“Perfect.”
30
After a refreshing shower and change back into khakis at the embassy, it had been a long drive north on the A1(M), made even longer by the Morris’s lack of both interior space and speed. Jason had stopped twice, once to refill the Morris’s tank and call to reset the time of his meeting, and once more to postpone the rendezvous again.
The latter call had resulted in a pause before the peevish reply. “Really, Mr. Peters, we’re getting into the dining hour. Perhaps you’d like to meet me at the Duke.”
“The Duke?”
“The Duke of Wellington. On Darlington Road. Anyone in town can tell you how to find it.”
The professor had been right: everyone on the street could, and did, tell Jason how to find The Duke. Unfortunately, no two sets of directions were alike.
Jason decided to at least enjoy this medieval town built on the hill that was the fifty-seven-acre peninsula formed by a bend in the River Wear. The low skyline was dominated by a Norman cathedral and fortress, stones dragged from a nearby quarry shortly after 1072. The church housed the relics of the Venerable Bede, eighth- and ninth-century historian and ecclesiastic, a sure draw for the mediaeval pilgrim trade. The castle had served as the Episcopal Palace until the bishop gave it up in 1832 to found Britain’s third university there at Durham.
Touring Durham was fine but not the purpose of Jason’s long drive, or, for that matter, the reason for his journey to England.
Near the outskirts of town, a woman was riding a bicycle, her long shadow painted across the road by the late setting summer sun.
Jason pulled the Morris up beside her. “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?”
She shot him a glance but didn’t stop pedaling.
“Can you tell me how to get to the Duke of Wellington?”
Evidently his accent identified him as an American tourist, not one of England’s rare but highly sensationalized serial murderers.
She stopped, putting both feet on the shoulder of the road and pointing. “D’ya see that row of buildings?”
At least, that was what Jason thought she said. The burr was almost as blurred as the Scottish dialect a few miles north. He nodded.
She was still pointing. “D’ya na see the sign, the one that says ‘Duke of Wellington’?”
She rode off before Jason could thank her. If thanks were due.
He parked the Morris and took in the glass-fronted establishment.
Jason stepped inside a traditional British public house. Dark mahogany bar, dim tulip-shaped lights on chandeliers and — unusual in pubs of the past but becoming more common — a small wine selection in a glass case, but … Something was missing. The low murmur of conversation as the clientele leaned against the bar sipping their pints was the same as was the sporadic exclamations from the group gathered around the dartboard on the far wall. The smell was of old beer, fried food, and … no smoke. The clearly visible air, the stale tobacco odor, all gone the way of the red British phone booth and the personal privacy of the royal family.
The health gestapo had prevailed in Great Britain.
Jason waited until there was an opening between the bodies crowding the bar. He stood patiently until the publican spotted him and sidled up, his eyebrows raised in a question.
“Draft bitters,” Jason said, not looking forward to a beer served at room temperature. But then, it seemed all beer in Great Britain was served that way. “And I’m looking for someone, a Professor Nigel Cravas.”
The barkeep was using one hand to hold the pint glass and the other to pull the beer tap. He jutted a jaw to Jason’s left. “That’s him, the chap in the last booth. Will you be having dinner with us tonight?”
Jason put a five-pound note on the highly varnished bar top and waited for his change. “Thanks. I’ll know in a few minutes.”
The smell of old grease made the possibility less than mouthwatering.
Hunched over to protect his glass from patrons not always careful against whom they bumped, Jason made his way to the far booth. “Dr. Cravas?”
The man glanced up from a plate of what looked like cremated beef swimming in grease. A stained napkin hung from his open shirt collar. A glass of tea-colored liquid was at his elbow. The slice of cucumber told Jason it was a Pimm’s Cup, a mixture of dry gin, aperitif, lemon soda or ginger ale, and spices. Like New Orleans’s Sazerac Cocktail, the drink’s origins lay somewhere in the eighteenth century and no two establishments made them exactly the same way. In typical English fashion, the Pimm’s came with no ice.
Cravas’s red-rimmed eyes and the slight slur of his voice told Jason this glass was not his first of the evening. He made an effort to stand and sat down hard, settling for a “Mr. Peters! Do have a seat.”
Jason did that, watching Cravas finish off the meat using both knife and fork in the English and European manner. He used the napkin to wipe a dribble from his chin before draining his glass. He was a roundish man of about fifty, his face puffy, jaws beginning to sag into fleshy bags. The burst capillaries along his cheeks were the badge of the heavy drinker.
He put down knife and fork. “Forgive me for not getting up.”
Jason was settling into the seat across from him. “And forgive me for my tardiness. I had a bit of a problem getting out of London.”
“Hmph! And who doesn’t these days? I try to avoid the place whenever possible.”
Jason was unsure where to begin. “How long have you been with the British Institute of Science and Climatology?”
Cravas lifted his glass, noting with disappointment that it was empty. “Ever since I joined the faculty of the college in the eighties. School was only founded in 1972, y’know. Newest college at the newest university.” He gave what could have been either a laugh or a grunt. “Newest and newest. That’s interesting.” He looked toward the bar. “Say, be a good chap and fetch me another libation, would you? Conversation dries my throat. Jake there at the bar knows what I want. He’ll put it on my tab.”
Jason struggled out from the tight confines of the booth even though he had barely taken two sips of his own beer.
He caught Jake’s eye. “Another Pimm’s for the professor.”
Jake was concentrating on filling a pint glass, this time half Guinness, half ale — a black and tan. “And who’ll be paying for the good professor’s glass now?”
Jason had a feeling he knew the answer. “He said to put it on his account.”
Jake handed the drink to a customer, the heavier stout clearly delineated from the lighter ale. “Did he, now? And did he say when he might be paying up? The matter’s gotten more than a month behind.”
Jason put another five-pound note on the bar. “Take the Pimm’s out of this.”
Cravas had been watching. He jerked his head toward Jake and the bar as Jason slid back into his seat. “That dobber! I’ve been patronizing this place for years. They know I’m not going anywhere.”
Jason took a sip of his bitters, which had somehow gotten even warmer in his absence. Time to get down to business. “You, or your institute, hired Boris Karloff to go to Iceland. Why?”
If the abrupt shift in conversation surprised the professor, he didn’t show it. “Karloff? Like the movie actor who played Frankenstein? Is that what he told you his name was?”
“That’s what he told me, but I’m curious as to exactly what he was doing in Iceland and why someone would kill him for doing it.”
“We, the Institute, had been hearing rumors about the ice floe, the glaciers, there. Word was flora, plants, kept showing up in it, plants that don’t grow at that latitude. Not bloody likely the university would put money into any kind of research by someone without the proper degrees, right? It took a bit of arm-twisting, as you Yanks say. Seems the material you sent me from your Dr. Wu has confirmed the rumor is true.”