‘Wow.’
‘Paul and Carrie felt sure that their work was watertight but accepted they had to do what they were told. You don’t want to make an enemy of someone as important as Dorothy. They started out on a new project but decided to repeat their original work at night, maybe hoping to convince Dorothy to change her mind.’
‘Instead they died.’
‘Two nice people, two brilliant scientists at the very beginning of their career, an absolute tragedy.’
‘Do you actually know anything about the findings that caused all the trouble?’ Steven asked.
Jane adopted a reluctant expression but continued. ‘Some of us working in neuroscience had known for a while that there was danger lurking on the horizon, especially those of us with a foot in both pharmacology and neuroscience. On the one hand, we studied human behaviour and on the other control of it. Using appropriate drugs, we could make a violent man passive, a calm man aggressive, a sad man happy, a happy man sad. The more we learned the more we could change things through the use of drugs. But of course, science doesn’t stop there. We had to know more about what the drugs do... what pathways they follow... we always have to know more...’
‘And that’s where the danger lies?’
‘We may not like what we find.’
‘Did Paul and Carrie find out something that fell into that category?’ asked Steven.
Jane took a deep breath and said, ‘In spades. They came up with a series of results that challenged everything the human race has always believed about itself — that we are all individuals with self-determination and decision-making powers, perhaps made in the image of God and harbouring a soul if you’re religious. Their results showed that we as human beings were only individual in the sense that our biochemical make-up varied from one person to another. We were little more than a collection of cells and chemical reactions, something which could be altered at will with the application of the correct knowledge — something which we were fast accumulating. It wouldn’t be long before we could alter every aspect of a human being.’
‘Maybe even create one?’
‘Given time.’
‘I can understand why that could upset a whole lot of people...’ said Steven.
‘Dorothy is a committed Christian,’ said Jane filling in the blank. ‘Paul and Carrie’s results contradicted just about everything she’s ever believed in.’
‘I can understand her reluctance to believe them.’
‘I think the questioning of her religious beliefs might have been as big a factor in her mental collapse as the deaths of Paul and Carrie.’
‘How about now, is she still a committed Christian?’ Steven asked.
‘I think so...’
Steven was interested in Jane’s pause. His expression suggested he was waiting.
‘A Roman Catholic priest appeared in our temporary lab one day at Yale. He was in Dorothy’s office when I came back early from lunch and she was shouting at him.’
‘Did you hear what the argument was about?’
Jane shook her head. ‘Not really. I just remember Dorothy shouting, “No way.” Then she saw me through the glass and didn’t say any more. The pair of them emerged some ten minutes later looking a bit guilty and Dorothy introduced me to the priest whom she said had been a great comfort to her, Father Liam Crossan.’
‘Strange,’ said Steven. ‘Did Dorothy talk much about her religious beliefs?’
‘Almost never,’ Jane replied. ‘I suppose she knows what most scientists feel about religion. She keeps it as a very personal thing.’
‘And then she made her big decision about the future of her research?’ said Steven.
‘Her big announcement,’ agreed Jane, ‘A change of field and a move to a new country. Although she never said as much at the time, I suspected she had decided to check out Paul and Carrie’s findings by moving the work on to the next level.’
‘DNA and epigenetics?’
Jane nodded. ‘There was only so far you could go with the techniques involving drugs and volunteers that Paul and Carrie had been using. The genes on your DNA have the capacity to specify all the different chemical substances in your body. If we can link gene products to drug action and find controllers for these genes...’
‘That’s where epigenetics comes into the picture,’ said Steven. ‘Well, that explains nicely why Dorothy made the move. How about you, why did you come with her?’
‘I went to Dorothy and told her what I thought she was up to and she didn’t deny it. She said that, despite misgivings, she had to know the truth. She invited me to join her in the move to the UK. I agreed... providing that no results would be covered up whatever they said.’
Steven smiled and said, ‘And I thought science was pretty straightforward.’
‘I wish.’
‘Where did Owen Barrowman fit in?’
‘He applied to Dorothy for a job and was well qualified: she felt we needed his experience. He could bring us all up to speed in the new techniques we’d need Most of us were new to epigenetics and the plan was to investigate as many possible facets of gene triggering as possible, which would be interesting in itself, but would also let us see a way into what Dorothy and I really wanted to work on.’
‘Paul and Carrie’s findings?’
Jane nodded.
‘How did it work out?’
‘Everything was fine in the beginning. Owen was a nice guy and taught us a lot. In exchange, Dorothy agreed to him pursuing his own line of research with psychotic criminals, which he was pretty far along the road with. Everyone was happy.’
‘But then Owen changed?’
‘He became very secretive and seemed to imagine people were conspiring against him. I’m assuming it was some kind of mental breakdown, poor guy.’
Steven nodded.
Sixteen
‘Dare I ask?’
The length of time taken by John Macmillan to respond suggested to Steven that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
‘The Home Secretary and I spoke for half an hour. She did not tell me why Five had blocked funding for Professor Lindstrom and said that she was unable to tell me where Barrowman was being held. She asked that I trust her.’
‘And you said?’
‘I sort of agreed.’
Steven was openly shocked. ‘A politician said, “trust me” and you said yes? That’s not the John Macmillan I know.’
‘She is the Home Secretary.’
‘We also have a shadow home secretary,’ said Steven.
The implicit suggestion that the threat of informing Her Majesty’s Opposition of a government refusal to cooperate might elicit a change of heart was not lost on Macmillan, but he said, ‘It wasn’t a complete blank. She didn’t deny that Lindstrom’s research grant funding was blocked by MI5.’
‘Which we already knew.’
‘True, but we didn’t know that Five carried out the hijack on Barrowman on the way to the hospital. She confirmed that.’
‘I’d already reduced the possibilities to a short list of one,’ said Steven, bristling at the thought of Sci-Med having given in to a politician. He respected Macmillan more than any man on earth and here he was backing off at government request.
Macmillan conceded the point with a slight raise of his hand. ‘Be that as it may,’ he said, ‘but one thing we didn’t know... is that Five have lost him.’
Steven was lost for words.
‘The hijack was carried out by intelligence officers, but something went badly wrong. The officer charged with delivering Barrowman on the final leg of the hijack was found with his neck broken in a ditch by the side of the road; the vehicle was later discovered as a burnt-out shell.’
Steven shook his head in disbelief. ‘So, Barrowman could be anywhere. Do we have any details of his last known whereabouts?’