The Tenth Chamber

TWENTY-ONE

Monday Morning

The meeting at PlantaGenetics with Fred Prentice, Sara’s biologist friend was set for 9 a.m. The biotech company, founded by a Cambridge University botany professor, was in the business of finding new biologically active molecules from plant extracts. Their labs hummed round the clock with the whirring sound of hundreds of robotic arms bobbing up and down, pipetting specimens extracted from plants collected around the world and sent to Cambridge for analysis.

Sara and Fred travelled in the same botany circles and though they’d never had a chance to collaborate, they followed each other’s work and saw each other at conferences. Truth be told, she knew he fancied her. He had once shyly asked her to dinner once at a congress in New Orleans. She accepted the invitation because he was a sweet man and seemed lonely, and she was saved from a goodnight kiss by his allergic reaction to a spice in his gumbo.

Sitting in the taxi that morning, both of them looked like B-movie zombies. Luc’s forearm and hand were wrapped in a gauze bandage and his hip smarted. Sara had a few Band-Aids here and there. They’d skipped breakfast and met each other in the lobby, both running late. They hurried to get a cab. When they finally got a gander at each other in the back seat they had to laugh.

‘How long will it take to get there?’ Luc asked the driver.

‘Just ten minutes, up the Milton Road to the Science Park. You running late?’

‘A little,’ Sara said. It was already nine.

‘Should you call?’ Luc asked.

Sara took the suggestion.

‘Hello, Fred, it’s Sara,’ she said trying to sound cheery. ‘Sorry, but we’re running a few minutes…’

In the distance there was a flash, magnesium-bright. Then a shuddering percussive whump.

A dome of white smoke rose from the top of the trees.

‘Jesus!’ the taxi driver yelped. ‘That can’t be too far from where we’re heading!’

Sara had her phone to her ear. ‘Fred? Fred?’

They never made it to the Science Park. Emergency Services had the road blocked off and all traffic was diverted.

All they could do was return to their hotel, turn to the news on the lobby TV and watch live reports on Sky and ITV accompanied by the noise of helicopters overhead and the wail of sirens.

The explosion had devastated a wing at the Science Park. By 11 a.m. a reporter from Sky read out a list of companies located in the building. One of them was PlantaGenetics.

There was talk of a gas leak or a chemical explosion. The possibility that it was a terrorist attack was mentioned. The wing was a smouldering mess. There were multiple casualties. Burns units in Cambridgeshire and beyond were filling up. Blood donors were needed.

Then at noon, Sara’s phone rang.

She looked at the caller ID and said, ‘Oh my God, Luc, it’s Fred!’

They returned to the Casualty Department at Nuffield. The night before, the waiting area had been speckled with patients with minor problems.

Today it was a war zone. It was a small hospital, only fifty beds and it was melting down in the crisis.

After fighting their way inside, Luc and Sara eventually got the attention of a nurse to tell her they were friends of one of the blast victims. ‘Hang on a minute, luv,’ they were told and then they were left hanging for half an hour as a people chaotically pulsed around them. After several attempts, a young man pushing an empty wheelchair took pity on them and pulled them through the casualty doors to search the stretcher-choked corridors for their Mr Prentice.

It was quite a scene, a hospital at its breaking point. Luc followed along as Sara gazed at each victim, searching for Fred’s face. Past the Radiology Department she found him, his arm and shoulder in an elaborate plaster cast. Both feet were also casted to the calves. He was in his early forties with widow-peaked hair and a complexion as colourless as the plaster. He had the squint of a man who had lost his glasses.

‘There you are!’ he said to Sara.

‘Oh, Fred! Look at you! I was so worried.’

He was sweet and caring as usual. He insisted on exchanging polite introductions with Luc, as though they were meeting at his conference table. ‘Thank goodness both of you were late,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, you’d have been caught up in all this mess.’

He had been in the lavatory. He was embarrassed because his pants had been around his ankles when she rang.

The next thing he remembered he was being stretchered out by a fire crew with unbearable pain in his feet and his shoulder. A morphine jab in the car park cheered him up no end, he assured them, and other than the mental torture of not knowing the fate of several colleagues and friends, he was doing well enough.

Sara held his good hand and asked if she could do anything for him.

He shook his head. ‘You came all the way from France to see me. I can’t have you leave without hearing what we found.’

‘Don’t be crazy, man!’ Luc exclaimed. ‘You’ve been through hell. We’ll talk in a few days. Please!’

‘I had a PowerPoint presentation for you,’ Fred said wistfully. ‘Everything’s gone ka-boom. My computer, my lab, everything. Oh well. But, let me at least tell you about our results. Maybe we’ll be able to reproduce them one day. Our lawyer was upset at me because I analysed your sample without putting the proper paperwork and agreements in place. You see, we obtained some important data and it wasn’t clear who would own the intellectual property. She wouldn’t let me put any of in a letter or email. It all seemed so critical last week.’ His voice tailed off. ‘I was told she died this morning – that lawyer. Her name was Jane.’

‘I’m sorry, Fred,’ Sara said, squeezing his hand.

He asked for water from his bendy-straw. ‘Well, that liquid of yours had some really interesting biology. It lit up our screens like a Christmas tree. Where to start? Okay, then, did you have any idea it was swimming in ergot alkaloids?’

‘You’re kidding!’ Sara said. Then when she saw Luc’s puzzled expression, she explained, ‘They’re psychoactive compounds. Nature’s LSD. How’d ergots get in there? I gave you the list of plants, Fred.’ And then the answer hit her and she blurted out, ‘ Claviceps purpurea!’

‘Exactly!’ Fred said.

She was slowed down by the need to explain things to Luc. ‘It’s a fungus. It contaminates wild and cultivated grasses, like our wild barley. The fungus produces the ergot compounds. In the Middle Ages tens of thousands of Europeans came down with ergotism from naturally contaminated rye, causing hallucinations, madness, sometimes death. The Aztecs chewed Morning Glory seeds which contain natural ergots. It was their way of communicating with their gods. Christ, I studied ergotism in grad school! Ergot contamination of livestock grain is still a major problem.’

‘I’m a hundred per cent sure it was Claviceps -derived,’ Fred said with an excited look, seemingly forgetting his circumstances. ‘The predominant ergots were agroclavine and elymoclavine.’

She shook her head knowingly. ‘Did you find anything else?’

‘You bet I did. Ergots were only the beginning. Wait till you hear the rest!’

Luc’s mobile phone rang. When he opened it, someone with a hospital badge told him he couldn’t use it inside.

Luc excused himself and limped down the corridor towardsathe casualty department. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that Professor Simard?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

‘It’s Father Menaud, from Ruac. I need to speak with you.’

‘Yes, one moment. Let me get outside.’

On the way out, Luc saw two large men heading towards him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and he thought he heard one of them say ‘Oui,’ which struck him as out of place in the corridors of the Nuffield Hospital. One was wearing a sweatshirt, the other a padded jacket. Both looked haggard. When he looked at them, he had the impression they deliberately looked away but it happened quickly and he was out the door.

The forecourt to the Casualty Department was crowded with ambulances, police cars and satellite trucks. Luc tried to find a relatively quiet spot.

‘How can I help you, Dom Menaud?’

It wasn’t a good connection. Syllables were dropping. ‘I’m afraid they’re all gone. I don’t know any other way to tell you.’

Luc was confused. ‘I’m sorry, what do you mean, gone?’

‘All your people at the camp. All of them are dead. It’s a terrible tragedy. Please, professor, come as soon as you can!’