Part 16 (1/2)

A tall, ascetic-looking man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard opened it. He was dressed Sat.u.r.day casual in jeans, an open-neck collared s.h.i.+rt, and a burgundy sweater.

”Ms. Medina?” His voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and he cleared his throat. ”Alastair Innes. You'll have to forgive me, I'm just getting over a rather nasty cold. Do come in. And thanks, Fee, for looking after her.”

Fiona left and Alastair indicated the only chair in his tiny windowless office next to the door. ”Please have a seat.”

The s.p.a.ce was cramped and made Olivia Upshaw's Smithsonian office seem palatial. The room was barely big enough for his desk, a computer, two low bookcases, and my chair.

He closed the door and sat behind his desk.

”You're a friend of Brother Kevin's,” he said. ”You must be visiting from the States?”

”Actually, I lived in London for many years until last summer, so it feels like I've come home rather than being here on holiday.”

He sat back in his chair and tilted it as though he needed to study me from a greater distance. ”I see. Nevertheless, Wakehurst is rather off the beaten path,” he said in a mild voice. ”One must really make an effort to get to us. You're not a conservationist or a scientist, you're a photographer. So what really brings you to see me, Ms. Medina?”

I was getting used to the third degree from Kevin's colleagues and it was only fair. Who was I and why should they talk to me?

I told him what I could as honestly as possible without mentioning Zara Remington or my visit to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Then I needed to bluff.

”You helped Kevin identify the plant that was pressed in the pages of Adam in Eden,” I said. ”The one he named Bacopa lewisia extinctus.”

He gave me a cool stare. ”Did Kevin tell you that?”

”No, but it seems logical, given what you do and that Kevin was just here visiting you.”

”I see. Well, as the name implies, the plant is extinct.”

”How did you identify it, then?”

”I didn't identify it per se, merely confirmed the genus. I checked our database, which is linked to the herbarium at Kew Gardens, to see if there was any information about the species, but I found nothing. So what Kevin brought me was a unique specimen, though that's not uncommon. Every year scientists still discover approximately two thousand new species of plants.”

I stared at him. ”Two thousand?”

”Two thousand a year. Astonis.h.i.+ng, isn't it?”

I nodded. ”So you also know about the packets of seeds that Kevin believed supposedly went missing from the White House when the British burned it?”

He nodded. ”Kevin told me his theory that they were among the items Dolley Madison rescued before the British soldiers showed up.”

”If someone found them, I was told it might be possible to get the seeds to germinate, even after more than two centuries.”

”You'd have to know what you're doing,” he said. ”But it's possible. You can't just stick them in the soil and wait for something to sprout. We've already done something similar at the Seed Bank. As a matter of fact, it's one of the objectives we're focusing on now, how to awaken plants and get dormant seeds to germinate when we know nothing about them.”

”How do you do that?”

”By attempting to re-create the conditions of a plant's habitat, the temperature, humidity, type of soil, that sort of thing . . . whatever it would take for the seed to germinate naturally. For example, if we know a plant comes from a tropical part of the world, we try smoke or heat to simulate the climate.”

”And it works?”

”Not all the time. But, as I said, we've had great success germinating a plant grown from seeds that are more than two hundred years old. In other words, roughly the same age as the lewisia plant.”

”Where did you get two-hundred-year-old seeds?” I asked. ”And how do you know that's how old they are?”

He smiled. ”This particular case was extremely well doc.u.mented, so we were lucky. In 1803, a Dutchman named Jan Teerlink sailed on a s.h.i.+p called the Henriette, which docked in Cape Town, South Africa. While he was in port, Teerlink went ash.o.r.e and visited the famous Company's Gardens, which had been planted one hundred fifty years earlier by the Dutch East India Company. Somehow Teerlink acquired seeds from that garden, which he brought back to the s.h.i.+p.”

”He got seeds from a garden that dated back to the 1600s?”

”That's right,” Alastair said. ”Teerlink stored his seeds in forty paper packets, which he placed in a red leather wallet with his name embossed on it. Unfortunately for him, the British captured the Henriette. Later he was set free, but the leather wallet with the seeds ended up in the Tower of London. At some point everything was moved to the National Archives at Kew, where the wallet was discovered quite by accident during a research project in 2005.”

”You grew a plant from those seeds?”

”We did. Eventually we managed to unlock what are known as the germination codes and, of the thirty-two species of seeds in the forty packets, we got three to sprout. Two of them-an Acacia and a Leucospermum-are growing in the gla.s.shouse right now, healthy as you please.”

”Can anyone see them?” I asked.

”I'm afraid not. The gla.s.shouse isn't open to the public.”

”Dr. Innes, I'd be very interested in seeing those plants. And I was serious about a tour of this place when I wrote you last night. I would love to take a look inside the seed vault, too.”

”I see.” He steepled his fingers. ”What are you planning to do after you leave here, Ms. Medina?”

”I wish you would call me Sophie,” I said. ”You mean, am I looking for the seeds?”

”Are you looking for the seeds, Sophie?”

”I suppose I am. Kevin wanted to find them, but he died before he could finish what he started. He told me it would be an important historic discovery and he was excited about it. He should get credit for it.”

He gave me a dry look. ”I presume Kevin also mentioned the ma.s.sive potential financial windfall, that there would be industries and individuals who would be interested in something like this?”

”He did. But you knew Kevin. It wasn't about the money. Anything that came his way would all go to charity anyway. I know about his sister and that he was talking to pharmaceutical companies in America to find out about drug tests for her once she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. I think finding the lewisia plant became personal for him.”

”I agree. But what about you? Is your only motive making sure Kevin gets credit where credit is due?”

I flushed but I said in an even voice, ”My mother is in Connecticut at the moment with my grandfather after he was found wandering around the backyard of a former neighbor who died forty years ago. He thought they were going to go shooting together. Photos, not hunting. I adore my grandfather, and I would do anything in this world if I thought he might have Alzheimer's. However much of a long shot it was.”

His eyes flickered. ”I lost my wife to Alzheimer's last year. It's a living h.e.l.l to watch.”

”I'm so sorry.”

He studied me as though he were a.s.sessing my character, my honesty, and whether he believed me. Finally he said, ”Why don't you call me Alastair?”

”Thank you.”

He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thick folder. ”If those seeds are found and if they are viable, I've done a bit of preliminary research and extrapolation about what it might take to get them to germinate using the map of Lewis and Clark's journey and doing some calculations about temperature back then, and climate.”

”So you really think you could get something to grow if the seeds were in good enough condition?”

”I don't know. But I promised Kevin I would do my d.a.m.nedest.” He stood up. ”Come. I'll give you a very quick tour of the seed vault and then we can visit the Teerlink plant in the gla.s.shouse. First, though, I need to return this folder to my safe in the lab.”

”Does anyone here know about Kevin and the lewisia plant?” I asked.