‘That would be Dr Welsh. May I ask what it’s about?’
‘A cure for cancer.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘A possible cure for cancer.’
‘One moment, please.’
Gavin shifted his weight from foot to foot as he waited, mainly to keep warm, but nerves were also playing a part.
‘Graham Welsh; who is this, please?’
Gavin said who and what he was, and gave a brief outline of his research work on Valdevan.
‘Can I just stop you there?’ said Welsh. ‘You say you have already contacted the makers of the drug?’
‘Yes, it was the first thing we did. We thought they’d be pleased with our findings.’ Gavin grimaced at the hollow sound his words had now.
‘Telling them was a mistake,’ said Welsh. ‘Once you’ve done that it’s no longer possible to patent your idea.’
‘I don’t want to patent it,’ exclaimed Gavin. ‘I want someone to try it out.’
‘I can understand that,’ said Welsh. ‘But I’m afraid that’s something we really can’t help you with. It’s outwith our remit.’
‘Outwith your remit,’ echoed Gavin. ‘You mean, if you can’t sell it, you’re not interested?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’
‘How would you put it? Christ, you’re the Medical Research Council! Isn’t there a wee clue in the name?’
‘Does your supervisor know you’re making this call?’
‘Do they stick batteries up your arse in the morning?’
Gavin walked back to the med school, still fuming. He was met on the stairs by Tom Baxter who said, ‘I’ve been looking for you all over the place. Sutcliffe wants to see you and Frank.’
Simmons, who had been waiting for Gavin to turn up, was checking his watch and on the point of leaving the lab when Gavin appeared. They hurried along the corridor to Sutcliffe’s office together, only to be told by Liz that the time for a private meeting had passed. The departmental meeting about the BBC programme was now in progress in the small seminar room.
Simmons inclined his head towards Gavin as if asking a silent question, and Liz went on, ‘Graham said you should both attend.’
They entered to find Graham Sutcliffe and the academic staff in the early stages of discussing the programme format.
‘Ah, there you are,’ said Sutcliffe. ‘I did want to have a word in private with you two before the start of this meeting but... you weren’t available. Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it, I have decided that Gavin’s work, laudable though it is, should not be included in the programme at this particular moment in time.’
There was a hush in the room. ‘Why not?’ asked Simmons. ‘It has all the signs of being the most significant development in cancer research for years.’
‘It has potential, I’ll grant you, but all the objections I raised at the outset still stand, I’m afraid.’
‘Except one,’ said Simmons. ‘We’ve been running a trial on low-dose polymyxin treatment over the past week. Twelve volunteers were injected with the drug at the low dosage required and we’ve seen no side-effects... None at all.’
‘Be that as it may...’
‘Don’t dismiss it lightly, Graham; that was one of your major objections,’ said Simmons.
‘One of them,’ countered Sutcliffe.
‘Perhaps you’d care to remind everyone of the others?’
‘I will not be cross-examined in this manner,’ snapped Sutcliffe.
‘It’s important that we all know,’ said Simmons, as calmly as he could with a racing pulse and the feeling that he had just crossed the Rubicon uppermost in his mind.
‘I will not be party to anything that promises false hope to vulnerable people,’ announced Sutcliffe.
‘It’s real hope, Graham. It’s what you plan to put in the programme that’s going nowhere. I don’t mind the old boys patting each other on the back and calling each other distinguished, even dishing out prizes to one another, but not at the expense of the exclusion of something like this. If you won’t include Gavin Donnelly’s work in the programme, I’ll seek publicity for it elsewhere.’
‘Which would be totally irresponsible and might well be construed as bringing this university into disrepute,’ stormed Sutcliffe.
Simmons noted the threat of bigger guns being brought to bear on him, but did not react.
‘I urge you to think again,’ continued Sutcliffe. ‘To announce publicly that an untried —’
‘We are not exactly getting the chance to try it, are we?’ interrupted Simmons.
Sutcliffe continued unabashed. ‘By announcing that an untried and untested treatment could be their salvation would be putting the health and welfare of thousands of vulnerable people at risk.’
Simmons snapped. With a preliminary glance at the heavens as if seeking divine help, he leaned forward and fixed Sutcliffe with blazing eyes. ‘THEY’RE DYING OF CANCER, FOR FUCK’S SAKE! THEY DON’T HAVE ANY FUCKING HEALTH AND WELFARE ISSUES. THEY ARE DYING, OR HAD THAT ESCAPED YOUR ATTENTION?’
Jack Martin leapt to his feet, holding up his hands in an attempt to interrupt proceedings and limit the damage. He was helped by the stunned silence that enveloped the audience. ‘Gentlemen, this is getting us nowhere,’ he pleaded. ‘I suggest that we all calm down, get some coffee and reconvene in say, half an hour?’
People were ready to agree.
Gavin was back in the lab first. He told Mary and Tom what had happened. ‘Frank lost it big time. What a hero. You should have seen Sutcliffe’s face.’
‘I really don’t understand why Graham refuses to have your stuff in the programme, as a preliminary study if nothing else. You’d think it would do the department nothing but good,’ said Mary.
‘It’s personal,’ suggested Tom. ‘He really doesn’t like you.’
This brought a smile of resignation from Gavin just as Simmons came into the room. He looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I don’t think you should come back into the meeting, Gavin,’ he said. ‘Just in case the professor decides to make it a double crucifixion.’
‘You were brilliant,’ said Gavin.
‘No, I wasn’t,’ insisted Simmons. ‘I lost my temper and blew any chance we might have had of getting Professor Sutcliffe to change his mind.’
‘He was never going to do that, Frank,’ said Gavin.
‘I don’t think so either,’ said Mary, and Tom nodded his agreement, adding, ‘He hates Gavin.’
‘All the same...’ Simmons let out his breath in a long, weary sigh. ‘Any coffee going?’
The four of them stood in the lab sipping coffee, Simmons preoccupied by what had happened and the others trying to think of something light to say. When all else failed, Gavin told Simmons of his earlier conversation with the head of the MRC technology transfer unit. Simmons shook his head. ‘Christ, who would have thought that it would be so...’ He let the slump in his shoulders say the rest.
Simmons suggested that Gavin maintain a low profile for the time being. He would call him when there had been some kind of resolution. He started out to return to the meeting when he met Liz in the corridor. ‘I heard what happened,’ she whispered in confidential fashion. ‘Graham’s desperately afraid he’ll lose it if you don’t back down over Gavin,’ she said.
‘Lose what?’
‘The block grant...’
Simmons’ eyes opened wide. ‘Are you saying that Grumman Schalk have been pressurising Graham?’
Liz looked alarmed. ‘I thought you knew,’ she murmured, as the enormity of her slip hit home to her. ‘Oh, my God, what have I done?’
Simmons patted her arm, although his mind had just gone into overdrive. ‘It’s all right, Liz,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it. It would have come out anyway...’
It was Jack Martin, not Graham Sutcliffe, who was first to speak when the meeting reconvened. It seemed only right as he had cast himself in the role of peacemaker before the break. He did his best to make light of what had gone before with references to passions running high and the ‘emotional minefield’ of a subject like cancer. He expressed the hope that they could put it all behind them.