Was he looking for a big lie or a little one? Start with the big. Could what he and Macmillan had been told by people at ministerial level be a complete load of nonsense, designed to elicit their sympathy and gain their collusion in keeping it quiet? Maybe the children had not been given a new anti-TB vaccine at all? Perhaps they had been given something else entirely and for some other reason?
Steven shook his head in an involuntary gesture of dismissal, noting that he’d just got a nervous sideways glance from a man out walking his dog. This was going too far, he reckoned, and would demand the involvement of too many people. It made him think of the old adage, Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.
He felt inclined to accept that the Nichol vaccine was exactly what the authorities maintained it was — a new and much needed vaccine against TB. So, what did that leave to lie about? The problem with the toxin, that’s what, he concluded, the contamination of the vials with an unidentified poisonous substance. There was something wrong with that story.
Phillip St Clair had told him that it had been one of a number of compounds being checked out by a pharmaceutical company looking for new anti-cancer drugs so, being experimental, it wouldn’t be listed in any lab handbook but, even if it wasn’t a listed substance, shouldn’t one of the labs investigating the samples taken from Keith Taylor or Trish Lyons have noted the presence of a toxin, even an unknown one?
Steven wasn’t sure. It may have been present in such small quantities that it hadn’t been picked up. Maybe the automated analytical equipment had simply not recognised it and therefore failed to report it. It was also possible that the vials had been contaminated to varying degrees so that some children got a bigger dose of toxin than others but that seemed less likely. If this had been the explanation for the toxin rampaging through Keith Taylor’s body like a full-blown infection, the lab would almost certainly have uncovered evidence of its presence and they hadn’t.
SEVENTEEN
Steven called the duty officer at Sci-Med and asked him to ring round the labs involved in analysing material taken from either Trish Lyons or Keith Taylor to ask about the presence of toxic compounds — identified or unidentified. He had his answer within an hour. The hospital labs in Carlisle and Edinburgh both reported that they had carried out routine biochemical analysis on a number of samples: all were negative for toxins. The London lab which had analysed the samples taken from Keith Taylor at the second post mortem and which was furnished with the best equipment money could buy had also drawn a blank.
Steven sighed but had to admit that the lab results were pretty much what he’d expected. After all, if any of them had noted the presence of a toxin, they would have reported it before now, but the negatives did raise an obvious question. If St Clair Genomics had detected the presence of a toxin in the vaccine vials, why hadn’t the relevant labs found it in the patients? He supposed it might have had something to do with breakdown of the toxin in the body — some poisons did this and could therefore remain undetected — but this was outside his area of expertise. He would have to seek expert advice but first he needed to gather more information about the contaminating toxin. Phillip St Clair didn’t have any chemical details; a talk to Redmond Medical was called for. He phoned Sci-Med and asked that they make contact with a senior person at Redmond Medical. He also asked for business background information on both St Clair and Redmond.
‘It’s Saturday afternoon,’ said the duty man. ‘It’ll probably mean getting someone at home.’
‘Fine.’
‘And the background info, when do you need that?’
‘Now.’
‘Watch this space, as they say.’
Steven smiled at the good-humoured response. He liked laid-back people.
The duty man called back forty-five minutes later. ‘Sorry, all the senior people at Redmond seem to be away for the weekend but I’ve managed to contact a Mr Giles Dutton; he’s the line maintenance manager at the company. He lives in Moulden at 34, Lipton Rise. He’s expecting your call.’
Steven noted down the number. ‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Jean Roberts has some stuff on Redmond. She says she’ll email it to you. She’s working from home.’
Thanks again.’
Steven had doubts about whether a line maintenance manager would be able to give him the information he was after, namely the identity of the toxic agent. He suspected not but, as he had nothing else to do meantime and nuggets of information often came from unlikely sources, he called Dutton and asked if he could come and speak to him.
‘Please yourself,’ replied Dutton.
It wasn’t quite the response Steven had expected but he took it as a yes and said that he’d be in Moulden in a couple of hours.
‘Right.’
Steven set off, feeling less than optimistic about getting anything at all out of Dutton who had sounded less than interested and hadn’t even bothered to ask what it was about but at least he was doing something. He was pleasantly surprised when a friendly looking woman opened the door to him at the pretty white bungalow in Lipton Rise. She invited him in. ‘Giles is in the conservatory,’ she said. ‘It’s through here…’
Steven followed her through a living room smelling strongly of furniture polish and out through French doors into a conservatory where the temperature was several degrees higher because of the sun on the glass. A man with thinning red hair and a matching pale complexion sat there in a cane armchair, glasses on his nose, feet up on a small footstool as he read his newspaper.
‘It’s the gentleman you’re expecting, dear.’
‘Steven Dunbar,’ said Steven.
Dutton grunted and pushed his glasses up his nose but didn’t get up.
‘Perhaps you’d like some tea or coffee, Dr Dunbar?’ asked the smiling woman. Steven got the impression she might be well used to being excessively polite and helpful in order to make up for her husband’s shortcomings.
‘Coffee would be lovely, thank you.’
Steven showed Dutton his ID card but he waved it away. ‘Makes no odds, just state your business.’
Steven sat down on the other cane armchair and said, ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions about the chemical that contaminated the St Clair company vaccine.’
‘Like what?’ said Dutton, making a point of looking out of the window at a high conifer hedge in the garden rather than at Steven.
‘Ideally, I’d like to know what it was, where it came from and how it got into the vaccine vials.’
‘Me too,’ said Dutton.
‘I’m sorry?’
Dutton turned to face Steven. ‘I’d like to know that too,’ he said.
Steven sensed there was more to this comment than he was taking on board. Dutton wasn’t just being rude; he was very bitter about something. ‘You’ve no idea?’ he asked.
‘None whatsoever.’
‘But if the company don’t know what happened, you have no way of stopping it happening again,’ said Steven.
‘Very true,’ said Dutton with what appeared to Steven to be a wry smile.
‘If you’ll pardon my saying so, Mr Dutton, you don’t seem to be very concerned about something so serious,’ said Steven. ‘Surely, as production line maintenance manager, it’s your responsibility if contamination occurs?’
‘It would be if that’s what happened,’ said Dutton, adding to Steven’s mounting frustration.
‘Mr Dutton, you do accept that a toxic substance was found in the vaccine vials prepared by your company?’