Babel

by Barry Maitland

  ‘What sort of things might he be doing?’ Kathy asked, still thinking of the million women’s cells inside that ziggurat, and wondering if she really wanted to know.

  ‘Well, let me give you an example. A few years ago the Ashkenazi Jews in the United States became concerned about the incidence of cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease, among their people. So they decided to screen their schoolchildren’s blood. Each child was given an anonymous code number, and when they reached marriageable age and a match was considered with another young Jew, the two code numbers were examined, and if both were found to be carriers for the disease the Committee for the Prevention of Jewish Genetic Diseases advised against the marriage.

  ‘It was an extremely successful campaign, and as a result cystic fibrosis has been pretty well eliminated from the American Jewish population, but it was also controversial. The New York Times attacked it as being eugenic, and there was considerable debate. Since the Nazis, the word ‘eugenic’ is the big bogey word, of course—the deliberate attempt to breed certain characteristics into, or out of, the human population. But before them it was a quite respectable idea. We’d been improving cattle and wheat that way for thousands of years, so why not people? In the first few decades of the twentieth century lots of respectable people, from Theodore Roosevelt to Winston Churchill, thought eugenics was the way to go, and lots of countries passed eugenics laws for the compulsory sterilisation of inadequate citizens who might be weakening the gene pool, Sweden and many US states, for example, apart from Germany.

  ‘In the end, you see, science is a political and a philosophical matter. It was the compulsory nature of the eugenics laws that we now consider repugnant, the state enforcing an idea against the free will of the individual. And for that reason the campaign of the American Ashkenazi Jews was felt to be acceptable, because it merely screened and advised the individuals concerned about the possible consequences of their actions. But in other circumstances there might be social or cultural reasons why people might not follow that advice. And what if some form of gene therapy became available which would allow a government to actively interfere in the passing on of the defective gene?

  ‘So, that brings us back to Haygill. Let’s say you have some incurable genetic disorder like, say, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is more prevalent in certain regions of the world because of patterns of intermarriage which, for social and cultural reasons, you don’t want to interfere with. And let’s say someone like Haygill comes along with some kind of therapy for a specific gene, let’s call it BRCA4, which will eliminate the disease without restricting people’s intermarriage choices, provided it’s applied systematically according to some government-controlled protocol. Is that eugenics? And if it works for that disease, why stop there? Why not clean up all the genetic typos in the book of life?’

  Reggie paused as lunch arrived.

  Brock, who had been making notes, looked up. ‘And is there such a project?’

  Reggie shrugged. ‘We don’t know. We know that Haygill has done work on BRCA4 in his labs over here, and we’ve heard rumours of a trial for an ambitious BRCA4 protocol, but it’s never been submitted to us.’

  ‘When we first met Haygill he gave us a dumb copper’s guide to genetics, and he used the same metaphor, about the book of life.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He must use it all the time. His clients and paymasters will like that, the idea of an authoritative, true book of life, kept free of error. But that’s where Springer could make trouble, you see, where science becomes philosophy. Is it blasphemous to tamper with the human genome, with God’s book of the human being? Springer would probably argue that it is. And Haygill’s clients would be susceptible to that. They’ve been brought up to believe in a Book which records Divine revelation in the actual words spoken over a twenty year period by the Prophet, and preserved over the following fourteen hundred years by continual repetition without error. They would be sensitive to the suggestion that Haygill’s project might be heretical and blasphemous.’

  Reggie stopped talking for a while to eat. His lecture seemed to have given him an appetite, and he tucked in vigorously. Kathy, on the other hand, had become less and less hungry as he’d gone on. She knew that the kind of work that Haygill was doing might prevent much suffering, but since she’d formed the image of the glass ziggurat and its vast collection of female cells the idea of it had seemed increasingly insidious, as if the whole production had made the human patients it was meant to serve completely passive and even irrelevant.

