‘Really? I’m all ears.’
‘Maybe not over the phone. How about this evening? Same place as last time? Any time suits me.’
‘Yeah... God, there aren’t enough hours in the day at the moment. Let me see, I’ve got a meeting with the money people or rather their representatives this afternoon and I promised Lucy I’d try to make it home for dinner this evening...’
He was still dithering when he heard Dorothy’s voice outside and that of a stranger. The man who paid the piper was about to call the tune.
‘Oh shit... got to go... okay, this evening, eight o’clock... the Moorings.’
Steven looked at his phone as it went dead. ‘A man on the edge,’ he murmured.
Steven noticed that Barrowman’s hands were shaking slightly as he poured his beer from bottle into glass. ‘Are you sure you should be here?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. You said you had some news about Moorlock Hall?’
‘It’s no longer a secret,’ said Steven. ‘A parliamentary committee is being set up to investigate what’s been going on. You seemed excited about the progress you were making there and I wasn’t sure how this might affect your research so I thought I’d let you know.’
‘Shit, that’s all I need, a bunch of interfering busybodies sticking their noses in.’
‘You said you just had the one patient there, Malcolm Lawler. Do you still have a lot of work to do with him, or are you close to having all you need?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
The question startled Steven. ‘I don’t really,’ he replied. ‘I just thought I might ask John to see if he could delay things for a bit if you needed more time.’
The fact that Steven had maintained unwavering eye contact with him while giving his answer made Barrowman realise that his snapped question and what lay behind it might have been out of order. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m under pressure from all sides at the moment to explain myself and what I’m doing. That was very decent of you, I’m grateful.’
‘So, do I ask him?’
‘Yes, thanks, I do have quite a lot of samples but I need Lawler to talk to me some more. He holds the key to something I’d really like to understand and there’s no way of knowing how a distraction might affect that.’
‘You say you’re under pressure. I don’t understand. Why’s that?’
‘There’s a chance I’m on to something big,’ Barrowman confided, ‘something really big.’
‘Surely that’s something you should be pleased about, not a source of anguish?’
‘You don’t understand the research community,’ said Barrowman.
‘Tell me.’
Barrowman took a swig of his beer and sighed. ‘People imagine researchers all work for the common good, they share ideas and results and encourage and help each other in any way they can in the fight to cure disease and understand what makes us the way we are.’
‘I guess.’
‘Wrong. It’s one big competition. You don’t help the opposition, you beat them any way you can. You don’t get a Nobel prize for being second to discover something. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in curing disease — that doesn’t make money — they make money from treating it. Designing products to treat chronic conditions is the real name of the game. Why produce vaccines to prevent disease when you can produce pills that people will need and perhaps will take for the rest of their lives. Vaccines wipe out potential customers.’
Steven remembered Sci-Med’s latest turn-down, but said, ‘Surely there must be some good guys out there?’
Barrowman pursed his lips but didn’t say more.
‘Another beer?’
Barrowman nodded.
Steven went up to the bar and used the wait to figure out where he went from here. Barrowman sounded completely paranoid, but he suspected there was more to it? Paranoid was an adjective applied freely to everyone who felt put-upon and for whatever reason. Barrowman was a researcher at the top of his game who believed he was on the verge of discovering something important, but he seemed convinced that he was surrounded by people who wanted to steal the glory from him. To compound the situation, he had been keeping company with psychotic criminals to such an extent that he might even be seeing life through their eyes. What a mess.
Steven paid for the beers and brought them to the table, still undecided as to whether he should proceed with more questions or call it a night. Barrowman looked up and smiled self-consciously. ‘Sorry about that. I think I needed to let off steam.’
The fact that Barrowman had calmed down helped Steven make his decision. ‘So where do you fit into this fun-filled picture of science?’ he asked. ‘You’re a researcher on to something you think might be big and you’d like recognition if it works out. Who do you see standing in your way? Professor Lindstrom?’
‘The head of the group always takes credit for whatever comes up in the lab. Her name will be on the paper, which she will probably insist on writing, and there will be an asterisk next her name making herself corresponding author.’
Steven gave him a questioning look.
‘People will write to her with comments and questions.’
‘Does that make you feel bitter?’
‘That’s just the way it is, but...’
‘But what?’
‘She used my work to get funds for her whole group without any reference to me. That still pisses me off, particularly as it turns out we don’t know where the money’s coming from or why they’re giving it.’
‘Ah,’ said Steven, ‘I can understand you feeling upset about that.’
Barrowman seemed pleased to hear what he took as support.
‘You said you were having a meeting with your benefactors this afternoon,’ said Steven. ‘How did that go?’
‘It was a bit bizarre really. They sent along a lawyer and some scientific advisor guy. Dorothy asked me to give them a run down on what I’d been up to and then take questions from their advisor.’
‘Sensible questions?’
Barrowman thought for a moment before saying, ‘Yes, he seemed to know what he was talking about... maybe a bit too informed if you ask me.’
Steven adopted a puzzled look.
‘I didn’t mention Moorlock Hall in my talk because I didn’t want to say anything about Lawler. I wanted to keep that to myself for the time being so I confined my report to my work with the prisoners I’d seen in other establishments and stressed it was too soon to come to any conclusions about anything as we haven’t had the facilities for sample analysis.’
‘Sounds like you really didn’t want to tell them anything at all,’ said Steven.
Barrowman shrugged.
‘Not something you can keep up for too long.’
‘I suppose not,’ Barrowman conceded.
‘What did you mean when you said you thought the advisor might be too well informed — did he have a name by the way?’ Steven’s inquiry was a long way from being ‘by the way’.
‘He was introduced as Dr Neil Tyler, Scottish by the sound of him, a forensic psychologist. He asked about the number of samples I’d collected, whether I had enough and was finished doing that or whether there were still more to come... and where from. I suspected he knew about Moorlock Hall and was trying to wheedle information out of me.’
‘Was he successful?’
‘I felt I had to tell him I was still working with a patient.’
‘At Moorlock Hall?’
‘I thought I’d better say that in case Dorothy had already told him.’
‘Had she?’
‘She said not when I asked her afterwards.’
‘Did Tyler know about Moorlock Hall?’