Alexander’s memories of the police station hadn’t been fond before his brother had been brought there, and now the crowded, dim space was one of his least favorite places in the city. The disorganization alonewould have been enough to make his skin crawl, but entering the station now, he wanted to burn the place down. Bobbies and officers eyed him when he walked in, doubtless both because he resembled his brother and because the last time he’d visited the station, he too had been on the belligerent side of irritated. He was not proud of it, but nor would he back down when he was Adrian’s only defense. He hadn’t even had time to contact the solicitors Mr. Feyzi had recommended.
Just as Alexander started toward the desk sergeant, a cool voice said, “Mr. Ashton.”
Alexander turned to the man at his side with dread pooling in his stomach. “Inspector Green.”
The older man raised a hand in the direction Alexander knew his office was in. “I’d like a moment of your time.”
But rather than guiding Alexander to his office, Inspector Green took him to a small room with a pair of chairs on either side of a scuffed table. Alexander forced himself through the door and into the seat.
“Why am I being questioned?” Alexander asked the moment the door closed.
Inspector Green sat opposite him at the table. “We’ve had some new information regarding the Petrov case.” He paused, giving Alexander the chance to ask what it was, but Alexander merely stared at him. He pulled his notebook from his pocket and flipped a few pages. “For the record, please state your name and address.”
Alexander did so.
“Your brother is staying with you at your flat.”
“Until you tell him he is free to leave London,” Alexander said, wanting to emphasize that his brother was following Inspector Green’s directive to stay in the city.
“I see.”
The inspector’s eyes rose to his, locking him in a stare that was neither eager nor bored. It was the look of a man with an extremely good hand of cards and the means to mask his anticipation of victory. It raised Alexander’s hackles.
And with the coolness of a man setting an ace on the table, Inspector Green said, “Tell me about your brother’s involvement in the royalist political movement during the war.”
CHAPTER18
Alexander was nowhere to be found when Saffron emerged from Dr. Aster’s office, but she was too eager to delve into the volumes at the library to wait for him to turn up. She went to the library, pulled several of the more ancient-looking texts from the shelves of the botany and medical sections, and got to work.
Without mentioning the police case or any Russian street markets, she’d gotten one of the identifications from Dr. Aster in a startlingly short time. Saffron had utilized one of the oldest tricks in the academic textbook: competition.
In the years she’d been mentored by Dr. Maxwell, who was a friend as well as colleague to Dr. Aster, she’d watched their interactions with fascination. Dr. Maxwell was as warm and fuzzy as a bloomingAcalypha hispidawhile Aster had all the charm of a rocklikeArgyroderma. Their research was very different, but they both had a passion for taxonomy, and their enthusiasm always reached a fever pitch when there was a bet to be had. Before, Aster could be found in the company of her mentor nearly every day, but Saffron hadn’t seen Aster speak to anyone but Mr. Ferrand for a long time. She knew how isolating it could be to be the odd man out in a close-knit department. She felt somewhat guilty for using that loneliness for her own purposes, but she needed help. Saffron had never risked asking Aster before, not even when she’d needed to know the name of a plant to help solve the poison bouquet murders, but she’d managed to find theright plant in the end. She didn’t feel she had weeks to spare this time, however.
After fibbing that she’d received a letter from Maxwell containing the dried leaves, she’d admitted to Aster that she’d been unable to identify them. She wasn’t asking for his help, she’d assured him, as she’d known the department head would abhor the notion of helping Saffron cheat. Shedidplan on sending a sample of the dried leaves for Maxwell to attempt to identify so that they might play their game through the post.
She didn’t even ask Aster to take a look at the leaves. He’d demanded to see them and had even deigned to observe them through his own microscope. She’d hoped that Aster’s expertise in leaf morphology would enable him to identify the leaves quickly, and she’d been right.
“Corylus avellana?” he’d muttered with disgust. “Not even a challenge, Maxwell.”
Saffron had pretended not to hear.
And now, all that was left to do was learn what toxins might lurk in the leaves of theCorylus avellana, the common hazel tree, and determine if any of them caused liver or kidney problems. She also had to identify the other plant, for which she did not even have the Russian name, and determine if that plant could have killed Petrov.
In truth, she had a long way to go before her search of Petrov’s flat would garner results, but that was the way of science. One planted many seeds in the hope that one would germinate, then one tended it carefully to see what fruit it might bear. Hopefully it wouldn’t take as long as the life cycle of a plant.
Minutes turned to hours, and Saffron remained in the library until the librarians told her it was time to leave. She trudged up to her office, wondering why Alexander had not come to find her. He might not have expertise in botany, but he could read and examine botanical illustrations as well as anyone. But he had not come, and she couldn’t help but be a little hurt.
Two of the century-old folk remedy tomes had indicated that common hazel reduced inflammation. Honey, it was known, also reduced inflammation as well as prevented wounds from going foul, which Saffron took to mean it was antimicrobial. Combining the twowould likely work to calm pain in the joints, as Grigory had said. She could not confirm the suggestion that the mixture would help reduce anemia, its other use according to the vendor, nor had she determined what were the actual chemicals in the plant. She’d asked another favor of Romesh Datta, for Savita was not in his lab, and asked him to analyze all of the plants for their chemical composition. It was a start, and she could only hope they quickly revealed useful information. It was likely too much to ask that someone had poisoned one or both of Petrov’s herb jars. Perhaps Grigory the vendor had some grievance with Petrov and had added something nasty to his purchase, or his landlady or another tenant had broken in …
She planned to go home, to allow Elizabeth’s nattering about her daily complaints and victories to lull away the trials of the day, but as she patted her pockets for the key to her office, she found the folded note from earlier that day. Lee’s message indicated he’d heard from his uncle about Alexander and Nick’s military records. She’d forgotten in the rush to find something useful about the herbs.
Given the hour and Lee’s propensity for going out with whatever attractive female was at hand, she doubted he would answer her telephone call, but she asked the operator to ring him up anyway. She perched on the stool in the telephone nook on the ground floor of the North Wing, listening to the dwindling echoes of footsteps drifting down from floors above.
“Yes?” came Lee’s voice.
Saffron dropped the wire she’d been coiling around her finger. “Lee, it’s Saffron.”
“So I surmised. Who else would be calling from the U at this hour? What are you still doing there, anyway?”
