of an emotion, trying not to fall in, trying to cling to the rational rock of his brain. But eventually that rock betrayed him, and both fell together.
‘I love her. Loved her.’ He put his head softly in his hands, as though cradling himself, his long, slim fingers poking out of his dark hair.
‘Why did you divorce?’
He rubbed his face and looked at her, suddenly bleary.
‘It was her idea, but I think I pushed her to it. I was too chicken shit to do it myself.’
‘Why did you want to?’
‘I couldn’t take it any more. At first it was wonderful. She was so gorgeous and warm and loving. And successful. Everything she did she was good at. She just glowed. It was like living too close to the sun.’
‘It blinds and burns,’ said Lacoste.
‘Yes.’ Favreau seemed relieved to have words. ‘It hurt being that close to Madeleine.’
‘Do you really wonder who killed her?’
‘I do, but…’
Lacoste waited. Armand Gamache had taught her patience.
‘But I’m not sure I was surprised. She didn’t mean to hurt people, but she did. And when you get hurt enough…’
There was no need to finish the sentence.
Robert Lemieux had stopped at the Tim Horton’s in Cowansville on his way to Three Pines and now a stack of Double Double coffees stood in the middle of the conference table along with cheerful cardboard boxes of doughnuts.
‘My man,’ exclaimed Beauvoir when he saw them, clapping Lemieux on the back. Lemieux had further ingratiated himself by starting the ancient cast-iron woodstove in the middle of the room.
The place smelled of cardboard and coffee, of sweet doughnuts and sweet wood smoke.
Inspector Beauvoir called the morning meeting to order just as Agent Nichol arrived, late and disheveled as always. They gave their reports, and Chief Inspector Gamache ended by telling them about the coroner’s report.
‘So Madeleine Favreau had a bad heart,’ said Agent Lemieux. ‘The murderer had to have known that.’
‘Probably. According to the coroner three things had to come together.’ Beauvoir was standing next to an easel which held sheaves of large white paper. He wielded a magic marker like a baton and wrote as he spoke. ‘One: mega-dose of ephedra. Two: scare at the seance and three: bad heart.’
‘So why wasn’t she killed at the Friday night seance?’ asked Nichol. ‘All three elements were in place, or at least two of the three.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,’ said Gamache. He’d been listening and sipping his coffee. His fingers were a little sticky from a chocolate glazed doughnut. He wiped them with the tiny paper napkin and leaned forward. ‘Was the Good Friday seance a dress rehearsal? Was it a prelude? Did Madeleine say or do something that led to her murder two days later? Are the two seances connected?’
‘It seems too much of a coincidence that they’re not,’ said Lemieux.
