Hypocrite's Isle

Eighteen

Simmons was sitting alone in his office, feet up on the desk, head back, staring at the ceiling, when Jack Martin put his head round the door. ‘So where do you go from here?’

Simmons sighed. ‘I don’t know, but I do know I’m not going to give up on this. If Sutcliffe won’t put Gavin’s work in the programme, I’m definitely going to seek exposure for it elsewhere.’

‘In which case Grumman Schalk will definitely pull the plug on the grant.’

Simmons looked at Martin questioningly. ‘What are you saying, Jack?’

Martin shrugged in a gesture of innocence. ‘I’m just making sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into. It’s not just Sutcliffe who desperately wants the grant, it’s the university. We’re talking big bucks here, and Old College is like a thirsty sponge when it comes to cash.’

‘Jesus! That’s why they blocked the patent application!’ exclaimed Simmons, as if suddenly realising it. ‘It had nothing to do with them risking precious university funds. They were dancing to Grumman’s tune too.’

‘I should think you’ll get quite a lot of fancy footwork for twenty million,’ said Martin.

‘And where do you stand on all of this, Jack?’ asked Simmons, watching his friend’s reactions. ‘Presumably, no grant means no personal chairs?’

Martin gave a resigned shrug. ‘Graham did make it pretty clear that they were dependent on the department getting Grumman Schalk money and expanding. Maybe I should get you to tell Lorraine the bad news instead of me. She was tickled pink at the idea of becoming the wife of a learned professor.’

The remark had been made light-heartedly but the message was there, thought Simmons. He took it as an early warning that Jack Martin had come as far as he was going to in the support stakes and could even be thinking about engaging reverse gear. He suddenly felt very alone. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m for home,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘It’s been one hell of a day.’

‘Fancy a drink?’

‘Maybe not tonight, Jack.’

‘So how serious is this?’ asked Jenny when Simmons told her.

‘It’s me and Gavin against the rest of the world.’

‘What about your drinking buddy?’

‘Jack’s starting to waver. Lorraine’s been telling her pals at the lunch club that he’s going to be made a professor.’

‘Oh dear. Well, for what it’s worth, I’m right behind you. I just can’t believe that all these people are putting money before a possible cure for cancer. It’s absolutely outrageous.’

‘Thanks, but I don’t think we should underestimate the strength of the opposition. Edinburgh may not be Sicily, but the Morningside mafia can hold their own with anyone when it comes to dirty tricks.’

Jenny ruffled Simmons’ hair as she passed by. ‘Right, so when the story breaks about you and the three call-girls in a bed...’

‘You’ll know I’ve been set up.’

‘Either that or you invented the whole cancer cure business to cover it up...’

‘Trust me to marry a clever woman.’

‘If it’s any help, I feel just as angry,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s beginning to sound as if everyone is really quite happy with the way things are, and you’re being cast in the role of troublemaker because you’ve dared to make progress and rocked their comfy little boat. How dare they!’

‘If it wasn’t for Frank standing up for me I think I’d be out on my ear and serving burgers in McDonald’s by now.’

‘So what are you two going to do?’

‘I spoke to him on the phone. He says the main thing to do is to get the results into print. He thinks there’s a good chance we’ll be able to get the paper into a really prestigious journal like Cell or Nature. Once it’s out there in the public domain things should get easier. We’re hoping there will be an immediate demand for the reintroduction of Valdevan and for trials to begin on the new treatment.’

‘You don’t think the opposition will attempt to block publication?’

‘I’m sure they will. That’s why we’ll have to make sure the data is absolutely watertight. We mustn’t give the reviewers any reason at all to turn it down. I’m going to repeat all the experiments, starting tomorrow. Frank’s going to investigate the possibility of setting up a couple of experiments to treat tumours in lab animals with what supplies of Valdevan we’ve got left — that would really make the point.’

‘How much do you have?’

‘They sent me six five-gram vials the last time I asked. I think we can safely assume that’s the last they’ll give us.’

