Deception (23 page)

‘
Words, words, words,’ sneered Lane. ‘We’re never short of words round here. It’s translating them into some kind of bloody action that seems to be the problem. You’ll find him in the office along there, planning our latest defence strategy,’ said Lane with a wry smile. He pointed to a door along the hallway. ‘If you don’t need me, Doctor, I have plenty to be getting on with.’

Steven said not and went off to find Grimble on his own. ‘He knocked and put his head round the door. ‘All right if I come in?’

Grimble looked up from the papers he was studying and said wearily, ‘Please. Any excuse to stop going through endless legal jargon is welcome.’

‘
Problems?’

‘
It’s the latest submission from Rafferty’s lawyers. ‘As far as I can make out, they are willing to concede that the ‘third genetic element’ in our crop is in fact, an antibiotic marker gene - as we’ve maintained all along. But now they are arguing that the insertion of such an element into the DNA of the plant has by definition altered the genetic makeup of the plant itself, thus constituting a third change, where only two were licensed. They plan to wheel out scientific experts to testify to this in court, if we ever get that far.’

‘
So what will you do?’

‘
Wheel out
our
scientific experts to point out that this is always the case with antibiotic markers and it’s completely irrelevant. If we’d hit a vital gene the plant wouldn’t have been able to grow. If we’d inserted it in any gene that was in any way at all important to the yield, it would have showed up in the nature of the mature plant and it hasn’t. What we have here is oilseed rape that can withstand the action of glyphosphate and glufosinate weed killers. Period.’ Grimble leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms in the air. ‘That’s the trouble with expert witnesses,’ he said. ‘If one says white it’s the easiest thing in the world to find another who’ll say black. Christ, this is like trying to swim in treacle!’ He rubbed the back of his head and brought his arms back down to rest on the desk. ‘I’m sorry, he said. ‘How can I help you?’

‘
I’d like to know if Agrigene are growing the Peat Ridge oilseed rape anywhere else in the UK?’ asked Steven.

‘
Yes, we’ve got four other trials running, one in Cambridge, one in Worcester and two in Leicestershire.’

‘
The identical crop?’

‘
Absolutely. All the seeds came from the same batch. We’re just trying out different herbicide regimes on them to assess crop yields. No one has been able to use glyphosphates and glufosinates at will before.’

‘
Has any attempt been made by the authorities to stop the English trials?’ asked Steven.

‘
Not by the authorities,’ said Grimble. ‘We’ve had a bit of bother with student protests and friends-of-the-turnip and such like but nothing like the legal shit we’ve been getting thrown at us up here.’

‘
It strikes me that you could always bring evidence that your crop here is genetically identical to your English ones,’ suggested Steven.

‘
I did think of that,’ said Grimble ruefully but frankly it could go either way. The fact that the authorities seem to have it in for us up here suggests that we might end up losing our English trials as well. I’ve decided to fight the Scottish Executive for the Peat Ridge crop on its own merits and argue every legal step of the way. I make no bones about it; I’m stalling for time. As long as the crop’s in the fields out there, our trial is proceeding.’

‘
I wish you luck,’ said Steven. ‘And I mean that.’ He thanked Grimble for his help and set off for Edinburgh. It was now too late to get lunch anywhere so he picked up a sandwich at a shop in Colinton village and ate it in the nearby Park, sitting on a seat by the river.

What he had learned from Grimble suggested almost conclusively that there could not be anything specifically wrong with the Peat Ridge crop. Sigma 5 would know about the other Agrigene sites and, more importantly, that the crop growing in them was identical to the one in Peat Ridge. If they were really trying to cover up a connection between the experimental crop and a worrying effect on animal behaviour, they would have to have mounted some kind of dirty tricks campaign against the English trials as well.

Steven returned to his hotel and spent what remained of the afternoon making out an interim report for Sci-Med. Although his computer had been set to encrypt the message, he still hesitated before hitting the ‘send’ button and decided to mark it for Macmillan’s eyes only. Sci-Med was a relatively small operation and he thought he knew and trusted everyone in it but the government involvement in this affair was making him nervous. When people couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad, all sorts on pressures could come into play. Marking the message in such a way would not physically stop someone else at Sci-Med from opening it but the message would thereafter be marked with the date, time and staff code of the person who had opened it. It was that knowledge that would stop a third party even thinking about it.

He sent off a full report of his progress and thoughts about the situation so far and, in a separate message, requested any information that Sci-Med could come up with on Childs and Leadbetter with respect to their military careers. He didn’t expect to get back anything on their time with Special Forces – that kind of information was always notoriously difficult to obtain, if not downright impossible, but it seemed reasonable to hope for something more than the bare bones that Jamie Brown had come up with.

With work out the way, he phoned his sister in law, Sue down in Dumfries to check that it would be all right for him to come over at the weekend and then he had a word with his daughter, Jenny.

‘
Of course,’ replied Sue. ‘We all look forward to seeing you. What’s it like to be back at work?’

‘
Challenging,’ replied Steven after a moment’s pause to think of the right word. ‘How’s my little monster behaving herself?’

‘
Challenging,’ replied Sue and they both laughed. ‘Jenny needs to know the reason for everything and she won’t be fobbed off; a bit like her father I should think. I must say I’ll be glad when the school holidays are over and I’ll have at least two of them off my hands through the day. Actually, I think I can get Jenny a place in a new nursery school that’s opened up in the village. What do you think?’

‘
Great idea all round,’ said Steven. ‘Then she can pick on someone her own size! Just let me know about fees.’

‘
We can talk about that when you come down. I’ll put Jenny on and she can give you your orders.’

