Ghost Image (17 page)

What I wondered was, why?

13

H
arry was asleep in the adjoining room when I got back to the Connaught shortly after six, so James brought me a glass of sherry on a silver tray while I checked my e-mail. Nothing from Nick, which surprised me. We almost never went this long without being in touch. I wrote him a quick note and told him about my day in London, though I left out the details of my meeting with Zara Remington, and said I missed him like crazy, especially here. Then I drafted a vague e-mail to Alastair Innes explaining that I was a friend of Kevin's and was interested in visiting the Seed Bank while I was in London.

Afterward I went to the website of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and clicked on the link to the Millennium Seed Bank. The more I read, the more I wondered why I had never heard of this place before, an enormous underground storage vault staffed by scientists and conservationists like Kevin who were racing against the clock to save thousands of plant species worldwide—by their account, sixty to one hundred thousand—that faced extinction. So far they'd collected eleven percent of
the world's plants. Now they were aiming for one-quarter of all plants found on earth, specifically the ones threatened by extinction, as well as plants that might be useful in the future.

What struck me most was the urgency of their mission. It seemed as if this particular group of scientists had more inside knowledge than the rest of us about a giant doomsday clock that really was ticking down somewhere, an awareness that there wasn't much time to finish their work, or maybe even that there wasn't
enough
time. Harry knocked on my door just then, and I closed my laptop before he could see my computer screen.

“How about a drink?” he said, smiling. “The Coburg Bar serves some first-rate Scotch, plus they've got a drinks list that goes back before 1800. What do you say?”

“I say it sounds terrific.”

As we finished our cocktails by the fireplace—Harry had his Scotch, a sixteen-year-old Lagavulin, and I had a Pimm's Cup purely because it was considered the first English cocktail—my phone buzzed in the pocket of my jacket. I pulled it out as we left the bar to walk down the street to Scott's. Alastair Innes had answered me as swiftly as Ryan Velis and Zara Remington had done.

Dear Ms. Medina, If you are available, I can meet you tomorrow, Monday, at 10 o'clock here at the Seed Bank. It is an easy trip from London; trains run regularly to Haywards Heath from Victoria Station and then I suggest you take a taxi to Wakehurst as the bus only runs once every two hours. I look forward to hearing from you. Brother Kevin's death was a huge shock to us all; I trust you and l will have much to discuss about a mutual friend who was beloved here by all who knew him. Yours sincerely, Alastair Innes

“Everything all right, honey?” Harry asked. “You've been kind of quiet all evening. Something bothering you?”

I looked up from my phone. “Just a little jet-lagged is all.
Everything's great. I'm sorry, do you mind if I answer this e-mail? I'm trying to get together with someone tomorrow. It'll only take a second.”

“Go right ahead. I'm glad you'll be busy when I'll be in Lingfield. Who are you seeing, if you don't mind my asking? One of your old friends?”

“Actually, an old friend of Kevin Boyle's.”

Harry looked surprised. “A Franciscan?”

“No, someone involved in conservation. A scientist.” I slipped my arm through his. “Tell me about your lunch in Covent Garden. Did you have a good time?”

Harry let me change the subject and evade his questions for the second time in the past twenty-four hours, but sooner or later he was going to ask what was going on. I had no idea how much I would tell him, just as I had no idea how I was going to bring up the
lewisia
plant with Alastair Innes tomorrow.

But with jet lag stealing over me—that much was true—and Harry plying me with wine and good food in the cocooned coziness of Scott's, I was feeling drowsy and light-headed, in no condition to think about any of that right now. I'd figure it out tomorrow when I had to.

I always did.

• • •

Harry and I ate breakfast in the Connaught's pretty glass-enclosed conservatory overlooking Mount Street the next morning before his friend's driver picked him up in a dark blue Jaguar to take him to Lingfield.

He kissed me goodbye in front of the crackling fire in the lobby fireplace. “There's a champagne reception and a dinner after the race, so I'll probably be back quite late. Don't feel like you need to wait up.”

