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“Herbie!” Papworth staggered to his feet—he was already quite drunk—and embraced Herbert woozily. “Join us, old bean—isn’t that what the British say, ‘old bean’? We were just celebrating. The radio says the fog’s going to lift tomorrow, so Fritz here and Linus can head back to the good ol’ U.S. of A.”

Papworth gestured to a bottle of champagne on the table. “Champagne for your real friends, real pain for your sham friends!”

He laughed loudly, and Fischer with him.

“De Vere Green’s dead,” Herbert said.

It seemed to take a moment for the news to filter through to Papworth’s brain, and another moment for it to sober him up.

He took half a step back, squinted his eyes in a manner that might in different circumstances have been comic, peered at Herbert, and said “Dead?”

“Dead. Carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“Where?”

“In his flat.”

“Suicide?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus.” Papworth puffed his cheeks out and wiped his forehead. “Jesus.”

He gestured to the table. There was room for four, would they not sit down?

“You want to eat?” Herbert asked Hannah.

She shook her head.

“I don’t have hunger,” she said. “Maybe I go.”

“Are you all right?”

She nodded jerkily. “Fine. Am tired, is all. Not feeling so good. Maybe the fog. You come see me later, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good.”

She kissed him on the mouth, unashamed, turned, and walked out, tapping her cane in front of her; stubbornly, magnificently independent.

Herbert watched her go, and then sat down. He hadn’t intended to eat, but Papworth called for a menu and insisted. He seemed suitably shaken by the news
about de Vere Green, so Herbert considered it politic to keep him company.

“You didn’t really meet properly last time,” Papworth said, indicating Fischer. “Herbert Smith, Fritz Fischer.”

Herbert shook Fischer’s hand.

“Did de Vere Green find it?” Papworth said.

“Find what?”

“What Stensness was offering.”

Herbert pondered how to answer.

Technically, the answer was no; the only people aware of what Stensness had been trying to sell were Herbert himself, Hannah, and Rosalind.

But de Vere Green had known, in general terms, as had Papworth, and Kazantsev too; of that Herbert was sure. Why else would they have been at the conference?

Herbert was suddenly very, very tired of all this.

“You know exactly what he was offering,” he said.

Papworth started to protest, and Herbert stared him down with the unblinking weariness of a basilisk until Papworth quietened.

“You know what he was offering,” Herbert repeated. “You all did, or else you wouldn’t have gone to meet him. He said he’d found something in the DNA structure that no one else had. Yes?”

Papworth said nothing.

“Yes?” Herbert pressed.

Papworth nodded. Herbert continued. “Well, I’ve seen what he was offering, and I’ve shown it to someone in a position to know, and I tell you now, you were wasting your time. What Stensness was trying to sell was research that didn’t stand up. He was a huckster, no more.”

“You’re sure?” Papworth said.

“Positive.”

“Maybe you’d let me have a look, just to confirm this?”

Herbert shook his head. “You think I was born yesterday? This whole thing has done more than enough damage as it is. You send Professor Pauling and Mr. Fischer—”

“Dr.
Fischer,” said Fischer.

“—home tomorrow, and let them continue working on the structure, like the scientists at Cambridge will, and King’s. Let the best team win, and let the discovery be made available to the whole world.”

“You understand nothing,” Fischer said.

Papworth raised a hand. Herbert couldn’t tell whether he was trying to stop Fischer or admonish him. Either way, Fischer ignored it.

“The structure of DNA will be the greatest scientific achievement of this century,” Fischer said. “Upon this discovery rests much of the determination of the shape of the future. When we know what our DNA looks like, we will know why some of us are rich and some poor, some healthy and some sick, some powerful and some weak. The intellectual journey that began with Copernicus displacing us from the center of the universe, and continued with Darwin’s insistence that we are merely modified monkeys, has finally focused in on the very essence of life itself.”

His speech was accented with traces of German which flickered like a radio dial, stronger on some words than others, but there was nothing wrong with his English.

