Dead End

Twenty-Six

The hoped-against but expected HPRT mutations had begun in the newly delivered French products within the predicted two-hour timeframe in which it had registered in all Parnell’s earlier experiments, and by the following early morning, when Parnell arrived back at McLean, had become as overwhelming as before. He isolated all the cultures to be doubly verified by Dwight Newton and Russell Benn, and because Kathy Richardson wasn’t due for another two hours, he once more wrote his own emailed memoranda to both, inviting their comparison. He sent a separate email warning the vice president of the impending writs upon the two arresting Metro DC policemen, although saying nothing about involving Harry Johnson in the suit as a material witness.

Parnell worked knowing in a put-aside part of his mind that he was filling the time – as he’d tried to occupy the previous evening by going, long overdue, to Giorgio’s trattoria in Georgetown – to avoid trying to acknowledge the all-too-obvious inference from Beverley Jackson’s remark. She’d immediately retreated, discomfited, after saying it, and he’d tried to help by ignoring it, but it had hung between them like a reflecting, two-sided mirror, and for the first time since the creation of the unit, she’d left early, long before five. The one telephone call the previous night had been from his mother – providing the opportunity to warn her of the inevitable and renewed publicity of the civil writs – but not from Beverley, which he’d expected. Throughout the entire evening, even at Giorgio’s on what, he supposed, was a guilt-inspired visit, he’d mentally wrestled with the idea of calling Beverley, but hadn’t, not knowing what to say. Which he still didn’t.

There were already too many mazes and cul-de-sacs and dead ends to contemplate this further complication. More – altogether too much more – than a complication. It had only been weeks, recollectable days, since Rebecca had been murdered. It was inconceivable that he respond – which, most guiltily of all, he wanted to do – to Beverley’s clear innuendo, if not open invitation.

With the time difference between the United States and Europe to his advantage – and still wanting to fill that time – Parnell called Henri Saby before eight a.m. American time to tell the French chief executive of the complete and conclusive findings, which were initially received in silence.

At last the Frenchman said: ‘Are you going to experiment to isolate the rogue drug in the cocktail?’

‘No,’ said Parnell, at once. ‘If I’m asked, which I haven’t yet been, I am going to recommend the abandonment of the entire idea. It’s too unstable to be safe…’ He paused. ‘In fact I’m not going to wait to be asked. I am going to recommend it anyway.’

‘A lot of thought and effort was put into this… thought and effort that the president and parent board appreciated.’

‘Until it turned out as it did,’ rejected Parnell. ‘I’ve told you what my recommendation is going to be. Whether it’s accepted or not isn’t up to me.’ He’d make sure to find out if it was, though.

‘No,’ agreed Saby, heavily. ‘It’s not up to you.’

‘What about the recall?’ demanded Parnell. ‘Has every single thing been traced and recovered?’

‘Yes,’ said the Frenchman.

Too quick, decided Parnell: the man had been waiting, tensed, for the question. ‘Every single thing?’

‘I just told you it has been.’

‘People – children – will die if it hasn’t been.’

‘I’ve just told you it has,’ insisted Saby.

‘Then Dubette – and your subsidiary – has nothing to worry about,’ said Parnell. ‘You must be relieved?’

‘Thank you, for what you’ve done,’ said Saby.

‘Let’s hope it’s enough,’ said Parnell, unconvinced. ‘I’d appreciate our keeping in touch, in case anything comes up.’

‘If anything comes up – and I must admit I don’t quite understand what that phrase means, precisely – I’ll keep in touch through Mr Newton, your superior,’ said the other man, officiously.

‘You do that,’ encouraged Parnell, refusing the condescension. ‘I’ll memo him today that you’ve positively guaranteed that everything has successfully been recovered, that there is no danger whatsoever to Dubette, but to expect immediately to hear from you if there are any further problems you haven’t anticipated. That should cover it, shouldn’t it?’

‘Your success has made you extremely confident, Mr Parnell.’

‘On the contrary, Monsieur Saby, what I discovered made me extremely concerned. As I imagine it did you and your research staff.’