I laughed. “You party hard, Harry. I can't keep up with you.”

He grinned. “Don't tell your mother. She'd tie me to a chair
if she knew. Ever since my surgery she treats me like I'm made of glass. She's always telling me not to overdo it.”

Truth to tell, his mild heart attack a year ago and a double-bypass operation before Christmas had scared me, too. But I'm like Harry. When I die, I hope my regrets—if I have any—are for things I've done, not what I wish I'd done.

“Have fun,” I said.

“I love you, kitten.”

“I love you, too. See you when you get back.”

After the Jaguar pulled out of Carlos Place, I walked to the Bond Street Underground station and took two trains to Victoria, catching a Southern Railways train to Haywards Heath that pulled out of the station thirty seconds after I stepped on board. Perry sent me a text message as the train left London and crossed over the Thames.

Are we still on for lunch at 1? How about the Old Red Cow? Meet at the bureau first?

The Old Red Cow was a pub near Smithfield Market and it wasn't far from the International Press Service bureau. It was one of our favorite places for lunch or a pint at the end of the day.

I wrote him back:

Absolutely on for lunch. I've got an appointment this morning but I'll be back by 1. Probably better to meet at the pub.

As soon as I hit Send, I regretted my choice of words. Perry doesn't miss a thing. He wrote back instantly.

Back from where? You out of town?

Long story. I'll explain when I see you.

Then I put my phone away so I could duck further questions.

The rest of the journey was uneventful and I had the carriage to myself for the forty-five-minute trip, except for a young man who came through with the tea trolley and the conductor who collected my ticket.

Haywards Heath was approximately forty miles due south of London, as Zara had said, and if you continued south for another twenty miles beyond that, you'd hit the English Channel and the seaside town of Brighton. By the time we passed Gatwick Airport, the scenery had become mostly rural, black skeletal trees against a cold white sky, a somber-looking landscape of fields, and the occasional house in subdued tones of dull brown and washed-out green.

As Alastair Innes had promised, there was a taxi rank just outside the little station, which was built into a hillside and surrounded by woods. My cabdriver was from Afghanistan, and once he learned I'd visited his country, he spent the entire twenty-­minute journey quizzing me about my work with International Press Service. As he turned into the private road for Wakehurst Place, he said over his shoulder, “You going to the mansion, miss?”

“No,” I said. “The Seed Bank.”

It was situated in a low-lying field, two industrial-looking metal structures like bunkers joined by a glass-vaulted roof. The building blended in with the greenish-yellow late-winter landscape, which was probably the point of its unobtrusive design. I went inside through the main entrance and gave my name to a young woman sitting behind a desk in a small waiting room.

“I'll ring Dr. Innes,” she said after I'd signed in. “Please have a seat.”

The room was as plain and unadorned as the exterior of the building except for a set of arty photographs behind the reception desk that I knew had to be seeds. Besides the front entrance, there were two other doors, both bright yellow and both closed, with pads to swipe ID badges next to them. I leafed through
brochures about the Seed Bank and a colorful newsletter filled with pictures and articles about its latest projects until a petite, attractive woman in what looked like a hand-knitted Fair Isle cardigan, white blouse, and gray wool trousers opened the door nearest to where I was sitting.

“Ms. Medina?” she said. “I'm Fiona Eccleston. Dr. Innes has asked me to take you downstairs to the library whilst he finishes up with a meeting. He thought you might enjoy reading some information I've prepared for you about the Seed Bank.”

I stood up. “That's very kind. Thank you.”

She swiped her ID on the gray pad and, as we stepped into a corridor, the door closed behind us with a firm click. I hadn't considered there would be this much security in a place that stored seeds.

“We'll take the lift to the lower level,” she said. “Follow me.”

We walked through a quiet corridor and took the elevator down one level. The industrial-looking library was busier than I'd expected, and many of the tables were filled with people working on computers. A few of them glanced up when Fiona and I entered the room. She led me to a long table at the back of the room where a coffee-table book lay open next to a file folder. Inside the folder were several photocopied articles.