  Brock didn’t seem very hungry either, and appeared preoccupied. His phone began to ring, and he murmured an apology and put it to his ear. He muttered something and slipped it away, checking his watch.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to run away,’ Reggie said, mouth full.

  ‘No, no. I was just checking the time. I was badly out with my estimate, Kathy. Only five hours. I said twenty-four.’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Mr Manzoor has decided to withdraw his complaint against you. CIB have closed the case.’

  ‘Just like that?’ She felt numb for a moment, then relief flooded through her. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘That means you’re not on suspension any more, so you’d better lay off that wine.’ He smiled and poured some from the bottle into his own glass and raised it. ‘Congratulations.’

  Reggie joined in. ‘How did you wangle that, Brock?’

  ‘Upon reflection the complainant realised that Kathy would have revealed some inconvenient facts about him, if the matter had been pursued.’

  ‘But I didn’t know any,’ Kathy objected.

  ‘You would have done, Kathy. You would have done.’

  She shook her head, grateful but not understanding, and it occurred to her that it might not be too late to ring Tina and tell her she could go on the trip after all. It wouldn’t be difficult to arrange it. All she needed to do was excuse herself and make a couple of calls. But then she thought about Brock’s intervention with Manzoor, and imagined him quietly pulling strings in the background, preparing the way for her return to duty. She thought about it, working through the options, and still she didn’t move.

  She became aware that the two men were talking about something else. Reggie had asked about Abu and his place in Haygill’s team.

  ‘Odd,’ he said eventually. ‘Seems all very clumsy and incriminating.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Brock was taking another sip of the wine, reluctantly acknowledging Reggie’s excellent taste.

  ‘Well, he must have been a real loose cannon, this Abu. I mean, what he’s done must be a tremendous embarrassment to Haygill, the very person he was trying to protect.’

  ‘Presumably he didn’t expect to get caught. Perhaps he knew that Springer was planning something to get at Haygill, along the lines you’ve suggested, and felt he had to act. Apparently he regards Haygill as a kind of father figure.’

  ‘I see . . .’ Reggie didn’t seem convinced. ‘All the same, you’d think he would have talked it over with someone else on the team. You know, with a group like that, tightly knit, strong sense of themselves as outsiders, I would have expected a pretty strong pressure for people not to fly off and act on their own.’

  ‘He was an outsider within the group, Reggie. The computer man, not a scientist like them.’

  ‘Still, he shared their beliefs . . . I’ll tell you something else I would have expected, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, think about it from the investors’ point of view. They’re putting money into a tricky research project being undertaken miles away, in a foreign country and led by a foreigner. Of course there will be all sorts of agreed procedures for Haygill to report to them and keep them informed, but he will obviously present things in the best light, and he’s a foreigner. But then there are the Islamic team members, who share the investors’ culture and values. Wouldn’t you expect one or more of them to be acting as inside agents for th
e investors, their commissar, keeping tabs on the others and sending back the inside story?’

  ‘And maybe trying to cover up anything that could be embarrassing to them,’ Brock said. ‘Muddying the waters if necessary.’ He thought of the way in which Abu’s death had seemed to be set up. Could his guilt also have been contrived in some way?

  As they came to the end of the meal, Brock thanked Reggie for his ideas.

  ‘Hope the cost wasn’t too excessive.’

  ‘You’re always good value, Reggie.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t completely finished yet. There are things you hear at the bar, after a long day conferring with one’s fellow scientists, after one has exhausted the exalted topic of how life works and turns instead to what the bloody hell it all means. Have you met Mrs Haygill?’

  ‘Seen her. We haven’t spoken. Blonde, big hair.’

  ‘That’s it. The whisper is that she’s a bit of an embarrassment to her husband. Likes the booze a bit too much to be allowed to accompany him on the Gulf trips. Also rumoured that she likes to play around while he’s away on his trips, possibly with Haygill’s boss.’

  ‘His boss?’

  ‘Yes, at the university. The head man, Vice-Chancellor or whatever.’

