Chapter 37
37
Charlotte got her head down for the next few days, mindful that time was starting to run out. She’d been diligently sifting through and archiving the records room for three weeks and she felt as though the project was beginning to head towards its final stages. She and Tristan hadn’t had much of a chance to see each other because he’d been tied up with preparations for the next project after Observatory Field, but the Portakabin that was going to be his office for the duration of the build had been delivered to the site, and she knew that he was intending to move himself into it early the following week.
Friday morning dawned, and Charlotte left for the observatory early, taking Comet with her. The area between the fence and the observatory’s building had been gradually cleared, although the fence had been left so that it could be locked to deter trespassers. Even at this late stage of the demolition, Flowerdew were taking no chances. Charlotte finally deemed it safe enough for Comet to roam off-lead so she started to take him with her when she worked. Lorelai seemed slightly disappointed that she wouldn’t be needed to dog sit quite so much, but Charlotte was relieved. Much as Lorelai and Comet had bonded, she couldn’t help feeling as though she was imposing on her landlady.
The now familiar walk through the woodland was a sure-fire way to both wake her senses and allow her a little thinking time about last Sunday’s date with Tristan. Spending time with him was such a lovely experience, and a bit of a revelation. He was much more relaxed on his own turf, and although things had gradually heated up between them, he’d been the perfect gentleman. She had the feeling that they were both in sync, and she was enjoying it. In the early days of her relationship with Todd, though he’d never overtly pressured her, she’d always felt some kind of impetus to go along with what he wanted. She didn’t feel that pressure with Tristan.
As she approached the observatory, her phone pinged. There were patchy spots of reception between the woodland and the observatory, and she paused to check the messages that had managed to get through. The first brought a smile to her face: it was a brief, but sweet, missive from Tristan wishing her a good day at work. She texted him back, wishing him the same.
Reception faded out again as she began to move, and as she approached the observatory, she caught sight of someone waiting outside the gate. Blinking in the sunlight that had brightened considerably upon her exit from the woodland, it took a moment for Charlotte to register who the familiar-looking figure was.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
Torn between wanting to shoot back into the woods or confront the visitor, whose body language screamed nonchalance as they stood there checking their phone (good luck with that, she thought with some satisfaction), Comet took the decision out of her hands by dashing up to them, yapping in pleasure.
Comet always liked him, despite everything , Charlotte thought. Steeling herself for what seemed to be an inevitable conversation, she walked up to the gate.
‘Hello, Todd,’ she said, having had a few seconds to get her shock at seeing him under control. He hadn’t mentioned anything in his text about being back in the country any time soon. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Well, if you won’t call me back, what’s a guy to do?’ Todd gave her his best disarming smile. ‘I was back in the office briefly but you haven’t been in touch. So…’ He trailed off teasingly.
‘Really?’ Charlotte raised a very sceptical eyebrow. ‘You flew four thousand-odd miles just to ask me to return your call? Bit extreme, even for you.’ Todd had been king of the grand gesture when they’d been together and had often surprised her ‘just because’. She now suspected the ‘just because’ had been hiding a frequently guilty conscience.
‘Well, not exactly,’ Todd admitted as he leant down and gave Comet’s ears a stroke. ‘I was invited to give the keynote speech at Greenwich Royal Observatory last night to a group of PhD students with ambitions to work in the US and thought, since I was in the area, I’d check in, see how you were doing in the wilds of Somerset.’
‘Greenwich to Lower Brambleton isn’t exactly in the area,’ Charlotte returned quickly. She felt off-kilter, as if two worlds had collided and she wasn’t sure how to right them.
‘Well, yeah, but I figured I’d take the chance. And I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say about those documents you sent me if you give me the chance to go through it in person.’
So, this was a work thing, Charlotte thought. She tried to fight a stab of disappointment. There was a part of her that had hoped Todd had come to see her to beg for her forgiveness and ask her to take him back, irrational as that was. But she should have known better: work always came first with him, and it seemed now was no exception.
‘You’d better come in,’ she sighed, pulling the key to the padlock out of her pocket. ‘Since you’ve come all this way, I’d value a second opinion.’
Todd smiled at her, and Charlotte willed herself not to react. She didn’t need reminding how much she used to fancy him. She was surprised then how easy it was to brush past him and open up the observatory.
* * *
‘So, this is what the Ashcombes might have discovered,’ Charlotte began as they looked at the paperwork. ‘But it’s just so odd that there’s no other documentation of it anywhere else. I mean, if they really were onto something, why are there no other research papers? Why is there no corroborating evidence from other labs or observatories? Their findings just seem to have disappeared into nothing.’
Todd was looking intently at the logs Charlotte had handed him, lost in the data and clearly running scenarios and calculations. A notebook to the left of him on the desk showed scribbles and sums, and a few notes that he’d made before he got here and was now amending and adding to.
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ he agreed. ‘They obviously reached out to North West Wessex at the time of their first sighting, but no one ever got back to them. And then, back in the early 2000s, first credit for the Volucris eclipsing binary was given to Hope and Masterson in Heidelberg. Not a mention of the Ashcombes having discovered it first.’ He glanced from the notes to Charlotte, and she could tell that he was as intrigued as she was. ‘Why would the paper trail just stop? We’re missing something, I’m sure of it.’
