Resurrection (10 page)

Dewar had a brief meeting with Paul Hutton, the head of institute whom he found pretty much of the old school. A place for everyone and everyone in their place, the kind of public school product who would show unswerving loyalty to a cardboard box as long as the cardboard box held an official position. This made him easy - by virtue of being predictable - to deal with. He spoke briefly about the tragedy of Ali Hammadi’s death in suitably muted tones and went on to tell Dewar of the proposed scholarship that Hammadi’s parents had proposed.

‘We’re going to call it the ‘Ali Hammadi Research Scholarship’.

Can’t fault that, thought Dewar. He asked if he might speak with Ali’s supervisor and colleagues.

‘Dr Malloy is expecting you. He’s been taking Ali’s death rather badly, I’m afraid. He blames himself. Ridiculous of course. I’ll have someone show you up.’

Dewar felt unsure about Malloy when he first saw him and took in the Tee shirt and jeans. He was inclined to think he might be of the Mike Davidson school of pain-in-the-arses, another free spirit, untied by time, tide or geometry, tethered only to this earth by his university tenure and comprehensive superannuation scheme, but he decided to withhold judgement.

Malloy for his part was equally unsure about Dewar, seeing the well cut hair, the expensive dark suit, the polished shoes and the briefcase. A ministry pen-pusher was the initial thought but he too decided to withhold judgement.

They talked in Malloy’s office. Dewar picked up on a poster on the wall featuring the American tenor sax player, Stan Getz. ‘You’re a fan?’ he asked.

‘Certainly am.’

‘Me too. I saw him live in Kansas City the year before he died. Played a lot of the Brazilian stuff from the early sixties. Wonderful.’

‘I like that stuff too,’ agreed Malloy. His guitarist, Charlie Byrd, came to Edinburgh a few years ago. I went along. Sounded just the same in real life. Little guy, looked like a bank manager, came on wearing a suit, did his thing and left after blowing all the would-be guitarists in the audience away.’

‘You play yourself?’

‘Not in that company I don’t,’ said Malloy.

Dewar smiled. The ice had been broken.

‘I understand you’re here about Ali?’

‘It’s Ali’s connection with smallpox fragments I’m concerned about,’ said Dewar, putting his cards on the table.

Malloy seemed taken aback. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You know all about the ban on fragment movement at the moment?’

‘It’s a real bastard. It’s stopped us in our tracks.’

‘There’s a reason.’

‘But is it a good one?’

‘The WHO and the UN think it is.’

‘Not convincing enough in itself. It’s always the safest course for bureaucrats to pull the plug on something. It’s the best way to guard their own arses.’

‘Be that as it may, the ruling’s been made,’ said Dewar, not wanting to get involved in that kind of discussion.

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, we’ll abide by it. Doesn’t mean to say we have to agree with it.’

‘Abiding by it will be enough.’

‘So what’s this got to do with Ali?’

‘Nothing I hope but he was Iraqi,’ said Dewar.

Malloy looked at him long and hard before saying, ‘So you don’t have to be Albert Einstein to work out that you think the Iraqis are fucking around with smallpox?’

‘Let’s say, there’s a suspicion and nobody’s taking any chances.’

‘If you think that Ali was involved in anything like that … well, it’s just plain ridiculous,’ said Malloy.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Dewar. ‘But he was Iraqi, he was a scientist, he did have access to the smallpox genome and … he did end up killing himself.’

‘Point taken,’ agreed Malloy reluctantly. ‘But you’re on the wrong trail. We’ve only got a few fragments of the virus here. You couldn’t do anything crazy with that.’

‘I saw your audit return.’ said Dewar, maintaining eye contact.

‘Oh, I see. You think we may have more than we’re letting on.’

‘Maybe not deliberately,’ said Dewar. ‘But that sort of thing does tend to happen in places like this. I’ve just been to a place where they had more than they should have. No criminal intent just … the university way.’

‘You’re welcome to carry out any inspection you like of the lab and its stocks,’ said Malloy.

‘Thanks,’ said Dewar. ‘It’s always nice to have full cooperation but first I’d like to get a feel for the group. How about telling me who you have working for you and what they’re doing exactly.’

‘I’ve got one post doc, a Frenchman named, Pierre Le Grice from the Institut Pasteur in Paris; he’s been her two years, another one to go. I’ve got two PhD students, Sandra Macandrew - she’s second year supported by the Medical Research Council and Peter Moore, he’s first year, supported by the Wellcome Trust. Ali was my third student. He’d almost finished and was preparing to write up his thesis. He was on Iraqi government money.’

Dewar raised his eyebrows.

‘Nothing unusual in that. Foreign students aren’t entitled to British grants. They have to have their own money for tuition fees and subsistence and it usually comes from their own governments.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘George Ferguson, my senior technician. He’s a medical lab technician. He came up to the university when they closed down the old City Hospital and they were looking to resettle the lab staff. He hadn’t really found a niche and I needed someone who was used to handling viruses so I agreed to take him on until his resettlement period runs out. If I get another grant I’ll keep him on.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Did Ali work alone?’

‘No one was looking over his shoulder, if that’s what you mean. He was a graduate student; he already had a good honours degree in his subject so he knew what he was doing. But you tend to know what the person next to you is doing and people talk all the time about their projects. Let’s say, if Ali was trying to create a complete smallpox virus, someone would have noticed,’ said Malloy, making the notion seem ridiculous.

Dewar nodded. ‘Seems reasonable.’

‘Would you like to meet the team?’

‘I’ve come all this way,’ smiled Dewar.

‘What reason would you like me to give them?’

‘Routine Home Office procedure after the death of a student who was a foreign national, I think.’

