Dead End

Twenty

Parnell tried to seize the moment and see Russell Benn that afternoon, talking generally of comparing their separate progress – not disclosing his lack of it – but the chemical research director pleaded pressure of work and postponed a meeting until the following day, which Parnell guessed to be a delay to consult with Dwight Newton, and which lost him his hoped-for advantage. Benn was waiting when Parnell arrived, his desk cleared, the coffee prepared. Once again Parnell had gone into Benn’s territory, and he continued the concession, providing his empty account first. Benn declared himself impressed by what he called the generosity of the Scripps Research Institute and the National Institute for Medical Research in sharing their research material more or less in its entirety, disclosing in return his division’s equal failure even to know where to start upon a commercial vaccine after Parnell further conceded his department hadn’t yet succeeded in synthesizing a gene from the Tokyo samples, nor produced anything worthwhile from their animal testing.

‘What about the complete mapping of the poultry genome?’ asked the black scientist, displaying his medical-publication awareness.

Once more, fleetingly, Parnell had the impression of being tested. ‘It gives us – and every other researcher and group trying to do what we’re attempting – three thousand million bases, to compare against three thousand million human genetic bases, to find one, just one, that might provide a mutating-inviting host cell.’

‘Which you’re doing?’

‘Of course we’re doing it,’ said Parnell, although refusing to rise to the other man’s challenge. ‘But there are at least six different strains of domestic chicken farmed in China, quite apart from all the other global test species. But let’s just stay with China. Which, alone, gives us a multiplication of eighteen thousand million.’

‘I can work out the mathematics for myself,’ patronized Benn.

‘But not, chemically, a quicker way towards a treatment!’

‘Maybe neither of us will be the lucky ones,’ Benn said, with forced philosophy.

‘I didn’t believe we were allowed to think like that here at Dubette.’

‘We’re not,’ smiled the other man. ‘Don’t tell anyone I ever said it.’

‘I spoke with Dwight yesterday, about the work you both did on the French stuff,’ announced Parnell, impatient with the sparring.

‘It was just placebo additions to existing formulae,’ dismissed Benn, the confidence confirming Parnell’s belief of prior consultation with Dwight Newton.

‘Dwight explained. He agreed the improvements should be added to everything else I’ve been given, to be looked at genetically some time.’

‘Not sure we’ve got any batch samples left,’ said Benn. ‘Once we established the safety, I think they were all destroyed.’

‘Could you check?’

‘Sure.’

‘And if you don’t have made-up samples, you’d have the old and new formulae? And I could get shipped from Paris the old against the new, couldn’t I?’ insisted Parnell.

‘Sure,’ said Benn again. ‘Like I said, I’ll check.’

By noon the following day, Parnell received fifteen differently name-marked phials, with the comparable number of Dubette commercially packaged and identified bottles previously produced in France. Using that comparison he quickly discovered the major differences between the old and new formulae were liulousine and beneuflous, which the pharmacological register described as expectorants, and a flavouring agent called rifofludine, which in hot climates had a limited function as a preservative when refrigeration was unavailable. There were also six colouring agents, all of which were listed as simply that, non-medically-active colourants.

Also that day, the raw research material, each with its research notes, arrived from San Diego and London, both far more extensive and detailed than Parnell had anticipated. Parnell stored everything from Russell Benn’s division under refrigeration, separating the rifofludine for later temperature match. The whole operation took him less than an hour and was completed long before Russell Benn unexpectedly came into the pharmacogenomics unit.

‘Get everything you wanted?’ greeted the man.

‘If fifteen samples are everything I wanted, then yes, I have. Thanks.’ Parnell saw Benn looking at the just-opened packages occupying virtually all of his desk. ‘And it took all of this to discover the haemagglutinin protein of the 1918 flu epidemic.’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Study it. Hope to get an idea – a possible path to follow at least. Somewhere among all this is the specific attempt by the Scripps Institute and the London School of Medicine to match the chicken genome. If they’d done it already, it would have been announced. I’m hoping we’ll get a lead from everything they’ve done, from which we might find a different approach for our particular needs.’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘We go on stumbling about in the dark.’

‘You get a lead I could follow as well, I’d appreciate your telling me…’

‘If I get any sort of direction, I’m not going to keep it to myself,’ assured Parnell.