Charlotte had given Todd some brief background about what had happened to Laura and Martin, but they both remained baffled. The Ashcombes had died in January 1995, only two months after their initial discovery of the eclipsing binary. What had happened between those times that meant they sat on their findings? Even though evidence of their discovery was scant, it should have been reported or referenced in some journal. But there was nothing to suggest they’d ever passed on what they’d found. Instead, here Charlotte and now Todd were, thirty years on, only now putting together a puzzle that had been mouldering in an observatory that was about to be demolished.
‘Unless…’ Todd was thinking out loud.
‘Unless what?’
‘What if someone else didn’t want the papers to be found? What if they haven’t been here all this time?’ Todd stood up and began to pace the records room. ‘You say this place was under lock and key for most of the last decade? Who had the keys?’
‘The Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society had regular access until about twenty years ago, but since then, I’m guessing just the landowners and the security company who were employed to manage it. It surprised me that the library was intact, given the potential for vandalism, but whoever my landlady, Lorelai Ashcombe, and her brother employed to look after it did a good job at keeping things secure.’
‘Must have cost them an arm and a leg,’ Todd observed. ‘I mean, what was the point in pouring all that cash into a place that was going nowhere?’
‘Family legacy,’ Charlotte suggested. ‘Martin and Laura Ashcombe were Lorelai’s son and daughter-in-law, and they were integral to the observatory. Perhaps she couldn’t bear to let anything happen to it until she was ready to let it go.’
‘Even so,’ Todd remarked, ‘it’s a hell of a long time to hold onto such a lucrative property, even for sentimental reasons. And surely, she’d want to get shot of it and move on after her family died near here?’
Charlotte stayed silent. She didn’t want to divulge the intimate details of what Lorelai had told her about the fractious relationship with her brother; it wasn’t her history to tell, and she wanted Todd’s involvement to be purely focused on the science, not the wider family dynamics.
‘Now, this is interesting,’ Todd said suddenly. He was writing something in his notebook, and he reached for the initial log that Charlotte had found that documented the first potential sighting of Volucris by Martin and Laura. ‘Those initials… PP… any idea who they might be?’
‘No.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘There’s no further reference to a PP at all in any of the correspondence. The paper trail just stops after that email to Jacobson.’
‘I wonder if Jacobson’s still alive?’ Todd was moving again. Charlotte remembered how he never could sit still when he was hashing something out. ‘He might know who the mysterious PP is.’
‘Maybe,’ Charlotte hedged. ‘I’ll Google him.’ She put her phone down again in frustration. ‘Later.’ She still couldn’t get used to the lack of signal up here.
Todd replaced the documents carefully in the archive box. Charlotte busied herself with packing away the box into the larger storage container that would soon be transported to the university’s archive facility.
‘How about you meet me later for some dinner, and we can carry on discussing things?’ Todd asked. He suppressed a yawn. ‘We could Google Jacobson together. I’ve booked into a room above the pub, if you wanted to join me for a bite to eat when you’re done here.’
Just a few months ago, Charlotte would have jumped at the chance, but things were different now. She wished she’d just bitten the bullet and contacted Professor Edwin instead. Now she had the complication of her ex-boyfriend in the village, and from the way he’d latched onto this, he wasn’t going to be dissuaded easily.
‘I’ve got a lot of work to do today,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And while it’s great that you’ve taken an interest in this, it’s just one small aspect of the history of the observatory, and I don’t have time to get sidetracked.’
Todd said nothing for a long moment. ‘It’s your call,’ he said eventually. ‘But it would be a real shame to see this disappear into a box, never to be thought of again, don’t you think? Especially when you might’ve really hit on something.’
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Charlotte said. She suddenly felt keen to get rid of Todd. He was invading her space and she was finding that she didn’t like it one bit. ‘It was good of you to come all this way, but it might be best if you just leave me to do the job I’ve been paid to do.’
‘You’re shutting me out?’ Todd’s voice held a hint of petulance. He was not a man used to being thwarted, either professionally or personally, and Charlotte realised that in his total assurance of his own knowledge and expertise was an arrogance she hadn’t seen before when they’d been in a romantic relationship.
‘Not as such,’ she said carefully. She forced a smile. ‘I just think we shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions. This could all be a huge pile of nothing. Surely you can see that?’
Todd fell silent again. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said eventually. He got up from the desk and crossed over to where she was standing. ‘But call me if you have any further thoughts about it. I want to help, Charlotte.’ He was turning his sincerest brown-eyed gaze on her again. ‘I owe you that after everything.’
Charlotte smiled. ‘You don’t owe me anything,’ she said. ‘But I’ll keep you posted if anything else comes up.’
‘You do that.’ He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you around.’
As he left, Charlotte couldn’t help thinking that it had been quite the gesture for him to come all this way. But then, she reasoned, he’d always been driven by a quest for knowledge: it was one of the things she’d liked about him.