The Long Way Home

“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.”