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The shower was fine: water hot and heavy, then, for one minute, cold and bracing. She got dressed again, brushed her teeth, lay on the bed, which was board-like, propped by the lumpy pillows, looked at the notes she had on Dr. Donald Carr. Like Lionel Scott he was in his early forties, but was a surgeon, rather than a disease specialist. He’d written well-received papers on burn care, published in the journalTheLancet.
Okay. She’d be dealing with smart people, which wasn’t always the case, or even usually.
Hawkins called her at one o’clock: “Meet you downstairs in five minutes. It’s not a long walk, and we won’t have to run. Which reminds me: I was told that one of the…conferees…in Washington suggested that you might want to bring running clothes with you. Did you do that?”
“Yes, but I’m too jet-lagged to run today.”
“Of course. I was thinking in the morning.”
—
The streets ofOxford were jammed with people, most noticeably busloads of pre-teen school students. Small shops lined the walks near the inn, replaced by larger, heavier buildings as they approached the Ashmolean, an imposing pillared structure of a whitish-tan stone. Once there, Hawkins told her they were still early and led her quickly through a treasure box of confusing rooms filled with archaeological bits and pieces from the countries England had once ransacked. They got caught up in a case of Middle Eastern relics until Hawkins checked his watch and told Letty that they were now running late.
“He’ll forgive us. Carr and his wife go on archaeological expeditionsto the Middle East and Egypt. I’m sure he understands the attraction of these things. May have dipped into the Mayan ruins out your way, once or twice,” Hawkins told her, tapping the glass on a display case.
Carr was waiting for them in the rooftop café. He was sitting at the far end from the stairway, vacant tables around him, with a glass of iced tea and a plate of baked falafel. All around them, the slate roofs of Oxford.
Hawkins recognized Carr from his files—Letty from Google Images—and Carr got to his feet as they walked up. He was a tall man, balding, pale-faced with large hands; he was wearing a blue suit and a white dress shirt, without a tie.
As he shook hands with Hawkins, he said, “I hope this is not unhappy news about Lionel. I’ve had too much of that over the years.”
“How so?” Letty asked, as she took a chair.
“Oh, you know…the malaria, the TB,” Carr said. “He once suffered a rash of boils under his arms and between his thighs, probably from bacteria exacerbated by sweat and chafing from his clothing, and possibly from the chemicals in Third World laundry detergent. He was quite interested in the phenomenon, but I don’t think he ever got to the bottom of it.”
“Sounds awful,” Letty said.
Carr nodded. “Knowing Lionel made you believe in the ten plagues of the Bible. He broke both arms in a car rollover, but that was years ago. I know he was shot at in Africa.”
“An amazing career,” Letty said.
“Indeed. What has happened now”—he looked at Hawkins—“that would interest a famous American investigator and an MI5 agent?”
“I’m famous?” Letty asked.
“I looked you up on the Internet,” Carr said. He pushed the plate offalafel her way, and she took one. “So…after the bridge in Texas, and a top-secret fuss in California, I’d say yes, you’re famous, at least in some quarters. Why the interest in Lionel?”
“He disappeared,” Letty said, chewing.
“Oh, no. I hope foul play isn’t involved.”
“We don’t know what’s involved at this point,” Letty said. “We’d just like to find him.”
“Might have gone walkabout, eh?”
“I don’t have all the details, but as I understand it, his home seemed more abandoned, than prepared for a trip,” Letty said. “There was nothing left in the refrigerator, the garbage had been taken out—the empty can was still sitting in the street—not much left in the way of clothing or personal care stuff. Like he left deliberately, but didn’t notify anyone at his job that he was leaving. One day he was there, and the next day, gone. Not kidnapped, gone.”
“Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound like Lionel,” Carr said. “With his experience in the Third World, he was always meticulous in telling people where he was going, and how long he’d be gone. Even when he was visiting here and was going down to London for the day.”
“When did you last hear from him?” Hawkins asked.
“Mmm…two months ago? Something like that. Routine email, catching up.” A waiter appeared, and they ordered burgers and iced tea. When the waiter went away, Carr looked back at Letty. “He was at your Los Alamos laboratory, working on an artificial-intelligence program as applied to medical statistics. He was quite adept at maths. Always was. He was interested in using mathematics as a way to get at intractable diseases.”
“Like how?” Letty asked.
“I’m a surgeon, not an expert on pathogens. Chatting withhim—my wife and I had a small ‘welcome home’ party for him when he came back from Bangladesh, before he went to the States—he was discouraged by the prospect of individual vaccines given to children to prevent diseases like malaria. He said children were being produced faster than the vaccines could keep up. And that was true for a range of diseases.”
Letty: “What was his solution to that?”
