‘I’ve an appointment with Professor Kelman.’
‘And your name?’
‘Dr Dewar.’
‘Ah yes. from …’ She slipped her spectacles down to the end of her nose and tilted her head back slightly to ease reading from the diary in front of her. ‘The Sci-Med Inspectorate.’
Dewar was shown into a well appointed room by university standards and greeted by Kelman, a tall, angular man with sloping shoulders and a university tie drawing his shirt collar a little too tight. He had very large hands and feet and wore fawn coloured twill trousers that ended a couple of inches short of where they should have. This, in turn, exposed chequered socks that Dewar assumed could only have been a Christmas present from a close but colour-blind relative.
‘I understand we have been naughty boys,’ said Kelman.
Kelman’s seeking to diminish the crime at the outset did not endear him to Dewar. Apart from anything else it cast him in the role of petty official come to annoy an important man with better things to do.
‘You do appear to be in contravention of a WHO/UN ruling endorsed by HM Government, Professor,’ he replied, pushing the stakes right back up again.’
‘Oh dear,’ replied Kelman, now unsure which facial expression to adopt. It was too late to play the contrite card and trivialising the infringement clearly hadn’t worked. ‘What exactly is it that we’re supposed to have done?’
Best you could do in the circumstances, thought Dewar. Ignorance of the crime. Not acceptable in law but always a good first step in moving yourself sideways away from blame.
‘You are licensed to hold two fewer fragments of the smallpox virus than you admitted to in your recent audit submission. This actually brings you above the twenty percent of the genome limit that the WHO has recommended.’
‘Recommended?’ said Kelman, thinking he’d found an linguistic loophole.
‘Enforceable by law in this country,’ added Dewar, closing it off.
‘I see,’ sighed Kelman, ‘Well, this appears to be more serious than I thought and it’s Dr Davidson’s territory, I fear.’
‘It was bound to be someone else’s,’ thought Dewar. No matter, the buck stopped with the head of department, as far as he or anyone else in authority was concerned. It was now just a question of how many others Kelman was going to take down with him.
‘Perhaps I could have a word with Dr Davidson?’
‘Of course. Would you like me to be present?’
‘As the responsibility is finally yours Professor, I’ll leave that up to you,’ replied Dewar.
Kelman’s grin lacked conviction.
A small, thin man wearing Levi jeans and a crushed, grey Tee shirt came in through the door. Dewar thought he knew the type. They were common enough in academia, undersized, spectacle wearing, Mummy’s boys, bad at games, lousy at PT, unattractive to the opposite sex, guys with more hang-ups than a washing line, guys who’d finally found a safe, secure environment in the institutionalised world of academia where they could relax and call themselves, Mike or Steve, where on the outside they’d always been Michael or Steven. They could now wear jeans and be ‘team leaders’ where before they’d always been the type nobody wanted on their team in any capacity let alone as leader. For them an academic appointment was, get-your-own-back time.
Alison tells me there’s some bureaucratic problem,’ snapped Davidson, pointedly looking at his watch. Dewar noted it was a double Y-chromosome man’s watch, one that could probably tell you the time, in Tokyo at two hundred feet under the Baltic Sea. It looked like a soup plate on Davidson’s scrawny wrist.
‘There’s a problem with your audit return for the smallpox virus fragments you’ve been using, Mike,’ said Kelman.
‘Jesus,’ exclaimed Davidson. ‘Why don’t we all stop doing research and just fill in forms. That’s what it’s coming to.’
If he expected an apologetic response from Dewar, he was badly disappointed. ‘If you don’t come up with good explanation for the discrepancy in your return that’s exactly what you’re going to be doing anyway, Dr Davidson,’ said Dewar, matter of factly.
Davidson looked shell shocked. ‘Who is this … What the … Can he do this?’ he appealed to Kelman.
Kelman shrugged his shoulders. ‘I understand the Sci-Med Inspectorate do have considerable powers should they choose to use them.’
‘Look, it was obviously just a clerical error,’ said Davidson, starting to back-pedal
You’ll have to do better than that, thought Dewar.
‘Perhaps we could go through the audit statement and you could point out just where the error occurred, Doctor?’
‘I suppose I could try.’
And you’ll have to do a lot better than that.
Davidson’s lab was on the floor below. He led the way as if every step were an intrusion on his day and he wanted Dewar to know it. When they finally reached ‘The Davidson Lab’ as it was posted on the outside of the door, they were met by a tall blonde man who was just exiting with a rack of tubes in his hand.
‘Eric, I need the list of the smallpox fragments you made up for me,’ snapped Davidson.
‘Okay, just give me a moment.’
‘Now, Eric!’
The big Swede, towering over Davidson gave an embarrassed shrug and retreated back into the lab. He put down his rack and went off to get the list. When he came back, Dewar gave him a smile of reassurance and it was returned. ‘There is a problem?’
‘We seem to have more fragments than the regulations allow.’ Davidson endowed the word with distaste. This gentleman has come to check up on us.’
Dewar held out his hand and said, ‘Adam Dewar, Sci-Med Inspectorate.’
‘Eric Larsen. I’m a post doc here.’
The two tall men stood with Davidson in between them like the meat in an under-filled sandwich.
‘You must have screwed up the paperwork, Eric,’ said Davidson petulantly.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied the Swede. ‘I think you checked it yourself when I was finished.’
‘I didn’t check it, I signed it. God, do I have to do every little thing myself in this place.’
Larsen moved uncomfortably from one foot to the another. Dewar sympathised with the big man but decided to keep a stony countenance. It was always unwise to get involved in the politics of such a situation. He opened his brief case and brought out his copy of the official fragment list for the department. ‘Maybe you could read from yours and we can identify and agree the extra pieces.
‘Sure,’ said Larsen. He started through the list.
Half way through, Dewar said, ‘No, I don’t have that one.’
Larsen read out the number again.
‘No, definitely not.’
Davidson snatched the paper from Larsen and asked, ‘Are you absolutely sure about this fragment?’
‘Sure I’m sure. I went through the fridge, just like you asked. This one was there. I couldn’t have made the number up,’ said Larsen, letting his anger show just a little.
Dewar suddenly sensed in Davidson the stirring of a memory that he would rather not have recalled. It was something to do with his eyes that gave him away. There was a slight pause while Dewar presumed Davidson was searching for some way out of his predicament. Eventually he just said, ‘Oh dear.’
Humble pie time, thought Dewar.
‘I remember now,’ Davidson announced, clearing his throat to cover embarrassment, ‘Six months ago, I was talking to a French scientist; I met at the Birmingham virus meeting, you remember, Eric?’
Larsen nodded. He was enjoying Davidson’s discomfiture as much as Dewar was.
‘He was working as a post doc in Malloy’s lab in Edinburgh. Maybe he still is. He was working on much the same thing as us and he’d obtained DNA for a couple of smallpox fragments that I thought would be useful to us too. He agreed to send some to me to save me going through the usual bureaucratic channels. I quite forgot about that.’
‘Otherwise you wouldn’t have declared them on your audit,’ said Dewar.