Ken McClure - Deception

‘May I introduce, Miss Roberta Jackson,’ said Fildes. ‘She was Gerald’s HSO. Roberta, this is Dr Steven Dunbar from the Sci-Med Inspectorate. He has some questions to ask you about the work you people do. I’d be grateful if you’d give him all the help you can.’

Steven shook hands with the woman and then said to Fildes, ‘I’m sure I’ve been keeping you back, Doctor, please feel free to carry on with what you have to do. I’ll come and see you before I go.’

Fildes accepted the implied invitation to leave and Steven and Roberta were left alone.

Steven explained to her that he had hoped to have a word with Millar about a DNA analysis he had made. ‘But I hear he’s no longer with you?’

‘He took early retirement. He and Charlotte have gone off to Cape Town to stay with their son and his wife for a while. They had a baby a while back. This will be the first time they’ve seen their grandchild. It’s their first.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Steven.

‘Didn’t exactly do us any favours though,’ said Roberta ruefully. ‘Our jobs are all sort of hanging in the balance at the moment. It would have been nice to have had a bit more warning.’

‘You didn’t know he was planning to retire?’

Roberta shook her head. ‘It came right out of the blue. He seemed to make up his mind on the spur of the moment and that was that. Now you see him, now you don’t. Hi-ho, Silver, away!’

‘I thought early retirement was something offered by management at a time when it was convenient for them to see the back of you’ said Steven. ‘From what I’ve heard, it sounds as if Dr Millar’s leaving seems to have turned out pretty inconvenient for all concerned?’

‘It certainly is and that was my understanding too,’ said Roberta, ‘but apparently a member of staff can request early retirement at any time after the age of fifty, whether management likes it or not. The deal you get is not so good that way — you don’t get the enhancement to years of service you get if they request it — but the bottom line is that it can be done.’

‘Are there many people going to be affected by his going?’

‘Three of us are in the firing line if you’ll pardon the pun. It seems likely that the other two will be taken on by other groups — they’re junior SOs, so they’re relatively cheap in terms of salary and easy to re-train but I’ve been here ten years: I’m a bit more expensive and a bit more specialised.’

‘I hope something comes along for you,’ said Steven.

‘Thanks. How can I help you?’

Steven brought out the lab report on the Agrigene crop and showed it to Roberta. ‘Does this look familiar to you?’ he asked.

Roberta shook here head. ‘Not this particular one,’ she said. ‘I think this must be one that Gerald did himself. Hang on a minute.’ She walked over to what appeared to be a very wide, metal filing cabinet and slid out the bottom drawer. She checked the reference number on the report she was still holding and then looked for a match in the drawer. ‘Here we are,’ she said, pulling out a large sheet of exposed photographic film, attached to a metal hanger by two crocodile clips. The film had small black ladder marks over it in regular columns.

‘This is the actual DNA sequence that Dr Millar’s report was based on,’ said Roberta. ‘Did you think there was something wrong with it?’

‘No, nothing like that, The DNA comes from an experimental oilseed rape crop being grown over in a place called Blackbridge in West Lothian. Dr Millar reported the presence of three foreign genetic elements in it. The company has a licence for only two.’

‘That sounds serious,’ said Roberta.

‘On the face of it,’ said Steven.

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m no expert in genetics but “genetic element” doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as, gene, does it?’

‘I suppose not,’ agreed Roberta. ‘But it usually does.’

‘Exactly, it usually does, so people would read the report as saying that three foreign genes were present instead of two and conclude that it must be a different crop from the one on the licence certificate?’

‘I suppose that might well be the case,’ agreed Roberta, looking puzzled. ‘Is that not what happened here then?’

‘Take a look at the foreign elements in the sequence,’ said Steven.

‘I can’t tell what the foreign genes are just by looking at the sequence,’ protested Roberta. ‘I’d have to compare it with the standard oilseed rape genome and then do a computer search for differences.’

‘I’ve already done that,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve highlighted the three foreign sequences on this.’ Steven took out his print-out copy of the sequence from his briefcase. ‘What would you say about the third one?’ he asked. Steven directed her to a highlighted section of the sequence.

‘Oh, I recognise that all right,’ said Roberta. ‘That’s a marker, a tetracycline transposon marker; we use it all the time.’

‘Not what you would class as a foreign gene, then?’

‘Hardly.’

‘This is the third genetic element Dr Millar reported as being present in the Agrigene crop.’

‘What on earth made him do that?’ wondered Roberta.

‘That’s what I came here to ask him,’ said Steven.

‘I can see why,’ said Roberta with a shrug. ‘Frankly, I just can’t imagine why he would do something like that and I can certainly see how it might have caused confusion. Did it?’

‘It did indeed.’

‘But the DNA sequence itself would be an exact match for the one associated with the licence,’ said Roberta, seeing immediately what Steven himself had seen at the outset.

‘If it had been possible to compare them,’ he said, not really wanting to tell Roberta that both copies had gone missing under mysterious circumstances. ‘Unfortunately, Dr Millar’s report was all the authorities had to go on.’

‘But even at that, surely someone must have pointed out that one of these “genetic elements” was just a harmless marker?’

‘I’m sure they did — and they’re probably still trying to, but after hearing what the report said in simple terms, nobody wanted to listen to what they thought was a lot of scientific gobbledegook and prevarication from a big bad biotech company. Two elements good, three elements bad, was what they took from the ministry lab report and that was good enough for the opposition to start going doo lally and demanding that the trial be stopped and the crop destroyed.’

‘So what’s happening now?’

‘The company is putting up a fight. It’s resorted to law to block any move to halt the trial or destroy the crop and is now using solicitors to argue their case instead of scientists. Luckily for them the prosecution case is not exactly coherent right now because of some Westminster — Holyrood rivalry.

‘Tell me about it,’ said Roberta raising her eyes heavenwards. ‘These days I think I have more MPs than I have relations! Still, if they’re fighting with each other, they’re not doing the rest of us much harm, that’s the way I look at it.’

‘But administrative paralysis can have its down side,’ said Steven, thinking of the current situation in Blackbridge.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Roberta. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t see what I can do to help?’

‘No,’ agreed Steven. ‘This one is down to Dr Millar on his own. You wouldn’t know who asked him to perform the DNA analysis on the crop in the first place, would you?’ Steven asked.

‘I don’t think so...’ said Roberta thoughtfully. ‘We’ve not had that much contract work recently but I don’t think I remember Gerald saying anything at all about this particular one...’