‘I must have got that wrong,’ said Helen Montgomery, without any hesitation. ‘I think I told you before that I wasn’t sure. I must have been told when we got back to the station and got it mixed up in my mind.’
‘As a police officer, do you often get things mixed up in your mind?’ asked Benton.
‘Officer Montgomery declines to answer that question,’ said Brack.
‘On the instructions of us both,’ added her lawyer.
Peter Bellamy was only slightly less assured than his partner, most obviously when Dingley disclosed Johnson’s thumb print, and let his lawyer, Hilda Jeffries, reply for him that there was no way he could answer such a question, which should be put to Johnson. She did not let him respond to the accusation that either he or Helen Montgomery had planted the paper after being handed it by Johnson when they first arrived at McLean, protesting that the suggestion was preposterous.
‘We got a chink to prise open,’ insisted Dingley. It was a sandwich lunch again, both men anxious to review the morning’s work, neither of them with any thought of celebrations on 14th Street.
‘That big,’ objected Benton, narrowing his thumb against his forefinger so closely that there was no visible gap.
‘It’s something,’ insisted Dingley. ‘And we’ve still got Grant.’
‘Who’ll meet us fully briefed by the company lawyer,’ predicted Benton.
‘He doesn’t know about the telephone tap.’
‘Which hasn’t produced anything worthwhile to put before a court,’ refused Benton. ‘So far we haven’t learned much more than that Johnson likes telephone sex to jerk off to, and pepperoni and chilli home-delivered pizza.’
‘In Italy pepperoni and chilli pizza is probably a crime.’
‘Pity it isn’t a federal offence here.’
‘They’re good, all three of them,’ reluctantly conceded Dingley, seriously. ‘Too damned good.’
‘Which is how they got away with everything in 1996.’
‘You really think Johnson was on Dubette’s payroll, before he left the force?’
‘I’d bet my pension on it.’
‘If we can’t prove that Johnson is lying, about the flight number
… if all we’ve got is his explanation… then there’s no terrorism link, and if there’s no terrorism link there’s no grounds for FBI involvement,’ said Dingley.
‘If Grant is in some way involved, it’s conspiracy across State lines. And that’s us, whether terrorism is in the mix or not,’ contradicted Benton.
‘According to Ed Pullinger, the gods at the J. Edgar Hoover Building are pissed off up to here with the heat they’re getting from the Department of Homeland Security and every media outlet as far away as Outer Mongolia, wherever the hell that is,’ said Dingley. ‘And you and I ain’t got Teflon asses.’
‘You don’t need to tell me that, either,’ said Benton.
‘I’m not looking forward to New York as much as I was.’
‘Neither am I.’
Richard Parnell had only ever been to Manhattan twice, both times before taking up the Dubette genetics directorship, tourist map in hand, exhausted walking towards skyscraper landmarks he could see but which never appeared to get any closer, like retreating mirages in a high-rise desert. Beverley had promised to take him to the real parts he’d never seen, which served things other than hamburgers and hot dogs, and as the shuttle turned over the bay into Le Guardia, Parnell resolved to take up the promise, uncomfortably yet again remembering Rebecca’s mockery of his not knowing America beyond a 17-mile-long traffic lane into north Virginia and a mile walk into Georgetown. Parnell was surprised at the summons to Dubette headquarters, as he was by the continued absence from McLean of Dwight Newton, whose personal assistant was now saying she had no idea when the research vice president would be medically allowed to return.
Which concentrated Parnell’s mind on why he was in New York, no longer the tourist. He was glad he was here in person, not trusting Newton as the warning intermediary. How much – how far – could he trust Edward C. Grant, the Big Brother lookalike? Not an immediate consideration. The immediate – absolutely essential – consideration was getting the assurance from the man in authority that every available warning was circulated as widely as possible throughout the African countries they distributed to, about an unknown quantity of potentially fatal medicines. And if he didn’t get that assurance, he needed to decide what he personally was going to do. There was nothing really to decide, he thought at once. He supposed he should talk first to Barry Jackson, although ethically the confidentiality restrictions didn’t apply and it would be too late for Dubette to invoke them anyway. He had to find his own way to sound the alarm, and as his taxi crossed the Triboro Bridge, he looked down the East River to the United Nations skyscraper and decided that would be a convenient start.
It was a magic-carpet ascent to the penthouse level when Parnell identified himself at the ground-floor reception, the door to Edward Grant’s panoramic-view office already open in readiness for his arrival, the smiling, white-haired man slightly back from the doorway to prevent his shortness being too obviously framed in the doorway. Grant only allowed the briefest of handshaking greetings before retreating behind his protective desk.
‘This meeting’s long overdue,’ announced the company president. ‘And mine’s the fault, for which I apologize. What you did about France was outstanding and I should have personally thanked you long before now. I told you at the seminar, I was expecting great things. I never imagined the proof would be so immediate…’ The man allowed the break. ‘And I also want you to know how very, very sorry I was about Ms Lang and what happened to you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Parnell.
‘I know you refused our legal representation. Your choice. But the offer that was passed on to you remains. Anything Dubette can do…’
‘That’s very generous and I appreciate it,’ said Parnell. ‘It’s France I want to talk about.’
‘You spoken to Dwight?’
Parnell shook his head. ‘Not since he came here. His office say he’s ill.’
‘On the very edge of a complete nervous breakdown, according to his doctor. And Dubette’s – Barbara Spacey as well – whom I’ve had see him.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Parnell.
‘None of us did,’ said Grant. ‘He’ll get every treatment, of course.’
‘Treatment?’ queried Parnell.
‘Hospitalization,’ said Grant. ‘Dwight’s seriously unwell. It’s going to take a long time. No one can predict how successful the recovery will be. He collapsed, apparently, when he got back from seeing me. A highway patrol found him talking to himself, on a lay-by, the car still running. They thought at first he was drunk.’
The mood switchbacks had always been unpredictable, but Parnell had never suspected Newton to be seriously mentally unwell. ‘There’s been nothing said… no indication… at McLean?’ Why, Parnell wondered, had Grant asked if he’d spoken to Newton if the man were as ill as this?
‘There’d been warnings, from his doctor. That’s what he came up to tell me. And to resign as research vice president.’
‘Resign?’ said Parnell.
‘He’d been with Dubette for more than twenty years. His contribution to the company is incalculable…’ There was another hesitation. ‘Can you believe, as sick as he was, coming up here to resign, he still managed to tell me of your concern?’
‘Yes I can,’ said Parnell, bringing himself back to the purpose – and the determination – of his being in New York. ‘I think it should be your concern, too. I’m not convinced the French mistakes have been cleared up. I tried to find out when I spoke to Henri Saby. He told me to talk to Dwight or to you. Dwight said it was still being recovered. Obviously there’s a lot still in circulation: thousands of doses, according to Dwight. There’s got to be a public statement, a warning. If there’s not and there are provable deaths, Dubette could be destroyed…’ Parnell checked himself, hearing what he was saying. ‘The deaths don’t have to be provable. People, children, will die if they take the medicines Dubette’s French subsidiary has put out on the market.’