  Later that afternoon Brock’s team met at Queen Anne’s Gate to plan the next steps. All of the employees at CAB-Tech would be interviewed or reinterviewed, and inquiries into the source of Abu’s money were proceeding at the Bank of Credit and Commerce Dubai in the City. Brock had asked Wayne O’Brien to attend, and now asked the Special Branch officer to comment on Reggie Grice’s thoughts on the dynamics of Haygill’s group, particularly the Middle East scientists. He went through them in turn, sketching the information they had been able to find on each.

  ‘The key man is Haygill’s deputy, Dr Tahir Darr, without a doubt. At thirty-eight he’s the oldest of them and he’s always at the centre of things. He also seems to have the most interesting private life and access to money. He’s got a wife and kiddie living in Shepherd’s Bush, but he also likes to go out clubbing on his own or with male company. When their sponsors come over from the Gulf it’s Darr gets the job of taking them out to see the sights. A favourite nightspot for the visiting Arabs is Thoroughbreds in Mayfair, a drinking and gambling club where Darr is a member. One of the staff there is a friend of ours and knows him as a regular.’

  ‘Do we know who these visitors are?’ Brock asked, and Wayne produced a list.

  ‘All respectable businessmen, venture capitalists, scientists.’

  ‘And Darr knows them all.’

  ‘Probably better than Haygill does. He speaks Arabic as well as Urdu.’

  ‘It’d be interesting to get inside his head, but not easy,’ Brock said. ‘From the way he reacted when we spoke to him at CAB-Tech, I reckon he’ll be a difficult nut to crack in interview.’

  ‘Yes, I was wondering about that,’ Wayne said. ‘Whether we could get closer to him.’

  ‘What about your friend at the club he goes to?’

  Wayne shook his head dubiously. ‘Rupert? He’s one of the barmen, keeps us informed who’s passing through, especially the known drugs figures. But he wouldn’t be right for a job like this.’

  ‘Sounds one for you, Wayne,’ Bren suggested. ‘Undercover’s up your street, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think he’d come across for me, either. I reckon it needs someone he can relate to, another Asian, maybe with a science background, to catch him at a weak moment in his cups. We’ve got a couple of good Asian guys in my section, but they’re up north at the moment, working on a case in Bradford. You don’t have anybody like that, do you?’

  Bren shook his head, pondering. Kathy didn’t speak. There was someone, of course, but she waited, expecting one of the others to say the obvious. Finally, when no one did, she said, ‘Well, there’s Leon.’

  They looked surprised. ‘He’s not even part of our section, Kathy,’ Bren objected.

  She shrugged, not wanting to pursue it. It was a stupid notion, really, and she could see Brock thinking the same.

  But Bren was having second thoughts. ‘He is Asian, though, and he’s got scientific knowledge, with his DNA and all that, and he’s very familiar with the background. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.’

  ‘I met him, didn’t I? At Shadwell Road?’ Wayne said. ‘Yeah, he might be spot on.’

  ‘He’s forensic liaison, Wayne,’ Brock objected. ‘He’s not an undercover detective. This isn’t his line of work at all.’

  ‘You never know,’ Bren pursued, enthusiastic now, ‘he might jump at the chance. Why don’t we ask him? I saw him downstairs ten minutes ago.’

  He jumped to his feet and went off in pursuit, returning after a few minutes, Leon Desai following.

  Brock said, ‘Leon, sit down. We’ve been talking around a problem, and a suggestion came up . . .’

  He spoke diffidently, as if they were discussing the unlikely plot from some new movie, and as he went on, Kathy could see exactly why. Watching Leon sitting there, listening carefully with his polite but sceptical, rather distant, expression, she could understand why he was completely wrong for the task, and she kicked herself for ever suggesting it. He was the opposite of Wayne, lacking small talk, keeping himself to himself, not inviting confidences. As an undercover operative he might just manage to extract an opinion on the weather.

  Leon heard Brock out in silence, giving nothing away from his expression. Then his mouth formed a little smile and he said, ‘What idiot dreamed that one up?’

