But her task was not to prove Adrian innocent but to offer to help find who was responsible, if anyone. She hoped Alexander was right and it was simply a matter of some accident in the victim’s lab, rather than secrets she had to dig up before they could sprout like seeds.
CHAPTER7
“I suppose one might consider this visit providential,” Detective Inspector Green said, eyeing Saffron, “but I think I know what brings you here.”
Saffron shifted in the hard seat across from the inspector’s desk. “I hope you believe me when I say I mean only to offer my help, Inspector.”
It was difficult to know exactly what the inspector was thinking. When she’d arrived five minutes ago at the King’s Cross police station, he’d been standing at the desk sergeant’s desk, conversing tersely with a handful of black-clad bobbies. Compared to the gangly young men, Inspector Green’s plain, middle-aged face seemed ancient. His brown eyes, which usually regarded the world without emotion, looked at her with what she suspected was something between amusement and exasperation.
“This offer of help was not prompted by a certain friend of yours?” Inspector Green asked.
Amusement, she decided. “I assure you, I mean only to—”
“Help, yes,” he said. “As it happens, I was planning to go to the university this afternoon.”
Saffron straightened up. “You were?”
He caught on to her excitement, shaking his head. “My needs are less botanical and more chemical, Miss Everleigh.”
“But they’re agricultural chemicals,” she said quickly. “Things one might use in a laboratory.”
The inspector’s mouth flattened. “I take it Mr. Ashton informed you of the circumstances.”
“Of course he did.” She softened her voice. “Inspector, his brother is in trouble. He wants to do all he can to help him, and he knows I have some expertise in the very clues you’re seeking.”
“And I’m to trust that any information you provide is not going to be influenced by your relationship with the younger Mr. Ashton?”
Saffron’s fingers twisted together in her lap, but she spoke calmly. “Myfriendshipwith him and our professional relationship have raised your concerns, quite rightly. But was I not able to provide you useful information when you investigated Dr. Maxwell? I was honest with you about my own little investigation, however misguided it was.”
“Be that as it may,” Inspector Green said, leaning back in his chair, “I cannot accept your offer of assistance. You have a significant conflict of interest.”
Saffron deflated. “I understand.”
“Not to mention there are … ramifications beyond what you’ve assisted with in the past,” he added, seemingly as an afterthought though his finger tapping on the file on his desk suggested he was still thinking hard. He glanced down at the file, opened it, perused its contents briefly, then sighed.
A knock came at the door. Saffron turned, half expecting Inspector Green’s usual companion, Sergeant Simpson, rushing in haphazardly as he’d so often done, but it was one of the bobbies who peeked in and asked for the inspector. After a moment’s pause, the Inspector patted the file before rising from his desk. He left the room, murmuring, “Excuse me a moment.”
Saffron idly took in the plain features of Inspector Green’s office. Like the man himself, it was rather nondescript. Graying white walls, a network of rootlike cracks in the ceiling, and furniture that was once average and now had devolved into shabby. Since the last time she’d visited, several more maps had been added to the walls, though she doubted they were decoration. A Bacon’s Gem Map of London had a series of red pins that formed a line, resembling a curiously stretched-out caterpillar.
One little leg was in Kingston, to the southeast of London. The line plodded along the train line, marked with minute tracks, up through Twickenham, Richmond, Kew, S. Acton, and Willesden Junction, where another pin went off the train track and up to Harlesden.
Two paths diverged at Willesden Junction, where Saffron knew there to be a confluence of several railways. One went to the northwest, up to Watford, where the map ended. Another map was pinned beneath it, continuing the line, though to a different scale. The pins finished in Harpenden.
Something tickled at the back of her mind at the name, but before it crystalized, she scanned the path of the other line of pins, the one leading into London. She knew what these paths meant; the culminating pin at St. Pancras in King’s Cross Station made that apparent. These train journeys were obviously related to the man Adrian Ashton supposedly poisoned.
Her eyes drifted from the maps to Inspector Green’s desk, where his file lay open.
Another time, she might have lingered on the edges of guilt and indecision. She did feel bad for looking at something she wasn’t meant to, but it was a vague and distant concern that didn’t stop her from delving into the information on the top paper.
Inspector Green’s handwriting, if the neat black writing on the report was his, was very easy to read. The victim’s name was Demian Petrov. He’d journeyed from Harpenden to London on November seventh on an afternoon train. She dared to lift the paper and turn it over to continue reading the report. Petrov had been seen to be ill by not only Adrian Ashton but by two other witnesses.
According to the report, Adrian Ashton, age thirty-four, lived and worked in Kingston upon Thames as an engineer at Hawker Engineering. Saffron dashed away her surprise at learning Alexander’s brother was also a scientist, albeit a different sort, and kept reading.
Adrian had been to visit a colleague in Harlesden, then got on the train to come to London. It was noted in the same neat script that he’d not planned to go to London but had decided last minute to visithis family in town. Her lips pursed. That was no doubt suspicious, as was the detail that Adrian did not appear sober during his interview.
A scrape of noise in the hall beyond the office door made her jerk away from the desk, but no one entered. She bit her lip. Eyes locked on the door, she eased back over to the file and nudged aside the top papers.
Another page caught her eye: the coroner’s report.
