Ken McClure - Resurrection

Dewar worked for the Sci-Med Inspectorate, a government body set up to provide preliminary investigation into potential wrong-doings in the Hi-Tec areas of science and medicine, areas where the police had little or no expertise. The staff comprised a number of medically or scientifically qualified people whose task it was to carry out discreet, occasionally under-cover enquiries in the often blurred margins that separated incompetence from outright criminality. Highly qualified professional people invariably resented outside interest in what they were doing, regarding it as unwarranted interference, so discretion was of the utmost importance until at least, the facts were established.

Adam Dewar was a doctor specialising in medical investigations. He was well aware that there was no more sensitive or conservative body than the medical profession. Closing ranks was almost a knee-jerk response to outside questioning. The well-guarded mystique of the witch doctor was still extant in late twentieth century medicine. The less the patient knows the better.

Dewar had been on leave for the past four weeks. This was part of the pattern of the job. Investigations were often intensive, requiring long hours of work and high stress levels. Occasionally they could be downright dangerous or even life threatening. When they were completed, leave was generous. Dewar had spent his staying in a small village in the south of France which he had known since childhood, enjoying the wine, the food and sunshine of Provence. He had however spent the final week preparing for his return in fairly hard physical exercise. He had swam three miles daily in the sea off San Raphael and used the cool of the evening to run respectable distances along the vineyard paths between neighbouring villages. He felt reasonably fit again not that his last assignment had taken much out of him in a physical sense.

He had been sent to look into the apparently high death rate among patients of a Lincolnshire surgeon when compared with statistics for similar operations in other parts of the country. There had in fact, been no criminal aspect to this case. The surgeon in question had merely grown old in his job and had been unaware of his failing powers. His strong personality — common in surgeons, had prevented colleagues from doing much about the situation. It was one thing knowing what was wrong, quite another saying it. The man was also very influential in senior medical circles, circles which could make or break careers. The situation had been allowed to develop until the Sci-Med computer had draw attention to the statistical blip.

Dewar had not been subject to the man’s power and influence and he had a strong personality too. Under the terms of the Sci-Med Inspectorate he had the power to resolve the situation and he had. The surgeon had been retired. Happily, the end result had been achieved without scandal or rancour thanks to the application of common sense.

Dewar knocked on the door and responded to the immediate invitation to enter.

A tall silver-haired man stood up behind his desk and held out his hand. He was John Macmillan, Dewar’s boss and the director of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.

‘Good to see you, Dewar. How are you feeling after your break?’

‘Very well, thank you, sir.’

‘Good, What d’you know about smallpox?’

Dewar shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. It was a terrible disease in its time but it’s been extinct for many years. A triumph for the World Health Organisation, as I recall. It was cited as an example of the power of vaccination programmes when I was at medical school. Quite poetic really when you think that the very first instance of vaccination was Edward Jenner’s work on that very disease back in the eighteenth century. It took just under two hundred years to wipe out something that had been around as long as mankind.’

‘Wipe out may be a little strong,’ said Macmillan.

‘You mean it’s broken out again?’ asked an incredulous Dewar.

‘Not exactly but this has newly come in from a joint WHO/United Nations body. They’d like our help.’

Macmillan handed the documentation over to Dewar who flicked through it and quickly realised he’d need more time to assimilate it.

‘When you’re ready, I’d like you to handle it,’ said Macmillan.

Institute of Molecular Sciences

Edinburgh, Scotland

October 1997

The door of lab 512 opened and a tall, distinguished figure walked in. He ignored the people working there and crossed to floor to open an office door on the far side. Finding no one inside, he turned and said to no one in particular, ‘No Doctor Malloy.’

‘Give the man a coconut,’ whispered one of the men present to a younger colleague working beside him.

‘Did you say something, Mr Ferguson?’ asked the tall man.

‘I simply agreed with your observation, Professor Hutton’ replied the man who’d made the comment. Both men held eye contact for a moment, the tall man barely disguising his dislike, the older man seemingly inscrutable in the time-honoured tradition of dumb insolence.

‘Are you expecting him in today?’

‘He didn’t say he wasn’t going to be in,’ replied a young, studious looking man, wearing a black tee shirt with the name of a pop group emblazoned across it His white lab coat hung open.

‘I think he was pretty upset after yesterday’s vaccine trial results,’ added a young red haired woman in her early twenties. ‘Coming on top of Ali’s death, I think it was the final straw.’

‘We all have to accept set-backs in our research. It’s part of the job,’ said the tall man. He looked around at the work benches in the lab and muttered, ‘Ye gods, look at the state of this place. You people should take a leaf out of Dr Pearson’s book next door. His staff keep the lab spotless; you won’t find any clutter lying around there.’

‘Not so much as an idea,’ muttered Ferguson.

The tall man’s nostrils flared in patrician anger and he took a deep breath but he said nothing to the offender. ‘Tell Dr Malloy I’d like a word when he comes in.’

As the door closed, the young man in the Tee shirt said to Ferguson, ‘You’re pushing your luck with him.’

‘He’s all front and no substance,’ replied the older man. ’

‘Peter’s right, George’ said the girl. ‘You are pushing your luck. He really doesn’t like this lab.’

‘He can’t do much more to me,’ said the older man. ‘If Steve doesn’t get a new grant I’m out on my arse anyway come Christmas. Herr Direktor has fingered me for early retirement.’

‘There must be a good chance Steve’ll get the grant.’

‘Really? Let’s face it. Yesterday’s trial result isn’t exactly going to help it along.’

No one argued.

‘It’s still a bad idea to get up Hutton’s nose. He could still screw up your pension deal.’

‘I guess. But it’s my only pleasure,’ said the older man with a grin.

‘He is a bit of a pompous prick,’ said Peter Moore, the graduate student wearing the black tee shirt.

‘University’s full of them.’ added Sandra Macandrew, the red haired girl, also a PhD student. ‘Something we have to live with.’

‘And something the British do so well,’ added Pierre LeGrice, visiting post-doctoral research fellow from the Institut Pasteur in Paris. ‘If you look the part and wear the right tie you can go far in this country.’

‘Maybe it’s because the university’s an “equal opportunity employer”,’ suggested Ferguson, the senior technician with the group. ‘Being a brainless balloon is no impediment.’

The door opened and a man wearing dark glasses and black clothes came in. ‘Christ, my head’s got a brass band playing in it,’ he complained by way of greeting.