Hypocrite's Isle (9 page)

‘I just had to see for myself,’ said Gavin. ‘But don’t think I’m not grateful.’

‘How are you feeling?’

‘A lot better, thanks … and don’t say I don’t look it,’ Gavin warned Tom who looked as if he were about to say something.

Tom shrugged and returned to what he was doing.

Gavin brought out his cell cultures one at a time and examined them under the inverted microscope. Mary watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying to gauge his reaction. Tom, with his back to the others, stopped in the middle of a calculation he was scribbling and said out loud, ‘You’re not going to believe this but I’ve forgotten the molecular weight of sodium …’

‘Twenty-three,’ said Gavin, without taking his eyes from the ’scope.

‘Cheers.’

‘How are they looking?’ asked Mary.

‘Well, at least they’re not contaminated this time,’ replied Gavin. ‘On the other hand, there’s not much sign of anything happening.’

‘It’s only been a day, Gavin. Give them time.’

Gavin returned the last of the culture bottles to the incubator. He had just closed the door when Peter Morton-Brown came in, full of smiles and bonhomie. ‘Hi, guys. Have you heard about my new journal club?’

‘Frank mentioned something about it,’ said Mary, keeping her tone neutral.

‘Well, what d’you think? Are you going to come along and boost the numbers?’

‘I suppose …’ said Mary.

‘Sure,’ said Tom with his usual lopsided shrug.

Gavin had busied himself with something at his desk.

‘How about you, Gavin, are you going to join?’

‘No.’

‘Not interested in current research progress, huh?’

Gavin turned round and looked daggers at Morton-Brown. ‘On the contrary, I am very interested. In fact, I’m
currently
engaged in it. It’s your journal club I’m not interested in.’

‘Don’t you think it would be the perfect way to keep up to date with what’s going on in science?’

‘No, it would involve sitting through a lot of talks about stuff I’m not at all interested in.’

‘Please yourself. I just thought it would be a help to everyone …’

‘No, you didn’t. You thought it would look good on your CV.’

‘Now wait a minute …’

‘Gentlemen, please,’ interrupted Mary. ‘Just let us know when you plan to have the first one, Peter,’ she said, giving Morton-Brown his cue to leave. When he did, she turned to Gavin and said, ‘You really are the limit.’

‘He’s a bullshitter.’

‘You have to get along with bullshitters.’

‘Why?’

‘You just do!’

‘You know,’ said Tom thoughtfully, ‘there’s only one thing worse than a bullshitter …’

‘What’s that?’

‘A bullshitter with a journal club to promote.’

All three of them burst out laughing. It was a good moment, a bonding moment that none of them had seen coming.

 

Over the next few days, Gavin came in early each morning to check on his cultures before going off to the library to read up on
everything
surrounding his project. On Monday morning his customary response to Mary’s enquiry changed from ‘Nothing yet’ to ‘Wowee! Now we’re cooking.’

Mary came over to take a look at the cells. ‘Not much doubt about that,’ she said. ‘Quite a dramatic effect. What concentration is this?’

‘Manufacturer’s recommended.’

‘Gosh, it’s hard to see how a drug that can attack tumour cells like this in the lab had absolutely no effect at all in patients.’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Gavin. ‘I thought when I first read up on Valdevan that the company might be exaggerating the facts in order to make their drug seem better than it actually was, and that they had selected exceptional cells to photograph and make their point, but I was wrong. All the cells in the monolayer are behaving the same way. This drug is absolutely wonderful.’

‘Except that it doesn’t work in people,’ said Tom.

‘Maybe something inactivates it in the body?’ suggested Mary.

‘I guess.’

‘Stomach acid maybe,’ said Tom.

‘I think Grumman Schalk would have checked that out,’ said Gavin. ‘You don’t spend multi-million dollars developing a drug and then throw it away because you can’t take it by mouth. You inject it.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Gavin’s right: they must have checked every possibility under the sun before giving up on it,’ said Mary. ‘Why not ask them … or ask Frank to find out just what they did?’

‘Ask Frank to do what?’ said Frank Simmons, coming out of his office and hearing his name mentioned.

‘I’ve reproduced the Valdevan effect on tumour cells,’ said Gavin. ‘It’s much more dramatic than I expected. I can see why the company must have been excited by it at the time. We were just wondering how it could possibly have had no effect
in vivo.
Mary was saying that the company must have investigated this fully and we were wondering if you think it might be worthwhile asking them what they came up with?’

Mary positively beamed at Gavin’s diplomacy. Tom looked as if he were witnessing an unnatural act.

‘Worth a try,’ agreed Simmons. ‘But you mustn’t get bogged down in investigating why an old drug didn’t work. Keep sight of the original aim of the project, which is to investigate the action of the S16 gene. There’s a danger of going up a blind alley here and ending up repeating everything the people at Grumman Schalk did years ago, with exactly the same result.’

‘Okay, boss,’ said Gavin.

‘How are the cell membranes looking?’

‘There are big changes,’ replied Gavin. ‘Definite pinching of the lipid bilayer at intervals.’

‘At the lower concentration too?’

‘I haven’t looked yet.’

‘Let’s take a peek now, shall we?’

Mary and Tom returned to what they had been doing while Simmons sat down at the inverted microscope and Gavin brought out the low drug concentration culture from the incubator.

