Requiem (29 page)

Daisy must have looked unconvinced because Campbell hurried on. ‘Her skin – it has no colour, just like the boy’s. An’ she sleeps long hours.’ He looked mildly embarrassed. ‘At least, so I’ve heard. But most significant’ – he paused to add weight to his words – ‘she’s also right next to Willis Bain forest.’

Suddenly Daisy realized what had struck a chord when Mrs Bell had described the way Adrian mixed up black for white and table for chair. She remembered Nick Mackenzie sitting in Peasedale’s window, his elbow on the sill, his eyes screwed up against the brilliant light; she heard his voice describing his wife’s symptoms, and the way she interchanged words of quite opposite meanings.

The same illness? The same chemical? It was possible. Of course it was possible. The geography alone was reason for suspicion.

With Campbell’s words echoing in her mind, the idea took root and kept her occupied all the way back to London.

Dublensky had that wonderful feeling he always got when spring arrived – and the spring came one hell of a lot sooner in Virginia than it did in Chicago. Already the chestnuts were bristling with buds, the birds yelling their heads off. He felt like hollering right back at them, except that his neighbours – and there were a few fellow employees of the Allentown Chemical Company among them – might think he’d finally gone nuts. They already thought he was dangerously close to being certifiable because he cycled five miles to work each day and five miles back, an idea that seemed to sting his car-driving neighbours into nervous confusion.

The journey took twenty minutes on his ten-speed racer and, though the Allentown Chemical Company’s works were not the prettiest of sights in the world and the air around it was not perhaps the sweetest, he always felt better for having been out of doors and taken the exercise.

This morning he arrived in his office, feeling like he could conquer the world. Before settling down to work – and maybe even to conquering the more mundane paperwork which seemed to cover every inch of his desk – he sat quietly for a moment, basking in the warmth of his good fortune. Anne had only last week landed a grant to run a marriage rehabilitation project, and would be setting up shop in a couple of months’ time. Tad was doing really great in school: he’d made the seventh grade, the junior football team and won a math prize. A
math
prize, for heaven’s sake. The boy was going to be a genius. Well, if not a genius, then a candidate for a top college. Perhaps even Yale. Why not? Dublensky had had to sweat his way through Columbia with precious little parental backup and even less money. Tad would have none of those disadvantages.

And Dublensky himself? Well, he was happy – yes, happy. The Allentown Chemical Company might not be the hub of the universe, and the chlorine-based water-purification products the company manufactured might not be of earth-shattering importance, but they were worthwhile, they added something to the wellbeing of mankind, and he had independence, he ran his own department, he was well paid. What more could a man want?

He hummed as he started on the first stack of papers, and was quickly distracted by the latest issue of
Practical Scientist
. There was a four-paragraph item on Morton-Kreiger, he noticed, reporting on the loss of the company’s final appeal against the EPA ban on Aldeb. The item closed with a mention of Silveron, and Morton-Kreiger’s high hopes for it. Gertholm was briefly quoted as saying he was proud of the company’s steady move towards safer cost-effective products.

Dublensky felt amazement and anxiety in equal and bewildering quantities. When he had last contacted Mary Cummins in Chicago just a couple of weeks ago, she had informed him that the results of the new trials on Silveron were due at any moment. Yet here was MKI’s own president apparently unaware of what the results must surely contain. Otherwise, how could he be inflating the product like this? It was extraordinary how the company functioned sometimes, like an amorphous monster with several brains, none of them interconnected.

The office came to life around him. Still feeling aggrieved, he put the magazine on one side while he dealt with the day’s incoming mail. There wasn’t a great deal of it, for which he was extremely thankful, just two or three business letters and the usual collection of circulars, memos and journals. Plus, at the bottom, a typewritten envelope emblazoned ‘Strictly Personal’ with an Aurora, Illinois, postmark.

The letter was from Burt, the physician who’d been treating the sick workers from the Aurora plant. He was writing to say that one of the original workers had just had a diagnosis of lymph cancer and it was Burt’s opinion that this was a direct result of the man’s exposure to Silveron. The other two patients were still having severe health problems. Their personalities had changed, their reactions had slowed, their brains were affected in some way that was impossible to measure by any available tests. They also had a multitude of minor symptoms, ranging from eye problems, kidney and liver pain, digestive malfunction, myalgia, severe weight loss – you name it, he said, they seemed to have it.

