Ken McClure: Chameleon

A uniformed man stopped Jamieson at the entrance to the Home Office and Jamieson produced his letter. He waited patiently while the man read it and then announced that he would have to check. He made a phone call on the internal system and then said, 'Miss Roberts will be down presently.' He invited Jamieson to take a seat and indicated to a bench in the hallway.

Jamieson sat down and idly watched the pedestrian traffic. A serious young man, wearing glasses that threatened to fall off his nose, shuffled quickly along the corridor simultaneously sifting through a sheaf of papers. The man had feet which pointed outwards, giving him the air of a silent-film comedian. His inattention to direction caused him to collide with two girls carrying tea cups. The tea slopped on to the floor as the girls tottered backwards holding their cups at arms' length. The man looked up from his papers and appeared not to realise that he had been the cause of the bother. He smiled briefly and walked on leaving the typists looking daggers after him. Jamieson smiled sympathetically and one of the girls shook her head.

Two men, wearing conservatively dark suits, approached from the other direction, speaking in loud voices and moving slowly. Jamieson noticed that the uniformed men stiffened at their approach.

'Absolutely,' said one of the men as they passed Jamieson without apparently noticing he was there. 'That kind of authorisation can only come from the Minister himself.'

Jamieson watched their backs as they passed the uniformed men without a glance, totally engrossed or pretending to be, in what they were saying. God save me from office society, he thought.

A woman wearing a mauve suit emerged from one of the lifts and walked purposefully towards him; she was carrying a clip-board. 'Dr Jamieson?' she enquired. Jamieson agreed and the woman made a tick on her clip-board before saying, 'I'm Miss Roberts. If you would like to come this way please.'

Jamieson and the woman exchanged a brief smile as their eyes met in the lift and then the woman studied her feet for the remainder of the journey while Jamieson looked intently at the floor indicator. He was in fact trying to remember the name of the perfume the woman was wearing. In the confines of the lift it was strong and for some reason, quite haunting. Femme! he remembered just before the lift doors opened. He now remembered why it was haunting. In his teens he had once had a holiday romance with a girl who subsequently drenched her letters in the stuff.

The doors slid back and the woman led them along a corridor to stop outside a room marked 'Suite 4.' Jamieson was left alone for a moment in a small ante room before the woman returned and said, 'The committee will see you now.'

Miss Roberts held the door and Jamieson walked into a large room which would have been sunny had not the sky been so overcast. He found three men there. The middle one did the introductions. 'Dr Armour, he said, indicating to his left to a small, grey haired man sporting a polka-dotted bow-tie, 'and Dr Foreman,’ he said, turning to his right. A thick-set man with coarse, oiled hair which came to a widow's peak on his narrow forehead gave a cursory nod. 'My name is Macmillan,' said the man in the middle, turning his gaze back to Jamieson. There was nothing rude in his stare but Jamieson was aware of being appraised. Macmillan was in his fifties, tall, slim and his complexion bore the smooth tan that Jamieson associated with good living. His silver hair swept back from his forehead to sit comfortably on the collar of his blue, Bengal-striped shirt.

'Let me explain,' said Macmillan. 'We represent the medical section of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.'

Jamieson looked blank and Macmillan continued. 'We are a relatively small body; we have a staff of twenty and we investigate and, if feasible, deal with problems arising specifically within the areas of science and medicine in this country.'

'I'm sorry. I don't think I follow,' said Jamieson.

Macmillan said, 'Frankly it's hard to be more specific. Our brief is so wide and varied.'

'You said 'problems',' said Jamieson. 'What sort of problems?'

Macmillan touched his finger tips together and then moved his hands apart in a deliberate gesture of vagueness. 'Matters of medical practice, matters of ethics, matters of circumstance and occasionally matters of criminality.'

'I'm still lost,' confessed Jamieson looking at Foreman. 'Surely the police would handle anything of a criminal nature?'

'Indeed,' said Foreman. 'But only once it was established that a criminal offence had taken place and that's where the difficulty can sometimes lie. There are times and circumstances when the police simply do not have the expertise to operate in certain areas. They have specialist officers of course, as in the case of the Fraud Squad, but when it comes to science and medicine for example they need expert help.'

'There is the forensic science service,' said Jamieson.

'True but they are back-room boys, both by inclination and by training. They are largely for after the event. Occasionally we need people up front and that's where the Sci-Med Monitor comes in. Let me give you an example. In the not-too-distant past, drug related offences suddenly started to rocket in a certain northern university town. The police had no success in finding out where the stuff was coming from until we put one of our people in on the ground. Three weeks later we had our answer. Four post-graduate students in the science faculty were manufacturing the stuff. They had all but cornered the market in hallucigenic agents. They all worked in different departments and each was responsible for obtaining a few of the chemicals needed for the manufacturing process. Because the materials were being spread out over four different order lists suspicion was not aroused until our man, who had access to all the paper work and the time to peruse it, spotted what was going on.'

'I see,' said Jamieson. 'I wouldn't have. I have no idea how to make LSD.'

'We wouldn't expect you to,' said Armour. 'Our chap in that instance was a biochemist. Because, as Macmillan said, our brief is so wide, we have to fit our person to the job. Let me give you another example. 'One of our biggest pharmaceutical companies was being embarrassed by rumours of success which had no basis in fact. One of our people traced the problem to a scientist working in a prestigious biotechnology unit located in one of our top universities. The individual in question had invested every last penny he had in the drug company's shares and then 'leaked' a false story to the newspapers about the unit having come up with an effective vaccine against AIDS and how the pharmaceutical company had been given the right to manufacture it. Because the leak had originated in such an eminent establishment the press swallowed it and printed the story. The company's shares shot up of course and the man made a killing.'

'I didn't even buy shares in British Gas,' confessed Jamieson.'

'Again we recognise that this is not your area of expertise,' said Macmillan.

'Then what is?' asked Jamieson.

'You are a surgeon and you also have considerable knowledge of other medical specialties thanks to your unfortunate accident and your auxiliary training in the intervening time. We think that this would make you a valuable asset to Sci-Med.'

'You said that you tend to fit people to the job in hand. Have you a specific job in mind for me?' asked Jamieson.

'As a matter of fact we have,' said Macmillan. 'The problem is surgical, not criminal, and that's largely why we think you are the man for the job.'

'I'm all ears,' said Jamieson. For the first time in many months he felt interested and intrigued at the prospect of a job.

Macmillan opened a file in front of him and removed something from the top of the pile. It was a single page report, typed on blue paper. He handed it to Jamieson.