Hypocrite's Isle

Twenty

Gavin was up at three in the morning being sick. It was the third time since coming home just after midnight, and now there was nothing left in his stomach to void. All the beer and junk food he’d consumed had been vomited, leaving only the painful spasmodic retching of an abused digestive system, which had to be endured until his body was satisfied that he had got the message. He rinsed his mouth out several times with cold water and then splashed some up into his face to combat the fuzziness. Was it worth it? He looked at himself in the mirror and defiantly concluded that it was. He’d managed to achieve a couple of hours of oblivion, an escape from the hell his life had become in the space of just twenty-four hours.

It seemed that the entire world saw him as an arrogant, insensitive nobody whose work was viewed as a threat to colleagues, to the department — even to the university — and whose carelessness had resulted in a colleague probably being disfigured for life. Even the girl he loved couldn’t stand the sight of him.

There was a knock on the bathroom door.

‘Are you all right in there, Gav?’

‘Just pissed.’

‘Then shut the fuck up, will you? Some of us have got work in the morning.’

Gavin mumbled an apology. A few minutes later he tiptoed back to his room and lay on top of the bed, looking up at the few stars he could make out in the sky through the pinkish glow of light pollution from the city. He got under the covers — as the temperature demanded he must — but stress had put sleep out of reach, making him toss and turn as he struggled to come to terms with what was happening. Worst of all was the feeling of helplessness he got when trying to fight back. It seemed that the best he could manage was an assertion that all he’d done was speak the truth. Why should that cause such problems? Why should that always cause such problems?

It wasn’t in his nature to pussyfoot around. He couldn’t pretend to Carrie that rushing off to the Lake District to be with her mother was going to do either of them any good when it clearly wasn’t. Why couldn’t she see that? Carrie was an intelligent woman; she had a mind of her own; she was studying medicine, for God’s sake. Surely she must have realised that he’d just been telling the truth? But she hadn’t wanted to hear that... she’d needed something else, something that he had failed to provide. Couldn’t provide? Love? He loved her dearly and she knew that. Comfort? Reassurance? How could he offer these when it would just be empty, meaningless nonsense. And, coming from him, that’s exactly what it would have sounded like. He screwed up his face as he recalled his pathetic attempts at reassuring Mary that everything was going to be all right when he’d held her in his arms after the fire. Now he hoped that she hadn’t heard. Telling someone that everything was going to be fine and dandy when it wasn’t was quite beyond him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t care. He did. He felt as deeply as anyone else. He just couldn’t go through the motions of uttering meaningless crap with any great conviction. Nor was he able to concede to Frank Simmons’ request that he consider the possibility of having made a mistake over the contents of the instrument beaker, when he was damned sure that he hadn’t. This, of course, brought the unthinkable alternative back into focus. Someone had made a deliberate attempt on his life.

This was not a happy thought for someone giving birth to the mother and father of all headaches, involving, as it did, facing up to the sheer number of people in the department who disliked him, and questioning who among them might go so far as to cause him actual bodily harm. A brief flirtation with the notion that, having failed the first time, they might try again, he dismissed as being over the top. The person who’d done this was not some psychotic Mafia hit man; it was someone on the staff; someone who hated him; someone who had tried to harm him, but who had got it tragically wrong and devastated the life of someone else, someone everyone liked. Being inside his own head right now was bad enough, but he suspected that being in theirs must be even worse.

‘Are you all right?’ asked Jenny Simmons as her husband came back to bed. The green digits on the bedside clock said it was 4 a.m. She’d heard him get up about an hour before, and had been aware of him pacing around the house when she’d stirred at intervals from her own restless sleep.

‘Sorry, I just can’t stop thinking about Mary,’ said Simmons, sitting on the edge of the bed. He shook his head.

‘They can do wonders with plastic surgery these days.’

‘No they can’t,’ said Simmons. ‘That’s something that everyone pretends, but ten years and twenty operations down the line she’ll still not be right.’

Jenny sighed deeply. ‘I know it’s no help and a bit of a platitude, but these things happen, Frank. It was a tragic accident.’

‘Gavin thinks not.’

‘How very like Gavin not to face up to the possibility that he might not be infallible.’

‘But if he’s right...’