Dublensky gave a moment’s thought to the unfortunate victims. However remote he himself had been from events, he couldn’t help feeling the weight of responsibility.

What was more, Burt went on, he was getting new patients from the plant, one who was suffering from similar symptoms, and another three with vaguer ailments that, though not so serious, were still giving him cause for concern. What the hell was going on? he wanted to know. Why weren’t the new safety measures at the plant having any effect? And if they weren’t effective, why hadn’t they been reviewed? Or perhaps there
weren’t
any new safety measures? he wrote, underlining the question twice. Perhaps the company had been pulling the wool over his eyes. What did Dublensky have to say about that?

Oh, he’d been given assurances, Burt continued. Dublensky’s successor, Dr Mary Cummins, had given him a pledge only the previous week – but now he was damned certain he was being given the run around. Dr Cummins was saying that the product had passed its new toxicity trials with flying colours. How could this be? What did Dublensky know?

Dublensky thought: That’s a very good question.

Burt finished by saying he was passing his case notes to the Environmental Protection Agency, and to the workers’ union, and that if there wasn’t a positive response from Morton-Kreiger soon in the form of confirmation of their toxicity results, he’d be forced to think of approaching the press too.

Dublensky sat back, stunned. Silveron passing its new trials with flying colours? It wasn’t possible. He didn’t believe it, either as a manager or a scientist. Silveron was trouble, he sensed it, he
knew
it.

He grabbed a piece of paper to draft a letter, a letter that in his mind’s eye was going to be so hot that it wouldn’t touch the envelope for smoke. Then, breaking off suddenly, he hesitated. Over the last year he’d scorched plenty of paper, he’d fired salvo after salvo of documents and letters in the direction of the MKI management, and look where it had got him. He could almost hear Anne’s answer to that one: in Allentown, Virginia, a bought and silenced man.

He wrenched the phone off its cradle and, before he had time to change his mind, dialled head office in Chicago. He had intended to speak to Mary Cummins, but at the last minute found himself asking for Don Reedy.

‘What the hell’s this with the results on the Silveron trials, Don?’ he heard himself bark the moment Don answered.

‘The results, John? But they’re not available yet.’

Dublensky made a supreme effort to keep his voice low and reasonable. ‘According to my information, Mary Cummins already has the results.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible, John. But why don’t you ask her?’

‘I’m asking you.’

A pause. Reedy’s tone hardened. ‘Listen, John, we’ll let you have the results when they become available, as a courtesy. But I must stress that it’s a courtesy. Silveron isn’t your baby now, John. You know, it might be a good idea to remember that in future.’

Dublensky said with unusual firmness: ‘So when are the results due, Don?’

‘Shortly.’

‘That’s what you told me last time, Don. Everyone keeps telling me that. But when is shortly, Don? And what are the results going to say exactly?’

‘Say? How can I know that? What a question, John.’ Reedy’s voice was heavy with impatience. ‘They’re trials, for heaven’s sake. We can’t know the results until they’re complete, you know that.’

‘But LKY must have given you an intimation.’

Another pause. ‘It’s TroChem. TroChem are doing the trials.’

‘I’m talking about the new trials,’ Dublensky explained. ‘TroChem did the original trials, LKY Laboratories are doing the new trials.’

‘I don’t know where you got that idea from. It’s Tro-Chem. This time and last time too.’

Dublensky felt himself go cold.

‘Listen, I’ve got to rush, John. A meeting – ’

‘But Mary Cummins – she told me LKY was doing it!’

‘I’m sure there’s an explanation. We might have put the job out to tender. Yes, in fact, I’m sure we did. Maybe we considered LKY.’

Might have put the job out to tender
. The vagueness was almost laughable. Reedy, more than anyone, knew exactly what job was going to tender.

‘Why TroChem?
Why
, Don?’

‘What the hell – I don’t know. But what does it matter?’

‘Why did we choose TroChem again, Don?’