There was an overwhelming temptation to start on the material at once, but Parnell remained strictly professional, actually helping Kathy Richardson make duplicates not just for the four seconded to the specific influenza team, but for Mark Easton and Peter Battey as well. He included the two men in the regular end-of-day general discussion, offering each their full dossier cases and suggesting their spare-time input.

‘What spare time?’ mocked the pebble-spectacled Battey.

‘Coffee breaks, lunch periods, those sort of times,’ Parnell partially mocked back. ‘I don’t know if we’re ever going to get anywhere, but if we don’t it won’t be for want of trying.’

‘I’d certainly like to get out of the cul-de-sac I’m in at the moment,’ complained Sato, whose Internet find the 1918 genetic discoveries had been. ‘All I’m doing is killing mice.’

‘What are you cutting your genetic strings down to, for ease of working?’ asked Lapidus.

‘Ten thousand at a time,’ said Sato. ‘You?’

‘Five.’

‘This way we’ll still be comparing when we’re old and grey,’ said Beverley Jackson.

‘Maybe we take a break from routine practical application and instead go through this stuff looking for a new approach,’ proposed Parnell. ‘The source notes alone might lead us somewhere. One, or both, will have already covered a lot of the ground that we’re duplicating.’

‘Is that an order?’ asked Beverley.

‘Let’s give it a shot, stop our eyes glazing over,’ said Parnell.

They all worked on late that night, with Parnell the last to leave, taking more files with him to continue working on at home. It had become a no-longer-unsettling habit to check his surroundings crossing the now sparsely occupied car park and constantly to check his mirrors once he began moving. He drove with his mind hedge-hopping between what he’d been studying – none of which had given him any new ideas – and stray, unconnected thoughts. Enquiring when he could have his own car back would give him an excuse to speak to the FBI agents in the hope of learning of any progress. There hadn’t been any mention of the second autopsy at their last meeting, but the funeral wouldn’t have been allowed unless it had been completed. He had no doubt that Russell Benn had been forewarned of his approach about France, which made nonsense of the man’s prevarication about there not being any surviving samples when there blatantly had been. How – why – had Rebecca had the Air France flight number? It had to be significant. But how? Why hadn’t she done as she’d promised and stopped probing? Had those headlights now in his rear-view mirror been there as long as he imagined? He slowed, eyes constantly flickering to the mirror, the more so when the lights grew bigger, brighter, but abruptly the following car pulled out and past with an impatient blast on the horn. No hurry to get home. No one waiting for him. He supposed he should eat, although he wasn’t hungry. He couldn’t remember what prepacked meals he had in the refrigerator. He’d choose something he could cut one-handed, with just a fork, so he could eat and read at the same time. He was still less than halfway through the San Diego material. He had to avoid the growing temptation to go out of sequence and read all the source notes instead of waiting for their numbered listing in the developing research narrative. Had Dwight Newton and Russell Benn told him the truth? He’d look further than the pharmacological register to find out more about liulousine, beneuflous and rifofludine. And the supposed harmless flavourings. But carefully. Unsuspected – unseen – by anyone. Rebecca’s murder was unquestionably connected to Dubette. And despite every FBI and lawyer’s warning, Parnell remained determined to discover that connection. Until he did, he was going to have his eyes a lot on the rear-view mirror, watching for headlights closing behind.

Parnell had always intended to stop when he’d reached that part of the San Diego material in which the attempts had been made to connect – and then intrude – the spike-shaped haemag-glutinin protein into a receptive human host cell, and awoke at two a.m., startled, cold and disorientated, to discover he’d sprawled across the table, too close to the remains of a now near-sickening, pre-cooked lasagne. The last litre bottle of wine, now empty like the glass, was on the table beside it. Parnell ached, from how he’d slumped for however long it had been, and his stomach churned from the smell of the abandoned food. His eyes felt as if there was grit or sand in them every time he blinked, and blurred when he initially tried to focus upon the papers to see what section he’d reached. Parnell forced himself to clear the table and dispose of the debris of the meal, leaving his clothes where they fell, almost literally to crawl into bed, his last conscious thought that he’d reached that part of the research from which he most hoped to find a way forward – everything he remembered reading before epitomized the purity of research science, but hadn’t taken his mind any further forward in any direction.

