“Yes, of course—she’s here now,” McCandless replied. He turned away, saying, “Julia?” Moments later he moved aside, surrendering his place in front of the camera to a young woman, apparently in her early twenties. The young woman stared into the camera with beguiling frankness. As McCandless had said, she could have altered her face, with the aid of subtle cosmetic resculpturing, to duplicate the features of any of a hundred female newscasters and show hosts.
She could also be the woman Charlotte had seen in the tapes—but there was no single point of absolute similarity, and nothing that would have tipped off a superficial scan search. Her abundant hair was golden red and very carefully sculptured; it could easily have been a wig. Her eyes were a vivid green, but the color could easily have been a bimolecular overlay. Charlotte knew that Hal must be moving heaven and earth in the hope of finding one point of absolute proof that he could take back to the smug idiot who could not comprehend what danger he was in—but she knew too that Hal must know that he was already too late to save McCandless. The local police must be on their way to the house, but Charlotte had no idea how long it would take them to arrive, and there was no way to protect McCandless from infection.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Herold,” said Charlotte slowly. “As you presumably know, we’re investigating a series of rather bizarre murders, and it’s very difficult to determine what information may be relevant.” “I understand,” said the woman calmly. She seemed utterly unperturbed by the situation, and Charlotte couldn’t help remembering Wilde’s suggestion that she might not have the slightest idea of the effect that her kisses were having on her victims.
Charlotte felt a strange pricking sensation at the back of her neck. It’s her, she thought. I’m actually talking to the killer—so what on earth do I say? She remembered, uncomfortably, how she had felt very nearly the same about Oscar Wilde, in eerily similar circumstances.
“Have you seen the news this evening?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, I have,” Julia Herold replied. “But as I told your colleague, I never met Gabriel King or Michi Urashima, and I’ve never been to New York or San Francisco, let alone Italy or central Africa.” She’s playing with us, Charlotte thought. She’s deliberately tantalizing us. She has McCandless in the palm of her hand and there’s no way we can save him—but she’ll never get away with it. Not this time. She can’t make another move without our knowing about it.
“May I talk to Dr. McCandless again?” she asked dully.
They switched places again. Charlotte wanted to say, “Whatever you do, don’t kiss her!” but she knew how very stupid it would sound.
“Professor McCandless,” she said uncomfortably, “we think that something might have happened when you were a student yourself. Something that links you, however tenuously, with Gabriel King, Michi Urashima, Paul Kwiatek, Magnus Teidemann, and Walter Czastka. We need to know what it was. We understand how difficult it is to remember, but…” “I didn’t know them all,” McCandless said, controlling his irritation. “I’ve set a silver to check back through my own records, trying to turn something up. I’ve always kept good records—if there’s anything at all, it will be there. I hardly know Walter, even though he lives less than a couple of hundred kilometers away across the water. He keeps himself to himself, as Moreau does. The others I know only by repute. I didn’t even remember that I was contemporary with Urashima or Teidemann until your people jogged my memory. There were thousands of students at the university, even then. We didn’t even graduate in the same year—I’ve established that much. We were never, together, unless…” “Unless what, Dr. McCandless?” said Charlotte quickly.
The dark brow was furrowed and the eyes were glazed as the man reached for some fleeting, fugitive memory. “There was a time with Walter… at the beach…” Then, instantly, the face became hard and stern again. “No,” he said firmly. “I really can’t remember anything solid. If you want my help, you must let me go back to the documents—but I’m certain that it’s just a coincidence that I was at Wollongong at the same time as the men who’ve been murdered.” Charlotte saw a slender hand descend reassuringly upon Stuart McCandless’s shoulder, and she saw him take it in his own, thankfully. She knew that there was no point in asking what it was that he had half remembered. He couldn’t believe that it was important, and he couldn’t remember exactly what had taken place. He was shutting her out.
It’s happening now, she thought, before our very eyes. She’s going to kill him within the next few minutes, if she hasn’t already. And we can’t do a thing to stop her—but we can surely stop her before she gets to Walter Czastka. This is the last.
“Professor McCandless,” she said. “I have reason to believe that you’re in mortal danger. I have to advise you to isolate yourself completely—and I mean completely. Please send Miss Herold away—and do it now. Whatever you believe or don’t believe, I beg you not to have any further physical contact with her. I have no doubt at all that your life is at stake.” “Oh, don’t be so stupid,” McCandless retorted testily. “I know how the mind of a policeman works, but I have a far better understanding of my present situation than you do, Sergeant Holmes. I can give you my absolute assurance that I’m in no danger whatsoever. Now, please may I get on with the work which your colleague asked me to do?” “Yes,” she said numbly. “I’m sorry.” She let him break the connection; she didn’t feel that she could do it herself She found the futility of her attempted intervention appalling.
When the screen went blank, Charlotte turned to Oscar Wilde and said: “He’s already dead, isn’t he? He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s infected. Nothing we could have done would have stopped it.” “The seeds may well be taking root in his flesh as we speak,” Wilde agreed. “If Julia Herold is the Inacio clone—and I say if, because it is still conceivable that she is not, although neither of us dares to believe it—then Professor McCandless had secured his own doom before you or Hal Watson had any reason to contact him.” “What was it that he started to say, I wonder?” she whispered. “Why did he stop and blank it out?” “Something that came to mind in spite of his resistance,” Wilde said. “Something he didn’t really want to remember. Something, perhaps, that Walter remembers too, if only he dared admit it…” “ ‘There was a time with Walter at the beach,’ ” Michael Lowenthal quoted speculatively. “Assuming that he didn’t mean a tree, he must have been referring to something that happened at a beach. Maybe that’s where Czastka met Maria Inacio—maybe it’s where they all met Maria Inacio. A party, do you think? Six drunken students, who hardly knew one another…?” “That might make sense,” Oscar Wilde conceded thoughtfully. “If Rappaccini had reason to think that any one of them might have been his biological father, and that Walter was merely the unlucky one…” Charlotte felt that duty required more urgent action from her than joining in with speculative games. She called Hal. “Julia Herold,” she said shortly. “Have you tied her in with Moreau yet? She has to be the killer.” “I’ve no proof yet,” Hal replied impatiently. “The records say that she’s a student at the University of Hawaii. She lives on Kauai. Although McCandless is retired from administration, he still does research—he’s a historian, specializing in the twenty-second century. That’s Herold’s main area of interest too. According to the official record, Herold’s been on Kauai all along—but I’m double-checking everything, and there’s a distinct possibility that the woman is a masquerader, not really Herold at all. If there’s disinformation in there, the seams will come apart in a matter of minutes, but it’ll be too late to save McCandless.” “She’s the one,” said Charlotte. “Whatever the superficial data flow says, she’s been halfway around the world in the last few days, killing people all the way.