Michael Ridpath - Final Venture

'Just curious.'

I was very curious. It was too much of a coincidence that Dr Catarro had died in the middle of asking questions about BioOne. Car accidents could be faked.

I checked Information for the number and address of a Dr Catarro in Dighton. There was one.

I drove straight there. I didn't feel good about barging in on a widow, but I had no choice.

I found the white-painted clapboard house and rang the bell. Mrs Catarro came to the door. She was small and blonde. Her face was carefully made up, but very fragile. I heard a television in the background.

'Yes?' she asked.

'Mrs Catarro, my name is Simon Ayot. I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about your husband.'

She looked at me doubtfully, but the smart suit, friendly smile, and English accent seemed to do the trick.

'Very well, come in.'

She led me into a living room. A girl of about fourteen was sprawled on the floor in front of a sitcom.

'Can you turn it off for a moment, honey?' Mrs Catarro asked.

The girl made a face. Mrs Catarro snapped. 'Brette, I said turn the TV off!' It was almost a shout. The girl grumpily did as she was told, and left the room, throwing me an angry glance.

The woman sat down on the sofa. 'I'm sorry about that. My patience is not what it used to be. Teenage girls, you know.'

I knew very little about teenage girls, but I smiled and nodded, and sat down.

'Were you a friend of Tony's?' she asked.

'No, I wasn't,' I replied. 'But I'm interested in a project he was working on before he died.'

'Well then you should talk to Vic Palmer at the clinic.'

'I have, Mrs Catarro. And he was quite helpful. But I wonder if I could ask you a couple of things, too?'

'You can try,' she said. 'But I don't have any medical training. I doubt if I can help.'

'Do you know if your husband was worried about the neuroxil-5 trial he was working on before he died?'

She thought for a moment. 'Yes, he was, as a matter of fact,' she said. 'He used to talk about that a lot. It made him quite upset.'

'Did he say what the problem was?'

'Yes, he did. As I recall, four of his patients had suffered strokes after taking the drug, and the company that made it, what was it, Bio something or other?'

'BioOne.'

'That's right, BioOne, didn't seem to care at all. It was doing all it could to hide the results, or confuse them, Tony said. He was worried that patients were dying unnecessarily all over the country. He had two who died in his clinic alone.'

'I see. And what was he going to do about it?'

'Talk to the company first. And then go to the Federal Authorities.'

'But it never came to that?'

Mrs Catarro looked at me suspiciously. Her thoughts were following mine. Her brow furrowed, her jaw tightened. 'You don't think…'

I decided not to alarm her. Not when I had no more than guesses to go on.

'It was a car accident, wasn't it Mrs Catarro? I'm sure the police investigated it thoroughly'

'Yes,' she said. She looked as though she was about to cry.

'Thanks very much. If you do think of anything more to do with the trial, do give me a ring.'

I pulled out a card, scribbled in my cell phone number, and handed it to her.

She glanced at it. 'Oh, Revere Partners. You'll have known poor Frank Cook, then?'

'Yes,' I paused. 'Yes I did. You heard about his death?'

'I couldn't miss it.' She nodded towards the television set.

'Did you know him?'

'Yes. Well, Tony knew him better. He'd known him for years. In fact we saw him at some friends' house just before Tony's accident. Come to think of it, just before Frank was murdered.'

I froze. 'Did your husband talk to Frank about the clinical trial?' I asked.

She thought a bit. 'I think he did. In fact I think they had a long conversation about it. Frank was involved in it in some way. The same as you, I assume.'

I nodded. 'That's right, Mrs Catarro. Thank you very much.'

'Are you sure that Tony wasn't…'

She was adding two and two and I could see she couldn't avoid reaching four.

I sighed. 'I don't know, Mrs Catarro. But that's what I'm trying to find out.'

I left her on her doorstep, her fragile face looking as though it was on the verge of shattering.

I checked into a motel on the outskirts of Providence. Throughout the day I had been looking over my shoulder for a tail, but hadn't seen anyone. I had an anonymous supper in a cheap anonymous restaurant, and felt safe.

I was now pretty certain that I knew why Frank had been killed. Dr Catarro had told him of his concerns about BioOne. Frank had asked questions and someone had killed him. And then Dr Catarro, and then John. I had asked questions, and they had tried to kill me.

Who was responsible? The list of possibilities was long, but it was headed by two people: Art Altschule and Thomas Enever. But I had no proof. I still needed more information on the neuroxil-5 trial.

There was one more clinic I could visit. I wasn't sure where Aunt Zoe had been enrolled, although I assumed it was somewhere in Boston. She must have been enrolled in the Phase Three trial, so there was a good chance it would not be one of those listed in the article on the Phase Two trial in the NEJM.

Even though it was late, I dialled her number. Carl answered, sounding tense.

'Carl? It's Simon Ayot.'

'Oh, Simon, how are you?'

'I'm sorry I'm calling so late…'

'That's OK. I've just come back from the hospital.'

'The hospital?' I knew what was coming next. 'Is it Aunt Zoe?'

'Yes,' said Carl, his voice strained. 'She had a stroke last night.'

'Jesus! How is she? How bad was it?'

'It was bad,' said Carl flatly. 'She's still alive, but the doctors say the damage was massive. She's in a coma, and they don't think she'll come out of it. It's just a question of time.'

A wave of despair overwhelmed me. I couldn't say anything.

'Simon. Simon! Are you there?'

'Yes, I'm here,' I said quietly. 'I'm so sorry, Carl.'

There was silence on the. other end of the line for a moment. 'That wasn't the side-effect you were thinking about, was it Simon?'

I wanted to lie to him, tell him I didn't know, let him think that he and I bore no responsibility for his wife's stroke, but I couldn't. He'd find out soon enough.

Yes,' I said.

'Damn!' Carl exclaimed. Then he gave a sigh that shuddered down the phone. 'I guess I shouldn't have told Zoe to go on with the treatment, huh?'

'You didn't know, Carl. Neither did I. We do now, but it's too late.'

'Yeah. It is.' Carl sounded very tired.

'I'll leave you to get some sleep,' I said. 'But one last question. Which clinic was Zoe visiting?'

It was Dr Netherbrook's. The one I had seen first that morning, the one with no patients with strokes. When I had spoken to him, Dr Netherbrook wouldn't have heard what had happened to Zoe. But he would soon be filing an adverse event report. I wondered how Enever would ignore or suppress that one.

'Goodbye, Carl. Give my love to Zoe.'

'I will,' he said, and rang off.

I lay on my back on the bed in my motel room.

Another good person dying for the greater glory of BioOne.

I bought the Wall Street Journal the next morning and read it over one of those great American breakfasts that you can get in cheap diners. Out of habit I scanned the NASDAQ quotes. BioOne's stock was up nineteen dollars to sixty-three!

I searched the paper for the story. BioOne had announced a marketing agreement with Werner Wilson, a huge pharmaceutical company. Werner Wilson was going to sell neuroxil-5 in the United States, as well as 'a promising new treatment for Parkinson's disease, developed by BioOne'. That was Lisa's BP 56. The deal gave extremely favourable terms to BioOne, although it was contingent on a successful outcome of the Phase Three trial of neuroxil-5, expected in March. It would mean neuroxil-5 would be pushed out to doctors by one of the largest pharmaceutical sales forces in the country. The Wall Street analysts loved it, and so did the stock market, which was why the stock had shot up. If they only knew.