William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

“Those deaths were unrelated to Zembla-4,” Keegan had said at once. “They were very, very sick children in the first place, remember. We’ve treated thousands of children with Zembla-4 over the last three years. There is no statistical significance.”

“I know what’s happening,” Philip had said. “This is Taldurene all over again.”

“Those Taldurene deaths are still disputed,” Keegan said, hoping he sounded convincing. He knew the case — everybody in the Pharma world knew the case: five out of fifteen patients had died from renal failure in a particular phase-three Taldurene trial — everyone assumed that, because the patients already had hepatitis, the deaths were nothing to do with the drug they were testing. Turned out they were wrong.

Wang would not be appeased, reminding Keegan that the de Vere Wing children’s trials had not been his idea. “It’s not just children who suffer from asthma,” he said, “I wanted across-the-board population studies. I’m not developing a drug that’s just for children.”

“And you got them. The Italian and Mexican trials are exactly that,” Keegan said. “We just thought that in the UK we might—”

“You just thought you’d go flat out for accelerated approval, priority status of Zembla-4. Choose a niche group — children. Show genuine medical need. What can the PDA do? I know how it works.”

“I’m surprised you’re so cynical, Philip.”

Wang had lost it again at that stage and had begun to detail, very skilfully, the components of the cover-up, explaining how parents, nurses and doctors in the de Vere wings could never have made the connections, how they would think, even in the face of these rare individual deaths, these particular family tragedies, that nothing was untoward. The de Vere staff were just administering, supervising and supplying data. Calenture-Deutz was analysing, collating and categorising it. A very sick child became ill and was logged as a drop-out from the trial, not a death. The deaths were part of any hospital’s inevitable, grim body-count. The trials continued unaffected.

“What were the signs?” Wang had taunted him. “What gave you those four or five days’ notice? Something was telling you. How could you move them out of the de Vere wings so quickly? That’s what I want to know. What was Zembla-4 doing to them?”

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” Keegan had said. However, he had conceded that there might have been some bureaucratic foul-up and feigned his own quiet outrage.

“Look, I’m as unhappy as you, Philip. We’ll investigate, we’ll triple-check again, we’ll get to the bottom of this…Everything goes on hold from this second, everything, until we discover what’s happening…” He had spoken on, continuing to reassure, praise, to promise retribution if there had been any sign of manipulation until he saw Philip calm down, somewhat mollified. They had left each other, not exactly as firm friends once again, but with a handshake at the door.

He had called Rilke immediately Philip had left. Rilke had listened and had told him, quietly, emphatically, what had to be done, now, with no delay — who to call and what precise words to use.

Burton now experienced a sense of deja vu as he picked up the scrambled phone and punched out the number.

“Hi,” he said to the woman who answered, “I’d like to speak to Major Tim Delaporte, please…Yes, I know it’s late but he’ll want to talk to me…My name’s Mr Apache. Thank you so much.”

PLANE, OAK, CHESTNUT, GiNKO — Adam noted the trees on his way to work as if he were strolling through his own arboretum. High summer now and the sun on the dense leafage this early morning made him feel moderately exultant — if such a state of mind could be imagined. The exultance he owed to sunshine and nature — the moderation arose from the nature of the job he was walking towards, its disadvantages and inadequacies, especially given the profession he had previously occupied. But he shouldn’t complain, he knew. He had woken up in what was his own flat, showered in hot water, breakfasted on coffee and toast and was going to work, however relatively underpaid that work was. It was a routine, now, and one should never underestimate the importance of routine in a person’s life: routine allowed everything else to seem more exciting and impromptu.

He checked in with the duty head porter, Harpeet, and wandered through to the ‘common room’ as he privately referred to the porters’ restroom — a small personal reference to the life he had once led in academe. A trio of other sleepy porters lounged there, the remains of the night shift coming off duty. Adam glanced at the clock on the wall — twenty minutes early — Mr Keen. He had received his first pay cheque and banked it; he had been sent his first utility bill (water) and had paid it — his life, to anyone looking on from the outside, would seem almost normal.

“Hey, Primo. How you do?”

It was Severiano, a young guy whom he liked, who had joined Bethnal & Bow around the same time as he had, and who claimed to have taken up portering to improve his English. They gripped hands briefly, in a kind of high slap, like tennis players across the net at the end of a match.

“So, how was weekend?”

“Quiet,” Adam said. “Just stayed in, watched TV.” He kept all answers to all questions as bland and banal as he could manage.

He poured himself a styrofoam cup of tea from the tureen, picked up a discarded tabloid and began to flick idly through it, heading towards the back pages for the sport, but curious to see on the way what else was going on in the tabloid world. It was summer, the football season was over, but he still felt himself at a serious social disadvantage with his colleagues. Apart from work and its travails all anybody seemed to want to talk about was football — last season’s football and the coming season’s football. He knew a little about English football but he’d lost touch during his many years in the USA — the game had changed beyond all imagination since he’d left the country and he knew he had to learn more if he wanted to converse more naturally with his fellow porters, if he were indeed to become one of them. In his first week someone had asked him idly which team he supported and, not thinking, he said the first name that came into his head at that moment — Manchester United. The shouts of derision and cries of pure hatred that greeted this choice astonished him. But now it was if he came to work every day in a Manchester United strip for he found himself the constant butt of crude anti-Northerner jokes and obscene remarks about the members of ‘his’ team (names that meant absolutely nothing to him). One porter had shouted in his face: “You live in Stepney and you support Manchester United — you WANKER!” Adam had smiled blankly back at him — what hideous sporting faux pas had he committed? So he was teaching himself more about English football against the day when he would publicly switch allegiance to a London club that would be found more acceptable.

As he turned the pages a photo caught his eye — a flicker of unconscious recognition occurring in the same way as you will recognise your own name in a list of a thousand. He turned back

— it wasn’t a photo, it was an ‘artist’s impression’. He stared at it

— the eyes were drawn closed but there was no doubt the portrait had a look of Mhouse about it — a clear look of Mhouse. He read the text beneath it with a cold, creeping sense of foreboding that brought out goose-bumps on his body. “Young woman — early twenties — unidentified — accidental death most likely…” Adam felt light-headed. Then he read about the tattoos on the body and saw, printed bold in capital letters: MHOUSE LY-ON.