Parnell sent his third email of the morning to Newton, setting out the conversation with Henri Saby and his recommendation that the proposal be abandoned and not pursued to eliminate the mutation-causing element in the cocktail. Parnell paused, in mid-composition, unsure whether to include his suspicion that Paris hadn’t recovered everything, but decided against what amounted to calling the French chief executive a liar.

Beverley Jackson was the last to arrive that morning, frowning at the already assembled group, but directly and without embarrassment meeting Parnell’s look, not childishly trying to avoid it. There were going to be some operating changes, Parnell announced, anxious to correct the drift he’d detected within the unit. He told them he considered it pointless involving everyone in a stalled research programme. He wanted to concentrate the influenza search with Lapidus, Pulbrow and Beverley, freeing up the others for work upon which they had been engaged before being given the specific assignment. If Lapidus’s team made any promising advances – or there was progress from Russell Benn’s division – it could revert to being a full-unit project.

‘You should know, too, that the additional French stuff mutated like all the rest. I’ve recommended to Newton that the entire development be abandoned.’

‘If it ever should have been tried in the first place,’ said Lapidus.

‘If it ever should have been tried in the first place,’ echoed Parnell, in agreement. ‘Anyone got any problems with the new routine?’

‘Fine by me,’ said Sato. ‘Be good to get back to something practical.’

‘Do you want to be the liaison with Benn’s people?’ asked Lapidus.

‘Makes more sense for you to do it, as team leader, doesn’t it?’ suggested Parnell.

‘I think so,’ accepted Lapidus. ‘I’ll make a call and get myself known. Which group do you plan to be part of?’

‘Something else you should know,’ offered Parnell, still anxious to re-establish the earlier cohesion between them. ‘Writs for my wrongful arrest are being served today on the DC police who arrested me. There’ll be publicity, how much I don’t know. But I’ll be occupied elsewhere from time to time.’

It was a remark that would return to mock him.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ demanded Dwight Newton, his voice barely controlled.

‘I’ve sent you three emails this morning, Dwight,’ reminded Parnell. ‘Which – what – are you asking me about?’ The similarly high-pitched summons had come within thirty minutes of his return to his office from what he hoped to have been a restoration of the near-camaraderie of their early days.

‘You know damned well what I’m asking you!’ insisted Newton, striving to recover although the words were still strained. ‘Suing Metro DC police! That’s what I’m talking about – stirring it all up again!’

‘The judge allowed me that course of action.’ He had expected internal reaction but not this initial level of something close to hysteria. Something else which might be indicative, although he wasn’t sure of what.

‘You know what’s going to happen! Just when things were calming down!’

‘Dwight, it hasn’t anything to do with Dubette. It’s to do with me and a Washington DC police department… my civil right. I was wrongfully arrested and charged, without any proper investigation, and I’ve every justification – and legal invitation – for doing what I’m doing.’

‘And every justification and legal invitation to do this?’ demanded the thin man, waving a sheaf of lengthy legal papers, the discarded envelope for which was teetering on the edge of the man’s desk.

‘I don’t know what that is,’ said Parnell.

‘A witness summons, that’s what it is. I’m being legally required to appear in court for your damned action!’

Which meant, Parnell reckoned, that Harry Johnson would have received the same warning notice. He hadn’t expected it to be like this. ‘I didn’t know that you were going to be called. But I did tell you about the writs, earlier, in one of this morning’s emails. And you were there, at my arrest. Saw how it all happened,’ reminded Parnell.

‘What about the other email you sent?’ continued Newton, spider’s leg fingers drumming on the table in front of him. ‘Dubette could be destroyed if anything else leaks out!’

‘Why should it? How can it?’ demanded Parnell, wishing there was a recording being made of this exchange. ‘France hasn’t got anything to do with my arrest or Rebecca’s murder or suspicions of terrorism, has it, Dwight?’

‘What sort of question is that?’

‘One you prompted me to ask, by what you said.’ Jackson’s cliche wormed into Parnell’s mind. How quickly – for what reason – would Newton twist in the wind of cross-examination in a witness box? ‘You’ve seen from my email that I spoke to Saby?’

‘You tell him about the continuing mutation?’

‘Of course. And I’ve kept everything for you to examine.’