Reedy sighed deeply. ‘Because they’re efficient, competitive and – oh, for God’s sake, John.’

‘And because they produce favourable results? I mean, don’t they? Nice and favourable.’

Reedy’s tone shifted again. ‘You’re letting your emotions rule your judgement, John,’ he said coldly.

But Dublensky had the bit between his teeth. He had never realized he could sustain such a level of anger. ‘Why TroChem, Don? Could it be because we can rely on them, huh? I mean, because we could be sure the results would be helped along a little, huh? Massaged – isn’t that what they call it? Isn’t that the right word, Don? Or hadn’t you noticed the results came through so good – ’

‘John, I think you’d better stop – ’

‘The only reason I kept quiet about this, the only reason I tagged along’ – he paused for an instant, aware that his voice had risen unpleasantly, like a fractious child’s – ‘was because I thought we were going to get some independent data at the end of it. I mean, some data that
meant
something. And all the time – hell …’ His throat was tight, for a moment he couldn’t speak. ‘All the time … it meant nothing. I mean, if TroChem could make it come right once, they could make it come right again, couldn’t they? Wouldn’t you say? Christ, Don, don’t tell me you hadn’t thought about it. Don’t tell me it hadn’t occurred to you …’

He trailed off. There was a silence. Dublensky squeezed his temples in an agony of anger and self-reproach: he’d gone much farther than he’d intended to. Now Reedy would be able to guess the rest; what Dublensky knew about the original trial data – or what he thought he knew. Until half an hour ago he might have been prepared to concede that his suspicions were wildly out of court, that he might possibly be mistaken, but this news had crushed what remained of his fragile faith.

When Reedy finally replied his tone was placatory. ‘Now listen, John, you’re a fine person. You care, and that’s a valuable commodity nowadays. But you
must
keep a sense of proportion. I don’t know where you get these crazy ideas from, but there’s no truth in them, none at all. You’re building mountains out of molehills, and it isn’t going to do you any good. I’m saying this because I like you, John, and I don’t want to see you end up in trouble.’

‘Trouble? Is that where I’m headed, Don?’

A sigh. ‘Frankly, yes.’

‘I see.’ Dublensky screwed up his face into a fierce grimace. ‘I see.’ He was overcome by moral outrage; his voice wavered, heat pricked at his eyes. ‘So what you’re saying, Don, is that I’m going to be in trouble for uncovering the truth. Is that right?’

‘The truth as
you
see it, John. As you see it. Though why you see it that way, I really don’t know.’

Dublensky asked pointedly: ‘And what about the plant, Don? What’s happened there?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The Aurora plant, Don. You keep telling me safety has been improved, you keep telling me about all these wonderful changes, but what’s actually been done, Don? I mean
really
done?’

‘Plenty. Plenty’s been done.’

‘Like?’

‘Listen, I’m not on the safety executive at Aurora. I don’t know the details. But when the people there tell me that the procedures have been tightened up, I believe them because I trust them. Trust, John. Maybe you’ve heard of it? I have to say I think you’re running a bit low on that just now.’

‘Yeah. I think you’re right, Don,’ he said with elaborate irony. ‘I think you’re right. Very low. The thing is, Don, what really takes my breath away is how you can let this just happen. How you can let it all pass you by and not stand up and
do
something. I mean – I simply don’t know.’ Without waiting for an answer, Dublensky put the phone down with a bang and thrust his head into his hands. Disbelief, anger and sadness roared through him in quick succession.

He looked up, his eyes turning instinctively towards the window and the light. The spring sunshine was illuminating the long roofs and tall chimneys of the works with brilliant radiance. Amazingly, it was the same wonderful day that it had been a few moments ago.

He thought of Tad and Anne and their settled lives; he thought of his own simple requirements for happiness. One wouldn’t have thought it was too much to ask, a little simple happiness, but it seemed no sooner grasped than lost again.

When he got home, he would go to his desk and take out the file he kept there and study it again. He clung to the idea that this might help him towards the right decision, that somehow the figures would take on a new light. But he knew that this was too much to hope for. The figures would be just the same as before.

He would have to do something. But what? All the possibilities terrified him. He was no coward, but he was no hero either.