Ken McClure - White death

Apart from that, harbouring such a suspicion would certainly be no reason to commit suicide but on the other hand, could voicing it to the wrong person have provided grounds for murdering him? It was certainly true that the government had no desire to see what had happened at Pinetops being made public — in fact, they had everything to lose — but Haldane had displayed no desire to tell anyone: he didn’t even want to tell his wife. Introducing state-sanctioned murder into the equation seemed to be going a little far.

As for Alan Nichol, the designer of a new TB vaccine, something that was still being regarded as a big success despite the contamination problems, why should anyone want to kill him? Nichol would have been among the first to see from the green sticker survey that all was not well with the kids on the trial. He or one of his colleagues would have raised the alarm and started an immediate investigation. They would have left no stone unturned before establishing the presence of a toxin as the cause of the trouble. Nichol probably had less reason than anyone to make this public, so killing him to keep it quiet seemed a non-starter. As the designer of the vaccine, he would automatically get the blame from the public whatever the truth of the matter.

It occurred to Steven that it might be worth checking with Phillip St Clair the series of events leading up to the discovery of the contamination problem. He also reminded himself that his search for a murder motive was personal. Officially, Alan Nichol’s death had been an accident.

Steven phoned St Clair Genomics and was relieved to get an answer considering that it was nearly seven o’clock on a Friday evening. It was Phillip St Clair himself who answered the phone because — as he pointed out — he was the only one there.

‘What can I do for you, Dr Dunbar?’

‘I wondered if we might have another chat,’ said Steven. ‘Now that we’re both aware of what’s been going on?’

‘Yes, I heard there had been some sort of meeting,’ said St Clair. ‘When would you like to come?’

‘I don’t suppose you work on Saturdays?’

‘I work every day that God sends,’ said St Clair. ‘This is a small business, remember. The buck stops with me.’

‘Then tomorrow?’

‘I’ll be here from about ten: I allow myself a long lie-in at the weekends,’ said St Clair with what Steven felt was a somewhat strained attempt at humour.

‘See you then.’

There was only one other car in the car park when Steven arrived, a black Porsche Cayenne, which he assumed would belong to Phillip St Clair. The Honda looked like a toy beside it. The door to the building was locked so he rang the bell and waited for a voice from the grille beside it. Instead, St Clair came and opened the door personally. ‘Come on in. I’m just about to have some coffee. Will you join me?’

Steven thanked him. ‘Black, no sugar. Nice car,’ he said, looking back at the Cayenne.

‘Thanks, a 4x4 with the performance of a 911, what more could you ask? You’re a Porsche man too, aren’t you? In the garage?’

‘Bit of an accident,’ said Steven.

‘Sorry to hear that, not your fault, I hope. Insurance is a bit of a killer on these things.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Steven as St Clair went next door for the coffee.

‘Thank God you didn’t ask for a skinny, decaf latte or some such thing,’ laughed St Clair when he returned with two mugs bearing the company logo. ‘Coffee seems to have become an A level subject these days.’

‘Know what you mean.’

‘So, how can I help you?’

‘The Nichol vaccine,’ said Steven. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘What’s to say? It’s a brilliant piece of work from a brilliant scientist who tragically won’t see his work receive the acclaim it richly deserves. I understand they still haven’t got the bastard who ran him down.’

‘Was anyone else involved in the design?’

St Clair shook his head. ‘Not really. Alan had technical help but it was really all his baby. He snipped away at the genome of the TB bug until it was no longer infectious but still stimulated good levels of antibodies against TB — exactly what the doctor ordered, you might say.’

‘Absolutely, but I’m afraid I’m still not quite clear about the funding for the work,’ said Steven. ‘Vaccine design and production isn’t something you associate with small companies, no disrespect.’

‘None taken and you’re quite right but times have changed. Government needs all the help it can get these days and cash incentives were on offer to those who could come up with the goods, small or otherwise.’

‘Incentives?’ asked Steven.

‘If you were willing to take the risk and could find financial backers to support your confidence in your researchers and they came up trumps, the rewards for success were substantial — an initial seven-figure prize plus reimbursement of development costs, a further lump sum on completion of field trials and finally a government contract to supply the vaccine for general use.’

‘I see,’ said Steven. ‘But then you fell at the last hurdle and one hundred and eight children were injected with something that’s already caused one death with the possibility that it may still cause more?’

St Clair stopped smiling as if conceding that he had been insensitive in over-emphasising the positives. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘An unfortunate accident did occur, there’s no denying this but it was something beyond our control, a chance in a million, a problem in the manufacturing plant leading to contamination of the vials, something we worked day and night to help uncover, I have to say.’

‘How many were involved in that?’ asked Steven. ‘Alan Nichol and who else?’

‘Not Alan,’ said St Clair. ‘Alan died shortly before we discovered the source of the problem.’

‘I didn’t realise that,’ said Steven.

‘I had every other member of the scientific and technical staff drop whatever they were doing to work on it. The manufacturing company, Redmond Medical, had a team working round the clock and a government lab was also involved.’

‘Which one of you discovered the toxin?’

‘We did,’ said St Clair. ‘Traces of a cytotoxic agent were found in the injection vials. We discovered this by taking samples from the vials and injecting them into human cell cultures. When the cells started to die, the alarm bells started ringing. Naturally we informed both the DOH and Redmond Medical immediately and the plant was closed down.’

‘Does anyone know how the toxin got into the vials?’

‘Only that Redmond had been producing ampoules of these cytotoxic chemicals for a pharmaceutical company investigating combinations of these agents for anti-cancer properties. It’s pretty obvious there must have been cross-contamination at some stage but, as yet, we don’t know at which one.’

‘A worry,’ said Steven.

‘Tell me about it. Redmond is still at a standstill. The government has withdrawn their accreditation and we’ve had to use another company to start production again.’

‘Was Alan Nichol alive when kids started to fall ill?’

St Clair nodded. ‘Yes, it was Alan who drew our attention to it in the first place. He raised the alarm. He’d been keeping a close eye on the children’s health records.’

‘The green sticker monitor?’

‘Exactly. It wasn’t obvious to the rest of us at first but Alan saw a pattern emerge and hit the panic button.’

‘I think I may have asked you this before, but does the name Scott Haldane mean anything to you?’

St Clair appeared to give the question some thought before saying, ‘I do remember you asking but it meant nothing to me then and nothing now. Should it?’