The Long Way Home (38 page)

Gamache sipped his tea. It was a brew he associated with the Lower North Shore. Where pots sat on woodstoves all day, and arthritic hands added more hot water and dropped more bags in, until it was like stew.

He’d drunk gallons of the stuff as he’d sat in kitchens in the remote fishing villages along this coastline.

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” she asked.

“A few times.”

“Investigations?”

“Yes. Always difficult in a closed community. These people are proud, self-reliant. They didn’t even have running water or electricity until recently. They never asked for help from the government. Not a single person took unemployment, until recently. It would never occur to them to take what they considered a handout. They have their own laws and rules and code of conduct.”

“You make it sound like the Wild West.”

Gamache smiled. “I suppose it is, a bit. But not so wild really. These are fishermen. They’re a different breed. They get enough ‘wild’ from the sea. When they get home they want peace. There’s a deep civility about the people here.”

“And yet they still kill.”

“Sometimes. They’re human.” He looked at Myrna. “Do you know what Jacques Cartier called this stretch of coast?”

“Cartier the explorer?”

“Yes, back in the early fifteen hundreds. When he first saw this place he called it ‘the land God gave to Cain.’”

Myrna took that in as she watched the shoreline, where the odd, malformed trees lived. But nothing else.

“Cain. The first murderer,” said Myrna.

“A coast so forbidding, so hostile it was fit only for the damned,” said Gamache. “And yet…”

“Yes?”

He gave a small lopsided smile and stared at the far shore. “And yet I find it just about the most beautiful place on earth. I wonder what that says about me.”

“Maybe you’re drawn to the damned,” said Myrna.

“Maybe that’s why I’ve spent my life looking for murderers.”

“Have you ever been to Tabaquen?” she asked.

“Once. We arrested an old trapper for murder. He’d never been off the coast before. Never been off his trapline. He died in prison before the trial.”

“Poor man,” said Myrna. And Gamache nodded agreement.

He stared at the almost unnaturally smooth rocks gliding out of the water in great sheets.

“There’re those who seem to turn to the sea, always changing, always adapting. But never settling down. And those who turn to rocks and stones.” He waved toward the shoreline. “Solid but stuck.”

He looked at Myrna and smiled. “Sorry. I suspect that sounds romantic.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Perhaps, Myrna thought, in Montréal, or Toronto, or New York, or London it would. But hanging over the rail, looking at the cold gray water, the hard gray stones, the thick gray clouds, it sounded about right.

She watched Armand. Was he of the sea or the stone? Was she?

*   *   *

Clara walked along the narrow corridor, adjusting her step to the growing and unpredictable swell. She was discovering that she was good on boats. As was Myrna.

Chartrand, on the other hand, was not.

He’d stayed in the Admiral’s Suite all morning. Clara had taken him some dry toast and tea. It was the first time she’d seen their “suite,” and it had shocked her. She’d been a little suspicious of Chartrand’s absence, wondering if he was faking it. But seeing the crummy, smelly, uncomfortable cabin, she knew only a man on his deathbed would choose to spend time there.

Chartrand had roused, seen her, and through bleary eyes had thanked her.

“You should go,” he said, trying to get up on an elbow. “I don’t want you seeing me like this.”

“And if I was sick?” she asked.

“I’d want to look after you,” he said, and his pale green pallor developed an orangish hue. Had Marcel Chartrand’s face been a color wheel, he’d have failed the exam.

They sat on the narrow bed and she’d gotten a cool cloth and a Gravol.

After a few minutes the drug kicked in and Clara could see his eyelids grow heavy, his breathing grow deeper, his skin less waxy.

She let him subside onto the bed and covered him with a blanket.

“Don’t go,” he whispered. Then shut his eyes.

She lingered for a moment at the door, before leaving.

*   *   *

The report on the substance in the buried container arrived that afternoon.

Gamache and Beauvoir read it with increasing puzzlement.

It wasn’t heroin after all. It wasn’t cocaine.

“How can this be?” Beauvoir asked, his brows drawn together. “Am I reading it right?”

Gamache had gone over the report two or three times himself. Quickly the first time, scanning the familiar form down to the pertinent line. And there he stopped, as though hitting a wall.

