Page 55 of A Sky Full of Stars
When Thea had calmed down a little, Tristan moved away from her. Charlotte could tell that the siblings had a lot to talk about, and suddenly felt like the outsider she was in this complicated family. Tristan crossed the small space between them and reached out a hand to cup her face. ‘We need to talk,’ he said, his voice rough with the emotions of the recent minutes. ‘But let’s just get out of here and get back to Gran’s. I don’t want to spend another minute in this place.’
‘Me neither,’ Thea replied. She picked up the torch, and the three of them, as well as Comet, made their way back to Thea’s car.
Charlotte said nothing. She could already feel the wheels starting to turn, time moving on from the horrendous experience of being trapped, suspended on a rotten platform above a concrete floor, and she had no idea how to make sense of any of it.
The short journey back to Nightshade Cottage wasn’t an entirely comfortable one. Charlotte knew the discussion she needed to have with Tristan would come later; it was only right that the Ashcombes spent time putting the pieces of this evening together just as a family, but they had enough to work through without having to explain things to her, as well. She resolved, as soon as she got back, to give them the space they needed, however long that took. In the meantime, she’d work on the information from the archive and Volucris.
53
Charlotte woke the next morning to the merry sound of the dawn chorus in full tweet. The cheer outside her window did little to raise her own spirits, though. The sound felt like the dying days of the season, and the golden light that was spilling across her bedroom floor, just warming her bare feet where she was lying on top of the bedclothes, reminded her that summer, and her time in Lower Brambleton, was coming to an end.
She, Tristan and Thea had got back to Nightshade Cottage last night and spent some time with Lorelai, who was still up and already boiling the kettle. After a rather uncomfortable cup of tea, Charlotte had made her excuses and gone to the annexe. It had been clear that the family needed to be alone. None of them had said as much, but she knew she had to give them some space. She wanted space, too. The events of the past few hours kept cycling through her mind, and she wanted to be alone to get a handle on all that had happened.
Leaving the Ashcombes on one side of the house, she’d given Comet’s coat a brush to get rid of the worst of the rats’ tails from the torrential rain, brushed her teeth and then crashed out. She’d fallen asleep in minutes and was unsure whether Tristan had returned to see her before he’d left Nightshade Cottage. She wondered if he’d spent the night, with his Audi still in a ditch at the side of the road, but didn’t rush to find out. This situation was so bizarre, and the evening had been so traumatic, that she needed the headspace herself.
In truth, she wasn’t sure what she was going to say to Tristan when he did make contact. Last night had been terrifying almost beyond her limits, and it was only now, in the admittedly warm light of day, that she could begin to process what had happened. If Tristan hadn’t yanked her to safety in time, she’d have been waking up in a hospital bed… or worse, not waking up at all. And if it hadn’t been for him, she’d never have ended up in that situation in the first place. These thoughts warred in her head: she’d only known Tristan a few weeks; did she really want to immerse herself into his now very obviously active trauma? There was a huge part of her that just wanted to call Gemma, pack up her stuff and get the hell out of Lower Brambleton and back to her regular life. Technically, she still had a week to go of the placement, but the observatory was empty, ready for demolition, and she’d be better off back at the North West Wessex archive, overseeing the permanent storage of the artefacts she’d spent the past four weeks collating. Her scientific efficiency and her ability as an archivist had served her a little too well, but there was still work to do. Just not on site.
Despite her gloom, she couldn’t hide a smile when Comet came ambling over from his still very whiffy bed and nosed her hand, eagerly requesting his breakfast. At least he wasn’t showing any ill effects from the previous evening. Swinging her feet over the side of the bed, she meandered through to the kitchenette to make a cup of coffee. She’d collected the pieces of her phone from the floor of the observatory, and it lay on the table by the window. That would be another thing to sort out today. Flipping up the lid of her laptop, she clocked a series of notifications that had come through as it fired up.
Todd, back in the US and finally seeming to be in work mode, had emailed her with some information about the departed Professor Jacobson, who’d worked at Georgia Tech as a tenured professor until he’d retired and who he’d finally managed to track down. Todd had contacted him and had attached an audio file he’d made of the conversation between Jacobson and himself. As she listened to it, Charlotte forgot all about her coffee.
Professor Jacobson’s accent, light Somerset with a smattering of transatlantic vowels, filled the annexe as he recounted a story of academic rivalry, professional jealousy and finally intellectual dishonesty in relation to the Volucris Binary.
‘Philip Porter was a senior professor at what later became the University of North West Wessex. He’d once been a rising star in the field of astronomical research, having several projects to his name, but none that really broke any new ground. By the time I met him, his star was on the wane. Funding was more and more difficult to come by, and he seemed to lack his earlier ambition. I also felt he wasn’t to be trusted. He’d claimed lead author status on several papers that should have been attributed to others, including Laura Myers, his extremely bright and able research partner.’
Charlotte shook her head. Credit on academic papers could be a murky business, and she’d heard too many stories of senior professors snatching the limelight from their hard-working research assistants. She wondered if Philip’s claims of lead author status had coincided with Laura falling in love with Martin. Given what Lorelai had told her about Philip’s bitterness towards the young astronomers, she would have taken a punt on it.
