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Though winds blow stout –

Odile stared at the bags of organic cereal on the shelves, for inspiration ‘Though winds blow stout,’ she repeated, stuck She had to find soale’

‘Pale? Pail? Shale? Though winds blow stout like a great big whale?’ said Odile, hopefully But no, it was close, but not quite right

All day in the store that she and Gilles ran in St-Rémy she’d been inspired to write It had flooded out of her so that now the counter ith her works, scribbled on the backs of receipts and eh to be published She’d type theest They ale The enerous, but today Odile found her heart lighter than it had been in months

All day people had visited the shop,a small purchase and a lot of infor prodded Wouldn’t do to appear too anxious Or pleased

‘You were there, dear?’

‘It must have been horrible’

‘Poor Monsieur Béliveau He was quite in love with her And his wife barely two years gone’

‘Was she really scared to death?’

That was the one memory Odile didn’t want to revisit Madeleine frozen in a screa so horrible it had turned her to stone, like the whatever it was from those myths, the head with the snakes It had never seemed that scary to Odile, whose monsters took human shape

Yes, Madeleine had been scared to death and it served her right for all the terror she’d visited upon Odile in the last few one, like a storm blown over

A storain

Though winds blow stout, a hurricale, What’s that,

what’s that to you and ood day’s work

Chief Inspector Gaent Lemieux, still at the B & B

‘She’s not back yet, Chief But Gabri is’

‘Pass the phone to him, please’

After a pause the familiar voice came on ‘Salut, patron’

‘Salut, Gabri Did Madame Chauvet arrive by car?’