Then he went back and read more carefully. But the conclusion never changed.

The powdery substance in the container wasn’t a pharmaceutical. It was natural. But not the prettiest side of nature.

Asbestos.

The two men lifted their eyes from the screen and stared at each other.

“What does it mean?” asked Jean-Guy.

Gamache got to his feet. “See what you can find out about asbestos.”

“Right.”

Beauvoir excelled at finding facts. Tracking them down, analyzing them, putting them in their place. Not like an automaton, but a skilled and thoughtful investigator.

Gamache left Beauvoir on the laptop in the lounge and went to the communications office of the ship, where they printed out copies of the report. Then he went on deck and found Clara and Myrna on a bench, talking.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

“No, but you look a little disturbed,” said Myrna, and patted the seat next to her.

He took it, and told them the latest findings.

“Asbestos?” said Clara. “Could it be natural? I mean, isn’t asbestos mined in Québec?”

“
Oui
. There’s a whole town called Asbestos,” Gamache confirmed. “Built around mining it. But that’s a long way off. This asbestos was found inside mailing tubes, like the one Peter’s canvases came in.”

“How’d it get there?” Clara asked.

“Where would you even get asbestos these days?” asked Myrna. “I thought it was all removed and destroyed decades ago.”

“It was,” said Gamache. “There was asbestos removed from the art college the year after you graduated, Clara.”

“I remember hearing about it,” she said.

“It was happening all over,” said Myrna. “I was working in a hospital and they found it in the walls. Used for insulation. No one thought it was dangerous, of course. At the time. And when they found out it was, they had to remove it. Big mess.”

“Big mess,” said Gamache.

“But how’d it get buried in some field in Charlevoix?” asked Clara.

“In a mailing tube,” said Myrna.

The three of them stared at the coastline, and the gulls dipping and floating on the air currents. Their movements growing increasingly erratic as the currents grew increasingly unstable. The gulls themselves seemed surprised, and cried out, as they were tossed about.

Gamache watched this, then looked into the sky. It was dull and gray. Not bright, but neither was it threatening.

“
Excuse-moi
,” he said.

He went inside and called the college. The principal confirmed that work was done, according to Canadian law and code, back in the 1980s.

“Could someone take some of that asbestos?” Gamache asked.

There was a pause. “It was before my time, so I can’t say for sure, but I do know they wouldn’t have just left piles of it lying around. And even if they did, why would anyone want to take something that would kill you?”

Gamache, the former head of homicide for the Sûreté, knew the answer to that.

It was to kill. That’s why someone would take it.

Through the window he watched the gulls bounce and bob, and sometimes they were swept back as though picked up by a strong hand.

This was a harbinger, Gamache knew. The first signs. Something was coming.

THIRTY-SIX

“Find anything?” asked Gamache.

He’d returned to the lounge.

Beauvoir nodded, distracted. Lost in reading.

Gamache joined him at the table.

On the screen was the history of the town of Asbestos, Québec, where asbestos had been discovered and mined. It had seemed a godsend to a hardscrabble region. Natural, plentiful. It was both an insulator and a fire retardant. Asbestos would save the region and save lives.

It was magic.

No one seemed to notice the needle-like fibers. That floated in the air when it was disturbed. That lodged in the lungs of those who worked, or played, or lived with it.

Beauvoir scrolled down. They read words like “mesothelioma,” that sounded like a geological age, but wasn’t. And “friable,” that sounded like a cooking term. But wasn’t.

They learned a great deal about the mineral that was supposed to be a miracle. But wasn’t.

Asbestos turned out to be the thalidomide of building materials. A savior that killed.

Beauvoir leaned away from the screen, as though breathing so close to it would infect him.

“What was it doing in that tube?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

“And where was it going?” asked Gamache. “And what else was in that tube, and was no longer there?”

They both knew the answer to that.

Canvases. Art. Deadly art.

*   *   *

When they found Myrna and Clara on the deck of the
Loup de Mer,
the women weren’t alone. A young woman had joined them.

