Is this me? she thought. Jeannie Ferrami, the woman who does as she pleases and tells the world to go screw? I need rea.s.surance? Get out of here!

It was true, though. Perhaps it was because of her father. After him, she never wanted another irresponsible man in her life. On the other hand, her father was living proof that older men could be just as irresponsible as young.

She guessed Daddy was sleeping in cheap hotels somewhere in Baltimore. When he had drunk and gambled whatever money he got for her computer and her TV--which would not take him long-he would either steal something else or throw himself on the mercy of his other daughter, Patty. Jeannie hated him for stealing her stuff. However, the incident had served to bring out the best in Steve Logan. He had been a prince. What the h.e.l.l, she thought; when next I see Steve Logan I'm going to kiss him again, and this time I'll kiss him good.

She became tense as she threaded the Mercedes through the crowded center of Philadelphia. This could be the big breakthrough. She might be about to find the solution to the puzzle of Steve and Dennis.

The Aventine Clinic was in University City, west of the Schuylkill River, a neighborhood of college buildings and student apartments. The clinic itself was a pleasant low-rise fifties building surrounded by trees. Jeannie parked at a meter on the street and went inside.

There were four people in the waiting area: a young couple, the woman looking strained and the man nervous, plus two other women of about Jeannie's age, all sitting in a square of low couches, looking at magazines. A chirpy receptionist asked Jeannie to take a seat, and she picked up a glossy brochure about Genetico Inc. She held it open on her lap without reading it; instead she stared at the soothingly meaningless Abstract art on the lobby walls and tapped her feet impatiently on the carpeted floor.

She hated hospitals. She had only once been a patient. At the age of twenty-three she had had an abortion. The father was an aspiring film director. She stopped taking the contraceptive pill because they split up, but he came back after a few days, there was a loving reconciliation, and they had unprotected s.e.x and she got pregnant. The operation proceeded without complications, but Jeannie cried for days, and she lost all affection for the film director, even though he was supportive throughout.

He had just made his first Hollywood movie, an action picture. Jeannie had gone alone to see it at the Charles Theater in Baltimore. The only touch of humanity in an otherwise mechanical story of men shooting at one another was when the hero's girlfriend became depressed after an abortion and threw him out. The man, a police detective, had been bewildered and heartbroken. Jeannie had cried.

The memory still hurt. She stood up and paced the floor. A minute later a man emerged from the back of the lobby and said, "Doctor Ferrami!" in a loud voice. He was an anxiously jolly man of about fifty, with a bald pate and a monkish fringe of ginger hair. "h.e.l.lo, h.e.l.lo, good to meet you," he said with unwarranted enthusiasm.

Jeannie shook his hand. "Last night I spoke to a Mr. Ringwood."

"Yes, yes! I'm a colleague of his, my name's d.i.c.k Minsky. How do you do?" d.i.c.k had a nervous tic that made him blink violently every few seconds; Jeannie felt sorry for him.

He led her up a staircase. "What's led to your inquiry, may I ask?"

"A medical mystery," she explained. "The two women have sons who appear to be identical twins, yet they seem to be unrelated. The only connection I've been able to find is that both women were treated here before getting pregnant."

"Is that so?" he said as if he were not really listening. Jeannie was surprised; she had expected him to be intrigued.

They entered a corner office. "All our records can be accessed by computer, provided you have the right code," he said. He sat at a screen. "Now, the patients we're interested in are...?"

"Charlotte Pinker and Lorraine Logan."

"This won't take a minute." He began to key in the names.

Jeannie contained her impatience. These records might reveal nothing at all. She looked around the room. It was too grand an office for a mere filing clerk. d.i.c.k must be more than just a "colleague" of Mr. Ringwood's, she thought. "What's your role here at the clinic, d.i.c.k?" she said.

"I'm the general manager."

She raised her eyebrows, but he did not look up from the keyboard. Why was her inquiry being dealt with by such a senior person? she wondered, and a sense of unease crept into her mood like a wisp of smoke.

He frowned. "That's odd. The computer says we have no record of either name."

Jeannie's unease gelled. I'm about to be lied to, she thought. The prospect of a solution to the puzzle receded into the far distance again. A sense of anticlimax washed over her and depressed her.

He spun his screen around so that she could see it. "Do I have the correct spellings?"

"Yes."

"When do you think these patients attended the clinic?"

"Approximately twenty-three years ago."

He looked at her. "Oh, dear," he said, and he blinked hard.

"Then I'm afraid you've made a wasted journey."

"Why?"

"We don't keep records from that far back. It's our corporate doc.u.ment management strategy."

