Dead End

Twenty-Four

There was a familiarity about being collected from Washington Circle by Barry Jackson and logging in at the FBI field office, and not needing the stipulated escort to find his way to the two waiting agents with their oddly cloned dress code. Today’s was muted brown check. The waiting coffee was an innovation.

‘So, how’s it going?’ asked Jackson.

‘That’s our problem,’ admitted Dingley. ‘It’s not. We’ve interviewed everybody – even Alan Smeldon, the guy Rebecca had the previous relationship with – and so far we’ve got diddly squat.’

‘We’ve even started to wonder if Ms Lang wasn’t the victim of a crazy, just picked at random.’

‘She wasn’t picked at random,’ insisted Parnell, irritably. ‘Her keys were taken, her house searched.’

‘I said we even started to wonder, not that we’re going that route,’ placated Dingley.

‘Which is why we wanted to talk to you again,’ said Benton. ‘You thought about anything more that might help us along?’

‘Absolutely nothing. I was expecting you to tell me of some progress,’ said Parnell. Virtually the only subject of his conversation with Jackson on their way to the field office had been France. Parnell had told the lawyer of his doubts about the tainted medicines being recovered, although he had not told him about the box number or secret delivery, or Saby’s reference to the Dubette security chief, because he couldn’t see a connecting relevance. Jackson had advised against prematurely disclosing Dubette’s drug mistake, arguing it could confuse rather than assist the investigation.

‘I told you we were just touching bases,’ reminded Benton.

‘Like I said,’ offered Dingley. ‘We’ve gone back through Ms Lang’s life since before grade school. We couldn’t find a single person with whom she’d ever had what you’d call an argument.’

‘Which keeps bringing us back to Dubette,’ picked up Benton. ‘And where we hoped you might help us further, Mr Parnell. We’ve got this feeling – a feeling, nothing else – that there has to be some connection to Ms Lang’s workplace.’

‘Let me ask you something,’ said Dingley. ‘You familiar with anyone out at McLean who carries a knife? Maybe one of those little itty bitty clasp things that people sometimes use to pare their nails?’

‘ What?’ exclaimed Jackson, seconds ahead of Parnell saying the same thing.

‘Something sharp like a knife,’ repeated Benton. ‘A chisel, even.’

‘I don’t understand this questioning,’ said Jackson.

‘You mind if Mr Parnell answers us first?’ said Benton.

Jackson moved to speak, but before he could Parnell said: ‘I suppose a knife might be the sort of thing a security guard or officer might carry. Something sharp might be part of a police car’s equipment.’

‘That’s what we thought, about security guards,’ said Dingley. ‘Harry Johnson told us he never carries a knife. Nor do any of his people, as far as he’s aware.’

‘What about police-car equipment?’ asked Parnell.

‘We asked the two who took you into custody,’ said Benton. ‘They said no, too.’

‘You talking about my car? How the paint was chipped off?’

‘We told you what our forensic s people thought,’ said Benton.

‘And there was Ms Lang’s seat belt, the seat belt you were always so sure she would fasten,’ said Benson.

‘What about it?’

‘It was cut,’ disclosed Dingley. ‘Forensic’s first impression was that it had snapped, but after the second autopsy they looked again and changed their minds. They’re saying now it was cut.’

‘What about the second autopsy?’ asked Jackson. He was looking intently between the two FBI men.

‘The medical examiner isn’t sure Ms Lang sustained…’ Benton stopped, coughed and resumed with what he thought better-chosen words. ‘… suffered all her injuries when the car went over the edge.’

‘You mean her broken neck?’ demanded Parnell, bluntly. ‘We know someone went down after her, into the canyon: they had to, to get the keys to her house. Are you saying she was still alive? But that she was cut out and murdered?’

‘That’s the way the technical guys are putting it to us.’

‘That’s planned murder… assassination… a professional,’ said Jackson, still intent.

‘Which brings us back, God knows how, to the flight number and terrorism,’ said Dingley. ‘Terrorists are professional assassins.’

‘And you’ve traced Rebecca’s life back to before grade school,’ reminded Parnell. ‘You know she’s never had the slightest connection whatsoever with or to terrorism. And from your questioning of my mother and friends in England, you know I don’t either.’

‘See our problem?’ invited Dingley.

‘You’re forcing into the jigsaw pieces that don’t fit,’ said Jackson.

‘We’re coming around to thinking that,’ agreed Benton. ‘Which is the wrong piece?’