“This is Julie Foucault.” Myrna did the introductions. “She’s a new teacher at the school in Blanc-Sablon.”

“
Un plaisir
,” said Armand, shaking her hand.

Jean-Guy nodded, impatient for this Julie to leave so they could tell Myrna and Clara what they’d found.

“Your first job?” Gamache asked, and sat beside her. She looked no more than twenty, and had bright orange hair down to her shoulders, and ruddy red cheeks. And that newly minted expression. Of excitement and anxiety.

“Yes. I could’ve flown, but I wanted to see the coast.”

“Julie was telling us she’ll be teaching everything. You have to, in small schools,” said Clara. “But her specialty is science.”

“I have a master’s,” she said. “And am working toward my PhD.”

Beauvoir sat down.

“Do you know anything about asbestos?” he asked without preamble.

“I hope that’s not a pickup line,” she said, and even Gamache laughed. She might look young, she might even be young, but she knew how to take care of herself.

Even Beauvoir smiled. “No. We’re looking into a few things, and asbestos has come up.”

“As a matter of fact, I do know something about it,” she said. “Not a lot. I’m not a specialist, but it was taught at the university. Used as a cautionary tale of science, industry, and government.”

“We’re not so much interested in the politics of asbestos,” said the Chief, “as the properties of the substance.”

“Then yes, I can definitely tell you about that. Why?”

“Some was found in a box,” said Gamache. “We’re trying to figure out why someone would have it, and how dangerous it might be.”

“Well, that depends on the form it’s in. If it’s a hunk, then not so much. Asbestos only really becomes dangerous when it can float in the air. And be inhaled.”

“This was like a powder,” said Beauvoir.

They all watched the young teacher, waiting for the answer, but they didn’t have to wait long. There was no hesitation, no doubt.

“That would be dangerous.”

“How does asbestos kill?” asked Gamache. “If someone swallowed it, would it be bad?”

“It wouldn’t be good. But with asbestos the real danger is inhaling it. Getting it into the lungs. It works its way into the tissue and causes asbestosis, or mesothelioma. Or lung cancer. Or both. Nasty, nasty stuff. And by the time it’s diagnosed, it’s too late.”

“How long does it take to kill someone?” Clara asked.

“Depends.” Now Julie had to pause to think. “One of the reasons it took so long for alarms to go off, besides the desire of the industry and government not to see it—and that was a travesty—”

“Not the politics,” Gamache reminded her.

“Sorry. The problem was that it does take a while for the effects to be noticed. The connection between asbestos workers and lung deaths took some time. A miner could be retired for years before showing symptoms.”

“And what are the symptoms?” asked Myrna.

“Coughing, of course. Shortness of breath.”

“Sounds like a lot of things,” said Myrna.

“And that was part of the problem too. Misdiagnosis. But finally the link was found. And asbestos was banned. But by then it was everywhere.”

“So,” said Beauvoir, thinking his way through this, “you’d have to get pretty close to it, to inhale it?”

“Right. Or it would have to be floating around in the air. Like in a mine. You say yours was a powder in a container?”

“Right.”

She shook her head. “That would get into the air pretty easily, I think.”

“And would the person necessarily die, if he inhaled it?” Gamache asked, and saw the immediate look of concern on Julie’s face. She looked from Gamache to Beauvoir and back again.

“Did one of you?”

“No,” Gamache smiled reassuringly. “But if we had, then what? Would we die?”

“You might. It’s one of those tricks of fate. Not all asbestos miners developed lung disease. Some people exposed only incidentally did.”

“How much would you have to inhale?” asked Beauvoir.

“Again, it depends. Sorry to be so vague, but my memory is that some miners inhaled it all their lives and were fine, other people inhaled it once and died. It just depended on the person, the fibers.”

“But theoretically it could be very little,” said Beauvoir. “And it could be with only one exposure.”

“Could be,” said Julie, “but really, that would have to be unbelievably unlucky. But it could happen.”

“If asbestos was found in the insulation of an art gallery and was removed, could some of it get onto the canvases?” Gamache asked.

“I’d expect the people removing it would’ve cleared the place. Asbestos could only be removed by people trained to do it. It wasn’t just ripped out.”