Jacobson’s voice continued to fill the air. ‘When the tables were turned and Philip’s nephew, Martin, and Martin’s wife, Laura, made the initial discovery of an eclipsing binary, he was consumed with jealousy. It really seemed to push him over the edge. This was a discovery Porter would have given his whole career to have made. And now, here it was, documented by his – and I quote – “young upstart of a nephew” in Somerset. Porter couldn’t abide it. He asked me to destroy the paper trail, until such time as we could claim it as our own. It was quite easy to delete the electronic records of our communication – back in the 1990s email was in its infancy and servers were regularly scrubbed at the end of each academic year. What you didn’t save on a hard drive was lost. What neither of us counted on, however, was that Martin Ashcombe would have kept hard copies of our initial communication. He clearly knew his uncle’s tendencies and wasn’t taking any chances.’
Charlotte paused the recording and poured hot water into the cafetiere. Her heart was racing. The only tangible proof that could be attributed to Martin and Laura Ashcombe about the Volucris Binary was a yellowing email and their early observations. The rest, it seemed, had been deliberately obscured by none other than Martin’s uncle, Lorelai’s brother. Now that she knew some of the tortured emotional history between Philip, Laura and Martin, Philip’s anger and jealousy about the discovery made a whole lot more sense.
‘Of course, after Martin and Laura’s terrible accident, everything was put on hold. Philip persuaded me that it was ridiculous to retrospectively attribute the discovery to Martin and Laura. I, to my shame, let it go.’
Todd’s voice interjected on the recording. ‘What accident?’
Jacobson’s sigh was long, drawn out and spoke volumes in itself. ‘Martin and Laura Ashcombe died on a January night on the road that led to the Lower Brambleton Observatory where they’d made the discovery. Philip Porter had pursued them there in a rage, driving down from his home in Bristol to confront them about their discovery, which I’d emailed him about that evening. Later on he told me, off the record, that they’d argued, and Martin had been so adamant that he and Laura were going to claim Volucris as their own that Philip had lost the plot, and driven off to the pub, where he’d proceeded to get thoroughly drunk. Leaving his car at the pub, he’d staggered back to his sister’s house and passed out, only to be woken hours later by the news of Laura and Martin’s death. He was racked with guilt about the part he might have played in the accident, whether the row he’d had with his nephew had contributed in some way to their dreadful end, but, in the cold light of day, his ambition took over again. Once he’d calmed down, he decided to bury Volucris, and told me to forget of its existence. I only had a speculative email from Martin and I was preoccupied with other research, so I agreed. Porter was my senior. What choice did I have?’
Charlotte shook her head in frustration. She’d never know for sure, but Philip’s actions smacked of a man who’d lost everything: the woman he loved had fallen for his nephew, and that same nephew had discovered something that Philip had spent his whole career aiming to find. Perhaps the jealousy and bitterness became too much for him? A stronger man might have risen above his emotions and given credit to Martin and Laura as a kind of memorial, but Philip Porter wasn’t that man.
‘So, what happened next?’ Todd’s voice, gentle, probing, got Jacobson back on track. Charlotte poured a little double cream into her coffee.
There was a very audible sigh on the recording. ‘What do you think happened, my boy? A year after the death of the Ashcombes, Philip Porter and I were about to go public with the discovery. He’d done his own calculations and was ready to present it. I’d kept the original paper copy of the email from Martin, of course. It was my insurance that Porter would include me in the paper as co-lead researcher. If he didn’t, then I was going to reveal the information that it was his nephew and his wife who should take credit for the initial discovery. Porter had fleshed out the initial data and was preparing to publish in one of the most prestigious astronomical journals in the world.’
‘And?’ There was no mistaking the excitement in Todd’s voice as he asked. Charlotte, too, was frozen in place, her coffee cup halfway to her lips.
Jacobson gave a laugh that had an edge as bitter as the Columbian blend Charlotte favoured in her cafetiere. ‘Would you believe it? The bloody Germans got there first! Made the calculations, named the two stars in the binary the Geflügeltes Wesen! All the funding went to Heidelberg, and we were left with nothing.’
Charlotte shook her head. It felt like poetic justice, of a kind. Philip Porter was denied his last act of satisfaction, and had been left festering with that knowledge until the day he died. Even as she thought this, she was already a step ahead of herself, though. There had to be some way to reclaim Volucris in the name of the Lower Brambleton Observatory. Despite the traumas of the previous night, she was already thinking about how she could do it.
There was still a little left of the audio recording, and after a moment Charlotte realised Todd had spliced on a message of his own.
‘I hope that’s enough evidence for you, Charlotte. I have to admit, it’s been kinda fun pulling the threads on this one. It’s certainly kept me outta trouble before the new year starts. Call me if you wanna talk about any of this. Or don’t. But take care of yourself. And don’t let that English wanker – as you might say – yank your chain too hard. See you soon.’
Charlotte smiled. It was easy to forget what a smooth bastard Todd was when she listened to that Atlantan drawl. But she was grateful for his help. He’d given her some more pieces of the puzzle, and, hopefully, a potential solution. If Jacobson didn’t mind going public, perhaps between them they could get Martin and Laura the recognition they deserved.
She was just wondering whether she should nip around to Lorelai’s, both to check in on her and to see if Tristan had indeed spent the night, when there was a knock on the pane of the annexe door, and there stood Tristan, an expression of deathly seriousness on his face.
54