“These will give you an overview of our work here,” she said. “Any questions, feel free to ask. And I'm sure Dr. Innes will be happy to answer anything I can't help you with.”

A couple of heads snapped up at the mention of Alastair Innes and then it was eyes down. I thanked Fiona again and started flipping through the material she had put out for me. Besides the quiet clicking of computer keyboards and muted voices from nearby rooms, I heard a pervasive low hum, like an engine or perhaps a generator. When the phone rang a few minutes later, I heard Fiona say, “Of course, Alastair. I'll bring her right up.”

I stood and she turned around. “Ms. Medina, Dr. Innes is free now. I'll walk you to his office.”

I picked up my camera bag and followed her back to the elevator. It seemed we were retracing our steps to the reception area, but then Fiona turned down a hallway of closed doors that was as silent as a graveyard. The humming sound was less distinct here. She knocked on a door midway down the corridor.

A tall, ascetic-looking man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard opened it. He was dressed Saturday casual in jeans, an open-neck collared shirt, and a burgundy sweater.

“Ms. Medina?” His voice sounded hoarse and he cleared his throat. “Alastair Innes. You'll have to forgive me, I'm just getting over a rather nasty cold. Do come in. And thanks, Fee, for looking after her.”

Fiona left and Alastair indicated the only chair in his tiny windowless office next to the door. “Please have a seat.”

The space was cramped and made Olivia Upshaw's Smithsonian office seem palatial. The room was barely big enough for his desk, a computer, two low bookcases, and my chair.

He closed the door and sat behind his desk.

“You're a friend of Brother Kevin's,” he said. “You must be visiting from the States?”

“Actually, I lived in London for many years until last summer, so it feels like I've come home rather than being here on holiday.”

He sat back in his chair and tilted it as though he needed to study me from a greater distance. “I see. Nevertheless, Wake­hurst is rather off the beaten path,” he said in a mild voice. “One must really make an effort to get to us. You're not a conservationist or a scientist, you're a photographer. So what really brings you to see me, Ms. Medina?”

I was getting used to the third degree from Kevin's colleagues and it was only fair. Who was I and why should they talk to me?

I told him what I could as honestly as possible without mentioning Zara Remington or my visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Then I needed to bluff.

“You helped Kevin identify the plant that was pressed in the pages of
Adam in Eden
,” I said. “The one he named
Bacopa lewisia extinctus.
”

He gave me a cool stare. “Did Kevin tell you that?”

“No, but it seems logical, given what you do and that Kevin was just here visiting you.”

“I see. Well, as the name implies, the plant is extinct.”

“How did you identify it, then?”

“I didn't identify it per se, merely confirmed the genus. I checked our database, which is linked to the herbarium at Kew Gardens, to see if there was any information about the species, but I found nothing. So what Kevin brought me was a unique specimen, though that's not uncommon. Every year scientists still discover approximately two thousand new species of plants.”

I stared at him. “Two thousand?”

“Two thousand a year. Astonishing, isn't it?”

I nodded. “So you also know about the packets of seeds that Kevin believed supposedly went missing from the White House when the British burned it?”

He nodded. “Kevin told me his theory that they were among the items Dolley Madison rescued before the British soldiers showed up.”

“If someone found them, I was told it might be possible to get the seeds to germinate, even after more than two centuries.”

“You'd have to know what you're doing,” he said. “But it's possible. You can't just stick them in the soil and wait for something to sprout. We've already done something similar at the Seed Bank. As a matter of fact, it's one of the objectives we're focusing on now, how to awaken plants and get dormant seeds to germinate when we know nothing about them.”

“How do you do that?”

“By attempting to re-create the conditions of a plant's habitat, the temperature, humidity, type of soil, that sort of thing . . . whatever it would take for the seed to germinate naturally. For
example, if we know a plant comes from a tropical part of the world, we try smoke or heat to simulate the climate.”