Hypocrite's Isle (12 page)

‘Now I’m filled with remorse,’ said Caroline, putting both hands on her stomach and pushing her empty tray away.

‘Sin followed by remorse, the unending circle of life,’ said Gavin.

‘I am absolutely stuffed.’

‘C’mon, let’s walk it off.’

‘I’d have to walk to Birmingham.’

They dumped the detritus of their feast in the waste bin and left the warmth of the restaurant to hit the cold air again.

‘Frank’s asked me to Christmas dinner at his place,’ said Gavin.

‘That’s nice. Will you go?’

‘I made a right arse of myself the first time I went there. I think his wife, Jenny, hates me.’ Gavin told her about the episode with the cat. Caroline closed her eyes as it unfolded.

‘I’d never drunk malt whisky before …’

‘I’m surprised they’ve asked you back.’

‘Maybe they’re hoping I’ll say no? I said I’d let him know by Monday.’

‘Your call,’ said Caroline.

‘It might seem rude if I don’t go.’

Caroline’s eyes opened wide. ‘Did I hear that correctly? Gavin Donnelly is worried about appearing rude?’

‘Give me a break …’

Caroline moved in front of Gavin, smiling, and held both his arms at the elbows while she looked up into his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Gavin, still with his arms pinned, brought his mouth down on hers in a long, hungry kiss. She didn’t pull away, although there was a degree of uncertainty in her response. ‘We agreed this was a bad idea,’ she said when they finally parted.

‘You agreed.’

‘This is entirely the wrong time …’

‘There’s never a right time or a wrong time to fall in love with someone.’

‘Please, Gavin, spare me the Christmas cracker philosophy. You’re a fortnight early and my head’s too full of other things right now.’

‘Right.’

‘And don’t put on that hurt expression.’

‘Right.’

‘And don’t agree with me so readily!’

 

Later, as Gavin lay in his bed looking at the moon, he wondered just how he was going to start a new investigation of Valdevan. Caroline’s earlier assertion that even if the drug was reaching the tumours and was still active when it got there, it still didn’t work, was finally getting through to him. She was right. He had made a breakthrough but it was an academic breakthrough, very satisfying but it wouldn’t change anything for the patients who’d been treated with it. They would still be dead. But why? The drug
should
have destroyed their tumours. The more he wrestled with this, the more he understood Caroline’s point that he had left himself with an even bigger problem than Grumman Schalk. They thought they knew what the problem was. He hadn’t a clue.

The photographs in the company report had definitely shown an effect that could only have been caused by the drug affecting the S16 gene in the tumour cells, but this made him wonder about the photographs of healthy cells in the original papers he’d consulted about the drug: they hadn’t shown any membrane aberration. Why not? Healthy cells and tumour cells were identical in terms of genetic make-up. Surely the drug should have affected the S16 gene in them too and caused the tell-tale pinching?

Gavin switched on the bedside lamp and got out of bed to start rummaging in the cardboard box he kept his reprints in. He started to shiver. A clear sky outside meant falling temperatures and the heating in the flat had been off for ages. Single glazing and the original, ill-fitting sash windows meant that the inside temperature became the outside one very quickly.

He found what he was looking for. It was a poor photocopy but the one he’d made on his first meeting with Caroline, when she’d loaned him her card. He searched in the pockets of his rucksack for his magnifying lens – which he’d bought the day before from Tom Brown’s Stamp Shop in Merchiston Avenue – and then put the relevant page into the pool of light provided by his bedside lamp. The pictures hadn’t improved any with the keeping but he was still pretty sure that there was no membrane alteration to the healthy cells.

Feeling mentally exhausted, he got back into bed, switched out the light and drew his knees up to his chest in an effort to get warm. The difference between tumour cells and healthy tissue cells was … division control. The tumour cells were undergoing uncontrolled cell division while the healthy cells were not … the tumour cells were showing membrane change but the healthy cells were not. There had to be a link – something that tied in with why Grumman Schalk had thought they had a specific drug against tumour cells. They must have seen tumour cells dying in the lab but healthy cells surviving. He would have to check out the effects of Valdevan on normal cells for himself. He couldn’t just rely on old photographs. He would set up that experiment at the same time as running the last of the Valdevan concentration tests. He would go down to the tissue culture suite first thing in the morning and see about getting some healthy cell cultures.

He could hear tuneless singing coming from outside on the front street and echoing up over the tenement roofs as some night straggler from an office Christmas party informed the world that he had done it his way. It brought a smile to Gavin’s lips. ‘Sure you did,’ he whispered, ‘Thirty years with Standard Life and you did it your way …’

‘Trish, I need some normal human cells. Any chance of getting some before the holidays?’ asked Gavin, who had been waiting
outside
the Cell Culture Suite since 8.45 a.m.

A look of dismay came over the technician’s face. ‘You’re kidding … no, you’re not, you’re serious.’

‘There’s some doubt about the behaviour of normal cells in the literature; I have to be sure.’

Trish looked uncertain. ‘Shit, Gavin, we were actually counting on closing down the suite this afternoon and spending the last day just cleaning up and replenishing stock solutions.’

‘I’ll love you forever …’

‘Not sure if that’s a good enough … I’d have to check with the maternity unit to see if a placenta is liable to become available for amnion cells …’

‘Forever and a day?’

