Scorpion's Advance (3 page)

'Working tonight?'

'All week. You entertaining this evening?'

‘
I might ask Angela over if you are going to be out.'

Anderson changed his mind about calling Angela
: the problem of the relapsing patients was weighing too heavily on his mind. Instead he decided to catch up on his reading of current medical journals. He poured himself a whisky and settled down with notebook and pen at the ready. After half an hour or so his attention was taken by an article in one of them entitled 'Plasmids'. The author, a research geneticist, was attempting to bridge the gap between pure research and clinical medicine by suggesting the relevance of such entities in patient treatment. Anderson read that just as bacteria infect people, so plasmids infect bacteria. These tiny elements could spread through a bacterial population like wildfire conferring new properties on their hosts. Among these new properties was antibiotic resistance.

Anderson felt good for the first time in days. This could be the answer. If there was a plasmid at large in the hospital this would explain why the character of some infections would change after a few days and become resistant to treatment. He decided that he needed more information. He copied down a list of references from the end of the article. They would have the journals in the medical school library. He checked his watch; it was coming up to eleven o'clock. He could go first thing in the morning . . . No, he would go right now.

A bitterly cold wind was blowing as Anderson made the five-minute walk to the medical school. The streets were practically deserted; he only met one person along the way, a drunk going home and using the wall for support. Anderson entered by the side door and climbed the stone steps, worn down in their centres by generations of medical students taking the same shortcut to the library.

He found the journals that he was looking for and took them to a seat by a radiator. It was barely warm for the heating system was antiquated, but it was better than nothing. It took him forty minutes to find and copy out all the information he needed to set up tests for the presence of plasmids. He replaced the journals on their wooden racks, taking care to insert them in correct sequence, and switched out the light.

As he locked the library door Anderson heard the sound of breaking glass. He froze, listening at the head of the stairs, but all was quiet again. He felt sure that the sound had come from the Pathology Department on the floor below but could not remember having seen a light on when he crossed the quadrangle.

Anderson went quietly downstairs and stopped outside the heavy oak doors marked 'University Department of Pathology'. He tried the brass handle and found it open. Strange, he thought, someone must be working but there still did not seem to be a light on in any of the labs. He went inside, his feet squeaking on the polished linoleum as he walked down the corridor and entered the museum hall, a large square room with a statue in the middle to Sir Henry Struthers, first incumbent of the chair of pathology at the university. All around the walls were examples of human organs and tissue, fixed in formalin and displayed in glass cases for the benefit of medical students.

There did not appear to be anything amiss; all was quiet. There was enough light coming from the hospital across the courtyard so Anderson did not switch on the lights. He read the labels as he walked slowly past the cases and found himself wondering if the owners in life of the exhibited organs could ever have dreamed in their wildest nightmares of the 'immortality' that had been in store for them. Could 'male aged 49' ever have thought that his cancer-scarred lungs would one day swim in formalin eternity under public gaze? Did the parents of 'Foetus: Rubella Damage' know that their hideously deformed offspring would sit blindly in a glass-sealed vacuum for ever? Anderson hoped not.

As he passed the frock-coated figure of Sir Henry and moved into the shadow of the statue he saw what appeared to be an area of wetness on the floor at the far end of the room. Light was being reflected in a puddle. Anderson's first thought was that a window had broken and let in the rain, but that part of the room was the furthest from any window and consequently the darkest. The only reason that he had seen a reflection at all was due to light being reflected down from a white wall-mounted tray containing examples of gall stones. He approached slowly past a rack of excised and sectioned bladder tumours and saw that he had found the source of the breaking glass.

One of the display tanks had smashed on the floor, spilling out its contents. Anderson turned his head to read the floating label: 'Cirrhosis of the Liver: Male, aged 59'. He looked at the space where the display had stood. Why had it come down? Some fault in the glass? A weak mounting? He stepped gingerly round the spillage and ran his hand along the shelf, feeling for clues. The exhibit had been standing at the end of the row, just where the shelving curved into deep shadow . . .

