The Darwin Conspiracy (27 page)

As he led them up the crest of a hill and into the woods, Jemmy fairly leapt with joy that the encounter he had been dreaming of for so long was about to take place.

Above them, storm clouds were gathering, large and dark. They saw occasional bolts of lightning illuminating them inside, so far away that they could barely hear the distant rumble of thunder.

Hugh, groggy with sleep, heard the landlady shuffling toward his door.

She rapped quietly. Telephone. He threw on his shirt and pants, opened the door, and found the receiver dangling from the hall phone. He checked a china clock on a nearby bookshelf: 7:30 a.m. Since when do the English call at this hour?

“Hello.”

“Hugh. Bridget here.”

“Oh, hi.”

“I didn’t wake you—did I?”

Her tone said it all: he shouldn’t be sleeping so late. She was her old feisty self.

“As a matter of fact, you did.”

“Well, it’s time to get up anyway.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “I want you to come to dinner tonight. Eight o’clock.”

“Did you line up someone for me to meet?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. But I trust you’d come anyway.”

“Give me the address.”

“Take the six-ten train and Erik will meet you at the station. On second thought, I’ll come too—I just remembered, he doesn’t know what you look like.”

“Never mind, just give me the address.”

She did, adding: “Incidentally, I’m sorry I woke you. You sound . . . a bit under the weather.”

“No, no. I’m talking softly is all. I’m fine.”

And he was.

Hugh slipped back into his room and looked over at Beth, still sleeping. Her back was facing him—he could see the smooth curvature of her shoulder. She had bundled the pillow up under her left cheek. Her right leg angled out from under the sheet and he looked at the soft back of her knee and the tiny blue veins leading up to her lower thigh.

He wondered if he should wake her, then thought better of it. He finished dressing, retrieving his socks from the corner where he had tossed them, and separating out her clothes and placing them in a neat pile on a chair. He held up her panties—lace, this time—and put them on top.

He left a note, reminding her that he had said he would be off in the morning. He thought of adding something witty but decided instead to just jot down practical information—how to work the coffeemaker, find the bathroom in the hallway, avoid the dragon landlady. He signed off with three X’s.

By the time he reached London, the sun was out and he decided to take the tour boat up the Thames to his destination, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. He caught it on the wharf below Parliament and heard Big Ben strike eleven as he boarded. He took a seat in the front where he could catch the breeze. It felt good to be tired, not from a night of insomnia but from staying up almost until dawn making love and talking and making love again. He smiled at the corny spiel of the guide. The river was high, which cut down on the smell, and the water glistened as they passed St. Pauls, the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern, and the forbidding seawall of the Tower.

When the boat docked, Hugh strode up the long hill toward the Observatory and turned off to enter a long, low building with thick walls and marble floors. It was cool inside. The receptionist guided him to the research room and there he introduced himself to the chief archivist, a thin, reedy man with a broad forehead.

He listened patiently to Hugh’s request—to see material from the
Beagle,
in particular, the Captain’s log and the roster of crewmen and passengers. Hugh wanted to know the names of those who did not complete the voyage for one reason or other, those who left and those who died, and in particular whether FitzRoy had set down any unusual incidents that he hadn’t included in his book on the voyage.

The archivist shook his head in friendly discouragement and told Hugh to wait. Minutes later he was back with a sullied photocopy that he placed upon the counter. It contained bits and scraps of writing in FitzRoy’s hand that was hard to decipher, but mostly it was blank, a large hole in the center.

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” the archivist said, “but it was as I had anticipated. The
Beagle,
you understand . . . so many people have come here over the years, handling the documents, copying them. In those days our efforts at preservation were not up to today’s standards. This is all there is, I’m afraid. I have no record of the log whatsoever. Nor does the Admiralty. I realize this is not much help.”

Bridget’s place on Elgin Crescent was just what he had imagined, quaint and expensive—a four-story brick town house with cream-colored bay windows, a flagstone walk, and a yew tree near the front door.

Before he pushed the bell, he looked through a half-shaded window.