Gavin followed Trish into her small office and stood by as she phoned the maternity unit. After a short conversation she said, ‘They are expecting four births this afternoon.’

‘Great.’

Trish broke into a resigned smile. ‘You do realise this means I won’t be going to the Christmas lunch with the girls?’

Gavin saw that she was serious. ‘Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise it was that big a deal. Maybe this is something I could do myself if you pointed me at a book of instructions?’

‘I won’t pretend it’s not tempting to walk off and leave you to it, but primary lines are a bit tricky if you’ve never done them before.’

Gavin grimaced.

‘They’re not like tumour cells which go on dividing forever as long as you feed them and dilute them. Healthy cells have a limited lifespan. We have to prepare them fresh each time and break down the tissue into component cells before we can even start.’

Gavin sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I should have thought. I really didn’t realise there was so much to it …’

‘Having said that,’ said Trish hesitantly. ‘It’s not impossible … providing the maternity unit comes up with the goods early enough. If they do, I’ll set you up a batch before I go off.’

‘You’re an absolute ace person; I really won’t forget this.’

‘Yeah, yeah … I’ll give you a call when they’re ready or leave a message on your desk saying where you can find them.’

When Gavin returned upstairs to the lab he found a note on his desk from Frank Simmons, asking if he was coming to Christmas dinner or not. He had to know today. When Gavin went over to knock on Frank’s door, Mary Hollis called out, ‘He’s not there. Sutcliffe’s called a meeting of senior academic staff.’

‘Was he wearing a Santa suit and carrying a sack?’ asked Gavin sourly.

Mary broke into a smile. ‘And just when I thought you were beginning to mellow …’

‘You’ve not exactly been all sweetness and light yourself these past few weeks if I might say so,’ said Gavin.

‘Fair comment,’ said Mary, her smile fading. ‘Simon and I broke up. He found himself a blonde staff nurse with big tits.’

‘Seems reasonable to me,’ said Gavin with his back to Mary, but he was smiling, looking at the wall, waiting for the come-back.

Mary threw a box of tissues at him but she too managed a small grin. ‘At least everyone knows where they are with you, Gavin. What you see is what you frighteningly get.’

‘But really, I am sorry,’ said Gavin, turning round to face her. ‘You two looked good together, like it was the real thing.’

‘It was for one of us.’

‘I guess this has ruined your Christmas.’

‘We’ll see. I’m going home to Dublin to stay with Mum and Dad. My brother Pat is coming home from Germany, so it’ll be nice to see them all again. I’ll be leaving just after lunch. Tom’s already gone off home to Bristol, and I think Frank said he was heading out to do his Christmas shopping after Sutcliffe’s meeting. He probably won’t be back this side of the New Year.’

‘It’s going to be lonely round here.’

‘You’ve decided to work through the break?’

‘They don’t give you a Nobel Prize for eating Christmas pies.’

‘So that’s where I’ve been going wrong.’

Gavin scribbled a note saying that he would love to come to dinner on Christmas Day and sellotaped it to Simmons’ door.

‘Are you off out?’ asked Mary.

‘Just to an off-licence to get a bottle of wine for Trish. She’s
doing
me a favour and setting up some human amnion cells for me.’

‘You asked Trish for primary cells the day before we break up and she said yes?’ exclaimed Mary.

‘I told her I’d love her forever and she took pity on me.’

Mary seemed lost for words until she affected an exaggerated shake of the head and came out with, ‘Men are something else.’

‘Cancer doesn’t stop for Christmas.’

‘Neither does bullshit.’

 

Frank Simmons walked briskly along the corridor, determined for once not to be the last to arrive at the latest departmental meeting called by Professor Graham Sutcliffe. He had no idea what it was about – the memo hadn’t said – but took comfort from the thought that his research group had done nothing lately to upset the smooth running of the department. Apart from that, it didn’t take much for Sutcliffe, who saw communication as a great virtue and an
essential
element of academic life, to call a meeting. In Simmons’ book this translated into nothing being too trivial to merit endless discussion.

Sutcliffe, wearing a light grey suit with a trouser waist that threatened his armpits and a university tie in deference to his later lunch appointment at Old College with the deans of the faculties, perched his reading glasses on the end of his nose and looked over the top at the people in front of him. He apologised for the short notice in calling the meeting. ‘I understand that several of you have recently received letters from the pharmaceutical company
Grumman
Schalk, inviting you to apply for funding under a new research support scheme they have just announced?’

Five staff members, including Frank Simmons, agreed that this was so.

‘Good. I thought that might be the case. As soon as I read the company’s press release in
Nature
, I got in touch with the their
administrators
to ask for clarification about the wording concerning “special cases” and, without going into too much detail, it would appear that our department would almost certainly be viewed as a special case. The fact that we have so many distinguished researchers and an international reputation means that we could make a block grant application and expect to receive – assuming we were successful – a sum in excess of twenty million pounds sterling. A rough estimate says that that would be around twelve times as much as we could hope to achieve from the sum of
individual
applications. I’ve called this meeting to ask what you think about the idea.’

‘There must be some serious conditions attached,’ suggested Simmons.