‘You don’t think he’s right, do you?’ asked Jenny, propping herself up on the pillow on one elbow and rubbing her husband’s shoulder.

‘Maybe I don’t want to think he’s right.’

‘It was an accident, Frank. Gavin screwed up but won’t admit it.’

‘Gavin’s not a liar. I don’t think he knows how.’

‘But who in their right mind would do something like that deliberately?’

‘No one said anything about right minds.’

‘Are you saying you think there’s a homicidal lunatic on the staff?’

‘No, but you’re assuming that whoever did it meant to inflict personal injury. It could have been a crude attempt to cause a fire in the lab that went wrong. Flash fires aren’t predictable.’

‘Even so, who would want to stop Gavin’s research so much that they’d turn to fire-raising?’

‘Most of the staff, the head of department, the university, one of the biggest drug companies in the world. How am I doing?’

‘Going way over the top. Try to get some sleep. You’re going to make yourself ill.’

Simmons swung his legs up on the bed then changed his mind. ‘I’m going to have some coffee. Want some?’

‘No.’

Gavin was in the lab by nine thirty, despite how bad he was feeling. He regarded the hangover, as he had so often in the past, as a penance to be paid without question. He knew he’d feel better as soon as the alcohol cleared from his system and, to start the process, he’d walked to work. His progress towards feeling better, however, was impeded when, on entering the building, at least three people blanked him in the corridor and, when he went down to the cell culture suite to ask for yet more cultures, Trish was cool, almost to the point of being aggressive.

‘I don’t think anyone expected to see you in here today,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘I would have thought you’d have other things on your mind after what happened to Mary...’ She half-turned to the other girls, who were looking daggers at Gavin. ‘We all did.’

‘It may suit the department to believe I was to blame for what happened to Mary yesterday, but I wasn’t,’ said Gavin, in as measured tones as he could manage.

‘If you say so.’

‘I do say so. Now, about these cell cultures...’

‘I’m afraid we’re really busy at the moment. Tell us what you want and you’ll be put in the queue.’

‘Any idea how long?’

‘Not really.’

Gavin felt himself flush with anger and frustration as he walked back to the lab. He couldn’t see a way out of the impasse. Whatever he said or did, the whole department from the top down was going to continue blaming him. He considered reporting the affair to the police himself, but knew that as soon as Sutcliffe and the academic staff let it be known that they thought him to blame, the police would be happy to go along with that. Like water running downhill, they would go for the easiest option.

The lab was full of men in suits when he got back. They were carrying clipboards, taking measurements and making notes. One was replacing the used fire extinguishers and checking the others by weight, using a spring balance. He too was making notes. There was a light on in Frank Simmons’ office, so Gavin knocked on the door. As he did so, he heard one of the men say to another, ‘Aye, some silly bugger made a mistake and a lassie got it in the face.’

Gavin screwed his eyes shut and fought the urge to snap back at him, while willing Simmons to respond quickly.

‘Wait!’ said Simmons from within.

Gavin couldn’t remember him ever saying that before. He sat down at Mary’s desk-his own was being used by the men in suits — and didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. He was reluctant to touch anything. He looked along the neat row of A4 folders containing Mary’s experimental notes: three years of work for a PhD, and the foundation of a research career that would be on hold for the foreseeable future. He subconsciously ran his fingers lightly over the skin on his face as he pondered yet again that it could have been — should have been — him.

Simmons’ office door opened and Tom Baxter emerged, tears running down his face. He seemed too distraught to take in anything around him. ‘I just need a bit of time,’ he insisted as he shrugged off Frank Simmons’ attempt to put a hand on his arm. Gavin got up to offer help, but Tom was already out the door. Simmons turned and motioned to him to come in.

‘Tom’s taking it very badly.’

‘I can see that,’ said Gavin.

‘I didn’t realise he and Mary were that close.’

‘Everyone liked Mary... as I’ve been finding out to my cost.’

Simmons raised an eyebrow.

‘People are blaming me. The tissue culture people have decided I’m to be at the back of the queue when it comes to supplying cell cultures. Others have decided that I don’t exist any more.’

‘They’ll come round. People do.’

‘I don’t want them to come round,’ said Gavin. ‘I want them to believe that I had nothing to do with what happened.’