‘If the animal experiments work out, surely not even Grumman Schalk could go on ignoring it.’

‘Don’t you believe it. They’ll probably say that experiments in animals are not necessary a valid indication of what will happen in humans. But we’ll deal with that shit when it happens. Let’s talk about something happy for a change.’

‘What would make you happy, Gav?’

‘Beer... bacon crisps... sex...’

‘If you were a swimming pool, Gavin, you’d have two shallow ends,’ said Caroline.

Something of a siege mentality developed over the following days and weeks in the Simmons lab. Whereas a few weeks before they had been fêted as the lab who’d come up with some really exciting results, they were now being regarded by others in the department as the group that was threatening a huge influx of research funds through their sheer obstinacy and unwillingness to see reason. Sure, Gavin Donnelly’s experiments were interesting — possibly exciting — but one postgrad student’s results were no reason to damage everyone else’s research prospects. That was just plain selfish according to Peter Morton-Brown, who led the whispering campaign among the younger members of the department. Mary and Tom came under particular pressure in the common room to try to make Frank and Gavin see that delaying making their findings public until after the block grant had been agreed would be the decent, sensible thing to do.

‘And how long do they imagine Grumman Schalk would like the delay to be?’ was Simmons’ icy response when Mary told him.

‘Quite a while?’

‘Try forever.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Gavin, who’d been working at the bench. The others turned to look at him. ‘It’s my bet that Grumman’s people are already working night and day to come up with a single compound that exploits the idea behind the combination of Valdevan and polymyxin.’

‘And make squillions,’ said Mary.

‘What d’you think their chances are?’ asked Tom.

‘Impossible to say,’ said Gavin. ‘If they could do it in a relatively short time, I think I’d be happy to chuck this in and say good luck to them. But there are no guarantees; it could be several years, maybe never. I don’t want to go on sitting on this, knowing that folks could be benefiting from it right now.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Mary.

Simmons had bad news for them the following day. ‘The request for permission to carry out animal experiments has been declined.’

‘Why?’ asked Gavin.

‘They say that the Valdevan we were given by Grumman Schalk is not for therapeutic use. It says so on the specification form that came with it.’

‘But there’s nothing wrong with it,’ said Gavin. ‘The spec sheet also shows that it passed all its purity tests. The warning is there just because they sent unsterile powder instead of a sealed injection vial. They must know that we would sterilise any solution before it was used.’

‘Look, we all know this is an excuse,’ said Simmons, holding up his hands. ‘But there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it. The powers that be have dug their heels in and that’s that.’

‘Shit,’ said Gavin. ‘Throw a six to restart.’

‘We can still go to print. The animal experiments would have been a bonus, but the cell culture data will stand up on its own. How are the repeat experiments coming along?’

‘No problems, exactly the same results as last time. The data’s going to be rock solid.’

‘When will you be finished?’

‘End of next week.’

On the Wednesday of the following week Gavin let out a string of expletives as he routinely examined his Valdevan-treated cells before adding polymyxin. It was the final experiment, the final hurdle, and suddenly he felt himself falling. The tumour cells were already dead.

‘What the... I don’t believe it.’

Mary came across to take a look and then Tom.

‘Not much doubt about that,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe the growth rate was too fast. Are you sure you didn’t use the wrong culture medium?’

‘No way,’ said Gavin. ‘I only use one these days and I make it up myself. There should only have been blips in the cell membrane... and no effect at all on normal cells...’ He paused while he changed the culture under the microscope. ‘Shit, they’re dead too.’

‘My God, this is a real show stopper,’ murmured Mary. ‘If there’s any chance at all of killing normal cells with Valdevan... you can’t use this. You’ll kill the patients.’

Gavin looked bemused. ‘I just don’t understand it. This is just plain crazy.’

‘Strikes me Valdevan has a history of throwing up odd results,’ said Tom. ‘You’d better tell Frank.’

