Steven nodded and was led to a small ante-room to don mask and gown before entering the room where Trish lay, heavily sedated.
‘The nurses removed the dressings so we could show her mother the extent of the problem and they haven’t been reapplied yet so you can see it for yourself,’ said Fielding. He removed the light gauze covering from Trish’s arm and Steven saw the damage and grimaced at the sight.
‘The flesh is just sloughing off,’ said the doctor. ‘There’s no chance of recovery and every chance of gangrene setting in if we don’t act quickly.’
Steven nodded and the doctor replaced the gauze before moving down to Trish’s feet and saying, ‘These are the areas we fear might go the same way.’
Steven saw the discoloured patches on Trish’s legs. ‘Do you mind if I take a closer look?’ he asked.
‘Please do,’ said the doctor, holding out a box of disposable gloves for Steven to help himself.
As he bent down, Steven became aware of a woman standing at the viewing window next door — it was Trish’s mother. Her wan expression spoke volumes about the stress she was under. Steven went ahead and examined the patches, running his fingers over the surface in all directions and pinching at intervals before saying, ‘The flesh seems firm enough. What makes you think they might be becoming infected too?’
The doctor opened a sterile stylet pack and said, ‘Watch.’
Steven saw Trish move in her sleep when the doctor pricked an area of normal looking skin but fail to react when he did the same in the centre of one of the patches.
‘She’s losing sensation in these areas. Not a good sign.’
‘And not a recorded symptom of vitiligo either if I remember rightly,’ added Steven.
‘Good point,’ agreed Fielding.
‘Thank you,’ said Steven, stripping off his gloves and dumping them in a pedal bin. Both men left the room and joined Virginia Lyons and the nursing sister next door. Steven was introduced simply as Dr Dunbar without any further details being given.
‘Mrs Lyons has come to a decision,’ said the nurse.
‘I want you to go ahead with amputation,’ said Virginia as if every word had to be forced from her lips. ‘If it’s the only way to save her…’
‘I’m afraid it’s the only chance she’s got.’
Virginia made to move away but stopped and turned when she reached the door. ‘What were you doing with the needle to Trish’s legs?’ she asked.
‘Reaction testing,’ said the doctor.
‘Dr Haldane did that too,’ said Virginia vaguely.
‘It’s a fairly routine test, Mrs Lyons.’
Virginia Lyons looked as if a nightmare had just been born in her head. ‘My God, you’re not thinking of cutting her legs off too?’ she gasped.
‘Good heavens, no, nothing like that,’ said Fielding, clearly flustered as the nurse quickly put her arm round Virginia’s shoulders and led her away. She would have found the look that passed between Steven and the doctor far from reassuring.
TWELVE
Macmillan and Steven sat in silence for what seemed to be a very long time before Macmillan finally said, ‘You are seriously suggesting that someone in government presided over the injection of a noxious substance into over a hundred schoolchildren under the pretence of protecting them from TB with a vaccine?’
‘That’s what it’s beginning to look like,’ agreed Steven. ‘I don’t believe the kids were given BCG vaccine — there was no reason to give it to them. The kid who was supposed to have TB was a myth.’
‘So what did they give them and why, for God’s sake?’ mused Macmillan.
‘I think in the circumstances you may have to ask the DOH that after all,’ said Steven. ‘Jean has just told me that there is no pharmaceutical company with a name like Nichol or anything close to it. That being the case, my investigation has just hit the wall.’
Uneasy at the prospect of going to war with the upper echelons of government, Macmillan got up and walked over to the window. ‘God, will it ever stop raining,’ he complained as he looked out at the slow-moving snake of traffic outside.
‘Yes, if you believe the climate experts who predict imminent drought from climate change,’ said Steven. ‘No, if you believe the ones who predict widespread flooding and water-skiing in Whitehall.’
‘So cynical and you’re not even forty yet,’ sighed Macmillan.
‘All I ever ask for is proof,’ replied Steven, ‘and all I ever get is plausible-sounding bullshit.’
‘You do have a point,’ murmured Macmillan. ‘Plausibility is the new currency in science. I suppose it’s easier to come up with than fact.’
Steven had stopped listening. He was leaning forward in his chair, inclining his head to read the label stuck on a red folder lying in Macmillan’s ‘pending’ tray on his desk. ‘Nichol!’ he exclaimed.
‘What?’ asked Macmillan, turning away from the window.
Steven lifted the folder from the tray and said, ‘That was the name on the vaccine vials.’
‘It was the name of the young scientist who was killed in the hit and run accident I told you about a couple of weeks ago. Nichol, Alan Nichol. Could just be coincidence, I suppose…’
‘But there again, I remember you said he worked for a biotech company,’ said Steven. ‘D’you mind?’ He held up the folder and Macmillan nodded his assent.
Steven read through the report. ‘St Clair Genomics… I wonder.’
‘It was just sitting there waiting for the final police report,’ said Macmillan.
‘I’d like to check this out,’ said Steven.
‘If it gets me out of a head-to-head confrontation with DOH,’ said Macmillan, ‘by all means go ahead.’
‘Do we have anything more than this?’ asked Steven, holding up the slim report.
‘I did ask Jean to see if she could get more details just in case the police came up with anything that should concern us,’ said Macmillan, pressing the intercom button.
‘I have a file,’ came Jean Roberts’ reply.
Steven decided to read it before he left the building just in case there was anything else he needed to ask or request. As it turned out, there wasn’t. He had the names of the managing director of St Clair Genomics and a little about his background and also the name and address of the dead man, Nichol, along with some background information and his home address. There was also an accident report from the local police now some three weeks old.
Nichol had been walking his dog along an unclassified country road outside the village of Trenton where he lived in a rented cottage with his wife, Emma, when he had been hit by a car travelling at speed. The car had failed to stop and had not as yet been traced despite a villager claiming to have seen a red 4x4 moving at speed through the village around the time of Nichol’s death. No description of the driver had been forthcoming and Steven had the distinct impression that the police were treating the incident as a drunken hit and run.
Alan Nichol, he read, had been twenty-eight years old, a graduate of Glasgow University in Molecular Biology with first-class honours, who had gone on to do a PhD at Edinburgh University on genes affecting viral pathogenicity, followed by a three-year post-doctoral research position at the University of Cambridge. This was where he had been approached by Phillip St Clair, who ran his own small biotechnology company and who maintained good relations with the biological sciences departments at the university. He did this out of self-interest — he was always on the look-out for good ideas or promising researchers to recruit — although he liked to insist that the relationship was symbiotic and that he was always keen to share information.
St Clair’s charm and gift of the gab had helped enormously with this and, although everyone knew that his real interests were commercial rather than academic, he was generally accepted around the university. Although he had graduated in biological sciences himself, he had always planned to set up in business as soon as he could to exploit what he saw as the huge potential of molecular biology in medicine. His father had made a one-off investment in his son’s future some ten years ago by funding the set-up of St Clair Genomics, insisting that Phillip then stand or fall on his own merits.