Steven told her about the opinions Dorothy had expressed at the meeting about the direction of current research funding.
‘Wow.’
‘Wow indeed, but not entirely without foundation,’ said Steven quietly.
‘Maybe... but I mean...’
‘Not the wisest thing to come out with?’
‘Quite, I mean you’ve got to play the game, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe it should depend on how clean the game is,’ said Steven.
‘You don’t think it is?’
‘People are people. Human nature rules at whatever level of society you’re in.’
‘Not a happy thought if you really believe that the research grants system is corrupt. Do you?’
Steven shook his head. ‘No,’ he conceded. ‘Well, not at the level of cash exchanging hands in brown paper bags, but it’s not above having an old boys’ network who scratch each other’s backs. As to whether it extends to standing in the way of first rate research in order to settle old scores... who knows? John is going to try and find out at one of his lunches.’
Tally smiled. ‘Where the real truth leaks out.’
Steven nodded and asked, ‘How was your day?’
‘Life is good,’ replied Tally. ‘I am practicing medicine instead of spending my time arguing about targets and filling in forms.’
‘Being a consultant suits you.’
‘Nothing to do with that,’ said Tally. ‘We’re well funded and well managed. I now work in a proper hospital instead of being treated as a form-filling, box-ticking piece in a board game for third rate politicians and mediocre managers. It’s all about choice for patients, my backside. It’s all about money. Period.’
Steven smiled. He was used to hearing Tally sound off about the shortcomings of the National Health Service He was even pleased that her promotion and move had apparently done little to blunt her views, but felt obliged to point out what John Macmillan had said about special funding for Great Ormond Street.
‘I suppose,’ Tally conceded. ‘Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, smile sweetly and be terribly sympathetic to medics less fortunate than myself.’
‘Well, I was wondering how long it would be before the establishment gets to you and bends you to its will. You’ll be co-opted on to one committee after another until you can’t say a word without offending someone you shouldn’t.’
‘Aint gonna happen.’
‘Mm, maybe we should go out to eat before you start wearing a bow tie and playing golf,’ said Steven.
‘Maybe we should go out to eat before I pour the contents of this kettle over your head?’
The food at the Jade Garden Chinese restaurant was as good as it always was. Steven had been a regular there since joining Sci Med; Tally had only been there twice before — with Steven when she’d come to visit — but it was now a favourite haunt for them both.
‘Will John continue to lobby on mass vaccination?’ asked Tally after they’d placed their order.
‘I’m sure he will,’ said Steven, ‘but I think we’re both resigned to failure until...’
‘Until what?’
‘Until something actually happens... either by deliberate attack or through some awful epidemic arriving on our shores through chance or circumstance.’
Tally ended the ensuing pause. ‘Would you like to hear a happy story?’ she asked.
‘You bet. Have you got one?’
‘One of my patients, a little blind girl; is going to get her sight back.’
‘Surgery?’
Tally shook her head. ‘Stem cells. Isn’t that just brilliant?’
‘Now that is a happy story.’
‘Stem cell technology is just so exciting. It’s going to bring about such a revolution in medicine.’
‘Even if it’s a bit of embarrassment to science,’ said Steven.
Tally raised an eye.
‘Science doesn’t really understand how stem cells do what they do.’
‘As a clinician, I must say I don’t really care. It’s then end result I’m interested in. What’s their problem anyway?’
‘Differentiation,’ said Steven, ‘the holy grail of biology. How do absolutely identical cells in terms of their DNA diverge to become limbs and organs which are totally different from each other? Science doesn’t know but stem cells do. If we put them in the right place they’ll do the job for us.’
‘And that’s all I care about,’ said Tally. ‘If stem cells can make my patient see again, they can keep their secret.’
Steven nodded. ‘Actually,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘they may not be keeping their secret that much longer.’ He told Tally about Dorothy Lindstrom’s claims for epigenetics. ‘It makes so much sense,’ he added. ‘The DNA can’t change so it must be the switchgear that does the trick.’
Tally made thoughtful imaginary circles on her napkin with her forefinger. Eventually she looked up and said, ‘You know, there are times when I think we know so much and then, quite suddenly, I feel like we know nothing at all.’
‘Join the club.’
Three
A month passed before John Macmillan decided that his unofficial enquiries as to why the Lindstrom group had been turned down for funding were not going to bear fruit and he said as much to Steven.
‘It’s very strange,’ he said. ‘I don’t usually have trouble finding out what I want to know from Whitehall people, but everyone I spoke to below the Home Secretary herself genuinely didn’t seem to know. I’ll keep trying of course, but I’ll have to think of a different approach.’
‘Ask the Home Secretary?’
‘Maybe not. A bit difficult if personal vendettas are involved.’
Steven thanked him for trying and said he planned to set up a meeting soon with Owen Barrowman to find out how things were going. He’d pass on the bad news.
Owen Barrowman entered, The Moorings, the riverside pub where he had agreed to meet Steven at eight. It was a quarter past. He spotted Steven sitting in a corner, reading a newspaper and nursing a half empty glass.
‘Sorry I’m late, good to see you again,’ said Barrowman shrugging off his jacket and asking if Steven was ready for another. Steven said not and waited while his companion got himself a beer from the bar.
‘My sincere apologies, I hate being late but I forgot I had a meeting with my volunteer at Moorlock Hall today and it took longer than I’d anticipated.’
‘Moorlock Hall?’
Barrowman tapped his fingertips lightly off his forehead before saying, ‘Sorry, I’m not thinking straight, there’s no reason why you should know about it. I hadn’t heard of it myself until a few months ago. It’s all very hush hush.’ Barrowman leaned across the table to explain in muted tones just who were being held in Moorlock Hall.
Steven let out his breath in a low whistle. ‘I can see why they might want to keep that quiet,’ he murmured. ‘It probably contravenes every human rights regulation in the book. Do you know who sanctioned the place?’
‘I didn’t ask. To be honest, I don’t care. I just saw it as an opportunity to get data from some of the worst criminal psychopaths on the planet.’
Steven smiled at the single mindedness of the career scientist. ‘And has it turned out that way?’
Barrowman paused before saying, ‘Only one of the inmates agreed to take part in the study, a bit of a disappointment, but there’s something scarily special about this guy — one of the worst according to the medical superintendent and he’s certainly the most intriguing subject I’ve come across. Maybe you’ve heard of him, Malcolm Lawler?’
‘God, yes,’ Steven replied. ‘It was a long time ago, but I remember him, an absolute monster. He was all over the papers for weeks. Why did someone like him agree?’