EG03 - The Water Lily Cross (12 page)

“I’d hardly overlooked that,” said Kingston. “Give me
some
credit, Desmond. We all know a tropical water lily wouldn’t last five minutes in Hampshire’s climate.”

“Keep your hair on, chum. I’m just trying … well, not to overlook anything.”

Mollified, Kingston continued. “As you say, size would have quite a bearing when you think about it. To desalinate large volumes of water, one would have to propagate a helluva lot of plants, so the bigger the better, so to speak.”

“And that raises the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. What kind of facility? What kind of setup and where?”

“You’re asking me? You’re supposed to be the water plant expert.” Kingston looked aside for a moment, pondering the question, then back at Desmond. “I don’t know. A humongous glasshouse doesn’t quite seem the answer. I visualize a system of large pools with glass or Plexi coverings that open and close mechanically. More than likely it could be camouflaged. To be practical, it would have to be reasonably near salt water, almost certainly along the south coast somewhere.”

“That’s an awful lot of territory.”

“I know—but if the shooting was intended to scare us off, then the facility has to be somewhere in that neck of the woods.”

“You said that the police flew over the area?”

Kingston nodded. “The Air Support observers relay video footage back to a control room as they over fly. They have tapes of it.”

“What would
they
be looking for?”

“Good question. I don’t know. All they asked was whether I noticed anything out of the ordinary on the ground at the time of the shooting.”

“You didn’t, I take it?”

“No.”

“Will they let you look at the footage?”

“I was told it’s doubtful because it’s part of an ongoing criminal investigation. There may be some way around it, though. I have to call Chisholm back.”

Kingston and Desmond came out of Kew Gardens tube station, walked across the street and took the short walk alongside the gardens to Kew’s magnificent ornamental wrought iron main gate. They were headed for Clifford Attenborough’s office. He was Kew’s project manager for plant cultures and a longtime friend of Kingston’s.

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, shouldering the south bank of the Thames near the borough of Richmond in southwest London was founded in 1759. The original botanical gardens were created for Augusta, the Princess of Wales, around her home, Kew Palace. Seven years later, Augusta’s son, “Mad King” George III, substantially enlarged the gardens. Following his death, the gardens fell into decline, and the estate was handed over to the public to become a place for the scientific study of horticulture. It now contains the largest collection of plants in the world.

Today, the scope of Kew’s collections and worldwide influence is immense. The numbers alone are staggering. Kew employs more than a thousand people, and houses almost a half million species of plants. It also functions as a botanical research centre, with multiple laboratories, and a library containing nearly a million volumes.

The 500-acre gardens and landscape boast no less than seven magnificent glasshouses. The Palm House, the centerpiece of the Kew Gardens, was built in the mid-nineteenth-century to house tropical trees, shrubs and palms. It is a classic example of Victorian architecture. The Waterlily House, built a few years later, is the hottest and most humid glasshouse at Kew. In the summer it houses tropical ornamental aquatic plants and climbers, plus plants such as rice, taro, and lemongrass. The newer, hi-tech Princess of Wales Conservatory, with its enormous multispan roof, houses ten different environmental zones, each with its own climate. It displays Kew’s collection of tropical herbaceous plants. Conditions within each zone are controlled and continually monitored by a computer, which adjusts the heating, misting, ventilation, and lighting systems accordingly.

They found Attenborough’s office with no trouble. Kingston introduced Desmond and they made themselves comfortable in Clifford’s neat, spacious office. Attenborough looked like a scientist: thinning white hair, pink complexion, rimless glasses, and wearing a bowtie and unbuttoned cardigan. He and Kingston had once worked together and had not seen each other for a while, so there was some catching up to do in matters personal. That out of the way, Kingston told Attenborough the second reason for his visit—Stewart’s disappearance and the likelihood that he might have stumbled across an ecological breakthrough while hybridizing water lilies. He avoided all mention of the purported desalination process, and had prepped Desmond, on the walk from the tube station, to be careful not to mention it. If word got out at Kew, of all places, about water lilies that could desalinate seawater it would be front-page headlines in all the following morning’s newspapers. Before the meeting ended, Attenborough called the curator of the Princess of Wales Conservatory to tell him that Kingston and Desmond would be over in a few minutes and to make sure they got the red carpet treatment.