‘It’s got to be the AF209 flight number,’ insisted Parnell.

‘That’s the reason we’re here – you’re here,’ said Dingley. ‘Until we discover the relevance of that, to everything else, Ms Lang’s undoubted murder is a federal enquiry. And people along the road at the J. Edgar Hoover building are getting impatient as well as pissed off being told by the media what an inefficient, jerk-off organization the Bureau is.’

‘There was something wrong about my arrest,’ insisted Parnell.

‘Metro DC – uniforms particularly – couldn’t find an egg in a hen house,’ said Benton. ‘You were a victim of bad policing.’

‘They’d made their minds up!’ persisted Parnell.

‘They thought they had something being served up to them on a plate, commendations and headlines all round,’ sneered Benton.

‘You had a lot of trouble – obstruction?’ guessed Jackson, smiling expectantly.

‘Let’s say they weren’t overly co-operative.’

‘What about fingerprints?’ Jackson demanded unexpectedly. ‘Did they go along with the elimination?’

‘We didn’t get a match,’ said Benton, to his partner’s sharp look.

‘Match to what?’ pressed Jackson.

Dingley shrugged. ‘We got a half thumb print – a right thumb – from the flight number scrap of paper. It wasn’t Ms Lang’s. Didn’t match the two Metro DC guys, either. Or you, Mr Parnell. We want it kept under wraps, obviously.’

‘You think it could be the person who killed her?’ asked Parnell.

‘We won’t know what to think until we match it,’ said Benton.

‘Judge Wilson made some court orders,’ reminded Jackson.

‘Sir?’ queried Dingley.

‘About civil suits and claims, for wrongful arrest,’ said the lawyer.

‘Which you haven’t pursued?’ said Benton.

‘Not yet. If Mr Parnell chose to sue, there’d legally have to be full disclosure.’

‘Yes, there would,’ acknowledged Dingley, smiling now.

‘I think my client and I should talk about that, don’t you?’

‘Full, legally required disclosure might be interesting,’ said Benton.

‘Anything, beyond what we’ve got, would be interesting,’ said Dingley. ‘Mr Parnell’s in a kind of limbo until we get somewhere with this, wouldn’t you say?’

Parnell hadn’t considered himself to be in any sort of limbo, but supposed he was. He’d definitely have to speak to his mother tonight. And reply to the letters. There’d been two more that morning, one enclosing cuttings of the English media coverage of the case. The extent had surprised him. One article had, quite wrongly, identified him as the leading British research scientist in the genome-mapping breakthrough. He said: ‘If you all think this might break the logjam, let’s do it.’

‘We’ll discuss it,’ cautioned Jackson.

Jackson began that discussion directly upon leaving the FBI field office building. ‘They’re good.’

‘What?’ frowned Parnell.

‘Those guys back there, they’re good. They got exactly what they wanted.’

‘I’m needing some help,’ said Parnell. As usual, he thought.

‘Ed Pullinger, the FBI counsel, was in court, remember? He heard the judge’s orders. The Bureau are getting the closed door. A civil suit might be the way to open it, just a little. It would certainly tighten the media screw on Metro DC police department.’

‘You mean that was a set-up back there! The whole meeting?’

‘I think so. Even to the disclosure about the thumb print.’

‘Jesus!’

‘From their point of view, it’s a good move.’

Beverley abruptly came into Parnell’s mind. He said: ‘You warned me to be careful of police harassment, as well as being a target for whoever killed Beverley. Won’t the risk of harassment increase if we sue?’

Jackson shook his head, positively. ‘Not even Metro DC would dare. It’ll act more as a protection. I should have thought of it earlier.’

‘But is it really likely to get the investigation any further forward?’

‘We shan’t know that until we serve the writs and start demanding disclosure,’ said Jackson.

Dwight Newton had expected an inquisition but not that it would be led by Grant, nor that it would be so scathing. With virtually no defence, he tried to hide behind jargon – talking of hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase instead of HPRT, and mutations and the unpredictability of drug cocktails – but there was sufficient knowledge among some of the board members not to be deflected, and at one stage the white-haired president told him to cut the scientific crap and explain the problem in words they would all understand. Newton tried, too, to shift the primary responsibility onto Russell Benn, minimizing his function to that of a secondary check, but was refused that escape by having to concede – as he had earlier had to admit to Edward C. Grant at one of their private encounters – that if that had been his role, then he’d singularly failed to perform it.

