The chemist had insisted that the treatment was effective, but Dr Ahumibe didn’t bother to contradict her. He said, ‘Simon had as big a stake in the business as we did.’
‘Did he know that it was worthless?’
‘It wasn’t worthless. There was a glitch, a temporary glitch.’
‘A glitch.’ Stevie remembered the photograph of Joy Summers, the big box-office smile framed by the wheelchair headrest. ‘Did Simon know?’
‘Not at first. None of us did.’
‘Whose fault was it?’
‘We were a team. We were all equally responsible.’
Ahumibe glanced away. It was the kind of feint that lost you the sale and Stevie knew that even though Death had both hands on his shoulders, ready to push him into a grave, the doctor was dissembling. She scooped the packets of pills from the table, shoved them into her satchel, took the gun from her pocket and pointed it at him.
The doctor looked at the gun, unmoved. ‘You’d be doing me a favour.’
‘Not if I shot you in the legs and left you to bleed to death.’
She wondered if she would be able to do it and decided that perhaps she could.
‘Go ahead. If there was an easy way out, I’ve already bypassed it.’
‘I could still make it harder for you.’
‘Do you really think so?’ The doctor held her gaze. ‘Put the gun down.’ He brushed the air in front of him with his hand, as if trying to flap something away. ‘Killing people makes you feel bad.’
‘I told you. I’m not threatening to kill you.’ Stevie slipped her finger from the trigger and rested the gun on her lap, her hand still tight around the grip. ‘The person who analysed the data on Simon’s laptop said he thought there had been a genuine mathematical mistake.’
Dr Ahumibe sighed. ‘We were all responsible,’ he repeated.
‘We don’t have time to waste on some Spartacus routine. Someone made the initial error. Who was it?’
The doctor rested his head on the desk again.
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
‘Tell me and I’ll leave you alone. Otherwise I’m here till the bitter end, and believe me, I will make it as bitter as possible.’
Ahumibe muttered something she couldn’t make out.
Stevie said, ‘I won’t give your pills back until you tell me.’
‘Buchanan.’ He raised his head and spat out the name. ‘Buchanan made the initial error, but Simon and I should have spotted it. Medicine is like the law: ignorance is no defence. We were all equally to blame.’
‘When did you realise?’
‘I spent the most time with the children.’ The doctor closed his eyes for a moment. His skin looked solid, as if it was made of wax or resin, some other substance than flesh. A bead of perspiration trickled down his brow and Stevie saw that the sweats were gaining ground. He said, ‘They weren’t responding as I’d expected. People think of science as being exact. In reality there are too many factors to predict results precisely, but nevertheless the general level of improvement amongst the children we treated wasn’t anywhere near as good as it should have been.’
‘Didn’t Simon notice?’
‘Simon was a good surgeon, but medicine wasn’t his life. He left most of the aftercare to me.’
‘Why didn’t you just stop operating?’
‘That was my first instinct. I called a meeting of the three of us. Buchanan turned up, Simon sent his apologies.’ A howl echoed along the hospital corridor. It sounded both animal and human; crazy in its abandon. Dr Ahumibe sipped his water and gave a small shudder. ‘There’s no point in going over any of this. It’s getting dark. We’ve had armed guards on the doors for the last few days but it sounds like they’ve surrendered us to the fates. You should leave.’
‘I promise I’ll go, as soon as you tell me what happened.’
The doctor leant back in his chair and closed his eyes. For a moment Stevie thought she might be losing him, but then he said, ‘At first Buchanan denied that there was anything wrong, but when I hit him with the cold facts, he was forced to admit that he already suspected something was awry.’ Dr Ahumibe opened his eyes and fixed his stare on her. ‘That was the word he used, awry, as if we were talking about a squint necktie or a badly hung picture.’
‘But you could have pulled the plug on the whole business. Why didn’t you?’
Dr Ahumibe was still gazing at the ceiling.
‘I made a promise to myself when I was a child. I remember it very clearly. I was lying in my bed at school, listening to one of the boys in my dorm crying himself to sleep, and I pledged that when I grew up, I would remember what it felt like to be an unhappy boy.’
‘Very Peter Pan.’
He looked at her again. ‘You’re wrong. Peter Pan didn’t want to grow up. I was desperate to reach an age when I would be in charge of my own life, my own destiny. But I kept my promise. I never forgot the misery of childhood and when I became a doctor I knew that I wanted to specialise in paediatrics.’ His voice cracked. ‘I have helped to save a lot of children’s lives.’
‘You also gave several children operations they didn’t need, and charged their parents money they couldn’t afford.’
A tear leaked down the doctor’s cheek, but for the first time he sounded angry. ‘Every single one of them went home healthier than when they arrived.’
‘Including Joy Summers?’
‘Joy’s death was nothing to do with the treatment.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because I’m a fucking doctor.’ Dr Ahumibe buried his face in his hands as if he couldn’t bear her to see his expression. His breath juddered. After a moment he whispered, ‘The treatment may not have had the results we initially calculated, but it did no harm and it was on the cusp of doing a lot of good.’ He dragged his hands down his face. His cheeks stretched beneath the pressure and Stevie saw the red of his lower eyelids, the bags beneath, formed from a weight of sleepless nights. Dr Ahumibe splayed his fingers against the surface of the desk and stared at them. ‘The basic premise was sound but Buchanan needed to refine the drug. He was worried that if we suddenly withdrew, our sponsors would lose confidence. We had put everything we possessed, including our reputations, into Fibrosyop. We couldn’t afford to suspend the company.’
‘So you decided to subject already sick children to operations that you knew would be ineffectual, in order to protect your reputations.’
‘We operated on a very small number of children compared to the potential good we would be able to do in the future.’ He turned to face her. ‘In the very near future. It was only a matter of time before Xander found the correct formula.’
‘You were experimenting on children.’
‘You make us sound like Josef Mengele. It wasn’t easy, but in the end we acted for the greater good.’
His tears were gone. In their place was the closed face of a disgraced MP, ready to fight his corner.
‘Where did Simon fit into all of this?’
Pain puckered Dr Ahumibe’s brow, but he managed to inject some malice into his voice.
‘Simon had a hot date and didn’t turn up for the meeting, so we made the decision to continue without him. When he eventually checked in, a day or so later, I told him there was nothing to worry about. It was what Simon wanted to hear.’ Dr Ahumibe bent forward, clenched by some kind of spasm. The howl sounded again somewhere in the hospital, this time shadowed by a chorus of crazy laughter. ‘No one murdered Simon. I would have laid down my life for him. Both of us would.’ A crash of overturning furniture shook the floor. He said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’
‘Terrified, but I can’t afford to give in to it. Not if I’m going to survive.’ Stevie fingered the handle of the gun. ‘You keep telling me that the three of you were best buddies, but Simon’s note insisted the laptop went to Reah and no one else. He was adamant I wasn’t to trust you or Buchanan.’