Jeannie narrowed her eyes at him. "You throw away old records?"

"We shred the cards, yes, after twenty years, unless of course the patient has been readmitted, in which case the record is transferred to the computer."

It was a sickening disappointment and a waste of precious hours that she needed to prepare her defense for tomorrow. She said bitterly: "How strange that Mr. Ringwood didn't tell me this when I talked to him last night."

"He really should have. Perhaps you didn't mention the dates."

"I'm quite sure I told him the two women were treated here twenty-three years ago." Jeannie remembered adding a year to Steve's age to get the right period, "Then it's hard to understand."

Somehow Jeannie was not completely surprised at the way this had turned out. d.i.c.k Minsky, with his exaggerated friendliness and nervous blink, was the caricature of a man with a guilty conscience.

He turned his screen back to its original position. Seeming regretful, he said: "I'm afraid there's no more I can do for you."

"Could we talk to Mr. Ringwood, and ask him why he didn't tell me about the cards being shredded?"

"I'm afraid Peter's off sick today."

"What a remarkable coincidence."

He tried to look offended, but the result was a parody. "I hope you're not implying that we're trying to keep something from you."

"Why would I think that?"

"I have no idea." He stood up. "And now, I'm afraid, I've run out of time."

Jeannie got up and preceded him to the door. He followed her down the stairs to the lobby. "Good day to you," he said stiffly.

"Good-bye," she said.

Outside the door she hesitated. She felt combative. She was tempted to do something provocative, to show them they could not manipulate her totally. She decided to snoop around a bit.

The parking lot was full of doctors' cars, late-model Cadillacs and BMWs. She strolled around one side of the building. A black man with a white beard was sweeping up litter with a noisy blower. There was nothing remarkable or even interesting there. She came up against a blank wall and retraced her steps.

Through the gla.s.s door at the front she saw d.i.c.k Minsky, still in the lobby, talking to the chirpy secretary. He watched anxiously as Jeannie walked by.

Circling the building in the other direction, she came to the garbage dump. Three men wearing heavyweight gloves were loading trash onto a truck. This was stupid, Jeannie decided. She was acting like the detective in a hard-boiled mystery. She was about to turn back when something struck her. The men were lifting huge brown plastic sacks of trash effortlessly, as if they weighed very little. What would a clinic be throwing away that was bulky but light?

Shredded paper?

She heard d.i.c.k Minsky's voice. He sounded scared. "Would you please leave now, Dr. Ferrami?"

She turned. He was coming around the corner of the building, accompanied by a man in the police-style uniform used by security guards.

She walked quickly to a stack of sacks.

d.i.c.k Minsky shouted: "Hey!"

The garbagemen stared at her, but she ignored them. She ripped a hole in one sack, reached inside, and pulled out a handful of the contents.

She was holding a sheaf of strips of thin brown card. When she looked closely at the strips she could see they had been written on, some in pen and some with a typewriter. These were shredded hospital record cards.

There could be only one reason why so many sacks were being taken away today.

They had destroyed their records this morning this morning-only hours after she had called.

She dropped the shreds on the ground and walked away. One of the garbagemen shouted at her indignantly, but she ignored him.

Now there was no doubt.

She stood in front of d.i.c.k Minsky, hands on hips. He had been lying to her, and that was why he was a nervous wreck. "You've got a shameful secret here, haven't you?" she yelled. "Something you're trying to hide by destroying these records?"

He was completely terrified. "Of course not," he managed. "And, by the way, the suggestion is offensive."

"Of course it is," she said. Her temper got the better of her. She pointed at him with the rolled-up Genetico brochure she was still carrying. "But this investigation is very important to me, and you'd better believe that anyone who lies lies to me about it is going to be f.u.c.ked over, but good, before I'm finished." to me about it is going to be f.u.c.ked over, but good, before I'm finished."

"Please leave," he said.

The security guard took her by the left elbow.

"I'm leaving," she said. "No need to hold me."

He did not release her. "This way, please," he said.

He was a middle-aged man with gray hair and a pot belly. In this mood Jeannie was not going to be mauled by him. With her right hand she grasped the arm he was holding her with. The muscles of his upper arm were flabby. "Let go, please," she said, and she squeezed. Her hands were strong and her grip was more powerful than most men's. The guard tried to retain his grasp on her elbow but the pain was too much for him, and after a moment he released her. "Thank you," she said.

She walked away.

She felt better. She had been right to think there was a clue in this clinic. Their efforts to keep her from learning anything were the best possible confirmation that they had a guilty secret. The solution to the mystery was connected with this place. But where did that get her?

