Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘I’m surprised that you don’t, as closely as you and Harry liaise,’ said Dingley.

Grant sighed again but didn’t speak, looking pointedly at the lawyer.

Baldwin said: ‘Is there anything else with which we can help you?’

‘During your conversation with Harry Johnson, you asked, and I quote, “What about the other two?” What other two would that be, Mr Grant?’ said Benton.

‘The two suspended Metro DC police officers, obviously,’ said the man.

‘Why were you curious about them?’ pressed Benton.

‘The suggestion is that they mistreated… wrongly arrested… a senior Dubette executive, isn’t it?’

‘And part of Johnson’s reply to your question, and again I quote, is, “He…” – he being Clarkson, Harry Johnson’s lawyer – “… says they’re standing up fine.” What did you understand from that reply, Mr Grant?’

‘I’m not sure that I understood anything from it.’

‘You asked about them, Johnson gives you a reply you don’t understand, and you don’t ask him to explain it?’ pressed Dingley.

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Grant.

‘Do you still find it difficult to understand, now that we’re talking about it? Now that you’ve had time to think about it?’ said Benton.

‘Yes,’ said Grant.

‘Before Johnson says that the two Metro DC officers are standing up well, he says, and again I quote, “Clarkson won’t let me speak to them direct,”’ persisted Benton. ‘We’ve got two police officers who are alleged to have mistreated – wrongly arrested – a senior member of Dubette’s staff, and Harry Johnson wants to talk to them. But then tells you they’re standing up fine. You know how that looks, to my partner and I, Mr Grant? It looks like there was collusion between the three. Wouldn’t you say that’s an interpretation?’

‘I don’t think Mr Grant can usefully speculate, as you are speculating,’ said the lawyer. ‘What I do think is that there is an obvious inference that, if it is pursued, could result in consideration of the sort of court action in which a quite separate claim has already been mounted, which could seriously embarrass you two gentlemen personally, and your already seriously embarrassed, ineffective employer, the FBI, to a far greater degree.’

‘The question was put to Mr Grant, who has not answered,’ said the unintimidated Benton.

‘I think Mr Baldwin has already adequately answered on my behalf,’ refused Grant. ‘What I would say is that I think it is very fortunate for you both that I did not bother to include criminal lawyers in this interview.’

‘Which is concluded at this time,’ declared Baldwin. ‘If the Federal Bureau of Investigation seeks to resume it, it will be conducted in the different sort of circumstances that Mr Grant has indicated.’

Outside the Dubette building, on Wall Street, Dingley said: ‘You fancy calling in on the guys? Broadway’s only just up the road.’

‘Why don’t we just get on back?’ said Benton.

‘Yeah, why don’t we?’ agreed Dingley.

Beverley Jackson was the only one in the pharmacogenomics division to know of Parnell’s visit to New York, and then not in detail, because he maintained his decision not to involve her – or anyone else – any further in the French near-disaster. And there was in any case something far more immediate when he arrived back at McLean.

‘Why are they dying again so quickly when they’re vaccinated by lesser-strength preparations?’ Parnell rhetorically asked Sean Sato. ‘It doesn’t make sense!’ The disappointment was palpable throughout the laboratory.

‘I said the six we kept alive could have been a fluke,’ reminded Sato. ‘I’ve gone back to the twenty per cent ratio.’

‘What about blood from those that survived longer?’ demanded Parnell. ‘Any specific molecular assault?’

‘None,’ said Lapidus. ‘We can’t attempt to colour match the new tests, because we don’t have a suspect DNA host.’

‘What about those that died subsequently?’

‘Nothing,’ said Deke Pulbrow.

‘What about the brief survivors?’ persisted Parnell. ‘Anything different about them from the others who subsequently died? Anything about their strain, breed suppliers, diet, anything at all like that?’ He was conscious of the anxiety in his own voice.

‘Everything checked, even their comparable weights and ages,’ said Beverley. ‘Nothing.’

‘We started yet, with the twenty per cent ratio?’

Sato shook his head. ‘We waited, to talk it through with you.’

‘Let’s follow blood,’ suggested Parnell. ‘Isolate the mice, individually. No urine or faeces contamination between any. Strictly measured and itemized food. Blood tests from all, before infecting with SARS. And daily – no, half-daily – sampling after infecting, for DNA comparison between those treated and those untreated.’

‘Which assumes there will be a survival over a period of days,’ commented Lapidus.

‘We’ll have an additional test,’ Parnell pointed out. ‘We’ve got the blood of the first survival group. If we don’t get a DNA profile somewhere out of that, life’s not fair.’

‘My mother always told me that it wasn’t,’ said Pulbrow. ‘And my mother was always right.’

It was not until two nights later, when they were eating once more at Beverley’s favourite midtown restaurant, that Parnell told her of Dwight Newton’s breakdown and Edward Grant’s offer.

‘Poor Dwight,’ was Beverley’s first reaction. ‘I hardly knew him, and what I did know I didn’t particularly like, but to be too ill to work again is a rough call.’

‘It’s not going to be announced until after the stockholders’ meeting,’ warned Parnell.

‘I’m not likely to tell anyone,’ promised the woman. ‘What about you? You going to take it?’

‘I haven’t decided, not yet.’

‘Vice president responsible for research and development in just under a year!’ she said, with faint mockery. ‘The upward rise of Richard Parnell continues!’

‘If I take it.’

‘Of course you’ll take it!’

‘We’ll see. You coming back tonight?’

‘I thought you’d never ask! I was beginning to wonder if it was all over.’

When they entered Parnell’s apartment, Beverley went at once to the lidded laptop on the bureau and said: ‘Hey, what’s this! Dubette’s new vice president has got himself a new toy!’

‘It’s convenient,’ said Parnell. ‘I can access anything I want at McLean and download it here if I want. I should have thought of it before.’

‘You know what they say about all work and no play.’

‘It’s turned off, isn’t it?’ said Parnell, uncomfortably reminded yet again of Rebecca’s similar remark.

‘If it wasn’t, I’d turn it off,’ said Beverley. ‘I want to play.’

‘So, it’s a no-no?’ demanded Dingley, when Ed Pullinger finished telling them the legal opinion.

‘On what you’ve got so far,’ confirmed the lawyer. ‘After the shit we got following nine-eleven we’re not going to move on anything we can’t come out of with haloes and marching music. Everything here would be challenged, discredited or ruled inadmissible, and we’d lose. Lose, that is, if the Attorney General would even consider a Grand Jury, let alone any court hearing. You know what you’ve got here? You’ve got a hell of a lot that could help Barry Jackson in his civil action, diddly squat for a criminal prosecution. And that’s disappointing everyone at the J. Edgar Hoover building, because this is high-profile and all we’re getting is more shit.’

‘You thought of talking to Barry Jackson? Parnell maybe?’ asked Benton.

‘And risk my pension?’ smiled the lawyer.