Parnell awoke again, later than he had intended, still gritty-eyed but glad he’d cleared away and didn’t have to leave the previous night’s litter festering in his urgency to get back to McLean. He was still the first to arrive, deeply into what he’d expectantly decided to be the genesis for their specific interest, before Beverley came into the unit, closely followed, almost in procession, by everyone else.

Parnell waited until they were at their benches before emerging from his office. ‘I know I’m going against our established schedule but anyone had any startling revelations overnight from what you might have read?’

There was no immediate response. Then Deke Pulbrow said: ‘We’re not big enough, don’t have sufficient resources, to do what we’re trying to do. You count how many countries contributed to decode the domestic chicken genome? Six countries, with all the resources of six leading scientifically advanced institutions. Competing against which there’s just six of us – six ordinary people, not six countries – you making up the seventh, Dick. What chance do you think we’ve genuinely, practicably, got?’

‘It comes down to fractions,’ admitted Parnell. ‘You saying, because it’s fractions, we shouldn’t try?’

‘No,’ denied Pulbrow, at once. ‘What I’m saying is that we’re pissing into the wind to imagine we’ve a chance in hell of finding anything, no matter how hard we try. And I can’t imagine anyone trying any harder than us guys are trying.’

There was another brief silence. Parnell said: ‘Deke’s point is taken. Anyone else?’

‘I’m not proposing I break away from the new regime, reading all that there is here for us to read, but I’d like to run another string through the synthesizer,’ said Sato.

‘Go ahead,’ agreed Parnell at once. ‘Anyone else?’

This time there was no response. Parnell said: ‘OK, let’s keep reading. Anyone get any brilliant ideas, let’s hear them right away.’

As he read, with growing acceptance that he wasn’t going to get a lead, Parnell felt the disappointment of the others at San Diego’s unsuccessful efforts to find link between their 1918 flu discovery and the genome map they’d chosen from one of the most commonly eaten Chinese chickens, although conceding immediately that the connection was not the direct focus of their investigation but a naturally ongoing – and maybe ultimately successful – progression of it. Initially the only movement in the outside laboratory had been Sean Sato moving around his equipment, but that soon ended. No one bothered to leave for a coffee break, all accepting Kathy Richardson’s offer to bring it in. Lunch was more to rest wearily fogged eyes than to eat. No one took more than half an hour away from their desks or benches.

Without any conscious decision, six o’clock had evolved into the time for their end-of-day review, and that Friday night Parnell stuck rigidly to it, coming out of his side office precisely on time and bringing everyone up with the cry of: ‘OK, guys. Day’s over, as well as the week. Make it a full weekend. I know you’re going to take stuff home, like I am, but keep it light. The way we’re working we’re going all of us to end up brain-dead, and brain-dead we’re no use to anyone, certainly not to wives or partners or loved ones…’ He was instantly aware of the abrupt attention from everyone at the remark, not sure himself why he’d said it. It had just come naturally and there hadn’t been any clog of emotion when he’d said it. He hadn’t even been thinking of Rebecca. ‘Let’s clear our minds and our heads and start again on Monday,’ he concluded.

Parnell didn’t intend waiting until Monday, of course. And he had other work in mind, as well.

Parnell arrived at McLean just after seven on the Saturday morning, his reading until midnight bringing him two thirds of the way through the Scripps material. He put what remained of the American documentation beside that from San Diego on his desk, everything temporarily suspended, sure what he intended would only take up the morning, possibly even less. He accepted that there would have to be an explanation for the rest of the unit when they saw the obvious evidence of an experiment, but was unconcerned about it. He was, after all, working in his spare time, and by Monday he would have completed all the necessary reading, so he’d be further ahead than anyone else. On all their benches and desks there were sections of both dossiers obediently left for the following week. Parnell concentrated his experiment upon the medicines to which the additional expectorants and the rifofludine partial-preservative had been added, recording the dosages of each to his carefully separated test mice, from each of which he first took a blood sample to provide a comparative DNA string to measure the effect, if any, of the new formulae against the old. He was almost at the end of his preparation when the other idea came to him and he physically stopped what he was doing, considering it. With the exception of the three new constituents, every drug had gone through the required three-phase licensing process, and those three ingredients could not, in themselves, be humanly harmful. He wasn’t, anyway, considering human testing as such, just a shortcut to extend the experiments beyond mice.