Frank Simmons examined the cultures for himself and joined the long faces in the lab. ‘I hope we all have a taste for penitence,’ he said. ‘If we can’t explain this, we could be eating dirt round here for some time to come.’ He looked at Gavin. ‘Are you absolutely sure you couldn’t have added too much drug or used the wrong culture medium?’

‘I’m certain.’

‘Couldn’t you repeat it?’ said Tom.

‘No point,’ said Simmons. ‘Even if he did it a hundred more times and got the result he was looking for, it wouldn’t make this result disappear. It’s going to sit there in the data like an indelible stain, putting a stop to everything. It’s an explanation that’s needed. That’s the only way to get rid of it.’

‘I don’t think I have one,’ said Gavin.

‘I don’t suppose it was an old solution of the drug that could have broken down or something...’ suggested Mary, without much conviction.

Gavin shook his head, but fetched the bottle from the fridge and read out the date he’d written on the label when he’d made it up. Almost automatically, he held up the bottle to the light and shook the contents to check how much was left. He was about to return it to the fridge when something made him repeat the gesture. He had a puzzled look on his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Mary.

‘How much would you say was in there?’

Mary took the bottle. ‘About 3 mil?’ she said.

‘That’s too much,’ said Gavin, apparently carrying out a quick calculation in his head. ‘There shouldn’t be that much.’ He removed the top from the bottle and sniffed the contents. ‘Smells of swimming pools... chlorine.’

The others agreed in turn.

‘Indicator paper,’ muttered Gavin, as he started a hunt through the lab drawers, ‘We need indic...’ He finally brought out a small book of pH indicator strips.

The others looked on as he used a Gilson pipette to remove a small sample of the solution and drop it on to a strip of the indicator paper. The immediate colour change was dramatic. Gavin compared it to the comparison chart and said, ‘pH less than 2.5. It should be 7.2. Somebody’s added acid to it... hydrochloric by the smell...’

‘Well, well, well,’ said Simmons, caught somewhere between bemusement, outrage and relief. ‘What do you know? We have our explanation. It was a deliberate act of sabotage.’

Everyone seemed stunned. Mary was the first to break the silence. ‘At least we don’t have to search far for a motive. The department is full of people who don’t want Gavin’s work to be published.’

‘But to go this far...’ said Tom.

‘Never underestimate human nature where money and self interest are concerned,’ said Simmons. ‘The next question is, what do we do about it?’

‘Maybe it’s a police matter?’ said Mary cautiously, as if unwilling to make the suggestion but feeling that she should.

‘No point,’ said Gavin. ‘The police would be like fish out of water in a place like this. They’d go through the motions, cause disruption everywhere and then piss off into the sunset with a couple of choruses of Just One of Those Things.’

‘I’m afraid Gavin’s right,’ said Simmons. ‘Interviewing the entire department would get us nowhere and just antagonise people even more. No, I suggest we do absolutely nothing and keep the whole thing to ourselves.’

Three pairs of eyebrows were raised.

‘But this is a really serious matter,’ said Mary.

Simmons nodded. ‘It is, and you’re right, but so is getting Gavin’s work into print, and that has to be our main objective. Whoever did this has failed, and that’s what’s important right now. We know why the cells died; it was sabotage, so we can remove the rogue result from the data and complete the successful repetition of the tests. Finding out who did this can wait until we have more time to think about what kind of people we’re working beside. Let’s proceed as if nothing’s happened... only we keep all relevant drugs and chemicals under lock and key from now on and make sure the lab is locked at night.’

Gavin, Mary and Tom all nodded.

‘Good, not a word to anyone.’

The sabotage to Gavin’s final experiment caused a week’s delay while Trish and her colleagues in the tissue culture suite prepared new cell cultures for him.

‘I thought you said you were finished,’ said Trish when Gavin put in the request.

‘So did I,’ said Gavin. ‘But when you’ve got a perfectionist for a boss...’

‘Tell me about it,’ murmured one of Trish’s staff.

