“Did a man called Reeve ever come to see you?”
“I don’t recollect.” Killin sounded impatient.
“A British journalist? He came to your house wanting to ask questions.”
“If he did, I didn’t let him in.” He tapped his forehead. “My memory’s not what it…” His fingers stayed on his forehead, rubbing at beads of sweat which were appearing there. He blinked hard, as though trying to focus. “I don’t feel well,” he said. “You should know that my heart has been giving me trouble. There are some pills back at my home…”
“You’re all right, Doctor. You’re just drugged.” Reeve hadn’t started the tape running yet, but he had his eye to the viewfinder. Even in color, Killin’s face looked gray, like he was acting in a black-and-white movie. “You don’t need to break the seal to inject something into a plastic bottle. You just need a dot of glue to seal the bottle up again.”
“What?” The doctor lost the faculty of speech for a moment. Reeve took the doped bottle from him and replaced it with his own.
“Here, drink this, it’ll help.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“You’ll feel a lot better when you clear your conscience. The birdy will help with that. Now, where were we? Yes, Co-World Chemicals.” Reeve started the tape running. “You were telling me, Dr. Killin, that you worked for CWC-what was it-nineteen years?”
“Nineteen years,” Killin agreed, his voice dull and metallic.
“The last four of those heading the company’s R & D?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you know a man called Owen Preece?”
“Dr. Preece, yes, he was a psychiatrist.”
“Well respected?”
“They might have invented the word eminent with him in mind.”
“Did he do any work for CWC?”
“Yes, he headed a research team looking into pesticides.”
“Specifically?”
“Specifically side effects.”
“And these pesticides were…”
“Organophosphorus.”
“So he was looking at PrPs?”
“Well the team examined all aspects of a great many pesticides. Its conclusions were published in several journals.”
“And those conclusions were accurate?”
“No, they were faked.” The doctor stared out of the car’s back window. “Is that the ocean out there? Doesn’t it sound angry?”
“Yes, it does,” Reeve said.
“It should be angry. We dump so much dangerous trash into it. Our rivers trickle mercury and other poisons into it. You wouldn’t think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we’ll do it one day. That’s how negligent we are.”
“Is CWC negligent?”
“Monstrously so.”
“Why haven’t you spoken out about it?”
“To protect my career, for one thing. I discovered early in my professional life that I was a coward, a moral coward. I might seethe inside, but I’d do nothing to upset the status quo. Later, after I’d retired, I could have done something, but that would have meant admitting my silence, too. You see, I’m just as culpable as anyone. Preece was a psychiatrist, not a scientist; it was easy for him to believe that the cause of certain diseases might lie in the mind itself. Even today there are people who refuse to acknowledge the existence of ME as a valid disease. They say it’s psychosomatic. But Preece’s group, the scientists-we had proof that pesticides and certain neurological diseases were causally linked.”
“You had proof?”
“And we let them cover it up.”
“Who’s them?”
“CWC.” He paused, gathering himself. “Kosigin primarily. I’ve never been sure whether those above him knew about it at the time, or are any wiser now. He operates within his own sphere. Those above him allow him this leeway… Perhaps they have an inkling of what he’s like, and want to distance themselves from him.”
“What is he like, Doctor?”
“He’s not evil, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I don’t even think he’s power-mad. I believe he thinks everything he does is in the genuine interests of the company. He is a corporation man, that’s all. He’ll do all he can-anything it takes-to stop damage being done to CWC.”
“Did you tell him about the journalist, James Reeve?”
“Yes, I did. I was frightened.”
“And he sent men to guard you?”
“Yes, and then he told me to take a short vacation.”
“There’s still a man guarding your house, isn’t there?”
“Not for much longer. The threat has disappeared.”
“Kosigin told you that?”
“Yes, he told me to put my mind at rest.”
“Do the guards work for CWC?”
“Oh, no, they’re policemen.”
“Policemen?”
“Yes. Kosigin has a friend in the police department.”
“Do you know his name?”
“McCluskey. If there’s any trouble, any problem, I can always phone this man McCluskey. You know something? I live about a half a mile from the ocean, but I’ve never heard it sound so angry.”
“They’re just waves, Dr. Killin.”
“You do them an injustice.” He sipped undoped water. “We all do.”
“So let me get this straight in my head, Dr. Killin. You’re saying you were part of a cover-up instigated by Kosigin?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re not sure whether anyone higher up in CWC knew about it at the time, or knows about it now?”
The old man nodded, staring out of the window. Reeve recorded his face in profile, the face of a sad old man who had little to be proud of in his life.
“We’re poisoning everything. We’re poisoning the very food we eat. All over the world, from the biggest agribusiness to the smallest sharecropper, they’re all doing business with the chemical companies, companies like CWC. In the richest countries and the poorest. And we’re eating the results-everything from daily bread to a nice juicy steak. All tainted. It’s like the sea; you can’t see the damage with the naked eye. That makes it easy to hide the problem, easy to cover it up and just deny, deny, deny.”
Slowly, methodically, Killin started to beat his forehead against the side window.
“Whoa,” Reeve said, pulling him away. “It’s not your fault.”
“Oh, but it is. It is!”
“Look, everything’s going to be all right. You’re going to forget all about this.”
“I can’t forget.”
“Well, maybe not, but trust me on this. What about Agrippa? What does it have to do with any of this?”
“Agrippa? Agrippa has everything to do with it, don’t you see? Agrippa has several patents pending on genetically engineered crop strains, with many more patents to come in the future. Do you realize what those will be worth? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say billions. Genetics is the industry of the future, no doubt about it.”
Reeve nodded, understanding. “And if Kosigin’s dirty tricks came to light, the licensing authorities might take a pretty dim view?”
“CWC could lose existing patents and be banned from applying for others. That’s why the cover-up is imperative.”
“Because it’s good for the company,” Reeve muttered. He made to switch off the camera.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about Preece?”
“What?”
“Preece. That’s what the reporter wanted to talk about.”
Reeve stared at Killin, then put the viewfinder back to his eye and watched as the lens refocused itself on the old man. “Go on, Doctor. What about Preece?”
“Preece had a reputation to think of. You think he’d have worked for Kosigin, covered everything up, and signed his name to the lies if there had been an alternative?”
“There wasn’t an alternative?”
“Kosigin had information on Owen. He’d had people do some digging. They found out about Preece and his patients. The ones at the hospital in Canada.”