Dear Jill,

Well, such a lot happened si we met in Los Angeles – we’ve b travelling ar so much it seems l years since I sitting with Tom in the Blue Monkey, enj one of those fantastic margharitas you s there. I must ad I’m having a great time, in of all the flying, and ev tho we still haven’t f Ben Griffiths, the ming journalist who was investigating Judy Faringdon’s d when he disappeared. Since leaving L.A., we’ve been to Dominica and Scotland, and now we’re in Nairobi! Yesterday we met Sophie Vannier, a French n who works for Médecins sans Frontières. She was ever so nice, and sp quite some time talking with us, even though we l to her at first, saying we anted to discuss the is of AIDS. When we confessed that we’d come to see her about a different topic entirely, she wasn’t too pleased, but we’ve prom to write an article hiing her work, so that calmed her down.

She gave us a f she’d found a couple of months before, featuring a Canadian couple who seem to have corresponded with Beautiful Babes. So we’ve bed a flight to Vancouver to go and see them. The file contained lots of medical jargon, and ne Tom n I could make h or t of it, so we had to phone Sophie and ask for some guidance. It seems that the Canadian couple were worried about a genetic dis which runs in their family, and they wanted some reassurance from a specialist in Harley Street. It didn’t say who in the file, but my gu is that it m be Jason Freedman, who u to be famous for creating exotic pets by manipulating their genes. I tried to b an app with him myself before coming out here, but as soon as I told her my name, his secretary said he was unav, and I w have to wait another six months!


Anyway, our plane doesn’t leave tomorrow, so at last Tom and I have a ch to enjoy a bit of s time, and even do some sightseeing. We’re going to see the source of the Nile – not that there’s an awful lot to see, because there doesn’t s to be a single source, but a number of different streams that flow into Lake Victoria – but for Tom it’s important because in the 19th Century there was a race between two explorers to be the f to discover it, and of the explorers, John Hanning Speke, was an ancestor of Tom’s. He remembers b told about Speke’s journeys when he was young, and he thinks that’s probably what him want to be an explorer himself.


It’s still not really for sure whether Speke really was the first to the source, or whether it was his rival, Burton. Both of them cl to been first, and they were due to present their ev to the Royal Geographical society in 1867, but the day before the hearing, Speke was killed in a hunting accident. At least, Tom is convinced it was an accident – he says the safety catch on Speke’s rifle wasn’t working, and the rifle went off when he l it against a gate post – but many people think Speke actually killed himself because he knew, deep down, that Burton had bea him to it. The truth will probably never be known, but one thing’s for sure: it’s really nice having one of Speke’s descendants as a guide!

I’ve got to rush now. We’re off to the airport – yet again!

Love,

Gina