‘She’s had a real shock, but there were no complications and the break should mend given enough time and good behaviour.’ Tally yawned and said, ‘You know, I think an early night could be on the cards.’
‘What a lovely thought,’ said Steven, holding her close. ‘Hungry?’
‘What do you have in the fridge?’
‘Cheese.’
‘And?’
The silence was broken by, ‘There’s some bread in the cupboard... or we could go out?’
Tally put her finger on Steven’s lips. ‘Cheese on toast sounds just fine. I’m going to shower.’
‘Tea or wine?’
‘Silly question.’
As they lay in the darkness, Tally with her head resting on Steven’s shoulder, Steven tracing patterns lightly on her skin with his fingertips, Tally murmured, ‘That was nice.’
‘Yep,’ Steven replied, ‘when it comes to cheese on toast... I’m your man.’
Tally slapped the palm of her hand on Steven’s thigh. ‘Why must you always play the fool?’ she demanded through giggles.
‘It’s a gift.’
Another slap.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Steven drove over to the Lundborg labs in the morning and accepted Lukas’ offer of coffee. ‘Espresso?’
Steven took a sip and murmured his appreciation before asking about progress.
‘It’s a good, solid piece of work,’ Lukas replied. ‘I expected a hard time after what you said about the guy, but his entire project was laid out in such a clear way that even a lay person could get the gist of it. He found significant differences between certain areas of the genomes of convicted killers in his study and what we would regard as normal among the general population.’
‘Publishable work?’
‘Absolutely.’
Steven nodded but remained silent until Lukas said, ‘You don’t seem happy. Something wrong?’
‘Your findings match those of his group leader who’s been examining what’s on his work computer.’
‘Oh, good...’ said Lukas, softening the sarcasm with a smile.
‘She was delighted because publication of Barrowman’s work should ensure continued funding for her group.’
‘Group leaders have to think that way.’
‘Okay, I’ll level with you, There’s something missing.’
‘It seemed pretty complete to me.’
‘It was meant to,’ said Steven. ‘When Barrowman wrote this up he was already totally paranoid; he thought everyone in the world was hell bent on stealing his work. Everyone, including me, feared he would go to enormous lengths to conceal his findings and were prepared to find nothing on his computers. Instead we find what you’ve just seen for yourself, the results of a successful project perfectly presented.’
‘He’s thrown a sop to what he sees as the chasing pack... so there must be a reason?’
‘I’m certain there is. He deliberately left one patient off the list, Malcolm Lawler, the Moorlock Hall prisoner he thought was special. He told me that when we first met and said much the same to his wife who watched him fall further and further under Lawler’s spell. She said he claimed to loathe the man but was still mesmerised by him. The more time he spent with Lawler the more distant he became to those around him until he lost all reason and became a killer himself. I take it you didn’t find any mention of Lawler on Barrowman’s computer or in his notes?’
‘None at all.’
‘Neither did Professor Lindstrom, but it didn’t worry her greatly, for her it was just a matter of having one fewer subject in the study than there might have been. Not a problem, there were already enough in terms of numbers to make the study significant.’
‘She didn’t know anything about this Lawler being special?’
‘Barrowman didn’t confide in her.’
‘So, what happens now?’
‘Unless we can find out what he’s done with the data he collected on Lawler we may never know what he discovered.’
‘He didn’t confide in his wife before he lost his mind?’ asked Lukas.
Steven shook his head. ‘He saw her as one of the enemy.’
‘If they take him alive, the intelligence services will interrogate him.’
‘Like I say, we may never know what he discovered.’
Seventeen
Steven made the promised call to Neil Tyler to bring him up to speed on what had been gleaned from Barrowman’s home computer and lab notes.
‘Pretty much the same thing as Dorothy found,’ he reported. ‘Our man found a nice piece of work with several interesting observations about differences in the genomes of psychopathic killers.’
Tyler made affirmative noises as if this was what he expected to hear, but then asked, ‘When we met with Dorothy you asked her about a prisoner whose samples seemed to be missing from the report. Was the same man’s data missing this time?’
‘It was,’ Steven confirmed, ‘Malcolm Lawler, the prisoner from Moorlock Hall — there was no mention of him.’
‘A deliberate exclusion. What do you make of that?’
‘Should I make anything of it? Maybe the study on Lawler wasn’t complete: he was the last one to be added.’
‘I don’t think you believe that any more than I do,’ said Tyler. ‘Barrowman was very reluctant to speak of anything to do with Moorlock Hall or who he was working with. I picked up on that straight away. Now Lawler is missing from the report.’
Steven decided to put his cards on the table, but first he asked a couple of questions. ‘You said you’d never heard of Moorlock Hall before Barrowman mentioned it. Was that true?’
‘Yes, but when I did hear about it, I became very interested indeed.’
‘Is that a personal interest or are you asking on behalf of your anonymous clients?’
‘Personal. I’m sure my clients will be well satisfied with the work found on Barrowman’s computer when I put in my report. It’s an excellent piece of work.’
‘But you and I both suspect that what Barrowman found out about Lawler may be even more interesting?’
‘When someone with Barrowman’s ability hides something it automatically makes it interesting,’ said Tyler.
‘All we have to do is find out where he’s hidden it. Any ideas?’ Steven asked, tongue in cheek.
‘The digital world is his oyster.’
‘About sums it up.’ Steven agreed. He decided that things between he and Tyler had been going well. He took a gamble and asked, ‘You once pointed out that Dorothy had been having bad luck with her post-docs; was that just a casual observation or was there more to it?’
Tyler drew breath and paused before saying, ‘I attended an international scientific meeting at Yale around the time of the fire. It was a meeting about the determinants of human behaviour — the reason I was there. The usual topics were covered, nature versus nurture, the influence of religion, scientific progress in gene studies, what makes one man a saint and another a terrorist. Dorothy Lindstrom was one of the speakers: being a Christian she acted as a sort of bridge between science and religion and was there to provide support for a Roman Catholic bishop who did his best to give credit for all the good in the world to God while all the blame for the bad things was laid at the door of the human race.’
Steven made a face and Tyler responded with a wry smile. ‘That’s what most of the delegates thought,’ he said. ‘The bishop was given a hard time, particularly when he tried to blame Islamic terrorist behaviour on false promises made to the faithful regarding the ready availability of virgins upon their demise. Some delegates pointed out that afterlife promises made by Christian leaders aren’t that different.’
‘Sounds like a bad day to have worn your collar back to front,’ said Steven.