‘I’ll have Russell Benn duplicate, as well,’ said Newton.

‘I’ve recommended that everything be abandoned,’ said Parnell.

‘I read your email,’ insisted Newton, stiffly.

‘Will it be scrapped?’ persisted Parnell.

‘I’ve got to talk to people,’ avoided Newton. Suddenly, the words bursting from him as they came into his mind, the man said: ‘This is a total mess – a mess of your causing.’

‘Dwight, I don’t properly understand why you’re so overwrought. Of course Dubette will come into focus again, because of the circumstances. But the case is between me and a police department. Dubette are on the periphery.’

‘I’m being called!’ protested Newton, again.

‘As a formality,’ improvised Parnell. ‘I guess everyone who was in Showcross’s office that morning will be summoned. They’ll have to be.’

‘You talked this through with Jackson, Beverley’s ex-husband?’

‘Of course I talked it through with Barry Jackson, my attorney,’ qualified Parnell. It was obvious Newton would know of the former husband-and-wife relationship, but Parnell hadn’t liked the phrasing of the question.

‘You should have talked it through with me… with Peter Baldwin… as well.’

Too many immediate responses crowded in upon Parnell. ‘Have you told Baldwin?’ Would Jackson have enjoined the company counsel, along with everyone else?

‘I wanted to talk to you first. Understand what’s happening.’

‘Why should I have talked to you and Baldwin?’

‘Courtesy,’ said Newton, shortly.

‘It was courteous that I told you this morning, before the issuing of the writs and before you received the witness summons.’

‘Your association with Dubette hasn’t been a good one, has it?’ suddenly demanded the vice president.

‘No,’ agreed Parnell. ‘Although I would have thought there was one particular association of which Dubette would be profoundly and commercially grateful. And I’m disgusted by the other inference possible from that question.’

Newton flushed. ‘I’m sorry… I’m… I’m sorry…’

‘You got something else… something you haven’t said yet… that you want to talk to me about, Dwight?’

‘No!’ said the other man, sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know what I mean,’ admitted Parnell. ‘There’s been a lot of this conversation that I’m not sure I’ve understood what you’ve meant, either.’

‘Dubette can’t withstand being this constant focus of attention!’ protested the research vice president.

‘I couldn’t withstand the prospect of wrongly being accused and maybe even jailed for murder,’ said Parnell. ‘I guess that gives us something in common.’

His required copy of Barbara Spacey’s third psychological assessment was waiting for Parnell when he got back to his office. The overconfidence, verging upon aggression, that she’d noted in her first examination had been evident, which she interpreted to be his recovering from the trauma of his recent experiences. He had been more questioning about the need for such assessments than during either of their two previous encounters, referring to a well-known English novel involving police-state control and even brainwashing. She’d assessed that as a restoration of his earlier self-confidence. She hadn’t used the word paranoia, which Parnell wouldn’t have protested at if she had, unwilling to draw any attention to the personnel files that he intended disclosing to the FBI investigators.

It was mid-morning when Barry Jackson came on the line. ‘Everything’s served,’ the lawyer announced.

‘I know. I’ve already had a complaint session with Newton.’

‘He should have taken counsel’s advice. It could be argued he shouldn’t have done that.’

‘You should have warned me.’

‘Too late now.’

‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘There’s a lot I want to talk to you about. I’ve scheduled a press conference for this afternoon.’

‘You should have warned me about that too, for Christ’s sake!’

‘That’s what I’m doing now! You can make it, can’t you? Dubette can’t stop you. You’ve got the legal justification. And a judge’s virtual guidance.’

‘It would still have been polite to have told Newton that there was going to be a press conference.’

‘You tell him!’ said Jackson, with a hint of exasperation. ‘He’s got all the time in the world to round up as many lawyers as he wants to attend, if they think there’s a need.’

‘They’ll think there’s a need,’ predicted Parnell.

‘I’ll break the inviolable rule and buy lunch, but on one condition.’

‘What’s the condition?’

‘Today you drink water, not wine.’

‘Very biblical.’

‘You didn’t know I could walk on water?’

‘I’d hoped you could.’