She went to her car but did not get in. It was two-thirty and she had had no lunch. She was too excited to eat much, but she needed a cup of coffee. Across the street was a cafe next to a gospel hall. It looked cheap and clean. She crossed the road and went inside.

Her threat to d.i.c.k Minsky had been empty; there was nothing she could do to harm him. She had achieved nothing by getting mad at him. In fact she had tipped her hand, making it clear that she knew she was being lied to. Now they were on their guard.

The cafe was quiet but for a few students finishing lunch. She ordered coffee and a salad. While she was waiting, she opened the brochure she had picked up in the lobby of the clinic. She read: The Aventine Clinic was founded in 1972 by Genetico Inc., as a pioneering center for research and development of human in vitro in vitro fertilization-the creation of what the newspapers call "test-tube babies." fertilization-the creation of what the newspapers call "test-tube babies."

And suddenly it was all clear.

34.

JANE E EDELSBOROUGH WAS A WIDOW IN HER EARLY FIFTIES. A statuesque but untidy woman, she normally dressed in loose ethnic clothes and sandals. She had a commanding intellect, but no one would have guessed it to look at her. Berrington found such people baffling. If you were clever, he thought, why disguise yourself as an idiot by dressing badly? Yet universities were full of such people-in fact, he was exceptional in taking care over his appearance.

Today he was looking especially natty in a navy linen jacket and matching vest with lightweight houndstooth-check pants.

He inspected his image in the mirror behind the door before leaving his office on his way to see Jane.

He headed for the Student Union. Faculty rarely ate there-Berrington had never entered the place-but Jane had gone there for a late lunch, according to the chatty secretary in physics.

The lobby of the union was full of kids in shorts standing in line to get money out of the bank teller machines. He stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. She was in a far corner, reading a journal and eating French fries with her fingers.

The place was a food court, such as Berrington had seen in airports and shopping malls, with a Pizza Hut, an ice-cream counter, and a Burger King, as well as a regular cafeteria. Berrington picked up a tray and went into the cafeteria section. Inside a gla.s.s-fronted case were a few tired sandwiches and some doleful cakes. He shuddered; in normal circ.u.mstances he would drive to the next state rather than eat here.

This was going to be difficult. Jane was not his kind of woman. That made it even more likely that she would lean the wrong way at the discipline hearing. He had to make a friend of her in a short time. It would call for all his powers of charm.

He bought a piece of cheesecake and a cup of coffee and carried them to Jane's table. He felt jittery, but he forced himself to look and sound relaxed. "Jane," he said. "This is a pleasant surprise. May I join you?"

"Sure," she said amiably, putting her journal aside. She took off her gla.s.ses, revealing deep brown eyes with wrinkles of amus.e.m.e.nt at the corners, but she looked a mess: her long gray hair was tied in some kind of colorless rag and she wore a shapeless gray green blouse with sweat marks at the armpits. "I don't think I've ever seen you in here," she said.

"I've never been here. But at our age it's important not to get set in our ways-don't you agree?"

"I'm younger than you," she said mildly. "Although I guess no one would think so."

"Sure they would." He took a bite of his cheesecake. The base was as tough as cardboard and the filling tasted like lemon-flavored shaving cream. He swallowed with an effort. "What do you think of Jack Budgen's proposed biophysics library?'

"Is that why you came to see me?"

"I didn't come here to see you, I came to try the food, and I wish I hadn't. It's awful. How can you eat here?"

She dug a spoon into some kind of dessert. "I don't notice what I eat, Berry, I think about my particle accelerator. Tell me about the new library."

Berrington had been like her, obsessed by work, once upon a time. He had never allowed himself to look like a hobo on account of it, but nevertheless as a young scientist he had lived for the thrill of discovery. However, his life had taken a different direction. His books were popularizations of other people's work; he had not written an original paper in fifteen or twenty years. For a moment he wondered whether he might have been happier if he had made a different choice. Slovenly Jane, eating cheap food while she ruminated over problems in nuclear physics, had an air of calm and contentment that Berrington had never known.

And he was not managing to charm her. She was too wise. Perhaps he should flatter her intellectually. "I just think you should have a bigger input. You're the senior physicist on campus, one of the most distinguished scientists JFU has-you ought to be involved in this library."

"Is it even going to happen?"

"I think Genetico is going to finance it."

"Well, that's a piece of good news. But what's your interest?"

"Thirty years ago I made my name when I started asking which human characteristics are inherited and which are learned. Because of my work, and the work of others like me, we now know that a human being's genetic inheritance is more important than his upbringing and environment in determining a whole range of psychological traits."

"Nature, not nurture."