The accusations and recriminations logically gave way to a slightly less hostile – but even more commercially based – debate upon the damage to public confidence – as well as that to be expected from the regulatory authority – that Dubette would suffer from any leaks, publicity or exposure, which brought into the exchanges a renewed use of words like catastrophe and disaster and meltdown. And kept the concentration upon Newton. He tried, in a desperate snatch for recovery, to stress Parnell’s assurance of discretion, to be confronted by two separate challenges from directors, about the loyalty of the rest of the pharmacogenomics unit, who’d demonstrated his blatant scientific inefficiency. Which were the precise words that were used, blatant scientific inefficiency.

It was not so much the final straw that broke the camel’s back, but the final, unendurable bruise from the misdirectedly wielded stick. More loudly than he had intended, Newton said: ‘OK! Let’s take a few things into consideration here. I am-’

‘You’re not,’ Grant stopped him, positively, refusing any awkward defensive outburst. ‘A mistake was made. Mistakes do get made. It’s the nature – the sometimes inevitable result – of the business we’re in. It’s been isolated – dealt with. I do not recommend – would argue as strongly as possible against – any reprimand or censure…’ He paused, a man with the fifth ace in his hand. ‘This is, in fact, an unrecorded composition of the board, and therefore restricted by regulations, of which I am sure we’re all aware. I repeat, a mistake was made – a series of mistakes. We’re all of us fallible. Those mistakes have been corrected. We are, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, meeting in unrecorded session, to which all of us agreed earlier. One of the regulatory restrictions is that decisions made during such discussions legally need to be confirmed by a recorded meeting of the board, the records made available to an annual meeting, or by a specially convened meeting of shareholders…’ The pause was as timed as the words were rehearsed.

‘But that means…’ said a voice.

‘Each of you know the terms of reference of the board’s composition – the company restrictions I have just outlined. My concern – which I anticipated to be the concern of us all to preserve the company – is to limit within corporate legality the sort of public exposure we’ve agreed during this discussion would lead to the total destruction of Dubette…’

Newton was never to be sure that, however briefly, his mouth didn’t visibly fall open in his incredulity at the piratical manoeuvre. Certainly the expression on at least three of the men around the table was of astonishment. Another began scrabbling through a document case, Newton presumed in a search for the company formation regulations.

‘I don’t agree with this… it can’t possibly be legal…’ said the man who had first protested.

‘Everyone has a copy of our formation and incorporation documents,’ said Grant, looking at the man still rummaging through his briefcase. ‘For those who haven’t, I’ll specify the section I’m referring to – it’s paragraphs four through seven – but I’d draw your attention to paragraph nine. Those preceding sections, four to seven, can be superseded by a majority vote, here and now, for us to go on record. Or for a special shareholders’ meeting to be convened.’

‘To commit commercial suicide, like lemmings jumping off a cliff!’ said the outspoken objector.

‘Each of us around this table agreed the terms, presumably upon the advice of our individual investment lawyers,’ said Grant. ‘I certainly did.’

The searching man found what he was looking for, consulted it and sat back in his chair, shaking his head.

Grant said: ‘I am not coercing this board into anything illegal, merely reminding it of its operational parameters. Our research vice president, Dwight Newton, has acknowledged and apologized for his oversight and his error. I propose that is how it remains, a rectified matter restricted to a very limited number of people. The alternative is in your hands, as I have already set out.’

‘How is this board going to look if it does become public knowledge?’ demanded the man with the regulations still in his hand.

‘Like a responsible body of responsible men operating as it is legally empowered to do, to protect its shareholders’ interests and investments, as well as reacting promptly to prevent any harmful effects from a mistaken batch issue,’ said Grant. ‘I invite a vote on the course I am proposing.’

It was unanimous.

A buffet lunch was arranged to follow. At least half the board left without eating anything. Those who remained picked and sampled, the most token of token gestures. What conversation there was was mumbled, serious-faced, with a lot of head-shaking. Newton ate nothing and drank club soda. At his shoulder, as the room thinned with tight, perfunctory farewells, Grant told Newton: ‘Don’t go, not until we’ve talked.’

‘Where can I go?’ asked Newton.

‘Nowhere,’ said Grant, refusing the self-pity.

It was a further hour before they got yet again into the president’s office. As soon as the door closed behind them, Newton said: ‘You hung me out to dry back there.’

‘You deserved to be hung out to dry. You fucked up. There wasn’t a member of the board, me included, who didn’t want to sacrifice you. What I did instead was save your ass.’