‘I wonder who rattled her cage,’ said Trish, but all three girls were smiling. ‘I’ll give you a call when they’re ready.’

On the Monday of the following week the cell cultures arrived and Gavin prepared to set up the final repeat experiment. Frank Simmons had already written the main draft body of the paper and given it to Gavin to read over the weekend for comment.

‘I see you’re about to fill in the blanks,’ said Simmons when he arrived in the lab and saw Gavin setting up his work bench. He was referring to the spaces he’d left for the results of last experiment. ‘What did you think?’

‘Reads well,’ said Gavin. ‘Thanks for putting my name first.’

‘Whatever did you expect, Gavin?’ said Simmons, exchanging a smile with Tom, who was waiting to have a word. ‘I’m off to the library if anyone’s looking for me.’

Gavin placed the instruments he would need in an alcohol-filled beaker ready for flame sterilisation when required and brought out the first of the cell cultures he would need. His mobile rang: it was Caroline and she was upset.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Downstairs, can you come?’

Gavin changed out of his lab coat and hurried along the corridor to the lifts. As he got there, the door to one of them opened and Mary stepped out, freeing the scarf from her neck one-handedly and almost bumping into Gavin, who was attempting to sidle past. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ she exclaimed.

Gavin was about to say that he’d explain later when he suddenly remembered that he’d left his cell cultures lying out on the bench. With one hand holding the lift door open and the other clamped to his forehead, he told Mary what he’d done.

‘No problem, I’ll deal with it.’

Gavin blew her a kiss as the lift doors started to close. ‘Carrie needs me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Gavin found Caroline waiting just outside the front doors. She looked pale and drawn. ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s Mum; she’s really bad. I’m going to have to go down there. Dad phoned this morning.’

‘End of the remission?’

‘In a big way. Dad says she’s in a lot of pain. Look, can we walk? I have to be at the station in half an hour.’

They crossed the road and started heading up George IV Bridge. ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Gavin, putting his arm around her shoulders.

‘Dad wasn’t planning on telling me just yet, but they put her on a new chemo schedule and she’s been reacting really badly. They’ve had to up her radiation dose too.’

Gavin made a face.

‘I know, I know...’

‘Carrie, why are you going?’

Caroline withdrew a little and looked at him questioningly. ‘What do you mean, why am I going?’

‘What good can you do?’

‘Gavin, she’s my mother.’

‘Yes, but you have to ask yourself, what good can you do?’

‘Be there for her, damn it. Can you really not see that? What kind of person are you, for God’s sake?’

They had stopped to face up to each other at the head of the Mound. Gavin held up his hands in a subconscious gesture of defence. ‘Look, all I’m saying is that you can’t do anything to help her, Carrie. She knows it; you know it. You’ll be putting yourself through hell for no good reason other than the fact that you’re doing what you think you should... your duty, if you like.’

‘Damn right it’s my duty.’

‘Carrie, I really didn’t mean to upset you,’ pleaded Gavin. ‘Honest, I’m just trying to stop you making yourself ill if you rush down there every time there’s a bit of a crisis.’

‘A bit of a crisis? You call my mother dying a bit of a crisis?’

‘You know I didn’t mean it that way. Don’t do this to me, Carrie. We both know it’s a one-way journey for her and it’s downhill all the way.’

‘Piss off, Gavin.’

‘Let me see you to the station at least?’

‘I said, piss off!’

Caroline turned on her heel and hurried off, leaving Gavin standing there feeling small and useless. ‘Oh fuck,’ he murmured, his feet turning to lead as he started slowly back towards the medical school. At that moment, the black clouds that had been lurking over the city for the past few hours decided to turn threat into action, and large spots of rain started to pock-mark the pavement for a few moments before the heavens finally opened and sent people scurrying into shop doorways and under bus shelters in the mistaken belief that rain that heavy couldn’t last long. Gavin had too much on his mind to care. He was soaked through by the time he got back to the med school.