“Thanks Mike. I’d better get back to the lab. I’ve got lots to do.”
“Still after that million, Max?” smiled Farro-Jones.
“I’m prepared to work for it,” said Pereira. He turned to Neef and asked, “Do you mind if I take a look at Thomas Downy on the way out?”
“Of course not,” replied Neef. “It’s thanks to you he’s still there.”
Pereira left the room and Farro-Jones said, “I take it you’ll both be going along to the meeting this evening with the Public Health gurus?”
“We’ll be there,” said Neef. “Do you know if they’ve come up with anything new?”
“I haven’t heard.”
Pereira stopped at the foot of Thomas Downy’s bed and waited till he had the boy’s attention. Thomas was doing a jigsaw puzzle. The lid lying beside him on the bed said that it was of animals drinking at a water hole.
“Who are you?” asked Thomas unsurely when he finally looked up and saw Pereira standing there. Pereira was wearing his usual tee shirt and jeans. His leather jacket was over one arm and his beret squeezed up in his right fist.
“Nobody special, kid. I just wanted to see how you were?”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Not the kind you mean.”
“I’m feeling very well, thank you sir,” said Thomas going back to his jigsaw.
“Good to hear it, kid,” said Pereira, turning to go with a shrug. He found a nurse standing in the doorway. “I guess the Pied Piper can still sleep nights,” he said as he passed her. As he reached the exit he came upon Eve Sayers outside on the stairs. He half smiled in the way that people do when they know each other vaguely by sight and Eve smiled back. “Dr Pereira?” she said.
“Yes.”
“I wonder if you could spare me a few moments?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t seem to...”
“I’m Eve Sayers.”
“Of course,” exclaimed Pereira. “You’re the journalist friend of Michael Neef.”
“How about a cup of coffee?”
Pereira shrugged his shoulders. “Why not.”
The two of them walked along to the hospital coffee shop and sat down. “How’s the trial going?” asked Eve.
“Are you asking as a journalist?”
Eve shook her head. “Mike and I have an agreement. When I’m in his unit everything I hear is confidential.”
“It’s nice you guys can trust each other. One of the kids is doing really well, the others not so good.”
“I can see you’re disappointed.”
“I thought they’d all do well but maybe I was being over-optimistic. It’s a failing of mine.”
“Maybe there’s time enough yet,” said Eve, playing with her teaspoon in its saucer.
Pereira looked at her appraisingly and said, “Are you going to come to the point Miss Sayers?”
Eve conceded with a shrug. “I know I shouldn’t be saying this and Michael would be very angry if he found out but when I saw you back there I just felt I had to ask you personally.”
“Ask me what?”
Eve looked Pereira straight in the eye and blurted out, “Is there absolutely nothing you can do to help Neil Benson?”
“That’s the kid with the melanoma, right?”
Eve nodded.
“Not at the moment,” said Pereira. “We’re working on vectors for that kind of tumour but they’re not ready yet. I’m sorry.”
“I suppose I knew you’d say that,” said Eve. “I just had to ask you face to face, just to make sure that I’d done absolutely everything I could.”
“Neil Benson is really special to you, huh?”
“Yes,” agreed Eve.
“That’s tough but I guess you were warned what to expect at the outset.”
“Oh yes,” agreed Eve. “I was warned.” She started rummaging in her handbag for a handkerchief. “Michael warned me and Sister Morse too but here I am blubbing like a schoolgirl.” She pressed a tissue to her eyes.
“Sister Morse is doing her own share of weeping at the moment,” said Pereira.
“What do you mean?” asked Eve.
“Her husband’s dying,” said Pereira. “Cancer.”
“Michael didn’t mention anything about that,” said Eve looking puzzled. “How strange,” she murmured thoughtfully.
A look of unease appeared in Pereira’s eyes. He had just remembered Michael Neef asking him to say nothing about Charles Morse’s cancer.
Neef hadn’t realised that the Friday evening meeting was going to be so large. There were about twenty people in the lecture theatre when he arrived but there was no sign of Lennon. He nodded to Tim Heaton and Frank MacSween as he made his way through groups of people and was joined by David Farro-Jones as he sat down to wait. Farro-Jones leaned over to say in his ear, “The word is they’ve come up with nothing new. They’re not one inch further forward.”
“Who are all these people?” asked Neef.
“Lots of them are Public Health scientists from out of town. I think the Department of Health is represented as well.”
“That serious,” exclaimed Neef.
“Looks like it. It seems we’re all waiting for the good Doctor Lennon.” He looked at his watch. “He’s fifteen minutes late already. Let’s hope this means he’s come up with something. I’ll speak to you later.” Farro-Jones left Neef and went over to re-join the group of University College physicians he had been with. Neef recognised one of them as Charlie Morse’s doctor, Mark Clelland. He nodded to him. Neef was joined by Frank MacSween who had been talking to Eddie Miller but broke off when someone said, “Lennon’s here.”
A few minutes later, Lennon entered the room, looking harassed. He flung off his coat and asked everyone to take their seats.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he announced. “I was delayed by the Press. The cat’s out the bag. They have the story. Eve Sayers was waiting for me this evening when I returned to my office.”
Neef felt a pang of embarrassment. He wanted to assure everyone in the room that he had had nothing to do with the leak. He could feel Frank MacSween take a suspicious sideways look at him.
“Miss Sayers seemed to know that Charles Morse was the third victim of the carcinogen. I saw no point in trying to deny it. I told her outright that there were actually four victims. She now knows about the baby. I also had to tell her that our efforts in tracing the carcinogen have come to nothing.”
A murmur of disappointment ran round the room.
“It’s true, I’m afraid,” said Lennon. “An entire team of path technicians has failed to find any clue at all as to the nature of the carcinogen. In effect, they confirmed the earlier findings of Dr MacSween’s own lab.”
“Cold comfort,” murmured MacSween.
“The question is where do we go from here?” said Lennon.
“I think we were hoping that you were going to tell us that,” said Tim Heaton. “The bad publicity is going to damage all of us.”
“It was actually the cancer I was thinking about,” said Lennon.
“Of course,” said Heaton, chastened by the comment. “But the public are liable to panic if this damned woman milks the story like these people do. I think our public relations people should be ready to issue reassurance.”
“How can we reassure people when we don’t know what we’re dealing with ourselves?” said Neef. He had been irked by Heaton’s reference to ‘this damned woman’.
“That’s not the point,” said Heaton but he could sense that everyone else in the room thought that it was. He stopped talking.
Lennon said, “I’ve prepared an updated summary of events. If someone could give me a hand with the projector.”