‘Yours with it,’ fought back Newton. ‘I didn’t say anything about other meetings like this.’

‘Because there was nothing to say. I told you all along everything had to be safe. You didn’t ensure that it was. You still got a job. Be grateful.’

What right had this manipulative, never-guilty-of-anything motherfucker to treat him with contempt, Newton asked himself. ‘What did you want me to stay on for?’

‘Parnell called Saby direct. Asked about getting everything back. Saby thought Parnell was on the inside. Somehow Parnell knows about the box-number route – he obviously got that from that damned woman.’

‘You heard from Saby direct?’

‘How the hell else would I know?’

‘What did you tell Saby to do?’

‘Send the stuff, as they discussed. I couldn’t do otherwise.’

‘What else did Saby tell him?’

‘That it could be got back – that’s what Saby told me. With the taps lifted, we don’t know exactly what was said, not any more. We got too many loose ends, Parnell the loosest.’

It never appeared to have occurred to anyone at the board meeting to thank Parnell for what he’d possibly prevented, Newton suddenly realized. But then, he accepted, officially it had been an un official, unrecorded meeting, which he supposed meant any corporate gratitude was impossible. ‘You going to see Parnell? There’s enough reason.’

‘Arrogant son of a bitch,’ said Grant.

Not an arrogant son of a bitch, mentally corrected Newton – someone who wasn’t afraid of Edward C. Grant and who hadn’t been sucked into the imploding black hole of Dubette Inc. ‘Are you?’ he repeated.

‘Have Johnson set up some surveillance on him again. Let’s find a weak spot.’

Grant’s modus operandi, thought Newton. ‘What if he hasn’t got one?’

‘Everyone’s got a weak spot,’ insisted the president.

Newton wondered what Edward C. Grant’s weak spot was. Then he thought it was time – long after time – that he tried to evolve some personal protection for himself. But what?

‘Talk time again!’ announced Barbara Spacey, sailing into Parnell’s office on a gust of nicotine.

‘I’m busy.’

‘That’s good. A lot of psychologists deny it, but work is often a good stress reliever. Would you believe that?’

‘I’ll believe anything you tell me.’

‘I’m not asking you to go that far. So, how are you?’

‘As I was when we met last time, I’m fine.’

‘How are you sleeping?’

‘Like a baby.’

‘How do you occupy your spare time?’

‘With the stress-relief of work.’

‘You miss Rebecca?’

‘That’s an offensive question. Of course I miss Rebecca.’

The woman appeared unperturbed. ‘The police getting anywhere?’

‘It’s not a police investigation. It’s the FBI.’

‘The FBI getting anywhere?’ There was no reaction to the correction.

‘They don’t take me into their confidence,’ lied Parnell, suddenly attentive to the questioning. Before she could ask something else, he said: ‘This is the third time we’ve talked. You normally interview staff this many times?’

‘You’re the first staff member to be involved in a murder. A hell of an unusual murder, at that.’

‘I think you misdiagnosed my other assessments,’ he goaded.

‘You’re allowed to lodge an objection. Seek a secondary opinion, even,’ reminded the woman. ‘Don’t forget the Freedom of Information Act. No one can sneak any more!’

‘Didn’t think it important enough. You get many objections?’

‘A few.’

‘How’d you score?’

‘Pretty good. I’ve still got a job.’

‘What happens to these assessments?’

‘They go on your personnel file.’

‘So, who has access to that file?’

‘Personnel. Senior executives,’ Barbara Spacey gestured towards the outside laboratory. ‘You’ve got the authority to see your guys’ assessments.’

‘I didn’t know you’d made any.’

‘I haven’t, not yet. About to start.’

‘Who else has access?’ persisted Parnell.

‘Legal department… Security.’

‘Seems a lot of people.’ suggested Parnell.

‘Dubette’s a caring company.’

‘I think you told me that already. Some people would say it was an inquisitive company.’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘It wouldn’t be difficult for me to think just that.’

‘Which I might judge to be paranoia.’

‘Do,’ invited Parnell. ‘Are you familiar with a very famous book by an English author named George Orwell, about a control State? It’s called…’

‘Nineteen Eighty-Four,’ she finished for him. ‘Yeah, I’ve read it.’

‘How’d you diagnose that?’

‘How about paranoia?’

‘I thought it was about the danger of a control State.’

‘I don’t remember Winston Smith, who tried to fight the system, coming out of it all that well,’ said the woman.