“You should see if you can talk to Ajax. They were handling Xerxes’s life and health insurance at the time. I know they went to Mariners Rest in 1963 with evidence of how good and pure they were, but if you find out why Ajax dropped them back in the fifties you may get some inside dope on why they decided to look at blood instead of—I don’t know, some other choice.”

Manheim, propped on his elbows on the floor, was naturally most interested in what lay in Chigwell’s notebooks. Lotty sketched the data for him, but warned him he would have to get an array of specialists.

“I am only a perinatologist, you know. So what I’m telling you is only what I’ve learned from Dr. Christophersen. You will need many people—blood specialists, a good renal pathologist. And above all, you will need a team in occupational health.”

Manheim nodded soberly at all their advice. His rosy cherub’s cheeks glowed deeper red as he filled legal pads with notes. Every now and then he asked me a question about the plant and the employees.

Lotty finally put a halt to the discussion—she had to get up early, I was her patient and wasn’t fit for another all-night session, and so on. Manheim stood up reluctantly.

“I’m not going to do anything in a hurry,” he warned me. “I want to double-check the data, find the lab that did the blood work for them, all that kind of stuff. And I’m going to have to consult with a specialist in environmental law.”

I held up my hands. “It’s your baby now. You do what you want with it. You just need to keep in mind that Gustav Humboldt isn’t going to lie down with his legs up in the air while you’re gathering facts—for all I know he’s already figured out a way to put the clamps on the lab. You want one last chance to back out?”

He thought for a short minute, then grinned reluctantly. “I’ve spent enough time on my tush in Beverly—I can’t turn down this one. As long as you agree to provide moral support every now and then.”

“Yeah, sure, why not,” I agreed as positively as I could—I didn’t want tentacles from South Chicago to keep reaching out to strangle me.

When Manheim had gone I headed off to bed, leaving Max in the sitting room with a bottle of Lotty’s cognac. Lotty came in for a minute after I’d brushed my teeth to tell me Caroline had phoned while I was with the police.

“She wants you to call her. But as she was angry and became rather rude, I thought it wouldn’t hurt her to wait.”

I grinned. “That’s my Caroline. She say anything about Louisa?”

“I gather since she slept through her ordeal she’s none the worse for it. Sleep well, my dear.”

She was gone when I got up in the morning. I puttered aimlessly around the kitchen, drinking coffee. I started to make toast, then remembered my promise to eat breakfast with Mr. Contreras. I slowly packed my overnight bag. The longer I stayed at Lotty’s the less interested I seemed to be in looking after myself. It was time to go before I slipped into unconquerable lassitude.