“The vistas which this discovery will open up are extraordinary,” Fischer continued. “We will at last come to grips with all the great killers—cancer, heart
disease, diabetes—because they all have a genetic component. We will be able to compare healthy genes with disordered ones, and replace one with the other, thus rooting out diseases at the most basic level, removing the imperfections at source. Pills and treatments will become things of the past, for healthy organisms need no correction.

“Science puts a sword in the hand of those fighting disease. It will enable us to go beyond Tiresias, the seer of Thebes whom Athena struck blind after he had seen her bathing. Afterwards, she repented and gave him the gift of prophecy, but he found this to be worse even than his blindness; to be able to see the future, but not to change it. With DNA, we will not have to choose; we will be able to see,
and
to change.”

Despite himself, Herbert was transfixed. It was not just Fischer’s words, though they would have been compelling even if spoken by an automaton; it was the way his voice rose and fell, the visionary’s animation in his eyes as he looked round the hall; it was the angle at which he held himself hunched forward at the table, taking his weight on his arms like a sprinter on his marks.

“The discovery of DNA will revolutionize criminal justice. The genetic code runs through every cell in a human body. Hair, saliva, blood, sweat, semen, mucus, and skin—all imprinted with the unique DNA of their owner, which is distinctive not only from everyone else alive but everyone who has
ever been
alive.

“No longer will lawyers have to rely on the unreliable testimony of eyewitnesses or the too-vague discipline of fingerprinting. DNA will identify the guilty and exonerate the innocent.”

The wonder was not that the intelligence services of three countries had been so keen to get their hands on the secret of DNA, Herbert thought; the wonder was that
only
three were involved, and that they had not gone further in their quest.

The Soviets had got the bomb three years ago, a decade before the West thought they would. No one underestimated the importance of science any longer; paranoia ensured that every threat was a mortal one, every belch a breach of national security.

He realized, too, the irony in Stensness’ murder. DNA—the very thing he’d been killed for—would be the key to solving crimes like the one perpetrated on him.

Fischer continued: “DNA will also allow us to profoundly revise our opinions about human origins, about who we are and where we came from. Our ancestors’ genes are a treasure trove of information, but until now we have not known how to read them. In agriculture, too, we will be able to improve important species with an effectiveness we have previously only dreamed of.

“And these are merely the applications that present themselves to us at this stage. With each new development, each new piece of research, a myriad of other opportunities will open up, things that none of us will possibly be able to foretell.

“This is where the next war will be fought, of that I am convinced. From the moment the first of our ancestors fashioned a stick into a spear, the results of conflicts have been dictated by technology. World War One was the chemists’ war, because mustard gas and chlorine were deployed for the first time. World War Two was the physicists’ war, the war of the atom bomb. Why shouldn’t World War Three be the biologists’ war?

“The biggest challenge we face is from our own aggressive instincts. In caveman times, these gave definite survival advantages, and were imprinted on our genetic code by natural selection. But now we have nuclear weapons, such instincts threaten our destruction. And since we don’t have time for evolution to remove our aggression, we’ll have to use genetic engineering.”

Fischer gave a small, almost shy smile, entirely at odds with the thunderous images he had been conjuring. “We will not live to see much of this, of course; nor will our children, nor even their children. Vesalius worked out the anatomy of the heart more than four hundred years ago, and we’ve still yet to transplant a heart from one human to another. But progress will come, because progress is like time; it moves only one way.”

He curled the fingers of his right hand around his water glass, no doubt needing a drink after such a monologue.

And then Herbert saw it.

On Fischer’s little finger was an indentation, a fraction of an inch in depth and circling the skin.

The mark of a ring. A ring like the one Herbert had found by the Peter Pan statue.

Herbert gestured toward Fischer’s finger. “Wedding ring?”

Fischer clicked his tongue in his throat. “Ach. Took it off in the bath.”

It might have been, probably was, almost certainly would turn out to be, nothing; but Herbert’s curiosity was an itch that would not be scratched.

“Where’s the bath?”

