The Long Way Home(105)

Julie nodded. “It would work. When the painting was unrolled, the asbestos would get into the air.”

“But it gets worse,” said Clara. “The painting wouldn’t just be unrolled. It would have to be tacked onto a frame. I’ve done it lots of times. Bought a cheap old oil painting at a flea market that wasn’t framed. Just rolled up. You have to staple it to a wooden frame.”

“And if the back was coated with asbestos dust?” asked Myrna.

“It would get everywhere,” said Julie. “On the hands, the clothing. In the air.”

“To be inhaled,” said Myrna.

Julie was looking at them, her exuberance muted by a dawning suspicion.

“How long would it take someone to get sick?” asked Myrna.

“Depends on the exposure. Like I said, it might never happen,” said Julie, guarded now. “But mostly it took years, decades, for asbestos to become lethal.”

She looked at their grim faces. “What’s all this about? You’re not planning to do it, are you?”

“And if we were?” asked Gamache.

“You’d be murderers.” She looked pale and Gamache hurried to reassure her.

They weren’t planning murder. Just the opposite.

“You’re trying to stop a murder?” she asked, incredulous. Looking from face to face and back to Gamache. “But if it’s asbestos, you’re probably too late. The person would’ve already been murdered. They just haven’t died yet.”

She left then.

Armand watched as she walked away, steadying herself in the increasing roll and pitch of the ship. She looked like a gull in trouble.

And Gamache knew that while she’d helped them, they had not helped her.

Julie wasn’t as cheery, not as bright as before she’d joined them. They’d tarnished her.

Now the four friends walked around the deck, mulling the young teacher’s information. As they circumnavigated the ship, the Loup de Mer made its way up the coast. Every now and then they needed to steady themselves as the ship plowed up and through and down a wave. The wind was stronger now, and the waves higher, splashing over the sides and turning the deck slick.

“Those tubes almost certainly contained paintings,” said Gamache. “No Man’s paintings.”

“But why would there be asbestos on them?” asked Clara. “Who put it there?”

“And why?” asked Myrna.

They walked in silence, each trying to work it out.

“Asbestos is deadly,” said Gamache. “There was no guarantee, but there was a pretty good chance that whoever handled his asbestos-infected paintings would inhale it and eventually die.”

“Was he like those maniacs who sent anthrax through the mail?” asked Beauvoir. “Are we dealing with a serial killer?”

“Do you think he sent those paintings to galleries all over Canada?” asked Clara.

Myrna, Clara, Beauvoir, and Gamache walked, and thought, and remembered the only picture they had of Professor Norman. A self-portrait. Of a madman.

A sin-sick soul, thought Gamache. Who smeared asbestos onto his own paintings. And shipped them off. Knowing whoever opened the container, unrolled the canvases, held them, admired them, was sealing their own fate.

The asbestos would be dislodged, would float into the air and hang there, little crystals, tiny fibers. To be inhaled, to nest in the person’s lungs. And from there to burrow. And burrow. Digging deep tunnels.

While outside, the lover of art would carry on with his or her life. Unaware they’d just inhaled the scent of Samarra. Their own death.

The deck was too difficult now, and they’d retreated to the shelter of the lounge when Gamache’s phone rang.

It was the principal of the art college.

“I got worried after our conversation, Monsieur Gamache,” he said. “So I asked the health and safety person to check out some spots in the college for asbestos. She won’t have the definitive results for a few days, but it looks like we’re clear, with one exception. There’s a suspicious spot in Professor Massey’s studio.”

“What does it mean?” Myrna asked.

“I think it’s pretty clear what it means,” said Clara. They’d used the last of their change to get scalding hot chocolates out of the vending machine, and now they took a table by one of the water-slashed windows.

The bow of the Loup de Mer was rising and falling, rising and falling. Every now and then it rose higher, higher, paused there, then crashed down. A gale was building, coming straight at them. And they were heading straight for it.

They held on to their hot chocolates, but still some slopped over the sides. Clara spared a thought for Marcel Chartrand, downstairs, in the bowels.

“It means we know who Norman sent his asbestos-infected paintings to,” said Clara.

“Professor Massey,” said Beauvoir.

“But why?” asked Myrna. “Massey got him fired. Why would he trust him with his works?”

“He wasn’t trying to trust him, he was trying to kill him,” said Gamache.

He turned, by habit, to Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

This was familiar territory now, to both men. How often had they sat just like this, facing each other across arborite tables, at hacked wooden tables, at desks and in muddy fields, in cars, and planes, and trains. In the bright sunshine, and in winter blizzards.