She sipped her beer in silence for several moments. ‘It’s a pretty impressive success for the department, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is.’ It was the first time he’d thought of it being that.
‘What did Newton say?’
‘They were both numbed. But he did thank me.’
‘They weren’t professional – cut corners,’ declared the woman. ‘They should be called to account for that.’
‘Not everything was made available to us. I’ve asked that it should be.’
‘You going to go over their heads, complain to New York?’
‘I hadn’t thought of doing that,’ admitted Parnell. ‘That’s what Newton said he had to do, talk to New York.’
‘Let’s hope he does it.’
‘He can’t avoid it!’ exclaimed Parnell.
‘You’d be surprised what someone will do to keep five hundred thousand a year and stock options.’
‘He can’t avoid it,’ insisted Parnell, although another sand speck of doubt settled in his mind.
‘It’s late,’ Beverley suddenly announced.
‘We should eat,’ accepted Parnell. Giorgio’s restaurant was less than a hundred yards up Wisconsin Avenue. It was unthinkable that he should go there with another woman, totally innocent and uninvolved though they were.
‘I’ve got something ready at home,’ said Beverley.
Parnell later decided that it was probably the thought of Giorgio’s trattoria and the celebration he’d planned with Rebecca there that prompted his response. ‘You mind if I drive home with you? In your car, I mean?’
Beverley looked steadily at him, understanding immediately. ‘You are taking it seriously, aren’t you?’
‘If I’d been with Rebecca that night, she would probably still be alive.’
‘Or you’d both be dead.’
‘I prefer it my way.’
Beverley took his arm again on their way back to Washington Square but Parnell could feel a stiffness. Beverley’s apartment was off Dupont and they drove there in silence. As she parked she said: ‘I didn’t like that.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m being overreactive.’ He made no attempt to get out of the car.
‘There’s enough for two,’ said Beverley. ‘I was going to butterfly it anyway.’
It was, coincidentally, rib-eye steak, large enough easily to be shared between the two of them. There was salad and a Napa Valley red but not a lot of conversation.
As he helped her clear away, Parnell said: ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Beverley, in a voice indicating that it wasn’t.
‘We’ve only been out together twice,’ said Parnell, trying to lift the mood. ‘Maybe we should avoid each other from now on.’
Beverley held him for several moments with one of her direct looks. ‘Maybe,’ she said, in the same voice as before.
‘I’m at dinner, with guests,’ complained Edward C. Grant.
‘This can’t wait,’ insisted Dwight Newton. He could hear people in the background.
‘What?’
Newton told him. Unsettled by the length of the silence from the other end, Newton said: ‘You still there?’
‘I’m going into the study. Wait.’ The line went dead and then picked up again, without any background noise. Grant said:‘You told me it was safe, Dwight. You said you and Benn had run all the checks and that it was safe.’
‘I double-checked Russell’s tests,’ tried Newton.
‘But you didn’t, did you?’
‘He didn’t do this test.’
‘Why didn’t you? You take two weeks and tell me everything’s kosher, Parnell takes two days and discovers it’s fucking fatal!’
‘It’s a genetic discipline.’
‘This… whatever it’s called… is known not to affect mice, upon which Benn did test, but it does affect humans, right? That’s what you said.’
‘I know what I said.’ Newton wished he hadn’t sounded so uncertain.
‘So, it would have been obvious to do the comparison.’
‘It wasn’t done,’ capitulated Newton.
‘You know I should fire you? And Benn?’
‘Yes.’ But you wouldn’t, Newton thought.
‘But that I can’t, because of the attention it would attract.’
‘You want us to resign?’ That wasn’t possible either.
‘Still too much risk of publicity. You’re hanging on by a thread, both of you. Hanging on by default. You hear what I’m saying?’
‘Yes.’
‘Benn with you?’
‘No.’
‘You tell him what I’m telling you.’
‘You pressed me on this… wanted the decision you got,’ said Newton, clumsily.
The line went silent again for what seemed longer than before. Finally Grant said: ‘If that was a threat, the thread by which you’re hanging just started to fray, Dwight.’
‘It wasn’t any sort of threat,’ retreated the vice president, weakly. ‘Have France gone into production… started to distribute?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s got to be stopped… all of it.’
‘Of course it’s got to be stopped!’ said Grant, irritably. ‘You call them, right now. Wake Saby up.’
‘I thought you’d want to do that,’ said Newton. He was soaked in perspiration, bowed forward over his desk with his free hand supporting his forehead.
‘It’s your responsibility, Dwight. Everything’s your responsibility. You’ve got the authority. Exercise it.’
‘You going to tell the board?’
‘Of course I’m going to have to tell the board. And you’re going to be here when I do, explaining it.’
Newton felt physically sick, swallowing against the bile at the back of his throat. ‘What about Parnell?’
‘What about Parnell?’ echoed the other man from New York.
‘Hopefully he’s prevented a potential catastrophe. Shouldn’t he be thanked… congratulated?’
There was yet another hesitation, although shorter this time. ‘Did you thank him?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’ll do, for the moment.’
Until you’ve worked out your escape from every danger and pitfall, you bastard, thought Newton. ‘OK.’
‘Talk to me about Parnell,’ demanded Grant. ‘Is he a whistleblower?’
Newton at once saw the chance to unsettle the other man. ‘He’s certainly got a lot of principles. All he kept on about today was stopping everything.’
‘You ask him why he made the check that he did?’
‘Of course. He worked the weekend, in his own time. Said he did it because the stuff was just there, in his laboratory. That there was no positive reason.’
‘You believe that?’ asked Grant, his voice betraying that he clearly didn’t.
‘I’m telling you what he said,’ insisted Newton, uncaring about the petulance. He felt drained, too exhausted to keep his thoughts in order.
‘What else did he say?’ persisted the president.
Newton weighed the questioning. ‘He wanted to run his tests of everything from France when he learned that there was some stuff he hadn’t been shown.’
‘Let him,’ instructed Grant. ‘I don’t want him thinking anything’s being kept away from him.’
‘I was obviously going to anyway,’ said Newton.
‘They were in it together, weren’t they?’ abruptly demanded Grant. ‘Parnell and that damned girl, probing together. And now he’s discovered this! If he tells the FBI, the FBI will tell the Food and Drug Administration, who’ll tell whoever’s responsible for licensing in France. And we’re dangling from a high branch.’
Newton felt a surge of satisfaction at the fear that was coming clearly down the line. Unusually emboldened in his own desperation – sure there was nothing left for him to lose – Newton said: ‘We’d better hope he doesn’t suffer an accident to make the FBI – and the media – even more curious than they already are, hadn’t we?’
The line went dead from the other end.
Twenty-Three
David Benton described Parnell’s call as coincidence, because they’d intended contacting him to arrange another meeting.
‘You got something?’ demanded Parnell, at once.
‘Just touching bases,’ side-stepped the FBI man. ‘Guess you’ll need to liaise with your attorney. Get back to us asap.’