George Barnabas - 04 - Fourth Attempt (40 page)

‘Maybe not. But just tell me, how much do you know about him?’

He shrugged. ‘Not a hell of a lot. I mean, I saw his CV when he joined — we all saw each other’s — and he has a respectable history in his field. And we’re colleagues, working for the same Institute. More than that, what can I say?’

‘Is he’ — she tilted her head — ‘honourable?’

‘Well, you sweet old-fashioned thing, you! What does that mean?’

‘You know what I mean! Is he straight up, would he cheat
or cut corners to get what he wants? To do what he wants?’

He thought for a while, clearly treating the question with respect. Then he said, ‘Wouldn’t we all? If you’re doing research you care about it. And if idiots get in your way …’

‘What then?’

‘Well, you, um, push them aside. Or climb over them.’

‘And Mike’s like that?’

‘He might be. I have no evidence that he is, or that he isn’t. It’s just the way researchers are in my experience.’

‘Would he …’ She swallowed. ‘Would he experiment with human subjects without full permission from a Research Ethics Committee?’

There was a long silence and then he said, ‘Oh, shit! Is that what you’ve discovered about him?’

‘I don’t say I have. I’m just asking.’

He sighed, a genuinely sad sound. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. He might.’

‘Let me ask you another hypothetical question. If he had, and if he was found out, what would be the result?’

‘All hell would break loose,’ Zack said confidently. ‘Unsanctioned human experiments have overtones of Nazi Germany and the way Stalin treated political dissidents as psychiatrically ill and dosed them into idiocy. No one nowadays would stand for that.’

‘And here at Old East, at this Institute? What would happen?’

‘Out on his ear,’ Zack said succinctly. ‘Christ, George, is that what lies behind all this? Has he been illicitly experimenting?’

‘Zack, I don’t know. I just wanted to get some information. You have to understand that I wasn’t making any sort of accusations. Just asking in a general sort of way.’ She had a moment of inspiration, a vision of how she could reduce the light she was shining on Klein. ‘What about Frances, for example? Could she ever cut corners that way? I’m checking up on all research people, you see.’ Would he see what a tenuous
link that was? She hoped not. Fortunately he was far too self-aware even to think about it.

He grinned at her sideways on. ‘Me included?’

‘I’ve already had you investigated,’ she said, ‘haven’t I? And you’re in the clear. That’s why I can talk to you about the others, as long as you remember your promise to bite your tongue on it. And I need to know, could Frances Llewellyn behave in a way that would put her at risk of being pushed out of her research here?’

Again he thought carefully and again sighed. ‘Honestly, George, who can say? She cares about her work, cares quite desperately. I don’t know though …’ He got to his feet and began to prowl round the room, dodging desks and chairs and the trailing wires from computers and word processors as he went. ‘I’m one of those that couldn’t enjoy cheating in research. It’s tempting maybe, as a way to get the funds, but what’s the point? You’d know you hadn’t managed to do anything worth while, and it’s got to be worth while if you’re to get your prizes and your big bucks, hasn’t it? Cheating is such a
negative
activity. It ruins your chances. But not everyone can see that. There have been people who’ve gone in for scientific fraud — remember that fuss over Piltdown Man? And that chap not long ago who claimed he’d done something incredible in the gynaecological line — re-implanting an ectopic pregnancy in a woman and cherishing it till she reached term? Look what happened to him when he was caught. It was horrible, he was struck off. But even if he hadn’t been caught where’d the satisfaction be in claiming something and knowing yourself to be a liar? I couldn’t do it and I don’t think my colleagues could.’

He lifted his head. ‘But I have to tell you, George, it’s possible. I can’t deny it’s possible. Does that help you at all?’

She worked out the best lie to use to prise the information she needed out of the Human Resources department on her way back through the courtyard from Laburnum Ward, but then found —that in the event she hardly needed anything so elaborate.

The HR office was a buzz of chattering word-processor keyboards and equally chattering staff; she had to stand at the window marked ‘Enquiries’ tapping on the glass for some time before anyone noticed she was there. Under normal circumstances she would have delivered a blistering reproof for such inefficiency; this afternoon she didn’t risk it.