He saw a modern coffee table stacked with art books, a woman’s fleshy legs, and the darkened back of someone handing down a drink. The muffled chatter of friendly voices reached him. It seemed so cheery it made him feel lonely.

Just then the door flew open so violently he felt a breeze in his hair, and he was facing Bridget, in a cashmere sweater and slinky black skirt, all kisses and bustling enthusiasm.

“Hugh,” she said, pulling him across the threshold. “Glad you made it.”

He handed her a bottle of wine. She lifted it out of the bag, checked the label skeptically, and set it on a side table. Erik rushed into the hallway to join them. He was tall and handsome in an aristocratic English sort of way, with a mop of hair swooping nearly to his eyes. He rocked on the balls of his feet with delight as Bridget introduced them, and, as they gripped hands, Hugh’s vow to dislike him eroded on the spot.

The introductions in the drawing room were artful, enough snippets of information to make connections and keep a conversation going.

Hugh heard himself presented as “an old, old friend from the States and, incidentally, Cal’s brother—younger brother, isn’t it, Hugh?” Bridget’s casual air was a giveaway: they already knew who he was.

One guest—Neville Young, a ruddy-complexioned man in a baggy crimson sweater—looked at Hugh with an appraising eye.

Before dinner Hugh cornered Bridget in the kitchen and she told him that Neville was the one who had worked in the biology lab with Cal.

“But I’m afraid he’s not the one I really wanted you to meet. That’s Simon. He was Cal’s roommate at Oxford. At the last minute he couldn’t make it. Bad luck.”

She looked at him with moist eyes. “How’s your father?” she asked in an abrupt non sequitur.

“I don’t really know—okay, I guess.” The truth was Hugh’s father had written twice and even telephoned, but he hadn’t written or called him back.

“I think you’re too hard on him. He’s not such a bad guy, you know.”

Erik hurried in, his eyebrows adither. “Darling, they’re all sitting down.” He looked at Hugh, smiled awkwardly, and turned to Bridget.

“Sweetie, are you pissed?”

Hugh was relieved to sit at the table.

The meal passed amiably enough. Bridget and Erik kept the wineglasses filled and the conversational ball in the air; it bounced around the usual subjects—the latest outrage from the Tories, Israel’s venality in the Middle East, bits of gossip. A fluttery woman on Hugh’s left, having learned that he was interested in Darwin, wanted to talk about the rise of creationism in America.

The man on his right said: “I gather from Bridget you’re doing some sort of research project on Darwin.”

“Yes.”

“Amazing man, wasn’t he? Brilliant the way he held back his theory until he could nail it down completely, all those years studying barnacles, pigeons, whatnot.”

“I suppose.”

“Clearly a genius. But not like Newton or Einstein. Much more sympathetic, don’t you agree? I mean, they’re just so far above the rest of us. He seems more like a regular chap, if you know what I mean. You can almost imagine doing what he did, plodding along—he’s like us, only more dogged. ‘It’s dogged as does it,’ as Mr. Trollope wrote.”

Hugh nodded. He felt Neville’s eyes peering at him through the candlelight.

“And the beauty of the theory he came up with, the simplicity of it.

In retrospect, it seemed obvious. What was it Huxley remarked of himself? ‘How extremely stupid not to have thought of that.’ A brilliant quip, that.”

“Yes,” said Hugh.

“Did you ever wonder,” the man continued, “why Darwin didn’t write about the unobservable? I mean, for such a close student of human nature there were some subjects he never wrote about.”

“Like what?”

“The mind, for instance. Thought processes, questions of conscience and guilt. They never interested him—perhaps because they weren’t tangible. Either that or they were
verboten
to him. He was such a bundle of complexes, you know.”

“He was. And guilt-stricken on top of it all,” said Hugh. “But despite all that, he carried on.” He felt suddenly paternal toward Darwin. “He was the embodiment of courage.”

“That he was. That he most certainly was.”

Afterward, as they moved back into the drawing room for coffee and cognac, Hugh made up his mind to talk to Neville. He suggested that they “take some air.” It was more of an order than an offer, without even the pretense that it might be considered odd for two men who had just met to wander off by themselves.