Sandra Macandrew was first. Dewar found her pleasant and friendly. She couldn’t understand Ali’s death or the change that came over him during the last few weeks of his life.

‘You obviously noticed a change in his personality,’ said Dewar. ‘Did you notice a change in his work pattern?’

Sandra thought for a moment. ‘He still came to the lab and seemed to be working on his project as usual. I suppose Steve would know from his notebooks whether things were working or not. By that time, he’d stopped talking to us.’

‘But you didn’t notice him doing anything different in the lab?’

‘Different? No.’

‘Thanks for your help, Miss Macandrew. If you think of anything else, you can leave a message for me here.’ Dewar handed her a card with a Sci-Med contact number on it.

Peter Moore was next. He couldn’t tell him any more than Sandra had. Hammadi’s death was as big a mystery to him. Yes, he had liked Ali too.

Pierre Le Grice was a different kettle of fish. He was positively aggressive, complaining bitterly about the interruption to his research that the fragment ban was causing.

‘To put a complete stop to circulation at is ridiculous. Okay you impose the twenty percent rule. Even that is stupid. What can you do with fifty that you can’t with twenty? tell me that.’

‘Dr Le Grice, I don’t make the rules. If you want to protest you’ll have to do it through your government and the United Nations.’

‘You people never accept responsibility for anything,’ continued Le Grice. ‘It’s always someone else to blame.’

‘I accept responsibility for what I have to do Doctor. I say again, I don’t make the rules but I am empowered and expected to enforce them.’

There was a pause, engineered by Dewar to allow what he’d said to sink in. He continued, ‘So if I learn that someone here has been sending smallpox fragments to a research institute in Manchester without going through proper channels I just might nail his professional hide to the wall.’

Le Grice said simply, ‘You know?’

Dewar nodded. ‘I know it was some time ago and nothing is going to happen about it now but things have changed. Any more of that and you can kiss your career good-bye, Monsieur.

George Ferguson was not in the lab. Sandra explained that he and Malloy had been ‘a right couple of heroes yesterday’. George was currently being thanked by ‘the powers that be. Dewar asked what had happened and was given a run down on what Malloy and Ferguson had done.

‘Better them than me.’

‘Me too,’ agreed Sandra. ‘Would you like to see round the lab?’

‘Sure would.’

The lab struck Dewar as being untidy. This was due in part to a lack of space - people were vying with pieces of equipment for useable bench area. Rows of notebooks filled up the window sills. Racks of test tubes were piled three high and electrophoresis photographs were hanging all along the wall from clips on wall hooks. ‘How d’you ever find anything?’ he asked, making it sound like a joke.

‘It only looks a complete mess,’ replied Sandra. ‘We know where everything is. A tidy lab is a sterile lab, that’s what Steve always says. If you’re polishing benches it means you can’t think of an experiment to do.’

‘A point of view, I suppose,’ said Dewar.

After ten minutes or so of passing the time of day with Sandra and Peter - Pierre Le Grice had decided to keep his own company and busied himself about the lab, George Ferguson returned to loud demands from the others to show them his medal.

Ferguson laughed. ‘No medal,’ he said. ‘Only a few precious words from
Herr
Direktor
to inspire me and make it all worth while.’

‘George, this is Doctor Dewar. He’s inquiring into Ali’s death,’ said Steven Malloy.

Dewar shook hands with Ferguson and asked him the same questions as the others about the dead student. His reply was much the same. He, like everyone else in the lab, had liked Ali. His death had come as a complete shock.

‘Did you know what Ali was working on?’

Ferguson shrugged and said, ‘Only in the broadest of terms. I’m a hospital technician who had the hospital taken from under him. I look after the virus stocks and see to the culture media. This new molecular stuff is largely beyond me and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’

‘It must have been a bit of a change to come here?’

‘Ferguson smiled at what he saw as understatement. ‘I’d been at the City for thirty two years,’ he said.

‘Must have been tempting to call it a day and take early retirement?’

‘The bank manager disagreed,’ said Ferguson.

Dewar smiled. ‘No golden handshake on offer eh?’

‘From the NHS? Pull the other one.’

‘You seem to have settled in well with the group here.’

‘It’s a temporary thing. Steve had a vacancy but whether he’ll get a new grant or not is another matter. If he doesn’t I’ll be out the door come Christmas. My face doesn’t really fit in the institute anyway.’

‘Why not?’

‘Times change. These days science graduates outnumber jobs ten to one. You need at least an upper second to get a job that would have gone to an ONC ten years ago. If the job involves making the tea as well, we’re talking about a PhD.’

Dewar smiled and said, ‘I hope something works out for you.’

He had a last meeting with Paul Hutton to thank him formally for his cooperation.

‘Does that mean you are finished with us?’ asked Hutton.

‘I should think so,’ replied Dewar. ‘Unless there are any more developments.’

‘You’re returning to London today?’

‘I’m going to show my face at the Iraqi students association. I’ll take it from there.’

SEVEN

The Iraqi students association was on the first floor of a Victorian building in a street largely taken up with restaurants offering cuisines of the world. The street was narrow, the buildings tall and traffic fumes hung in the air like a November fog. The smell of foreign food mingled with vague damp odours of plaster and cats as he climbed the badly lit stairs and knocked on the door with the brass plaque and Arabic inscription on it.

A young man answered, obviously surprised to see a westerner standing there. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in clipped but otherwise perfect English.

‘My name’s Dewar. I’d like to speak to any friends of Ali Hammadi.’

‘He is dead.’

‘I know he’s dead. That’s why I’d like to speak to them.’

‘You are a policeman?’