Fortunately the girl who came hurrying over had a guilty conscience about the fact that she had been gossiping when a senior member of the staff was asking for attention, and was almost pathetically eager to please in consequence. She listened to George’s rather unlikely explanation of wanting to check on someone’s academic and employment history because she had to provide a reference for him for an academic journal in which he wanted to be published, and went away cheerfully willing to pull the record out of the file, even though normally files were not shown to anyone outside the HR department. She even provided George with a small room containing a chair and a table at which to sit while she did whatever it was she wanted to do with it.

‘Would you like a nice cuppa?’ she asked solicitously as she bustled around, offering pens and pencils and notebooks, none of which George needed. ‘Or I could get you a coffee from the other office.’

‘Not a thing, thank you,’ George said. ‘Just let me look up this information and I’ll be on my way.’ Then a thought hit her. ‘Um, there is just something — not to do with this file, of course.’ She set her hand on it as it sat invitingly on the table in front of her. ‘But out of general interest. We were — um — having a discussion about it in the senior common room the other night. This thing about being a referee for people, we’re often asked, all of us.’ She warmed to her concocted tale. ‘And one of the surgeons was saying that he only agrees to have his name put forward to provide a reference for people he really cares about, because otherwise he’d spend all his time writing them and he really is much too busy. But someone else said that really we don’t have a problem because more often than not people — new employers — don’t bother to take up references. The mere fact that someone gives a well-known and reliable name is good enough. So, do tell me, who was right? Mr — the surgeon who won’t let people use his name as referee unless he likes them a lot, or the one who said employers don’t bother to take up references? What happens here at Old East, for example?’

The girl leaned against the table, her arms folded against her ample bosom, and settled herself for a nice prose. Clearly George had struck gold: getting someone who liked nothing better than a chat, no matter what the subject.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘They’re both right and they’re both wrong.’ She beamed with satisfaction at her joke. ‘It all depends, you see. Here we take up some references — write to the person, you know, and ask for a form to be filled out, what we send them. But others, well they attach copies of written references to their application forms when they first write in, and we just go by that. As long as it’s a reputable place they’ve come from, you know.’ She nodded sapiently. ‘Like Mrs
Gosling says, you get a nose for what’s what in this department. I work a lot with Mrs Gosling. She says I’ll make a good HR director one day, on account of I like people.’

‘Yes,’ George said, amused as well, as grateful for her garrulousness. ‘I’m sure you will. So, you don’t always get in touch with referees. Um — there’s something else I’ve always wondered, as we’re talking: what about qualifications? Do you check with medical schools? Ask to see certificates and so forth?’

The girl laughed merrily. ‘Oh, no! We’d never get a thing done if we had to do that. We deal with over five hundred staff here, you know. And not just the doctors. There’s the nurses and the PAMs — Professions Allied to Medicine, you know,’ she added helpfully.

‘I know,’ George said dryly.

‘And the clericals and the administrative people and the cooks and the cleaners. You have to be all things to all men and women when you work in HR, and you have to have your antennae well up.’ She nodded, pleased with herself. George could almost hear the voice of her mentor, Mrs Gosling, prompting her. ‘So we couldn’t possibly look at every certificate and contact every referee. But, like I said, we don’t really need to, do we? You know when someone is a reliable referee, by their name and where they are. A good hospital is a good hospital, ’n’t it? As for qualifications, well, a lot of people have them framed and hanging up in their houses. Their loos, usually.’ She giggled. ‘That’s where I keep my certificate what I got from City and Guilds. But I only have to tell people I’ve got it and that’s good enough.’

‘And I’m sure you’ll get lots more to put up in your loo,’ George said handsomely, beaming at the girl. ‘Well, thanks a lot. I’ll just collect the information I need from this file and bring it out to you when I’m done. Will that be all right? I don’t want to waste your time while I do it’

The girl, who had clearly been happily settled for a nice long wait that would keep her away from whatever else it was
she was supposed to be doing, opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t mind a bit, but George lifted her brows at her in what she knew was one of her more unattractive expressions and the girl closed her mouth again and made for the door.

‘I’ll wait till you bring it to me, then,’ she said. ‘You know where I am — in the reception office.’

‘I know.’ George waited, sitting with her hand on the file, till the girl had opened the door and gone. Not till the door reluctantly closed did she pull the file closer to read it.