Suddenly a dark shape erupted from the darkness and pushed him aside as it shot past on its way to the door. Anderson crashed back against a case containing the complete skeleton of a dwarf but was unaware of the rattle of protest as he fought fear and surprise. He made to give chase but forgot about the mess on the floor. His leading foot came down on the specimen and slid away from him, sending him tumbling to the floor where his momentum carried him across the wet linoleum till, finally, his head met the stone feet of an uncaring Sir Henry Struthers.

Anderson calculated that he had been unconscious for ten to fifteen minutes. He had a splitting headache and his right leg hurt where glass from the smashed exhibit had cut him. He got slowly to his feet and found the light switch. There was no telephone in the museum hall so he walked through the door by the niche where the intruder had sprung from and called the hospital operator from the Pathology Department office. He said that he’d stay until the police arrived.

Anderson spent the short time he had to wait looking for any other signs of damage caused by the break-in; there did not appear to be any. The only odd thing to strike him was
that, in the filing room, three Anglepoise lamps stood together on a small table near the cabinets. He walked over and felt the shades; all three were still warm. Someone had wanted a lot of light concentrated on a small area . . . but for what? Anderson noticed that one of the filing cabinets was open a fraction. He pulled the drawer out a little further and saw that one of the folders was standing a little proud of the others, as if someone had hastily replaced it. He took it out and opened it. It was the post-mortem report on Martin Klein.

Anderson looked at the little table again. Someone had been reading the PM report on Klein, but why three lamps? Had they just been reading it? Or had they been photographing it?

'A bloody weirdo, if you ask me,' said the detective sergeant, viewing his surroundings with obvious distaste.

'You could be right,' agreed Anderson, who had decided to say nothing about his suspicions surrounding the reason for the break-in. He saw no point; it was only going to delay his getting to bed if he had to explain who Martin Klein was and about the circumstances of his death. At the end of it all he knew that the police would have no more idea than he as to why someone should want to see the Klein PM report that badly.

'And you say there's nothing missing, sir?'

'Not as far as I can tell but, as I said, this is not my department. You'll really have to ask Professor Flenley that.'

'Yes, sir, we've sent a car to pick him up,' said the sergeant.

'Some nutter after kicks, Sarge?' suggested the constable who had been taking notes.

'More than likely,' murmured the sergeant. Then, turning to Anderson, he said, 'We see a lot of funny people in our job, sir.'

Anderson smiled and waited for it to occur to the policeman that some of the people he
met in his
line of work might not appear on the invitation lists to royal garden parties but it didn’t.

'Now
, if we can just go over these times again, sir?'

'Of course,' said Anderson, now working on grin-and-bear-it philosophy. He told the policeman once more what he had been through before, following every laborious curve of the constable's pen as he copied it down
. A uniformed man appeared to say that Professor Flenley had arrived, and Anderson was relieved to hear the sergeant say, 'I don't think we need detain you any longer, sir.'

Anderson went to, the washroom to clean up. An examination of his head wound in the mirror told him that it did not need any treatment other than cleaning; the cuts on his legs were also superficial. He returned to the flat and took a sleeping pill.

Anderson got to the lab at seven-fifteen and found the morning cleaner sitting in the common room having a cigarette. She got to her feet hurriedly when he looked in, brushing ash off her green overall. Anderson smiled. 'Aye, the early bird catches the cleaner having a fly fag, eh?'

The woman gave a
bronchitic cackle. "Ere, you're a Scottie,' she said.

The first of Anderson's many curious visitors that morning came in just after nine. By eleven he was fed up to the back teeth with people asking about the break-in at Pathology. There was only one person he wanted to see, John Kerr,
and he did not arrive in the lab till half past eleven; he had been at a heads of department meeting to discuss the relapsing patient problem.

Kerr came into Anderson's lab carrying four culture dishes. He put them down on the bench and said, 'These are the Klein post-mortem cultures you left out for me. I
agree, nothing but normal gut bacteria. I hear you had an exciting evening?'

Anderson told Kerr about the break-in but said nothing about the filing cabinet. In the cold light of day he had begun to think that it might have been his imagination. The Klein file
might
have been the last one put in the drawer by one of the secretaries. The Anglepoise lamps
might
have been stacked on one table while a cleaner polished the desks.

Kerr asked him what he had been doing in the library at midnight and Anderson told him of his plasmid theory.

