‘And ready to go,’ agreed Parnell. Today there was no obvious resentment and the coffee had been freshly brewed and waiting when he reached Russell Benn’s office. Parnell had considered inviting the head of chemical and medical research across to the newly established pharmacogenomics wing, only changing his mind during the two-day delay in this intended work-planning meeting: inter-office protocol decreed he still go to the other man.
‘Sorry I couldn’t make it earlier,’ apologized Benn. ‘The way I understood our earlier meeting was, quite simply, that you’d like to be involved in everything we’re currently doing?’
‘Become an integral – extra – part of it, yes,’ said Parnell. ‘And run simple nucleotide polymorphism tests on what Dubette are already producing, to make them more effective.’ The change in Benn’s attitude was encouraging.
The other professor nodded. ‘That, as of an hour ago, involves something like three hundred and sixty different experiments covering new possibilities with existing drugs, treatments and therapies currently under phase one evaluation between oral, blood or muscle injection. Additionally there are fifty-three other quite new investigations still at animal-level testing, which, obviously, are at the moment open-ended.’
‘That’s a hell of a schedule!’ exclaimed Parnell. He hadn’t anticipated half that number.
‘We’re a hell of a cutting-edge company,’ said Benn. ‘And I haven’t included competitor analyses.’
‘What’s the extent of your total programme?’
‘Stick a pin anywhere into an infectious-diseases dictionary and we’re doing it, the most obvious and current at the top of the list.’
It was all very forthcoming, prepared almost. ‘Looks like quite a challenge.’
‘You really want it all?’ frowned Benn.
‘I want to go through the entire schedule,’ qualified Parnell. ‘Until I study it all, I won’t be able to decide how applicable it is to my discipline. There’ll have to be prioritizing.’
‘Why? Of what?’ challenged Benn.
The sharpness of the demand was Parnell’s second surprise. ‘I would have thought our liaising would initially be better begun with your newer experiments than looking for possible improvements to remedies already tried and proven.’
‘You said you wanted everything?’
‘In a proper, workable order.’
‘How’s that to be decided?’
‘Between the two of us. Between others in our departments, maybe: with the workload you’ve just outlined, it’ll make practical sense to delegate, don’t you think?’
‘You want details of everything!’ persisted Benn.
‘Unless you’ve got a more effective way of our co-operation getting off the ground.’
‘You think you’ve got sufficient people?’
‘No,’ admitted Parnell at once. ‘That’s why it’s necessary to prioritize from the very beginning.’
‘So, you start – we start – with a long list!’
‘And the research notes of that list, all of which I guess is computerized and easily downloaded without causing any of your people any extra work. We’ll simply create our genetic order of priority, where we think we can make the best contribution, share it with you and arrange to the convenience of us both the inclusion of my people in the ongoing physical experiments. Which won’t mean anything more than the exchange of slides and cultures and specimens, surely?’ Parnell was glad he was talking now as if he’d had everything ready in advance, which he hadn’t. There were only a few things, one specifically, that he wanted to introduce when he considered the time to be right.
‘OK,’ said Benn, not trying to conceal the doubt. ‘Let’s try it your way.’
‘And if it doesn’t work my way, we’ll devise another,’ said Parnell, easily. He nodded acceptance to the offered coffee refill.
‘What about your people?’ asked Benn. ‘Any of those arrive with anything interesting from what they did before?’
‘Sato’s interested in hepatitis C. He’s got a good argument, going beyond interferon, that I’ll let him follow. You doing anything on that?’
‘Tokyo is. Canberra, too.’
This could be the route he was seeking, Parnell realized. ‘That fits the demographics. But you’d have everything copied here, right?’
‘It’ll be on the list.’
‘What about Asia and severe acute respiratory syndrome?’
‘SARS is being worked out of Tokyo again.’ He hesitated, forced into a concession. ‘You know, of course, that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is experimenting with a vaccine containing the DNA from the virus?’
‘Yes, I do know,’ said Parnell, who had intentionally manoeuvred the conversation. ‘Cross-species infection, from animals to humans, is a field we could successfully explore,’ suggested Parnell. ‘It’s virus mutation, which is genetic, and it’s a carrier-borne condition, so it isn’t demographically limited. It just starts in China and Hong Kong from their live-animal trade but then spreads globally.’
‘That’s why it’s on the list,’ said Benn.
Parnell wasn’t sure whether the other man’s patience was forced. ‘Working genetically on hepatitis C will obviously lead on to tumours, restricted perhaps to liver cancer.’
‘Cancer’s on every list, here and throughout all the subsidiaries.’
The door was creaking open, Parnell decided. ‘Generally? Or defined, region to region?’
Benn frowned at the specific question. ‘Rome and Canberra are concentrating on sun-generated melanomas, because of the predominant climate. Delhi and Manila on lung cancer, because of the combination of heavy nicotine use and uncontrolled air pollution in their countries.’
‘What about France?’
‘What about France?’ echoed the black professor.
‘Diet,’ said Parnell, rehearsed. ‘Japan, with its very particular diet, a lot of fish and much of it raw, has the lowest cancer incidence in the world. You probably couldn’t find more polarized eating than the fat, oil and rich sauce preparations of France. Any subsidiary – or us, here – working on a dietary connection to cancer – bowel or stomach maybe?’
‘Part of a general investigation,’ said Benn.
‘In France?’
‘No,’ said Benn. ‘Here.’
He’d taken it as far as he could and wasted his time, Parnell decided. It had probably been stupid hoping Benn would disclose whatever the restricted French communications were about. And after the website debacle, he’d determined against stupid approaches. ‘I look forward to getting the list.’
‘I’ m looking forward to your showing us how you can improve it.’
‘There’s no possibility of any complaint,’ assured Russell Benn. ‘I followed every lead you suggested. The pharmacogenomics division will have enough research material for months, if not years. Which is what Parnell wanted.’
‘What did he say about the volume?’ asked Dwight Newton.
The other man smiled. ‘That it was a lot and that he didn’t have sufficient staff to whom to delegate it. So that a priority schedule will have to be created.’
‘We have to know what that is,’ insisted Newton.
‘We agreed that I’ll have his itemized working schedule.’
‘So, we’ve got a check on everything they’re doing, quite separate from what he’s under strict orders to tell me?’ pressed Newton. It created a double-check system, the best he believed he could evolve.
‘That’s how you wanted it, wasn’t it?’
‘Anything out of the ordinary, anything you didn’t expect, from the conversation?’
‘He got a bit ahead of himself, began itemizing things. I told him to wait until he got the complete schedule to see what we were covering.’
‘Itemizing what, particularly?’ demanded Newton.
‘Hepatitis, cancers, all the obvious stuff. Wanted to know if some of the subsidiaries were specializing.’
‘He mention a particular subsidiary?’
‘He’s got some idea of a comparison between Japan and France that might show up a dietary connection with tumours.’
‘What did he say about France?’ demanded Newton.
Benn gave an uncertain gesture. ‘Nothing particular.’