Saffron found she had no idea what to say. Nick was asking for her help in investigating the death, possibly deaths, of government laboratory workers. Surely these were matters for the police, not the Agricultural Ministry. “Was … is the other man, the missing one, also Russian?”
“No, English as the Union flag,” Nick replied.
If the other man was dead and the two cases were related, Adrian would likely be exonerated. The other man had been missing three days, and Adrian hadn’t left London in over two weeks, according to Alexander. If she helped prove that the other man’s disappearance had nothing to do with Adrian, it would likely go a long way in proving his innocence in Petrov’s death. And if Nick endorsed her involvement as an agent of a government ministry, then Inspector Green could not fault her for her involvement. Nor could Alexander.
“What exactly is the lab researching?” she asked. “You’ve mentioned fungi.”
“They do study fungi, as well as a number of agricultural topics,” he said.
“Anything worth killing over?”
Nick gave her a long, evaluative look. Without breaking eye contact, he leaned so close his breath brushed her cheek. “Are food supplies of the entire country worth killing for? Learning how to combat disease? Or possibly … spread it?”
Saffron couldn’t see the movement of the students filing up and down the stairs to the library just before them. All she saw were fields, fallow fields just like the ones she’d seen in France. Decimated. Unable to produce anything but grief and panic. She swallowed hard.
“Is it worth killing for, to keep enemies from learning what the greatest minds in our nation—and others—are developing?”
She didn’t need to put herself in the place of the sort of people who gave those orders or carried them out to imagine the answer. The Harpenden lab might not be mixing chemicals to attack men in trenches, but they were creating things that could preventstarvation—or cause it. Not to mention Saffron already had a connection to Petrov’s lab that, now she’d been presented an opportunity to examine it, was far too tempting.
“Yes,” she said aloud, confirming it to herself just as much as Nick. “I will help you. What do I need to do?”
CHAPTER20
Nick was a good sport about her endless questions on the half-hour train ride to Harpenden. By the time they reached the correct stop, she’d learned that the lab was a compact operation with a chief and assistant of mycology, entomology, horticulture, and botany, as well as a small staff for administrative and maintenance purposes. Petrov had been the chief of Horticulture. The man who was missing, Jeffery Wells, had been his assistant. Nick also told her that there was a sister lab, housed on an estate not five miles away, which also specialized in studies related to agriculture.
He continued to look at her with delighted surprise with every question she asked. Now he’d shown her the other side of himself, the intense, serious side, Saffron imagined this overly friendly demeanor was nothing more than a mask. “You needn’t pretend everything out of my mouth is brilliant, you know,” she told him. “I understand what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?” he repeated with an innocent blink.
“I’ve agreed to help you. You needn’t feign interest in me,” she said. “Elizabeth thinks you’re some sort of spy, you know.”
“Does she?” he asked mildly.
“You are clearly not just an employee of the Agricultural Ministry. I’m not convinced you’re dealing in international sabotage, but I’m also not convinced your usual duties give you much chance to investigate the deaths of employees.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if the humor in his voice was false.
They left the train and emerged onto the platform, a simple concrete slab before a tiny station house that reminded Saffron of the out-of-the-way places she’d visited with Lee. The weather was a far cry from the sticky warmth of summer, however. The day was cool and the sun kept hiding behind clouds, leaving her shivering.
On the map, Harpenden seemed inconsequential, merely an agrarian town some thirty miles from London. But a hotel and three different public houses greeted her upon exiting the station. The lively main road was lined with businesses, and down the road to either side she could see houses.
“This way,” Nick said, offering her his elbow.
They began to the east, passing pedestrians, red brick houses and shops, tall trees and hedges whose autumnal colors had begun to bleed away to brown. They came to a long stretch of road that was bordered by thick trees. Saffron tried to peer through them.
“Does this belong to Rothamsted?” she asked, referring to the other laboratory in the area.
“No, Rothamsted is the other direction,” Nick replied. “Quite a lot of land, they have. Far more than the Plant Pathology Lab.”
“Jodrell Lab at Kew Gardens became the Plant Pathology Lab when it was moved from Kew to Harpenden,” Saffron said. Nick had told her as much on the train, and she hadn’t mentioned she was already familiar with the Jodrell Lab. “Where did Rothamsted come from?”
“Some wealthy man decided to make his scientific hobby into something more. He already owned the house, and rather than let the old place molder, he invited other scientists to work there. Did well enough for a few decades, but by the turn of the century, it was on its way out. They brought in a new director and he turned things around. Made it over, expanded their program of study, gave some new people a chance.” He slanted Saffron a look. “Their head of Botany is a woman, you know, Dr. Winifred Brenchley.”
Saffron swallowed an excited gasp. “She graduated from University College. She studied alongside my father. I’ve read so many of her papers—”
“And now she runs the Rothamsted botany lab,” Nick said. “Ever thought about leaving the university to do something like that?”
“I … No, I’ve never considered it.” Her plans had always been to stay at the university, the place her father had loved so much, and perhaps eventually teach as her father had.