'That sounds interesting,' said Kerr.

'I hoped you'd think that. I'm setting up the tests today.'

'These plasmids don't confer resistance to all antibiotics, do they?' asked Kerr.

'No, usually only one or two.'

Thank God for that.'

'If we can identify the plasmid involved in the hospital, and find out what antibiotic resistance it carries, we can simply avoid using those drugs on the wards.'

Kerr nodded. 'Can you do the tests here?'

‘
I can determine whether or not a plasmid is present, but I'll need expert help to identify it. Perhaps you could fix it with the Molecular Biology Department?'

'Will do.'

Anderson set up plasmid tests on lab cultures from four of the relapsed patients and included two cultures of normal bacteria as test controls. One was the Klein post-mortem culture that Kerr had just returned, for it was close to hand, and the other was a harmless stock strain to which he appended the name 'J. Smith'.

It took until seven in the evening for
him to finish getting the tests underway, by which time he was very tired, his headache having managed to defy frequent doses of aspirin throughout the day. The tests in themselves had not involved an enormous amount of work but the mere fact that he was not set up to do such analyses had meant constant sorties to other labs to seek chemicals and equipment not on his shelves. He was relieved when all the samples were loaded into the electrophoresis tank. He set the current to run overnight, washed up and locked the lab.

John
Fearman was sitting drinking coffee when Anderson got back to the flat. He swivelled round in his chair and smiled. 'Well, I never thought I'd see it,' he said. 'See what?' asked Anderson, with the feeling that he was taking the bait.

‘A
bacteriologist working a twelve-hour day ..."

'Just what I need, a comedian.' Anderson poured himself a drink and gestured with the bottle to
Fearman who shook his head.

'I forgot. You’
re working tonight.'

'How about you? I suppose it will be on with the cape and mask and off to right crime in the city.'

"You heard, huh?'

'I heard you'd tackled Sir Henry Struthers single-handedly . . . with your head.'

Anderson gave a smile of resignation. 'I suppose I'm never going to live this down.'

'Not if I can help it,
old son.'

Anderson sat down and told
Fearman about his plasmid theory to explain the relapsing patients.

'Sounds good. When will you know?"

'In the morning.'

When
Fearman left for the hospital, Anderson ran a hot bath and relaxed in the suds till the water started to cool. His headache had gone but he was now plagued with recurring thoughts about the break-in at Pathology. In the quiet of the apartment he no longer found it possible to dismiss the open drawer in the filing cabinet and the concentrated illumination as coincidence. He reverted to believing that the intruder's target had, in fact, been the Klein PM report. But why? Who, apart from the Galomycin group, would have a desperate interest in the cause of Martin Klein's death? It was not as if there were anything secret about PM reports. Anyone with a legitimate reason for knowing could simply ask Pathology for a copy. That implied that someone without a legitimate reason for knowing was interested. But that conclusion only brought him round in a circle to the inevitable question: Why? It was still niggling at him when he finally turned over on to his side and went to sleep.

It was another early start for Anderson for he was anxious to know the result of the plasmid tests. He was delighted with the unequivocal nature of the way things had turned out. All four problem patients gave a clear indication of plasmid activity in their infections. The 'J. Smith' stock culture was blandly and pleasingly negative; in fact, the only problem at all was that the Klein culture, which he had put in as a second negative control, was showing a positive result. Could he have mixed up two strains? He decided that the question could be
st be answered in the identification procedure. He called the number left for him by John Kerr and spoke to the man who was to be his contact in Molecular Biology, Frank Teasdale.

Teasdale said that he would be happy to include Anderson's samples in a batch of tests he would be setting up that
same day. He’d get in touch when he had some news, probably Thursday or Friday.

An internal
mail envelope landed on Anderson's desk on Thursday, just after lunchtime. It contained the results of Teasdale's analysis. Anderson's theory was confirmed in full. The patients who had relapsed were all carrying plasmid R76, a known antibiotic resistance transfer factor and almost certainly the cause of the problems which had arisen in their treatment. The Klein culture also carried a plasmid; it had been identified as cloning vector PZ9.

