Final Venture

'They must have spoken on the phone,' I said. 'But the autopsy records should be easy to get.'

Lisa's hamburger arrived, and she munched on it nervously.

'You were right,' I said.

'Yes,' she replied. She gave me a small smile. 'Thank you for proving it.'

'You read in my note how Dr Catarro spoke to your father just before he died,' I said quietly.

Lisa nodded and bit her lip.

'I didn't kill him,' I said.

She looked down. 'I didn't want to meet you here, Simon. But you were right. This neuroxil-5 stuff is important. What I don't want to do is talk about us, OK?'

I sighed. 'How have you been feeling since you came out here?'

'Better,' said Lisa. 'I mean, I still feel awful about Dad. And I'm angry about Boston Peptides, and about you, and…' she paused. 'Sorry. We weren't going to talk about us. But the world doesn't seem quite as black as it did. Out here, I can see a new life. Some days, I almost feel human. It was the right thing to do.'

'Don't you miss me?' I asked, and then immediately regretted it.

She bit her lip, and ignored the question.

'Sorry. Can I ask you something else?'

'Maybe,' she mumbled, eyes lowered.

'Has Kelly spoken to you about the BP 56 trials?'

Lisa shook her head, but I had caught her interest.

'They're going well apart from one thing. Apparently, the drug causes depression in some of the volunteers who are taking it. It can reduce the levels of serotonin in the brain.' Now I had all her attention. 'When did you start taking it?'

'You remember. About a week after Dad died. We had all the animal data in, but we couldn't start giving the drug to volunteers until it had all been processed. We just didn't have the time to wait that long, so I started taking it myself to get an early indication of any side-effects.'

'And when did you stop? When you came out here?'

'Yes. When I was fired from Boston Peptides there didn't seem much point any more.'

I wanted to ask her again why she had been so stupid as to take an untested drug herself. But I didn't. I stayed quiet.

She put her head in her hands. 'That explains a lot. No wonder I felt so bad. Why didn't I realize that was what was happening?'

'There was a lot else going on,' I said.

'I guess you're right,' Lisa was shaking her head. 'How stupid! I mean, I was keeping a diary of how I felt, recording the tiniest change in my bowel movements. And there was I, feeling more miserable than I've ever felt in my life, and I didn't even notice it.'

'You weren't exactly in a position to think clearly.'

'I guess I wasn't.'

And now you've stopped taking it. Maybe that's why you feel better now?'

She looked up thoughtfully. 'Maybe.'

'Now can I tell you why I didn't kill your father?' I said quietly.

'Simon, I said-'

'I have a right to tell you. Just once. All you need to do is listen, and then you can go back to Eddie and your job at Stanford.'

She took a deep breath. 'OK.'

'Three people have been murdered in the last couple of months: your father, John Chalfont and Dr Catarro. The one thing that links all three is BioOne.'

'You said Dr Catarro died in a car accident,' Lisa interrupted.

'Yes. But it could have been faked.'

'Could have been?'

I fought to maintain my patience. 'Yes. Dr Catarro discovered that too many of his patients were dying after taking neuroxil-5. He was going to make a big fuss about it. He mentioned this to your father at a dinner party. Your father made his own inquiries. He asked Art amongst others about the drug. Knowing Frank, he would have been quick to reveal his suspicions as soon as he knew them. So someone killed both of them.'

Lisa was listening quietly now.

'Then John discovered something suspicious about BioOne, which he wanted to tell me about. So he was murdered. And when I was getting closer to what has happened, they tried to shoot me.'

'Shoot you?' Lisa exclaimed.

'Yes. Outside our apartment.'

'Oh, my God!' She put her hand over her mouth. 'Why would anyone do that?'

'If neuroxil-5 fails to get FDA approval, BioOne will be worthless. That will be very bad for a lot of people. There's Enever and Jerry Peterson. And the company means everything to Art. He's been looking more and more unstable since all this started.'

I watched Lisa. She was listening closely. 'But what about the gun I found in our closet, Simon?'

'I don't know about that,' I said. 'Someone must have put it there.'

'But who? How?'

I shook my head. 'I don't know'

Lisa was silent for a moment. 'Eddie's sure you did it.'

'I know. But what about John? And Dr Catarro? Why would I kill them? And why would I try to get myself shot?'

'I don't know.'

We were coming to the reason I had flown all this way. To the moment when I would know whether everything I had been doing over the last month had been worthwhile.

'I have one more question, and then you can go away and never see me again if you want,' I began. 'I can see how when you were so upset about your father and you were taking that drug you might have thought all kinds of things. But now, here, I want to know.' I took a deep breath. 'Do you think I murdered your father?'

Lisa looked down at the Formica table, and the debris of her burger. She fidgeted with a paper napkin.

'Lisa?'

'I don't…' she mumbled.

'Lisa. Look at me. Answer me. And then you can go.'

She looked up. A small nervous smile touched her lips. She shook her head. 'No,' she said. 'I don't think you killed him.'

I couldn't believe it! I was so happy, I wanted to leap into the air and shout. But I controlled myself. I knew I still had a long way to

go.

I looked at her empty plate. 'A hamburger?' I asked. 'I thought you never ate that kind of stuff.'

'It's my craving,' Lisa said. 'You'd have thought it could have been something truly delicious like double chocolate chip ice cream. But it's burgers and fries.'

'How are you?' I asked. 'How's the baby?'

Her hand fell to her stomach. I thought I could perhaps see a slight thickening of her waist, but maybe I was imagining it.

'I'm lousy. I've been throwing up almost every morning. And in the evenings, too, sometimes.' Then she looked up and her eyes gleamed. 'I saw the baby, Simon. I had an ultrasound on Friday. It's real. It has a head and it moves and everything!'

I wished I'd been there, but I couldn't say it.

It had stopped raining outside. 'Come on, let's get out of here,' I said.

We left the diner and walked. I wasn't quite sure where we were, and I didn't care where we went.

'I wasn't going to come,' Lisa said. 'I took your letter out of the trash can, like you knew I would. Then I dialled into Net Cop's network. I was up all night working through those files. I realized there was definitely something wrong with neuroxil-5 after all. But I still couldn't face seeing you. I told Eddie I wouldn't go. And then ten o'clock passed, and I felt worse and worse. But in the end, after what had happened to Aunt Zoe' and everything you'd done to get the information, I knew I had to see you,' she said. 'And you were still there!'

I reached for her hand and squeezed it. 'Only just.'

We walked through puddles, weaving our way past other pedestrians. Above us, blue sky was ripping through the black clouds. Isolated streams of sunshine illuminated the newly watered Victorian buildings of the Haight, giving the faded hippiedom of the shops and cafes a new glister.

'What have you been doing?' she asked.

I told her. I talked long and hard, about Revere, BioOne, Art, Gil, Craig, getting shot at, her. All the thoughts that had been rushing round my head over the previous week burst out in a torrent, as though a dam had been breached. Lisa was the only person in the world I had ever been able to tell everything to: it felt so good to talk to her again.

We entered Golden Gate Park. I assumed Lisa had steered us there, I had paid no attention to where we were going. We walked across to the Japanese Tea Garden, where Lisa had taken me on our first trip to San Francisco together. Because of the rain, it was virtually empty. We sat on a bench next to a miniature bridge over a tiny stream. The sun had emerged now, as the black clouds scurried over the Bay somewhere to the east. Water glistened on the moss-covered stones and lush green foliage, and gurgled through the stream beside us. I put my arm round her and pulled her close.