“What?” Fischer looked puzzled, as well he might. It must have seemed an extraordinary question.

“Which bath did you take it off in?”

“My bath.”

“Here, in London?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Where?”

“At the Embassy, where I’m staying.”

Space was tight at the Embassy, Papworth had said; but nonetheless Fischer was staying there, probably Pauling too.

Not so much the lap of luxury, Herbert thought, as a gilded cage.

“So if we went to that bathroom right now, the ring would be there?”

“Where else would it be?”

“You tell me.”

“What the hell is this all about?” Papworth demanded.

“I found a ring by the Peter Pan statue, where I believe Stensness had been struggling with his assailant,” Herbert said. “Kind of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“If you’re implying that Dr. Fischer had something to do with Stensness’ death,” Papworth said, “then yes; a coincidence is exactly what I think it is.”

Herbert turned to Papworth. “When you were waiting for Stensness that night, were you alone?”

“Of course.”

“Then how do you know where Dr. Fischer was?”

“He was with Professor Pauling.”

“Who isn’t here to confirm that.”

“The fog’s got to him. He’s feeling poorly again. But we can go and ask him.”

“I think I’d like to ask Dr. Fischer some more questions.”

“I must protest.”

“You can protest all you like. Dr. Fischer isn’t a diplomat. He has no protection in the eyes of the law.”

“I’d prefer to stay with him.”

“And I’d prefer that you don’t.”

“Are you arresting him?”

“If I was arresting him, I’d have said so. And if you keep on at me, I
will
arrest him, and then we’ll be doing this the hard way.”

“This is ludicrous.”

“Go back to the Embassy.
When
I’ve finished with him, and
if I’m
satisfied with his answers, I’ll return him to you there.”

“This case is done and dusted, Herbie. You know that damn well. De Vere Green’s dead, by his own hand, all loose ends tied up. What more do you want?”

Herbert shrugged. “I’ll tell you when I find it. Now,
go.”

“I wasn’t there,” Fischer said, when Papworth had left. “I wasn’t in the park.”

“Did you know about Stensness’ offer beforehand?”

“No.”

“Even though you’re working on exactly the same quest that he was?”

“Mr. Papworth is looking after me during my stay here. I’m a scientist. He works for the Embassy. I’m no fool, I know as well as you do what his real job is, but that’s his business. I am a scientist, no more.”

“How long have you known him?”

“Mr. Papworth?”

“Yes.”

“Only these past few days.”

“Not before?”

“No.”

“You never met him on, say, the Manhattan Project?”

“I’m a biologist, Mr. Smith, not a physicist. My science is that of life, not of death.”

“How long have you worked at Caltech?”

“Six years.”

“And before that?”

Fischer paused. “Before that, I was in Germany.”

The maths were inescapable. Herbert saw the connection instantly.

“You were a Nazi?”

“No.” Fischer almost spat out the denial. “I was
not
a Nazi.”

“You were not a member of the Nazi party?”

“Yes, I was a member, of course.”

“Then you were a Nazi.”

“Not in the way you mean. I was a member because I had to be one; without that, I would never have secured an academic posting of any repute.”

“And did you have good postings?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“The Institute of Biological Research at Berlin-Dahlen, and the Frankfurt Institute for Hereditary Biology.”

“You have a tattoo under your armpit?”

“No. I told you: I was a member because I had to be. I did the very minimum I could. Only the SS had such tattoos.”

Herbert remembered the SS, with their oak leaves and their motto of their honor being loyalty. “Show me.”

This irritated Fischer, though Herbert suspected that was more for the inconvenience of pulling his shirt open than anything else. Fischer undid sufficient buttons to slide his shirt off his shoulder, and exposed his armpit to Herbert. Diners on neighboring tables looked at them curiously.

Herbert rummaged through the hairs in Fischer’s armpit, feeling like a monkey rooting for ticks, until he was satisfied that there was indeed no tattoo there.

Herbert withdrew his hand and wiped his fingers on his trouser leg.

“If you were a member of the Nazi Party, how did you get to America?” he asked.