‘I broke the rules, the holy rules, the sacred bloody rules and that little bitch decided to ruin my career. ’Ow long will I get?’
‘If Sandra dies, thirty years. If she doesn’t maybe a bit less. But if you’ve reconstructed that virus and handed it over they’re going to bring back hanging specially for you and I’ll be cheering in the front row so tell me, how far did you get?’
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ said Le Grice.
Dewar shrugged and said, ‘If you really want to play it that way it’s time we were going.’
Le Grice shook his head slowly. ‘I think not,’ he said.
Dewar felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise; he became very wary. Although Le Grice was still sitting on the floor and there was no way he could mount an attack, the words made him feel uneasy. The feeling heightened when he saw Le Grice take out a surgical scalpel from his inside pocket and take off the blade protector.
‘That’s what you cut the ventilator with,’ he said, remembering the clean, sharp incisions in the plastic tubing.
Le Grice smiled and moved to bring his legs round. ‘I really did underestimate you,’ he said.
‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ cautioned Dewar, as Le Grice started to move into a kneeling position. ‘You’re not going anywhere. You must see that. There’s no way out. The police are downstairs.’
Le Grice nodded slowly and said, ‘Oui, all over. My hopes for the vaccine … my career … my ambitions … my freedom … all over. You don’t ‘ave to tell me that. I know.’ He smiled wanly and with a sudden darting movement of his hand he brought the scalpel blade cleanly and deeply across his own throat.
Dewar stepped back as a fountain of crimson splashed into the dust at his feet. Le Grice tipped over on to his face and lay in a crumpled heap.
‘Oh, my God,’ whispered Dewar.
‘Hello! Anyone up there?’ came Grant’s voice from the stairs.
‘Here,’ answered Dewar. He waited, motionless until Grant joined him.
‘Christ almighty,’ said Grant. ‘I hope you didn’t do that.’
Dewar shook his head.
‘Bloody considerate of him, I’d say,’ said Grant. ‘Saves us a great deal of time and trouble, not to mention the cost of a trial and legal aid to fund some smart-arsed lawyer to claim he was actually half way up the bloody Eiffel Tower at the time of the incident. Why’d he do it?’
‘Like we said, he was a very bright man. He saw the future and it didn’t work for him.’
‘Did he tell you what you wanted to know?’
Dewar shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘With something unpleasant to do. I’m going to close down Steven Malloy’s lab and have everything in it taken away.’
‘Christ, he’ll love that.’
‘There’s no alternative. The place is full of bottles and tubes with labels that mean nothing to anyone except their originator. Trying to pick out Le Grice’s stuff from the rest in the absence of Ali Hammadi and now Sandra Macandrew is a non-starter. The only way we can be sure we’ve destroyed whatever Le Grice was working on is to put the whole damned lot into the steriliser. We’ll analyse what we can but the main priority is safety.’
‘I’m glad you’re the one going to be telling Malloy,’ said Grant. ‘This is going to put an end to his research career.’
‘It might also destroy two Ph.D. theses and what’s left of a technician’s working life.’
Dewar waited until Le Grice’s body had been bagged and taken away before driving over to the Institute of Molecular Sciences. He showed his ID to the two uniformed policemen on the door but didn’t tell them that Le Grice wouldn’t be coming after all. He found Steven Malloy going through racks of tubes that he’d removed from a lab fridge. George Ferguson and Peter Moore were removing the contents of a chest freezer and stacking them on an adjacent bench. There was a large wire basket sitting on a table in the centre of the room. Dewar guessed that this was for Le Grice’s stuff.
‘Have they caught him?’ asked Malloy as soon as he saw Dewar.
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘Something’s happened,’ said Malloy, reading Dewar’s expression.
‘Pierre Le Grice is dead. He took his own life when he saw there was no way out.’
‘My God,’ whispered Malloy. Ferguson and Peter Moore exchanged shocked glances.
Dewar gave them a moment to come to terms with the news then Malloy asked, ‘Did you get a chance to speak to him before he did it?’
Dewar nodded. ‘He wouldn’t tell me anything. He didn’t deny trying to kill Sandra but he wouldn’t admit to anything else.’
‘I still can’t believe he did it,’ said Malloy. ‘Christ! What’s happened to us all. A few short weeks ago we were on the verge of making the biggest breakthrough in years and suddenly all this happens. Ali dead, Pierre dead. Sandra lying at death’s door.’
‘I’m afraid there’s more,’ said Dewar.
Malloy looked unwilling to believe that there could possibly be any more bad news.
‘I’m going to have to seal off this lab. A special team will be brought in to remove everything from it.’
‘Pierre’s stuff, yes, we’re getting it together now.’
‘Everyone’s stuff,’ said Dewar.
Malloy’s face registered disbelief but he saw that Dewar was serious. He sank down on a stool and stared down at the floor, shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dewar. ‘But it’s the only way to be sure that there’s no possibility of live smallpox virus being left around.’
‘This is crazy,’ said Malloy. ‘I just don’t believe for a moment that Pierre Le Grice tried to reconstruct live smallpox virus in the open lab. That would have been just plain crazy.’
‘I agree. But you wouldn’t have believed he would have tried to kill Sandra Macandrew either.’
Malloy couldn’t argue.
‘This means my PhD goes down the tubes,’ said Peter Moore, suddenly seeing the implications for himself. ‘Sandra’s too.’
‘I’m sorry, there’s no other way.’
‘Christ,’ muttered Peter Moore. ‘Talk about shit happening!’
‘It means the end of the lab, doesn’t it?’ said George Ferguson. ‘No grant-funding body is going to come up with money to support a line of research that no longer exists.’
‘It means starting over again,’ agreed Dewar. ‘But you’ll have all your experimental notes to work from.’
‘Forget it,’ said Malloy. By the time we got back up to speed, the opposition would be out of sight.’ ‘It’s not feasible. It’s all over. When d’you want us out?’
‘I’d like you to leave the lab now. The sooner I seal it off the better.’
Malloy smiled without humour. ‘Don’t trust us eh?’
‘Nothing like that,’ said Dewar. ‘Just procedure.’
‘And these Iraqi fuckers, the ones behind it all, the movers and shakers, they’ll get away I take it?’
‘There’s no evidence against them as yet.’
‘Christ! Half my group are dead or dying. My entire research programme is going down the swannee and there’s no evidence against them as yet,’ mimicked Malloy.
‘I can understand your bitterness,’ said Dewar.
‘Jesus! Dewar. You sound like a Californian, — “thank you for sharing your anger with me”.’ With that Malloy stormed out of the room.
‘Well, I suppose I’d better think about getting my arse down the job centre,’ said Peter Moore. ‘See if they need any double glazing salesmen. The Medical Research Council aren’t going to give me another grant to start over again.’ He too, left the room with a black look in Dewar’s direction.
‘Your turn,’ said Dewar to George Ferguson, the only one left. ‘I feel like the grim reaper.’
Ferguson gave a half-hearted smile. ‘You’re only doing your job,’ he said ‘But you must see how these guys feel.’