Steven had a ten-minute conversation with his daughter, which Jenny monopolised with talk of nursery school and what she was going to do and learn when she went there. She ended up by asking, ‘Have you caught any bad men yet, Daddy?’

‘
Not yet, Nutkin, but I’m working on it.’

Steven had a drink in the hotel bar and sought advice over which restaurant to take Eve Ferguson to on the following evening. With Childs and Leadbetter constantly riding shotgun on Rafferty, he saw persuading Eve to help him get to Trish Rafferty as his best chance of making progress in that direction.

‘
Somewhere a bit different,’ he requested, ‘a bit special.’

‘
The Witchery,’ suggested the barman. ‘It’s up by the castle and very atmospheric. Try their Secret Garden. She’ll be very impressed, I’m sure,’ he added with a wink.

‘
It’s business,’ said Steven. He phoned and made a reservation although the restaurant made a point of telling how lucky he was to get one at such short notice.

Steven had something to eat in the bar and then went out for a walk. The area round about the hotel was affluent and pleasant; leafy lanes, large houses and walled gardens. BMW and Mercedes cars sat silently on gravel; stable conversions and lodge cottages housed aspiring professionals, while the mansions sheltered old money as they always had.

What wind there had been during the day had dropped away to nothing and the scents of late summer were heavy in the air as he walked simply for the sake of it. He found it easy to surmise that some of these homes would house people who worked for the Scottish Executive or maybe even the pillars of the establishment who ran it, people who might know just what the hell was going on out at Blackbridge.

Steven read the Scotsman newspaper while he had breakfast in the hotel conservatory. Jamie Brown had a piece in it about the failure of government – local or otherwise, to agree who was responsible for doing something about the increasing rat population all over the country, but particularly in the Blackbridge area which had been so recently and tragically highlighted. The local council maintained it was a district council matter; the district council thought that Rural Affairs at the Scottish Parliament should deal with it. Rural Affairs thought it was an Environmental Health matter and so on and so forth.

Brown had managed to get a couple of ‘expert views’ on how the matter should be tackled when responsibility had been agreed. The bottom line seemed to be that anything other than poison was going to be less than effective. The general public really had to be 'educated' about not making it easy for rats to thrive and multiply. The animals had to be denied access to all likely sources of nutrition, particularly rubbish sacks that often tended to be less than secure.

A bit late for that, thought Steven, but then he was allergic to experts who wanted to ‘educate the public’. The very phrase made him want to dig his heels in. It was such a pleasant morning that he lingered in the front garden for a little while. He walked up to the wishing well at the head of the lawn and rested his hands on the brickwork for a moment, thinking of Lisa but no longer in a maudlin way. He smiled at the memory but did however, feel a twinge of guilt over the fact that he was going to be having dinner with another woman this evening.

He walked back to the car park and got into his car. He clipped on his belt and turned the key but nothing happened. He tried again and then once more after wiggling the steering wheel backwards and forwards to make sure that the lock was fully disengaged. To Steven’s chagrin, the engine remained silent and lifeless.

The only sound, apart from the birds in the garden, was an intermittent tinkling noise, like wind chimes or distant bells.

‘
Shit,’ sighed Steven, annoyed that a car less than thirteen months old had let him down. Surely car batteries should last longer than that these days, he thought angrily. It wasn’t even winter. He tested the battery by turning the ignition back on and trying various accessories. The heater fan whirred into life, the radio worked and his headlights were reflected brightly in the windows of the hotel dining room. There was nothing wrong with the battery. He sighed and rested his hands on the wheel, wondering what to try next, when he suddenly became aware that the wind chime noise had started up again . . . although it was a perfectly calm morning.

During the next few seconds Steven’s spine turned to ice and a cold sweat broke out on his brow as he made the connection between the tinkling sound and his turning on the ignition switch. The sound wasn’t distant at all; it was coming from under the bonnet and it wasn’t random noise. It was organised and musical . . . it was a tune and one he now recognised . . . Be it ever so humble, there’s no place . . .

As the last line of the song neared completion he flung himself from the car and rolled down the grassy bank on to the lawn to lie face in the grass with his hands over his head. Nothing happened.

After fully a minute of waiting with nerve ends like broken glass, he crawled cautiously back up the bank and approached the car. The tune was still playing. He opened the driver’s door gingerly and reached in under the dash to release the bonnet catch. With his nerves in their current state, he could have done without the ensuing clunk. He moved round to the front of the car and felt gently along the gap between the open bonnet and the car body. He didn’t find any wires so he released the secondary catch and lifted the bonnet up.

He stared down at a small pine musical box sitting on top of the engine. The wire that normally connected the key switch to the electronic ignition system had been re-routed via a step-down transformer to a musical box that had been taped to the engine block. The tune was coming to an end again; ‘There’s no-o place like home.’ It started up all over again and Steven yanked the wires from the box in an angry gesture. He pulled the musical box away from its tape anchors, feeling sick in his stomach. It could so easily have been a lump of semtex sitting there. Instead, this time it had been a warning.

A voice at his side asked, ‘Everything all right?’

Steven jumped slightly then swallowed, trying to regain his composure. He turned to find the hotel manager standing there. He hadn’t heard him approach.

‘
I saw you there with the bonnet of your car up from the lounge window,’ said the man pleasantly. ‘Would you like me to call the local garage?’

‘
No need,’ said Steven. His throat was so dry that his voice came out as a croak. He cleared it and continued, ‘A slight problem with the engine immobiliser. Damn thing’s always playing up.’

‘
Security systems cause more trouble than they’re worth,’ said the manager sympathetically. ‘The only people they really inconvenience are their owners and the neighbours. When it’s windy round here it sounds like New Year’s Eve in Times Square.’

Steven smiled weakly. He was in no mood for small talk.