They walked outside into the garden and through a wooden door in the back fence to the communal green, a hidden patch of rough grass and towering elms behind the twin rows of houses. Neville appeared ill at ease.

Finally Hugh said: “Bridget tells me you knew my brother.”

Neville replied quickly, as if he had been expecting the question:

“Yes. That’s true.”

Hugh waited to see if Neville would offer more and finally he did.

“We were reasonably close. We did see each other every day in the lab.”

“And what sort of work did you do in the lab?”

He was not prepared for the response he got.

“Look here. I know this is awkward for you—it certainly is for me.

Bridget told me you’d be interested in discussing Calvin, but quite frankly, it’s all a bit dicey.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you must have been upset. Bridget said you two were close.

But I hope you know how upsetting it was for me—for all of us—when we heard about his death. And I’m not sure I care to talk about it.”

Hugh didn’t know what to say.

“Well, I can understand, but surely a few harmless questions wouldn’t—”

“There’s no such thing as harmless questions in a case like this. A sudden death . . . you know . . . it really makes everyone feel horrible.

One goes back over old ground, reassessing everything. I need some time to think.”

Hugh was taken aback. Before he could decide what to say next, Neville broke the silence.

“We should be getting back.” He turned and started walking toward Bridget’s, then stopped. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude. I understand you’re on . . . something of a quest. I will think seriously about this and give you a call in two or three days’ time with my answer.” He looked deeply troubled.

“Fair enough.”

Hugh put his hand out to shake on it but Neville deterred him. “No need for that.” They went back in just as the others were preparing to leave. Hugh lingered behind as the guests said their goodbyes on the doorstep, a cacophony of kisses and exclamations. Bridget closed the door and turned to him.

“Well?”

“He didn’t answer any questions at all. Said he wanted to think about it. He acted like he had been bushwhacked.”

“Typical. In point of fact, I never liked him.”

“Do
you
know what happened at the lab?”

“No. I was counting on you to find out.”

On an impulse, he said: “That other man you mentioned—Simon—

do you have his number?”

“Yes.” She wrote it on a slip of paper, pushed it into his pocket, and walked him to the door.

“Thanks for coming and thanks for the wine. And remember: It’s important for you to know your brother better.” She looked him in the eye. “So you know he was human.”

“I know that. I know he was human.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure.

She didn’t try to kiss him but looked at him searchingly for a moment and then turned, adjusted her skirt with a tug, and walked back inside.

He returned to Twenty Windows just as it was starting to rain. He called Simon’s number; there was no answer but he left a message.

Then he looked around his room to see if Beth had left him a note.

There wasn’t one. He smiled when he saw she had made the bed and propped up the pillows. His glance caught the bottom of the bookcase where he kept Lizzie’s journal. It was lying on its side in its proper place, but the binding was facing out. That was not how he had left it. He felt a wave of disbelief, then anger.
She read it!

He went out and flagged down a taxi. It didn’t stop. He ran to her house, getting soaked through by the time he arrived. The back door was answered by a young woman who introduced herself as Alice, gave him a searching look, and quickly guessed who he was—which, despite his anger, he took as a good sign. He dripped water on the kitchen floor.

“She’s upstairs. First room on the left. And here—” Alice reached into a drawer and threw a dish towel at him. He dried his head quickly and threw it back.

The bedroom door was open. Beth was inside, sitting at a desk, reading. She didn’t seem surprised to see him and looked up calmly as he walked in.

“How the hell could you do that?” he demanded.

“Read it, you mean?” A look flashed across her face that he couldn’t decipher—not guilt exactly, more like uncertainty.

“Yes,
read it.
Where the fuck do you get off?”

She stood up. She was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt that made her look slim.

“Let me see if I can explain.” She began to pace, her fingers jammed in her back pants pockets.

“You better.”

“I was looking around. I didn’t mean to go snooping but . . . in effect 
that’s what I was doing. I wanted to find out more about you. You know, left behind in a room belonging to somebody
important
to you.