The Third Twin - Ken Follett [37]
On the other hand, he was a bit oily. She suspected that his attitude to women might be manipulative. He always made her think of the joke about a man who says to a woman: “Tell me all about yourself. What’s your opinion of, for example, me?”
In some ways he did not seem like an academic. But Jeannie had observed that the real go-getters of the university world noticeably lacked the vague, helpless air of the stereotype absentminded professor. Berrington looked and acted like a powerful man. He had not done great scientific work for some years, but that was normal: brilliant original discoveries, such as the double helix, were usually made by people under thirty-five. As scientists got older they used their experience and instincts to help and direct younger, fresher minds. Berrington did that well, with his three professorships and his role as conduit for Genetico’s research money. He was not as respected as he might have been, however, because other scientists disliked his involvement in politics. Jeannie herself thought his science was good and his politics were crap.
At first she had readily believed Berrington’s story about downloading files from Australia, but on reflection she was not so sure. When Berry had looked at Steven Logan he had seen a ghost, not a phone bill.
Many families had parenthood secrets. A married woman might have a lover, and only she would know who was the real father of her child. A young girl might have a baby and give it to her mother, pretending to be an older sister, the whole family conspiring to keep the secret. Children were adopted by neighbors, relatives, and friends who concealed the truth. Lorraine Logan might not be the type to make a dark secret of a straightforward adoption, but she could have a dozen other reasons for lying to Steven about his origins. But how was Berrington involved? Could he be Steven’s real father? The thought made Jeannie smile. Berry was handsome, but he was at least six inches shorter than Steven. Although anything was possible, that particular explanation seemed unlikely.
It bothered her to have a mystery. In every other respect, Steven Logan represented a triumph for her. He was a decent law-abiding citizen with an identical twin brother who was a violent criminal. Steve vindicated her computer search program and confirmed her theory of criminality. Of course, she would need another hundred pairs of twins like Steven and Dennis before she could talk about proof. All the same, she could not have had a better start to her program of research.
Tomorrow she would see Dennis. If he turned out to be a dark-haired dwarf, she would know something had gone badly wrong. But if she were right, he would be Steven Logan’s double.
She had been shaken by the revelation that Steve Logan had no idea he might be adopted. She was going to have to work out some procedure for dealing with this phenomenon. In the future she could contact the parents, and check how much they had told, before approaching the twins. It would slow her work, but it had to be done: she could not be the one to reveal family secrets.
That problem was soluble, but she could not lose the sense of anxiety caused by Berrington’s skeptical questions and Steven Logan’s incredulity, and she began to think anxiously of the next stage of her project. She was hoping to use her software to scan the FBI’s fingerprint file.
It was the perfect source for her. Many of the twenty-two million people on file had been suspected or convicted of crimes. If her program worked, it should yield hundreds of twins including several raised-apart pairs. It could mean a quantum leap forward in her research. But first she had to get the Bureau’s permission.
Her best friend at school had been Ghita Sumra, a math wizard of Asian-Indian descent who now had a top job managing information technology