‘They look quite normal,’ murmured Simmons. ‘Take a look.’ He got up from the chair to let Gavin take his place.

‘You’re right – I can’t see any pinching of the membrane.’

‘And no cell death at that concentration?’

‘Agreed,’ said Gavin.

Simmons looked thoughtful. ‘I think you should set up another series of cell cultures – maybe ten different concentrations of
Valdevan
this time. See if you can find a level that gives us membrane change but no killing. If not, we’ll have to conclude that knocking out the S16 gene is a lethal event. But if you can, we’re in business, and we can create stable cell populations with an altered membrane structure.’

‘Okay, will do.’

‘And congratulations. You’ve done very well. Things are really beginning to happen.’

‘Thanks. You won’t forget to contact the drug company?’

‘I’ll give them a ring now.’

Simmons returned to his office and looked out the covering letter that Grumman Schalk had sent with the drug. He saw from the letterhead that the head of development was one Professor Max Ehrman. He asked the switchboard to make the call to
Denmark
and waited while he was transferred three times within the company.

‘Ehrman,’ said a younger voice than Simmons had expected.

‘Hello, Professor, this is Dr Frank Simmons at the University of Edinburgh. Your people kindly sent some Valdevan for one of my postgraduate students to use in his research.’

‘It’s company policy to help where we can, Doctor. Do you need more?’

‘No, well, not yet anyway. I wanted to ask you something about the history of the drug.’

‘The
sad
history of the drug,’ said Ehrman ruefully. ‘It’s a bit of a taboo subject. We lost millions on it.’

‘So I understand. We were just wondering in the lab if you ever found out what the problem was, and why it didn’t work in patients?’

‘We spent almost as much again trying to find that out,’ said Ehrman. ‘We had a whole research section – ten PhDs with full technical support – assigned to the problem, but in the end we drew a blank. We simply don’t know.’

‘And that’s the way it was left?’

‘We had to move on, turn our attention to new drugs, make up for lost time and money. Valdevan was consigned to the dustbin of history, as you people say.’

‘But you survived,’ said Simmons.

‘We survived,’ agreed Ehrman. ‘I’ll look out the final report on the drug and send you a copy if you like. Can I ask what your student is using it for?’

Simmons told him.

‘Ah,’ said Ehrman. ‘I noticed some people suggesting recently that Valdevan probably affected the S16 gene. It’s a clever approach. I’d be interested to hear how it works out.’

‘I’ll keep you posted – and yes, it would be interesting to see that final report you mentioned.’

‘On its way. And if there’s anything else we can help you with, just let us know.’

Gavin spent most of the afternoon two floors below in the cell
culture
suite where Trish Jamieson, the senior technician, had agreed to show him how to set up cell cultures from scratch. ‘We are quite happy to set them up for you,’ she had maintained, but Gavin
insisted
that his project would call for a great many over the course of the next few months and it would be as well for him to know how to do it, so that he wouldn’t have to impose too much on Trish and her staff. This was, in fact, the diplomatic line that Mary had
advised
him to take, and he had to admit that it had gone down rather well. The initial restrained animosity – so obvious when he’d first entered the room – had since disappeared and the ambience had become much more relaxed. ‘Going home for Christmas?’ asked Trish as she put the cap on the final culture of the twelve she had set up, with Gavin having done the penultimate four under her supervision.

‘Still not decided,’ confessed Gavin. ‘You?’

‘You bet. Two weeks of my mum’s cooking and seeing all my old mates. Hold me back!’

‘Sounds okay,’ agreed Gavin. ‘Where do you come from?’

‘Inverness. You?’

‘Liverpool.’

‘So what’s stopping you?’

‘I think I might work … well, at least some of the time.’

‘At Christmas?’

‘Well, maybe not Christmas Day, but I’d like to keep things moving along – another good reason for learning to do this. I really appreciate it.’

‘No problem, but you’d better look out some warm clothing. They turn the heating off in the university over the Christmas break.’

‘Thanks for the warning.’

‘Is there anything else you need to know?’

‘Cell culture fluid. Am I right in thinking you always use the same one?’

‘There are a number of recipes, but generally we use the richest one possible. It makes the cells grow faster, and people are always in a hurry to get results from their experiments. The others tend not to be so rich, but I can certainly leave some alternative recipes for you, if you think you might need to use another one for any reason.’

‘That might be handy – just in case I run out.’

‘Actually, that’s a good point. It’s usually impossible to get supplies of fresh serum over the break so you may have to improvise – maybe use an amino acids solution.’

 

When Gavin got back to the lab, Mary told him that Caroline had phoned and asked that he phone her back on her mobile, but not until after her afternoon lecture finished at four. He called at ten past. It sounded as if she was in a crowded corridor and having difficulty hearing him. Reducing the conversation to the bare
minimum
, they agreed to meet in the student union at five.

It was raining heavily when Gavin left the building and ran round to the union, pausing just inside the door to shake the water from his hair before he noticed Caroline arrive just behind him. She turned to collapse her umbrella and shake it out on the steps. He gave her a one-armed hug.

‘Well, the swelling’s gone down a lot,’ said Caroline, examining Gavin’s face as he drew away. ‘You look almost normal. How are the ribs?’

‘Knitting together as we speak.’ Gavin steered her through to the bar where they ordered coffee and found a table.