Anderson's initial euphoria over having solved the problem died a little when he read the Klein result. There had been no mix up over the cultures; the Klein culture really did carry a plasmid of its own. But it was a cloning vector . . .

Anderson only knew what he had read recently about plasmids but he did know that cloning vectors were rather special. They were man-made plasmids, designed for the transfer of genes in genetic research. As yet there had been no direct medical application for them so they were still very much in the province of experimental biologists. He phoned Teasdale.

No, there had been no mistake, the sample marked 'Klein' did carry cloning vector PZ9. How could he be sure? There was a computerized register of all known cloning vectors; Klein's plasmid had been a perfect match. It had an insert of 2.7
Kb.

'You've lost me,' said Anderson.

'Sorry. The vector is carrying a gene sized at two point seven kilobases of DNA.'

'What gene?'

'No way of knowing.'

Anderson explained where the culture had come from.

'I see,' said Teasdale. 'Well, if he was a medical student I can only suggest that he must have swallowed something he shouldn't have in some practical class.'

'Could it have caused him any harm?'

'Shouldn't think so but it really shouldn't have happened.'

'Agreed. Do you think you could find out for me who works with PZ9 and what class it might have been used in?'

'I can try.'

'Thanks.' Anderson put down the phone and rubbed his temples lightly with the heels of his hands. The uneasy feeling that he had experienced first in Pathology had returned.

John Kerr put his head round the door. 'Well?'

Anderson smiled and said, 'It's been confirmed; a plasmid's been causing all the trouble.'

'Well done,' said Kerr, grinning and coming into the room. 'So we know what antibiotics to avoid in the wards?'

Anderson nodded and pushed over a piece of paper.

'Excellent. But you don't seem too happy about it.'

'Oh, I am,' said Anderson. 'It's just that something else has come up.' He told Kerr about the other plasmid in Klein's gut and what Teasdale had said.

'So he was a careless young man. But there's more?' said Kerr, sensing Anderson's mood.

Anderson confided in Kerr his suspicions about the break-in at Pathology.

'Did you tell the police about this?'

Anderson
confessed that he hadn’t, saying that it sounded fanciful unless he could think of a reason to back it up, and he couldn't. Kerr nodded his agreement and asked to be informed of the source of PZ9 when Teasdale called back.

Teasdale phoned at four-thirty; he sounded apologetic.

'I'm sorry. I misled you.'

'Then it wasn't a cloning vector after all?' asked Anderson.

'Oh yes. There's no doubt about that. It's just that PZ9 isn't used in this university at all. In fact, it isn't being used anywhere in the United Kingdom. It's an Israeli vector. It originates in Professor Jacob Strauss's laboratory at the University of Tel Aviv.'

'I see,' said Anderson slowly as he saw the pieces fit. 'That makes sense.'

'How so?' asked Teasdale.

'Klein was an Israeli.'

'Ah,' said Teasdale. 'Then I think you have your answer.'

Anderson thanked him and put down the phone. He was relieved that Klein had not contaminated himself here in the medical school for now there would be no need for embarrassing probes into the safety of practical classes, no tiptoeing through the minefield of colleagues' sensitivities.

On the other hand it also meant that there was no one he could ask about the gene in the Klein plasmid. Only the Israeli lab would know that.

'Well, what now?' said Kerr when Anderson told him.

Anderson screwed up his face. 'I've got a bad feeling about this whole Klein thing.'

'You mean you think that this cloning vector thing killed him?' said Kerr, lighting his pipe.

'I know it sounds overdramatic, and Teasdale didn't seem to think that it would do Klein any harm, but the fact remains: we don't know what the foreign gene is. I’d like your permission to do a few animal tests. I'd feel a lot happier if I knew for sure that the Klein plasmid was harmless . . .'

'
Go ahead.'

It was after five; the animal technicians would have gone for the day. Anderson resolved to set up the tests first thing in the morning.

Anderson took the shortcut to the animal house. He went down to the basement of the medical school and along one of the maintenance tunnels, stooping as he did so to avoid hitting his head on the steam pipes that clung to the rounded ceiling. The smell of wet sawdust and the sound of the scratching inhabitants told him that he was getting near before he finally came to the frosted-glass door that always reminded him of a school classroom.