‘No, not those things. Other things.’
Beauvoir stared at Sophie’s hair then lowered his gaze to her hands. One clasped the other as though she needed to be held and no one else was offering.
Gamache picked up the books on Madeleine’s bedside table. English and French. Biographies, a history of Europe after World War Two, and a work of literary fiction by a well-known Canadian. An eclectic taste.
Then he shoved his long arm between box-spring and mattress, sweeping it up and down. In his experience, if people were going to have books, or magazines, that embarrassed them, this was where they were hidden.
The next hiding place was less for ‘hiding’ and more for simple privacy. The drawer in the bedside table. Opening it up he found a book there.
Now why didn’t she keep it with the rest? Was it a secret? It looked harmless enough.
Picking it up he looked at the cover photo of a smiling elderly woman in tweeds and long, exuberant necklaces. In one eloquent hand she held a cocktail. Paul Hiebert’s Sarah Binks, the cover said. He flipped it open and read at random. Then he sat on the side of the bed and read more.
Five minutes later he was still reading and smiling. At times laughing out loud. He looked around guiltily, then closed the book and slipped it into his pocket.
After a few minutes he’d completed his search, ending up at the dresser by the door. Madeleine kept a few framed photographs there. He picked one up and saw Hazel with another woman. She was slim with very short dark hair and gleaming brown eyes. Doe eyes, made larger by the haircut. Her smile was full and without artifice or agenda. Hazel was also relaxed and smiling.
They looked natural together. Hazel calm and content and the other woman radiant.
At last Armand Gamache had met Madeleine Favreau.
* * *
‘Sad house,’ said Beauvoir, looking in the rearview mirror. ‘Was it ever happy, do you think?’
‘I think it was a very happy house once,’ said Gamache.
Beauvoir told the chief about his conversation with Sophie. Gamache listened then looked out the window, seeing only the odd light in the distance. Night fell as they bumped back to Montreal.
‘What was your impression?’ Gamache asked.
‘I think Madeleine Favreau squeezed Sophie out of her own home. Not on purpose, maybe, but I think there wasn’t enough room for her. There’s barely room in there to move and the addition of Madeleine was too much. Something had to give.’
‘Something had to go,’ said Gamache.
‘Sophie.’
Gamache nodded into the darkness and thought about a love so all-consuming it ate up and spat out Hazel’s own daughter. How would that daughter feel?
‘What did you find?’ Beauvoir asked.
Gamache described the room.