He prepared each petrie dish with a measured sample of every brand product containing liulousine, beneuflous and rifofludine. It was difficult extruding the vein in his left arm and he inserted the hypodermic awkwardly, hurting himself, but he managed to withdraw sufficient blood identically to match the drug measures already in the culture dishes.

He was concentrating so totally upon storing them that he didn’t hear Beverley Jackson come into the laboratory. The first he knew of her presence was when she said: ‘What the hell are you doing?’ And so startled was he that he came close to dropping the culture dish in his hand.

He turned to face her at the door, aware that the shirt sleeve of his left arm was still rolled up and that the hypodermic, with some blood remaining in the chamber, was lying very obviously on the bench alongside Russell Benn’s samples.

‘I’m just working my way through something,’ Parnell said, inadequately.

Beverley came further into the room, absorbing everything as she did so. ‘For Christ’s sake, Dick, you’re experimenting on yourself! What is it? What have you injected? Tell me you haven’t done anything stupid! Holy Christ!’

‘Stop it,’ he said, hoping his calmness would calm her. ‘I haven’t injected myself with anything. I just needed human blood and I was the only donor.’

‘What for?’ she persisted, looking more intently at the neatly stacked bottles and phials. Before Parnell could answer she said: ‘They came from the chemical division a couple of days back, right?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m just carrying out a few tests, that’s all.’

‘Why? Why on these specific samples when we’ve got hundreds of others we haven’t even looked at yet? And when we’re supposed to be working exclusively on the flu research, which, incidentally, is what I’ve come in here today to go on doing.’

It could only be his suspicion that there was some connection with Rebecca’s killing, but he couldn’t compromise Beverley in any way. ‘I want you to trust me. Trust me and not talk to anyone about what I’m doing. Which is what I am going to ask everyone else on Monday, when they see the mice and the cultures.’

‘It’s personal?’

There was only one inference if he answered that. ‘Trust me.’

Beverley regarded him steadily for several moments. ‘Am I going to regret coming in here today?’

‘You could go.’

‘I’m logged in, at the security gatehouse. As you are.’

Shit, thought Parnell. ‘You don’t know anything. You’re not part of anything. There’s probably nothing to know or be part of.’

There was another silence. ‘Were you and Rebecca doing something you shouldn’t have been?’

Beverley was too clever, too prescient, Parnell conceded. ‘Neither Rebecca nor I were betraying Dubette in any way. Nor were – or have – either of us done anything illegal or against the company.’

‘I’ve got to trust you on that?’

‘I’m asking you to trust me on that,’ qualified Parnell.

‘Do I get to know sometime?’

‘I can’t answer that. Like I said, maybe there’s nothing to know.’

‘It would have been a good day to stay at home, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would have avoided a lot of complications.’

Beverley Jackson didn’t reply and Parnell accepted, surprised, that he’d had the last word.

They read – Parnell retreating into his private office – for the rest of the morning. He was surprised, although not as much as he had been earlier, by her sudden arrival at his office door. ‘What are you doing about lunch?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it. Probably won’t bother.’

‘You know what you look like…?’

‘Don’t!’ stopped Parnell, realizing he hadn’t even bothered to shave that morning. ‘And yes, I know. Everyone keeps telling me.’

‘Shit,’ completed the woman, refusing the interruption.

‘That’s it. That’s what everyone keeps telling me.’

‘Did you make breakfast?’

‘I didn’t have time.’

‘What was dinner last night?’

‘That really was shit. A prepared lasagne: I didn’t get all the plastic covering off, before the microwave. It didn’t add to the flavour. But then I don’t think anything could have done.’

‘You lectured us last night, about the danger of being brain-dead?’

‘Yes?’

‘You’re a mess. And getting messier. For a lot of reasons I know and for a lot more that I don’t. What I do know is that a messed-up – fucked-up – head of department is even more of a danger than being brain-dead.’

‘I’ll do better – eat better, get better – tonight.’

‘I know you will,’ said the woman. ‘I’m personally going to see that you do. But also that you shave first. Christ, you really are a fucked-up mess!’