“You mean it might be located somewhere other than in the brain?”
“Yes. Bits of it might.”
“Unlikely, surely.”
He sat back in his chair. “Why? The immune system remembers things. My immune system remembers, doesn’t it?
Worms that are fed other bits of worms have been shown to have absorbed the characteristics of the consumed worm. It’s known as cellular memory.”
“Then why don’t you show the characteristics of a mackerel?” Isabel asked. “Why don’t you start remembering how to do whatever it is that mackerel do?”
He laughed. Although he might not have, thought Isabel.
And I should be more careful in what I say to him. He’s trusting me in this conversation and I must not be flippant.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was a rather silly thing to say.”
“It was very amusing,” he said. “I’ve been surrounded by rather literal people recently. It’s nice to have a change.” He paused, looking out of the window at the trees in Rutland Square. Isabel followed his gaze. There was a slight breeze and the branches of the trees were swaying against the sky.
“I’ll get to the point,” Ian continued. “Cellular memory 9 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h theory—if you can call it that—would find it perfectly possible that the heart may be the repository of memory. So when I received the heart of another, I acquired some of that person’s memories.”
Isabel was silent. Then: “Did that happen?”
He looked down at the table, fingering the edge of the tablecloth. “I don’t know what to say. My instinct as a scientist—as a rationalist—is to say that it’s complete nonsense. I know that there have been all these stories about people acquiring the characteristics of the donors who have given them an organ.
People have made films about it. I would have dismissed all that as pure fantasy.”
“Would have?” asked Isabel.
Ian looked at his mackerel, moving it to the side of the plate. “Yes. Would have. Now I’m not so sure.” He paused, searching her expression for signs of ridicule. And she watched him too. He is embarrassed, she thought, as any rational person might be in the face of the inexplicable.
“I’m not going to laugh at you,” she said quietly.
He smiled. “Thank you,” he began. “You see, I now have a recurring memory, one I didn’t have before. It’s very vivid. It’s something which I think I remember, but which I never experienced, as far as I know.”
“You can tell me about it,” she said. “Go on. Tell me.”
“Thank you,” he said again. “It’ll be a great relief just to talk about it. I’m actually feeling a bit desperate, you know. This thing that is happening to me is very unsettling, and I fear that it’s going to hinder my recovery, unless I can sort it out.” He paused, staring down at his plate. “In fact, I’m worried that it’s going to kill me.”
C H A P T E R T E N
E
GRACE WAS EARLY the following morning. “A miracle,” she announced as she entered Isabel’s kitchen. “An early bus. Two, in fact. I had a choice.”
Isabel greeted her absent-mindedly. The
“That goes to prove it,” said Grace. “There are no intelligent criminals.”
Isabel reached for the coffeepot. “Surely there must be some,” she said mildly. “These criminal masterminds one hears about. The ones who never get caught.”
Grace shook her head. “They usually get arrested in the end,” she said. “People don’t get away with things for ever.”
Isabel thought for a moment. Was this true? She doubted it.
There were unsolved murders, to start with: Jack the Ripper was probably never caught, and Bible John, the Bible-quoting murderer who had so terrified Glasgow, was probably still alive 9 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h somewhere in the west of Scotland, a man now in early old age, leading a normal life. He appeared to have got away with it, as had various war criminals. Perhaps the bigger the crime the more one was likely to go unpunished. The dictators, the com-missioners of genocide, the looters of the treasuries of nations—
they often escaped, while the small fry, the non-commissioned officers, the small-scale fixers, were pursued and caught.
She was about to say something to this effect, but stopped herself. Grace could dig in over a position and the discussion would reach no conclusion. Besides, there was something else that she wanted to tell Grace about. Her discussion with Ian over lunch the previous day was still fresh in her mind; indeed, she had awoken in the early hours of the morning and thought about it, lying in bed, listening to the wind in the trees outside.
“I had the most extraordinary conversation yesterday,” she began. “With a man who has had his heart replaced. Have you ever met anybody who’s had a heart transplant?”
Grace shook her head. “My mother could have done with one,” she mused. “But they didn’t work in those days. Or they didn’t have enough hearts to go round.”