In the warm and humid climate simulating that of South America’s Amazon basin, Kingston and Desmond looked over the railing, gazing at the extraordinary sight below. A serene, dark pool was covered edge to edge with the giant water lilies called
Victoria
“Longwood”
hybrid.’
Spread out like monstrous green platters with upturned red rims, some of the lily pads were more than five feet wide, looking for all the world like something from another planet, mesmerizing in their size, color, form, and beauty. The curator had told them earlier that the pads were thick, like elephant’s flesh, and with their underside of sharp inch-long spines in a ribbed pattern, could support a weight of almost a hundred pounds. First discovered in Bolivia in 1901 and named in honor of Queen Victoria, the species has fragrant white flowers the size of soccer balls that turn purple after being pollinated. The pollinators, the curator said, are large scarab beetles that are drawn not only to the flower’s scent and pure white color but also to its warmth. The beetles crawl inside to stay warm and consume the sugar and starch. Later, at night, the flowers close and the beetles are trapped inside. Throughout the next day, the beetles stay inside to feast, gathering pollen as they do so.

After several minutes, Kingston and Desmond turned away from the extraordinary spectacle. “Seems hard to imagine those buggers growing somewhere in Hampshire,” said Desmond.

“It certainly does,” said Kingston with a smile. “In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, it would hardly happen.”

NINE

A
fter leaving Kew, Kingston and Desmond stopped at the Antelope for a quick drink. Desmond had to return to his friend’s flat in Marylebone to pick up his bag before driving back to St. Albans and wanted to get an early start to avoid the rush-hour traffic.

Over beers, they agreed that the subject of Stewart’s disappearance and his putative discovery had been flogged to death. To placate Desmond, Kingston submitted that, despite his own investigative forays and best intentions to help Becky, the answers to all their questions would most likely come as a result of police work or a lucky break. This led to another plea from Desmond, who pressed Kingston not to get further involved, which, in turn, led to a not-too-convincing promise from Kingston that he would follow Desmond’s advice—which he wouldn’t, of course. They parted five minutes later, under darkening skies and rumblings of thunder. Desmond hopped into a cab and Kingston, sans brolly, made haste for his flat before the skies opened.

Walking home, he wondered again about how Patrick knew to phone him, how he knew about the photo shoot and the tape. Henley Air had received no inquiries. The only possibility that he could think of was that the helicopter crash had been reported in the paper and his name had been mentioned.

Too late for tea and too early to think about dinner, Kingston went into the small bedroom he’d converted into an office, turned on his iMac and logged on to the Internet.

In the search engine he typed in
Wiltshire Times
and was directed to the paper’s online site:
This is Wiltshire
. He clicked on archives and entered “helicopter crash.” There it was:

Helicopter downed near Lymington

A Henley Air Services helicopter on a photographic assignment was forced to make an emergency landing near Lymington yesterday after its fuel tank was ruptured by gunfire from the ground. A spokesperson for Henley Air reported that both the pilot, Christopher Norton of Oxford, and the lone passenger, Professor Lawrence Kingston, were unharmed. Kingston was aboard shooting video footage of famous gardens as part of a future TV special produced by New Eden Productions, London.

A police spokesperson stated that a ground and air search of the area where the helicopter was downed has produced no results. Police request anyone having information about the incident to contact the Wiltshire and Avon Constabulary.

Kingston, a botanist of repute, gained brief celebrity status two years ago when he was instrumental in discovering a series of underground rooms on the site of a former Benedictine priory in Somerset. The landmark archeological and historical find came to light when Kingston was supervising the restoration of the estate’s Heligan-like gardens.

