Aaron Elkins - Uneasy Relations

“Not at all, Ivan,” Adrian cut in with his warmest smile. “It was a wonderful speech, and a wonderful way to end the evening.”

“Wonderful, wonderful,” others echoed and there was yet another round of applause. Gideon joined in, but he could feel tears at the corners of his eyes.

“I’ll drive you home,” Rowley said, quick to seize on his cue. He too was on the edge of weeping. The good-byes were muted and hurried, and within a couple of minutes he was leading a shambling, confused Gunderson, clutching his prizes, out of the room. He looked fifteen years older than when he’d come in.

The remaining diners looked mutely, glumly at their coffee cups. “Guadalcanal Woman,” Pru said softly. “Where did that come from?”

“He was back in 1942,” Adrian said with a melancholy smile. “Ivan was in the Marines, you know. He spent more than a year in the South Pacific. A life-altering experience. He talked about it often.”

“ Very often,” Audrey said drily.

“If he fought with the Marines at Guadalcanal, he had a right to talk about it,” Buck said, in a rare reprimand to Audrey. “Guadalcanal. Jesus.”

In the silence that followed, Pru let out a long, lip-flapping sigh. “Well. I don’t think this was one of his better days,” she said.

Julie stretched, sighed, and let her head fall back on the pillow. “Let’s be decadent this morning-”

“We’ve already been decadent this morning,” Gideon pointed out, nuzzling the ear lobe nearest him.

She laughed. “Then let’s continue in that vein, and order up a room service breakfast. We can have it out on the balcony in those lovely terry cloth robes.”

Their room’s generous balcony was two floors above the Wisteria Terrace, so the view was, if anything, even more grand than from the terrace. Through the French doors, which they’d left open during the night, they could see the winding paths and lush plantings of the public gardens just below, the bay a little farther out, and off to the left the Strait of Gibraltar and the dusky mountains of Africa, shimmering in their haze as the early morning sun found them.

“I’m for that,” Gideon said. “How about if I order up a good, greasy, thoroughly decadent full English breakfast – the Full Monty?”

“I’m for that,” Julie said. “I’m starving.”

Over their mammoth breakfasts – fried eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, white toast in a rack, marmalade, butter, and a cozy-covered pot of tea – they worked out their plans for the day.

“Well, you’ve got your lecture to give at noon,” Julie said. “Where is that going to be again?”

“St. Michael’s Cave. It’s a set of natural caverns up on the Rock, and they use one of them as a lecture hall. That’ll be over by one, and then we have a late lunch date with Fausto at one thirty.”

Several years before, Gideon had lectured in an international forensics symposium for criminal justice personnel, held in St. Malo, France, and Fausto Sotomayor, then a young detective constable in the Royal Gibraltar Police, had been an attendee. Since then, he had been in intermittent touch with Gideon with one technical question or another, and they had become e-mail buddies of a sort, dropping each other a few lines now and then. They’d seen him briefly the day before, when Fausto, now much glorified – a detective chief inspector, no less – had insisted on driving them into town from the airport, and had invited them to lunch today at a downtown pub.

“What about before your talk?” Julie asked, spreading marmalade on a wedge of toast. “Are you free?”

“Mostly, but I did want to sit in on one of the paleoanthropological society papers at nine thirty. They’re holding the conference down at the Eliott Hotel.”

“What’s the topic? Maybe I’ll join you.”

“The title is…” He consulted the conference program he’d brought out with them. “The title is – um, no, I have a hunch you won’t be interested – ‘A Bio-Mechanical Assessment of Cranial Base Architecture in the Hominoidea.’ ”

She made a face. “Your hunch is correct. Tell you what: let’s stretch our legs and stroll down the hill into town. We’ll have an hour or so, maybe get a cup of coffee somewhere?”

He smiled. Tea was nice, very British and all that, but for both of them, a couple of cups of coffee in the morning were a necessity for comprehensive physiological functioning.

“Sounds good, Julie.”

“And then I think I’ll pick up a guidebook and just explore the sights until we meet your friend for lunch.”

“You don’t want to sit in on my presentation?”

“Would you mind very much if I didn’t? I have seen this one before. ”

“No, I don’t mind.”

To be honest, he preferred it that way. How could you be expected to enter fully into your exalted role as one of the world’s foremost forensic scientists when the woman who told you when to take out the garbage was sitting in the first row watching you? “I’ll see you at lunch then. The Angry Friar. Fausto says you can’t miss it. On Main Street, in the middle of town. Right across from the Governor’s Residence.”

While they spoke, he had been leafing cursorily through the conference program, and now something, a boxed item on the last page of the schedule, caught his eye. “ ’Close-of-conference reception,’ ” he read aloud, “ ‘proudly sponsored by Javelin Press to celebrate the publication of Uneasy Relations: Humans and Neanderthals at the Dawn of History: Implications for Today’s World, by Rowley G. Boyd. 5:00-7:00 P.M., Eliottt Hotel Poolside Terrace (on top floor). Open bar and heavy hors d’oeuvres. Government and cultural dignitaries have been invited to attend.’ ” He looked at her. “What do you know, Lester really is doing his book launch here. I half thought he was kidding.”

“ Uneasy Relations: Humans and Neanderthals at the Dawn of History: Implications for Today’s World,” Julie repeated. “Now there’s a mouthful.”

“It sure is. I bet Rowley had a heck of a time talking him out of Making It with a Neanderthal, or Caveman Sex.”

“But are these academics really going to show up for it, do you think?” Julie asked. “I mean, no offense to Rowley, but would these people be that interested in what he has to say?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Gideon said, laughing. “Free booze, free food – of course they’ll attend.”

Delivered with the meal was a folded copy of the Gibraltar Chronicle (“The Independent Daily – First Published 1801”), and now, while Gideon contentedly sipped his third cup of tea and continued with the program, Julie unfolded it to browse.

“Oh, boy,” she said the moment she looked at it.

He glanced at her. “What?”

Mutely, she handed the paper to him.

And there it was again, big and bold, and apparently tracking him around the world like a vindictive ex-spouse.

PROMINENT SCIENTIST TO REVEAL “STUNNING” SCIENTIFIC FRAUD AT PUBLIC LECTURE TODAY.

“Aw, no,” he groaned, scanning the piece. It was an abbreviated version of the overheated Affiliated Press release, with the addition of the title of his presentation: “ ‘Mistakes’ in Human Evolution.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” Julie chirped

“There’s a bright side?” he said dismally.

“Sure, there is.” She stood up, leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, and headed inside. “I bet you’ll have a heck of a crowd.”

AT ten thirty, Gideon returned to the hotel for a final prep session before for his presentation, then went downstairs to wait for Rowley, who had offered to have his administrative assistant, Henrietta, stop by the hotel at eleven to give a ride up to the cave to anyone who needed one. (Rowley himself had gone up earlier to make sure everything was in order for the lecture.) He found Buck and Adrian already beside the curving driveway, waiting for the lift. The others were there too, grouping up to walk into town so they could drop in on the society meetings for a few minutes before going up to the cave.