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midafternoon sun burning palely through a thin screen of clouds. No birds sang. All the noise came from the Artificial Feeding Area, and from the volume of pant-hoots, barks and screams it sounded as ifthere were two dozen chimps scoffing Mallabar’s free bananas. And with such a large number present everybody else would be there: Mallabar, Ginga, Toshiro, Roberta Vail, and half a dozen assistants, all observing and notating furiously. Ian Vail would be out in the field, I supposed; like me he was highly dubious about Mallabar’s celebrated toy.
    I walked back to my tent, debating whether I had handled the discovery of the dead baby correctly. I should learn to be more craftily evasive, I thought: a bad evasion is tantamount to telling the truth. I was interrupted in my recriminations by the sight of João and Alda waiting for me. No sign at all of Lena, they said. There was no point in sending them out at this stage of the afternoon so I let them go home. I dragged a chair out into the shade of a canvas awning stretched above the tent’s opening and tried to write a letter to my mother, but my mind was too busy to concentrate and I abandoned it after three or four lines.
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    That evening in the canteen I waited until Roberta had left before I approached Ian Vail. His surprise, and then sly delight, might have been touching under any other circumstances, but his evident pleasure that I had initiated a conversation irked me. Our relations were cordial and professional, so far as I was concerned. I was making an innocent inquiry, so why did he have to render it personal, find it implicit with other motives? He set his tray down and turned to give me his full and focused attention.
    â€œFire away,” he said, his pale-lashed pale eyes irradiating me with telepathic avowals, I felt sure, but to no effect: Ian Vail did not interest me.
    I asked him if there had been any recent births to any of his northern chimps.
    â€œNo, there are two pregnant, but nobody due soon. Why?”
    â€œI found a dead baby today. Looking for a mother.”
    â€œHow did it die?”
    â€œAccident, I think. I don’t know.”
    He stroked his chin. The light from the hurricane lamp caught the hair on his forearm, dense and whorly, golden wire. It looked half an inch thick.
    â€œThere’re a couple of nomadic females pretty far gone,” he said. “Do you want to check? If Eugene isn’t feeding tomorrow we might find them. Shouldn’t be hard.”
    â€œFine,” I said, trying to ignore his boyish grin of pleasure. We arranged to meet at seven in the morning. He would come by in the Land-Rover and collect me.
    I walked back to my tent, noticing that the lights in Hauser’s lab were still on. I realized I hadn’t seen him in the canteen that evening and I felt a seep of worry drip through me. Hauser was not known for working late.
    Half an hour later, as I was writing up my field notes for the day, I heard Mallabar’s voice outside, asking if he might have a word with me. I let him in and offered him a scotch, which he declined. He looked around my tent, and then back at me, as if its contents might provide some encoded clue to my personality. I offered him a seat, but he came straight to the point standing.
    â€œThat body you found today, why didn’t you tell me about it?”
    â€œWhy should I?”
    He smiled patiently, the wise headmaster confronted by the difficult pupil. I always strove for extra confidence where Mallabar was concerned. He worked his charms so thoroughly on everyone else that I made special efforts to show how impervious I was to them.
    â€œDeaths must be logged. You know that.”
    â€œI am logging it.” I pointed to my book. “I just don’t have all the facts yet. Hauser’s—”
    â€œThat’s why I’m here, to preempt you.” He paused. “We have the facts now. It wasn’t a chimp.”
    â€œOh come