Where was the psychic?

He always secretly hoped a voice would whisper some answers, though he didn’t know what he’d do if he started hearing voices.

He gave it a moment and when no voice answered, he picked up the phone and made another call.

‘Bonjour, Superintendent. Still at work?’

‘Just leaving. What’ve you got, Armand?’

‘This was murder.’

‘Now, is that a feeling you’re getting or is there an actual fact in the case?’

Gamache smiled. His old friend knew him well and like Beauvoir had a certain distrust of Gamache’s ‘feelings’.

‘Actually, my spirit guide told me.’

There was a pause on the other end then Gamache laughed.

‘That’s a joke, Michel. Une blague. This time there’s an actual fact. Ephedra.’

‘As I remember I told you about the ephedra.’

‘True, but there was no ephedra in her bedroom or bathroom or anywhere reasonable she might have put it. All the evidence says this was a woman who didn’t feel she needed to lose weight. Had no eating disorder that would lead her to use a known dangerous drug. No obsession with weight and diets. No books or magazines on the subject. Nothing.’

‘You think someone gave her the ephedra.’

‘I do. I’m taking this on as a murder investigation.’

‘I agree. I’m sorry to have taken you away from your holiday, though. Will you get back in time to see Daniel before he goes?’

‘No, he’s on his way to the airport now.’

‘Armand, I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault,’ said Gamache, though Brébeuf, who knew him so well, could hear the regret. ‘Give my love to Catherine.’

‘I will.’

Hanging up, Gamache felt relief. For a few months now, maybe longer, he’d sensed a change in his friend, as though a film had descended, come between them. Something had obscured the intimacy they’d always had. It was nothing obvious, and Gamache had even wondered if he was imagining it, had asked Reine-Marie about it after a dinner with the Brébeufs.

‘It’s nothing I can put my finger on,’ he’d struggled to explain. ‘Just a—’

‘Feeling?’ she’d smiled. She trusted his feelings.

‘Perhaps slightly more than that. His tone is different, his eyes seem harder. And sometimes he says things that seem intentionally insulting.’

‘Like that comment about Quebecers who move to Paris, thinking they’re better than others.’

‘You heard that too. He knows Daniel’s moved there. Was that a dig?’ If so, it was just one of many from Michel lately. Why?

He’d searched his memory and couldn’t come up with any reason Michel might have for hurting him. He couldn’t remember doing anything to bring this on.

‘He loves you, Armand. Just give him space. Catherine says they’re worried about their son’s marriage. They’ve separated.’

‘Michel didn’t tell me,’ said Gamache, surprised that that hurt. He thought they told each other everything. He wondered whether maybe he should be more circumspect himself, but caught that instinct. How easy it is, he thought, to retaliate. He’d give Michel as much space and time as he needed, and let him take out some of his frustration on him. It was natural to lash out at people close by.

Michel was worried about his son. Of course it would be something like that. It couldn’t possibly be about him, about their friendship.

But now, hanging up the phone, Gamache smiled. Michel had sounded like his old self. His old buoyancy was back. Whatever had come between them was gone.

Michel Brébeuf hung up the phone and stared at the wall, smiling.

There it was. Brébeuf had the answer to the question that had tormented him for months. How? How was he supposed to bring down a contented man?

Now Michel Brébeuf knew.

SEVENTEEN

Agent Yvette Nichol woke up early the next morning, too excited to sleep. Finally, it was here. The day she’d longed for. When Gamache would finally see what she was made of.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Short, reddish hair, brown eyes, skin with purple marks where she’d picked at it. Though she was slim her face always seemed a little pudgy, like a balloon with hair.

She sucked in her cheeks, biting them between her molars. Better, though she couldn’t go through life like that.

She’d gotten her father’s features and her mother’s personality. She’d always been told that, though she’d never much liked her mother and wondered whether her aunts and uncles said it to annoy her. Her mother had died suddenly, one day there and gone the next.