Simmons sighed. ‘Of course, I forgot. You don’t make mistakes.’

‘Not that one.’

‘Well, you’ll just have to face up to the fact that people think otherwise. I think they’d be more sympathetic if you didn’t keep denying even the possibility that you made a mistake.’

‘Look, Frank, I didn’t do it, and I’m going to keep on denying it, so where do we go from here?’

Simmons adopted a resigned smile. ‘The works department tell me that it will take at least a month to put the lab back together again.’

‘Maybe I’ll have some cell cultures by then,’ said Gavin sourly.

Simmons looked at his watch. ‘I’ll have to get myself out to the Burns Unit. Mary’s parents are due there at eleven thirty. They’re flying in from Dublin.’

‘Have you heard how she is?’

‘Not much change. Her life’s not in danger, but she has yet to be told about the full extent of her injuries.’

Gavin nodded and looked around. ‘Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do here at the moment.’

‘Best stay away for a bit.’

‘Everyone would like that.’

Simmons shrugged, but felt he could offer no reassurance.

Outside in the lab, Gavin sat back down at Mary’s desk, waiting until the men in suits had finished so that he could gather together some stuff to take home with him. If he was going to take time off, he’d need his notebooks and some relevant journals. He wondered briefly what else he should take, before deciding to move the Valdevan and polymyxin, in case anything ‘unfortunate’ happened to them. Ever since the episode with the acid contamination he had been hiding them in a plastic box with the contents labelled as something else in the big communal fridge out in the corridor. He’d be happier now with the box in the fridge at the flat. If anything happened to the Valdevan, the company certainly wouldn’t give him any more. There would be no more experiments and possibly no published paper if the results had to depend on a single series of experiments.

Gavin fetched the box from the corridor fridge and removed the two bottles containing the drugs which he relocated in a small, thick-walled polystyrene container before adding ice to it and sealing it with tape. He packed it away in his rucksack.

The Works Department men had finished their work and were stuffing their clipboards back in their briefcases. Gavin watched as they filed out with a series of nods and smiles in his direction, of the type afforded to unknown people of unknown status.

Simmons came out of his office and said, ‘I’m off to the hospital.’

Gavin, who was very much aware of the barrier that had come down between Frank and himself, said, ‘Tell Mary... to hang in there.’ He knew it sounded lame. He would send flowers on his way home.

Simmons nodded. ‘Has Tom come back yet?’

Gavin said not.

‘Maybe you could make sure he’s all right before you go?’

‘Sure, Frank.’

Simmons left and Gavin took a slow walk round the lab, tracing his hand over the charred surface of his bench. He had been so busy fending off the suggestion that it had all been his fault that he hadn’t had time to consider exactly how an unknown third party could have done this. It wouldn’t have been easy. If he had filled the beaker with ethanol — as he was sure he had on that morning — and then left the lab in response to Carrie’s phone call, someone must have switched the ethanol for ether in the time between his leaving and Mary arriving. Frank had already gone off to the library and Tom had been about to leave for the airport... Gavin’s throat tightened as he realised that Tom Baxter had been the only person in the lab at the critical time — and he, of course, would have had no idea that Mary was about to sit down at his bench and work there...

As if on cue, the lab door opened and Tom Baxter came in, looking deathly pale. He was holding a white envelope which he placed on Mary’s desk, before looking at Gavin through dark, empty eyes. Gavin read in them all he needed to know.

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he said hoarsely, now understanding why Tom was so upset over what had happened. ‘You must have heard on the news last night that someone had been injured in a fire at the university but no name was mentioned. You thought it was me until Frank told you this morning.’

The blank stare did not change.

‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’

A look of utter disdain appeared on Tom’s face. ‘Have you any idea how much I loathe you?’

The look on Gavin’s face said not.

‘I have to work my butt off just to keep my head above water in this place, while everything comes so natural to you, Mr bloody know-it-all. If I forget something you’ll know it. Any time I screw up, you’ll be there to point it out. You do bugger all for weeks on end and then you make one suggestion and suddenly you’re Frank’s ace researcher. I get my one lucky break: Grumman Schalk are prepared to give me a job, a good job, much better than anything I was going to be getting on the poxy postdoc circuit for second-rate researchers like me — yes, you see, I do know my limitations. After that, I’d probably end up teaching biology in some bloody comprehensive to a bunch of teenage fuckwits who didn’t want to know.’