The unearthing led not only to a cache of valuable Impressionist paintings, believed stolen by the Nazis during the occupation of France, but to solving two recent murder cases and a suspicious death that took place on the estate forty years ago.

Reading it a second time, Kingston realized that the information was all there—everything that “Patrick” had needed to know to pull off his stunt.

Curious to see what was reported about Walsh’s death and the fire, Kingston typed in “Adrian Walsh” in the newspaper’s archives search bar. Two items came up. The first, published the day after the incident, was much like the one he’d seen on TV: a straightforward account of the fire and Walsh’s death, along with a biographical summary, mostly concerning his business accomplishments in the construction industry.

The second mention had appeared a week later. It read:

Prominent local businessman’s death ruled a homicide

A statement released today by the Wiltshire & Avon Constabulary announced that a coroner’s post-mortem examination into the death of Adrian Walsh, two days ago in a fire at his home in Upper Woodford, resulted from gunshot wounds inflicted by a person or persons unknown. At this stage in the investigation it is concluded that, other than Walsh and his assailant, no other persons were in the house at the time. Police are requesting that anyone with information concerning the case to contact the Wiltshire & Avon Constabulary.

Kingston leaned back, hands clasped behind his head, staring at the screen and thinking about what Desmond had said: “These are not people to be messed with.” He read the first sentence again. It certainly appeared that Walsh had been murdered. If so, why?

Kingston picked up the phone and called Lymington police station. After a short wait, Detective Inspector Chisholm came on the line.

“Professor Kingston—nice surprise. What can I do for you?”

“It’s about the helicopter incident.”

“Do you have some new information?”

“Not really. I wanted to ask you about the aerial footage your people shot. If they did shoot any, that is.”

“Right. What about it?”

“I was wondering if I could take a look at it?”

“I seriously doubt it. Didn’t you ask that before?”

Kingston ignored the question. “The investigation’s ongoing, then?”

“Certainly. Shooting down helicopters is hardly a misdemeanor. What’s all this with the tape, anyway? Is there something special you hope to find that Air Support didn’t?”

“I’m not really sure. A friend of mine has a theory that the shooting might be connected to another case.” Introducing Desmond’s name had just popped into his mind. For reasons he couldn’t entirely explain, Kingston didn’t want Chisholm to know it was actually his theory. Interfering in police matters was not new to him and he knew not to ruffle feathers. Already the tone of Chisholm’s questions had an impatient edge.

“Really? What case is that?”

“The disappearance of a professor from Fordingbridge. The events took place around the same time. He’s a friend of mine.”

“I see.”

“Your counterpart up in Ringwood called me about it a while ago. DI Carmichael. Wanted to know if I had any information that might help in their investigation.”

“Yes, I know Robbie. I’ll give him a call.”

“That’s why I was hoping to take a look at the video footage.”

“I thought I made myself clear on that.”

“Yes, you did but if your higher-ups were assured it doesn’t concern the helicopter investigation, would that make a difference?”

“Look, Doctor, I don’t want to sound rude but—”A long pause followed. “All right, since you’re so damned insistent, I’ll make an inquiry. But I wouldn’t hold your breath if I were you.”

“Thanks, Inspector.”

“If the answer happens to be yes, you’ll have to come down here to view the tapes, of course. Technically, they’ll be releasing them for our eyes only.”

“That’s fine. I’ll wait until I hear from you, then.”

“Shouldn’t take long, I would imagine.”

“Thanks again, Inspector,” he said, hanging up.

Kingston was about to get up and retrieve the mail—he’d heard it fall through the postal slot earlier—when the phone rang again. He picked it up, hoping it wasn’t someone trying to flog something or ask if he would answer a few questions for a survey. His excuse, saying that he couldn’t talk because he was late for a meeting with his parole officer, usually got them off the line quickly.

“Professor Kingston?”

“This is he.” The woman’s voice was not familiar.