  They all laughed, and glanced over at Kathy, and Leon followed their looks, still with his little smile, until he realised it was her. For the briefest of moments his expression registered a small shock, then clouded and turned away. It was enough for Kathy to read, however. He believed she had done it to humiliate him, to make him a joke among her friends, the real detectives.

  Bren, oblivious to all that, was enthusiastically beefing up Brock’s sparse outline, suggesting approaches that could be tried, and getting Wayne O’Brien to offer his ideas.

  Leon listened until they were finished, then turned to Brock and said, ‘None of it would be admissible in court, would it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Brock looked uneasy. ‘It would purely be a matter of giving us background, Leon. But look, I’ve already explained to Wayne that your expertise lies in the forensic area. You haven’t been trained for this sort of thing. I really think . . .’

  ‘Well, we could give it a try,’ Leon said calmly, ‘if you think it’ll help. I’ll need to be properly briefed.’

  ‘Great!’ Bren beamed and clapped Leon on the back. Brock smiled reluctantly, and Kathy wanted to crawl under the table.

  She tried to catch him alone as the meeting broke up, but Wayne intercepted her and Leon slipped quickly through the door.

  ‘I thought I might take you up on that offer of a return match,’ Wayne said with a cheeky smile. ‘If you’re free tonight.’

  ‘How come? What about the girlfriend?’

  He raised an open hand, palm down and wiggled it from side to side. ‘Bit dodgy. I think the wheels are falling off again.’

  She felt a sudden spurt of irritation with the glib grin. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that, Wayne. Only I don’t much fancy being a stop-gap for when your girlfriend’s wheels come off.’

  He began to protest, but she brushed past him after Leon. He had gone.

  Later that evening she rang his home number and left a message with his mother, but he didn’t phone back.

  17

  It was the weekend, but Kathy couldn’t let the case go. She lay awake through half the night turning it over in her mind, and the next morning she still couldn’t shake it. She kept returning to the photograph that Manzoor had produced, of his daughter and Abu together in the pool, and the image haunted her. Innocence before the fall, before marriage in Kashmir and murder on the university steps. Someone had sent it to Manzoor, and Abu had died.

  Una
ble to settle to anything else, she drove into central London and managed to find a parking space near the office. A few people were working in the building, but the room they had set up for their discussions the previous day was undisturbed. The photograph in its evidence pouch was still pinned to the board, and she assumed that no one had yet followed it up. She made a couple of colour photocopies, then left, continuing on to the refuge where Nargis was staying.

  When she got there it was mid-morning, and the house was filled with the comforting sounds of domesticity, women talking over coffee, some children playing on a swing in the back garden, a washing machine rumbling. Kathy asked for Nargis and was surprised when Briony Kidd appeared.

  ‘Nargis is at prayer,’ she said, sounding hostile. ‘Can’t you leave her alone? She was upset after that grilling you gave her last time.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Briony. I have to do my job.’

  ‘That’s what the Gestapo said too, wasn’t it?’

  The words blurted out, angry, and Kathy waited a moment before she replied. ‘That’s not fair. We were the ones who brought her here, remember?’

  Briony flushed. ‘Sorry. This is all just so awful. I wish it would all be over. Do you . . . do you want a cup of coffee?’

  They sat at the kitchen table and Briony explained that she had been to Chandler’s Yard that morning to collect Nargis’ clothes for her. ‘She’s too scared to go anywhere near Shadwell Road yet. But the social worker has put her in touch with people who can stop her father from stalking her.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘In Bow. I rent a house with a couple of other grad students. It’s damp but convenient.’

  ‘Did Max mix socially with his students much?’

  ‘You mean me, don’t you? I was the only one.’

  ‘There were others before though. I just wondered if he was a very sociable person.’

  ‘He wasn’t a hermit, if that’s what you mean. We’d go to the pub sometimes for our tutorials, sometimes Dr Pettifer would come along too.’