Gavin was mesmerised by the change that had come over Tom Baxter. The body of the gangly, dishevelled student seemed to have been taken over by a spirit of malevolence and bitterness. Even his voice seemed different. The nervous pauses and unnecessary clearing of the throat were no longer in evidence.

‘Then you have your big idea and fuck things up. Grumman are going to pull the plug on everything, including the job offers, because you won’t stop fucking around with Valdevan — but what does that matter to the great Gavin Donnelly? He knows best. He always knows fucking best.’

Gavin tensed himself as Tom started to come towards him. He sensed that Tom’s anger had reached the critical level where action had to take over to provide some sort of release. He tried anticipating what he might do and noticed, with a frisson of horror, the scalpel lying on the island bench. It had a blade so sharp that it could open up his face before he realised anything had happened, and it was just about to be within Tom’s reach.

Gavin’s heart missed a beat when Tom paused next to it but, to his enormous relief, Tom didn’t appear to see it. He didn’t seem to see anything, and Gavin realised that he was lost in the nightmare of what he’d done.

‘Mary... poor Mary,’ Tom murmured. ‘She just had to do you a good turn and... Christ, what have I done?’ He put his hands to his face and his shoulders started to heave.

Gavin kept perfectly still, feeling that Tom was so unstable that anything could happen. He clearly couldn’t come to terms with being the cause of Mary’s disfigurement, so it was still possible that he might turn his anger and guilt on him in an effort to block out the pain. Any move he made, even a wrong word — and right now, they’d all be wrong — might trigger a sudden explosion of violence.

Tom brought his hands down slowly from his face and looked at Gavin, who felt himself tense again. He expected to see eyes filled with hatred, but that wasn’t what was there. He saw nothing but emptiness: deep, dark, despairing emptiness. He sensed the danger had passed.

‘And now I have to make it right...’ murmured Tom as he turned away and made for the door. Gavin let out his breath and felt his shoulders relax. He considered going after him but dismissed the idea, recognising that he was the last person on earth that Tom would want near him. He assumed that his assertion about ‘making it right’ meant confession, giving himself up to the police, but he decided to call security anyway. ‘Try to stop him leaving the building, will you? He’s not well.’

‘Do we call the police or an ambulance?’

‘The police.’

Gavin slumped down into a chair, feeling the adrenalin drain from him. He started to take comfort from the silence in the lab, but only until somewhere out in the corridor a woman started screaming. It went on and on.

Gavin rushed out, as did others from the neighbouring labs, exchanging questioning looks as they followed the source of the sound. It was coming from behind the doors leading to the stairs. There they found a slight, blonde girl — one of the junior technicians from the Drummond lab — screaming hysterically as she pointed down into the stairwell. ‘He just... went over...’ she stammered as two of her colleagues wrapped their arms round her.

Gavin looked over the banister to see the body of Tom Baxter spread-eagled on the stone floor far below. Even at this height he could see that his skull had shattered. This was what Tom had meant by ‘making it right’.

‘What on earth’s going on?’ asked Jack Martin, appearing at the railings by Gavin’s shoulder.

‘Tom Baxter,’ said Gavin.

Martin looked at him quizzically.

‘He put the ether in the beaker. It was meant for me.’

‘Baxter? Jesus Christ, what was he thinking about?’

‘He thought my work was going to stop him getting his dream job with Grumman Schalk. He seemed to think the company was going to withdraw the postdoc job offers as well as the grant.’ Gavin looked directly at Martin, making it a question.

‘There has been some talk along those lines,’ conceded Martin.

‘First they threaten the university with withdrawal of funds if work on Valdevan doesn’t stop, then they tell the postgrad students that their jobs are going down the tubes as well. Nice people.’

‘Where’s Frank?’ asked Martin, clearly not wanting to be drawn.

‘He went to meet Mary’s parents at the hospital.’

‘Shit. Now he has this to come back to.’

Both men looked down again at Tom Baxter’s body, which had now been covered by a white plastic sheet. The police had arrived.