The home address was a northern market town, and the school history there, it seemed, had been exemplary. Good O levels, A levels and acceptance at a medical school in the Midlands followed. Odd, she thought, I never heard any hint of an accent in his voice. Still, maybe that’s because my American ears aren’t as finely tuned to regional variations as they might be, in spite of rapidly learning the differences between various Scottish accents when living and working in Inverness. But that’s irrelevant now; think about this file, she told herself firmly.

So, a routine medical background: good first job in a hospital in Birmingham, a second one in suburban London, well south of the river, and now here at Old East. A commonplace enough career resume, she thought, and then automatically translated the American term into English: curriculum vitae, CV.

Her mind was wandering, she knew, and she brought her attention back to the file. She read the references that were attached to the application form, and frowned a little as she went through them again. Then she realized what it was that bothered her and settled down to read them more carefully, checking one against the other. It was, indeed, a very revealing exercise.

She got home at seven, later than usual because she had stayed late at the lab out of guilt, making sure that all the
work she had neglected was done. And it was. Alan was turning out to be a classic tower of strength and she told him so.

‘Glad to do it,’ he said. ‘I need the experience anyway. And of course if it means you’ll give me a glowing reference when I go, then it will all have been more than worth while!’

References again, she thought, and made a little face. ‘Of course I will. Not only will I give you a written one when the time comes, but I’ll tell you to insist that future would-be employers actually contact me so that I can really sing your praises the way they should be. Or give you a bollocking, of course …’

He laughed. ‘Ah, but people don’t, do they? If they can’t say something good about a person, they usually say nothing at all.’

‘Yes.’ She stared at him for a long moment. ‘Yes, indeed.’

‘So, here’s the work schedule for tomorrow. There’re two bods waiting for PMs — routine stuff, I’ll gladly do them.’ He tried not to look too eager, but she wasn’t fooled.

‘I’d be grateful if you would,’ she said graciously and watched him go happily home, still thoughtful. Everything seemed to point in the same direction. All this talk of references … There would be a lot to talk about when she and Gus got together tonight.

He arrived a half-hour after she did, so she had had time to organize some supper. Nothing special, some pasta with a pot of pesto she had in the freezer, and a salad. It would be enough to stoke them for an evening’s hard talk, she thought, and barely gave him time to wash his hands when he came in before thrusting a steaming plate in front of him and instructing him to: ‘Get on with it. We’ve got work to do.’

‘So,’ he said mildly, picking up spoon and fork and beginning to twirl the strands of fettucine on to the fork with expert turns of his wrist. ‘What sort of time did you have at your meeting, Gus? Was it interesting, Gus? Well, well, how nice to hear that, Gus. Tell me more, Gus.’

‘Oh, pooh,’ she said and joined him at the table, pouring
wine for them both. Gus could no more eat a plate of pasta without an accompanying glass of something red and cheerful than eat dry toast without butter. Although he should, she told him sometimes, as she noted the way his already generous girth had softened and spread since he had become a more deskbound superintendent than a bustling detective chief inspector. ‘I’ve got other things to think about than your committees. I’ve made progress today, let me tell you. Very good progress.’

He cocked an eyebrow at her and packed his mouth expertly. ‘Mmm? What?’ he said indistinctly.

‘When we’ve eaten and washed up. Then you can have the lot.’ And in spite of his demands for information she made him wait until they were sitting side by side on the sofa in the living room. She had prudently armed herself with a clipboard bearing a large thick pad of lined paper and a handful of coloured pencils, and he looked at them warily.

‘We’re really going to work then?’

‘We are,’ she said. ‘We have to write things down to get our heads clear. Look, like this.’ She headed the first sheet of paper in ordinary blue ink: SUSPECTS, and alongside it, MOTIVE. ‘We’ll get on to the other bits later. Like opportunity and so forth. Right. Let’s see who and why. Because when you’re dealing with three murders and one attempted one — and it is only one attempted one even though there have been three goes so far — then working out the times and places the suspect would have had to be to be responsible for all the events’ll take a lot of doing. And we’re agreed, aren’t we, that there is only one perpetrator here? That we’re not dealing with the coincidence of a couple or more murderers whizzing around Old East?’