beginning I didn't know they were the mob. They crept up on me. I wanted large injections of cash without questions being asked and I approached one guy I knew from way back, who promised to talk to a venture capital person, and so on. One day a wad of money arrived. I didn't know it was mafia money until they followed up. Then I found myself talking to Massimo Gatti, who everyone knows is a mafioso.'
'Yet you didn't back out at that stage?'
He glared at Diamond. 'You should try backing out on a man like Gatti.'
'So you were in his pocket'
'They saw ways of making big bucks on the stock market It was crazy. They set fire to one of the Manflex plants in Italy. Reduced it to ashes. You know why? To depress the market price so they could buy in on favorable terms. I wasn't a party to that, believe me. I only heard about it later. That was when I realized I was way out of my league.'
'Did you know at the time that PDM3 was dangerous?'
'At the time I borrowed the money? Christ, no. What kind of monster do you think I am?'
'You trusted Professor Churchward?'
'Sure. He's a great scientist. Believe me, he wasn't part of this mess. Okay, he knew there were some ADRs- adverse drug reactions-but he believed they could be kept to a minimum with the right dosage.'
'When did you find out the truth?'
'About Jantac? Six or seven months back. By that time, there was no going back.'
'How did it come to light?'
'Alaric called me one afternoon with some technical query. He said he was aware that a number of preliminary studies had been started with the compound and not proceeded with. That's quite usual. Testing new drugs for biological activity can be a long and frustrating process and on top of that you're sure to have plenty of failures trying to discover if they have any medical potential. He wanted to know if there was anything still on file. I promised to run a computer check. I keyed in the chemical formula-'
'And found the file on Jantac?'
Leapman remembered and winced. 'It was a real kick in the guts. The crucial decisions were made back in 1985, a couple of years before I joined the company. Dr. Masuda had done two years of testing here in Japan in her research into alcoholic comas, using the same compound as PDM3 under the proprietary name of Jantac. I learned that Manny had personally axed the research after Dr. Masuda detected liver damage that was caused by Jantac. The name Jantac was deleted from our list of drugs under research. I was deeply shocked when I learned this. By this time I'd staked my career and my personal savings in the same lousy drug.'
'Didn't you inform Churchward?'
'No.' Leapman shook his head, and it was an expression of regret. 'I faxed him some of the other studies I found, but I kept quiet about this Jantac bombshell. I hoped it might not be the serious problem it first appeared to be. Sometimes Manny Flexner was too cautious for bis own good. He took no risks whatsoever with drugs. Every drug has ADRs, and I argued to myself that alcoholism causes liver damage anyway, so maybe those Japanese results wouldn't show up to the same degree in patients who drank in moderation. Alaric Churchward's brilliant work on Alzheimer's didn't have to be jettisoned just because Manny was so ultracareful.'
'All right, you rationalized,' said Diamond, becoming impatient. 'What did you do about it? Altered the records, for a start.'
'That was no problem. I could do that sitting in my office and I did.'
Diamond refrained from pointing out that he should also have gone down to the basement where the old file cards were kept.
'Computer records are simple to wipe,' Leapman was saying. 'But this had a human dimension.'
Diamond gave a nod. 'And you can't wipe humans so easily.'
Leapman glared in defiance. 'I am not a killer. Sure, I could foresee problems with Dr. Masuda. She was a real risk if she got to hear about PDM3. It was quite possible that she had a grudge against Manflex for what happened. I made some inquiries and learned that after her research was axed she stopped work altogether. She hadn't gone back since. So I flew to Yokohama to see her.'
'Independently-without telling the mafia?'
'Yes. My idea was to buy her goodwill. I'd get her back to work on coma research, using some safe drugs we'd developed recently. Then I would change her file to make it appear that we'd continued to sponsor her without a break. But there was a complication.'
'Naomi?'
'Excuse me?'
'The child. Naomi is what I call her.'
'Ah. I understand. Yes, discovering that the little girl existed was a real shock, and even more so when I found that she was autistic. She needed round-the-clock attention. The only way I could get Dr. Masuda back to work was by finding a surrogate mother. Well, I discussed it with Dr. Masuda. After seven years of caring for a kid who doesn't respond one bit, she was ready for a break if we could find someone. I agreed to meet the cost. She already knew a woman in the University who'd had a kid who died. She'd wanted to adopt, but she was a single parent and the adoption agencies wouldn't play ball.'
'Mrs. Tanaka?'
'Right. There was no question of letting her adopt, but we were willing to let her care for the kid. In fact, she could take her on a vacation. It worked out quite neatly in theory. Mrs. Tanaka knew the kid a bit. I put up the money for a trip to England, to get-what name did you give her?'
'Naomi.'
'… to get Naomi right away at the time I was planning to unseat Manny Rexner. PDM3 was going to be the resignation issue and it had to be watertight'
'But why. Why go to so much trouble over a little girl?'
'Because she was the living proof that Dr. Masuda quit researching in 1985.1 could buy Dr. Masuda's silence, but I couldn't explain away the child if someone did some digging.'
'Who did you fear? Manny?'
Leapman shook his head. 'He was unlikely to make the connection with Jantac, even though he dumped it himself. He wasn't really a scientist. No, the people I feared were outside the company. The medical press, the stock market analysts, our rivals in the drug industry. They're damned quick in dredging up anything adverse they can find on a new drug. Nothing was published on Jantac, but somebody somewhere could have heard a whisper.'
'So you sent Mrs. Tanaka to London with Naomi.'
'It seemed like a neat solution, but she fucked up everything. Everything. Maybe those adoption agencies knew something, because Mrs. Tanaka couldn't cope. An autistic child was all too much, and one day she panicked and abandoned her in Harrods. The next thing it was ail over the British press and on TV. It was a news story. There was even an item in the
'But nobody knew the child's identity,' Diamond reminded him.
Leapman erupted. 'For God's sake! Every tabloid in England and Japan wanted to know who the dumb kid in Harrods was. It was a great human interest story. Our papers carried it. The only question was which smart-ass reporter would be the first to trace her mother.'
'Through Mrs. Tanaka? You're telling me that's why Mrs. Tanaka had to be murdered?'
'Listen, I was facing annihilation myself. Soon as one of those guys got to Mrs. Tanaka she would blow the whole project. She'd tell them about the arrangement with Dr. Masuda. The connection with Manflex would be out in the open. All those wiseguys looking for some flaw in PDM3 would be alerted. I had to act fast, and I couldn't do it alone.'
'So you explained the problem to your mafia friends and they put out a contract on Mrs. Tanaka.'
'Not my friends. And I was never a party to murder,'
'But you kept them informed. She must have got in touch with you before she flew to New York with Naomi.'
'Listen, you've got to understand that these people were breathing down my neck. When Manny committed
