The young one suddenly beamed a smile at her and pointed her across the street. ‘Apotheka.’
‘Thanks.’
She bought pampers and tissues and talc and a bottle and some German formula milk and for good measure, some cereal and a striped blue stretch suit that was buried behind some stockings. When she returned to the police station, a buxom woman had been found from somewhere and was holding the baby and playing cootchy-coo games with it. Typical, Tessa thought, not without a little tinge of - what was it? - jealousy perhaps.
Together they went off to a slightly grimy bathroom and washed and changed the child. ‘It’s a girl,’ Tessa said aloud as they unwound a swaddling of rags. ‘A sweet little girl.’ And she really was sweet, Tessa thought, with her dark feathery hair and watchful expression and her new powdery smell and thin, fragile limbs covered in fresh clothes. She cupped the small head and hugged her and thought she might cry right there in front of this other woman.
When they came out, Jan Martin had arrived and he strode quickly towards her. ‘I am so sorry. You will remember St. Cyril’s as a place of great misadventures.’
Tessa tried to smile, but it didn’t come out quite right.
‘You will have to answer some questions and then I will take you back to the hotel.’
Tessa nodded, felt the child being lifted from her arms.
As she sat there being grilled, she watched the buxom woman prepare milk with practised efficiency and feed the child. Sadness engulfed her. If she had been a little more daring, the little girl could have been hers. She had paid in a way, after all.
The policeman were particularly interested in that. In whether the exchange of monies was a payment or an act of charity. Their suspicion cloyed, stuck to her like a dirty garment. She told them over and over again that she didn’t know how the woman had interpreted the money. She had meant it as an act of charity.
When they were at last free to go, she lifted the child to her, kissed her sleepy face. The eyes grew round and wide and clung at her, so that she could barely bring herself to return her to the other woman.
In the taxi she asked Jan in a shaky voice what would happen to the child.
He shrugged, ‘They will take her to an orphanage and if they find the mother, they will reunite them. But, of course, they won’t find the mother.’
‘No, of course not,’ Tessa said dismally, aware as she hadn’t altogether been before of the truth of that.
‘If she was in St. Cyril’s then she was probably Bulgarian. So she came to Prague to make money - perhaps worked as a prostitute - and the child was an unwanted accident. Maybe wanted, you never know. There are many stories which circulate which say rich women from the West will pay vast sums for babies.’ He looked grim. ‘You know, we have many new ways now of generating foreign exchange. And women have proved to be excellent entrepreneurs.’
‘But I didn’t give her vast sums. I didn’t have very much on me.’
‘Perhaps it was very much for her. It’s not legal, of course. We have signed all these agreements.’
‘Which is why the police had misgivings about me.’ Tessa tried a laugh but it didn’t ease the great stone of sadness which weighed on her. ‘Did they think I’d got cold feet at the last minute?’
‘My dear Miss Hughes, our police are experts at suspicion. They do not need many grounds for it. It is a habit. Everyone is guilty. Occasionally, rarely, they may be proved innocent.’
She could feel him studying her. She stared out the window into drizzle to avoid his gaze.
‘But you are melancholy,’ he said softly. ‘You worry about the fate of this poor baby.’
The taxi was pulling up by the hotel and Tessa took a deep breath.
‘Thank you. You’ve been very kind. I’m sorry to have wasted so much of your time.’
‘Nothing. But I will see you at the reception, yes? After you have had a little rest perhaps.’
‘Reception?’ Her mind had gone blank. Suddenly she gripped his arm. ‘Please, don’t talk about all this to anyone. I’d rather…well… explain for myself.’
‘Of course.’
The heart-warming look he gave her made her think he was wasted on centrifuges and chromatography columns and whatever else they had in labs these days. A look like that could revive a dying patient. When he saw it, Ted would probably try to clone and package it as a new wonder drug. In fact she might suggest it to him herself.
Tessa tried to smile in return, but as she disappeared into the lift, all she could think of was the puckered face of a little motherless girl who would suddenly find herself in the dismal world of orphans. For a moment, stupidly, she found herself considering what Stephen would make of that tiny solemn presence. She gripped her bag to her chest. When the lift stopped at her floor, she realised that she had clenched her hand so tightly that her nails had left welts in her skin.
-10-
____________
London was a frenzy of snarled, impatient traffic and burdened Christmas shoppers.
Stephen signalled his taxi to a complete halt and joined the heave of pedestrians along Regent Street. It would be quicker to walk the few remaining blocks. Time pressed on him, as surely as if he could hear the sand slithering through the hour glass, threatening to cover him in its grains.
Katherine Williams had unwillingly agreed to give him an hour. An hour wouldn’t be enough, but she was due in court the next day and could barely manage even that. Still, it was Katherine he needed. She did the majority of Camgene’s work and with her background in molecular biology was quick to appreciate the scores of details other patent lawyers would take weeks to understand.
The building in the square behind Regent Street had a muted stateliness. After the blare of the streets, its marbled lobby seemed as quiet as some church to industry. Impatient of lifts, Stephen raced up to the third floor where a receptionist waved him on.
‘Third door to the right.’
Katherine sat behind a desk bulging with dossiers. She was a small woman with neat, unemphatic features which only sharpened into foxiness when a problem presented itself. Her voice had a staccato dryness.
‘I hope this is going to be good. I’ve got a mountain of work I’d rather not be deflected from right now.’
‘It’s good,’ Stephen assured her.
‘And you want to file for a priority date which passed yesterday, or maybe weeks ago, if I understood you correctly on the phone.’ She grinned. ‘You know these things take time, Stephen. Patent applications are not made in an hour. Let alone a couple of months.’
‘I’ve tried to get it right. Worked on it all weekend. Pared it down to three pages. So it should be nearly there. But I’ve come straight from the airport and we’ll have to print out. In colour for the designs.’
She sighed and gestured him towards the print room. ‘Tell me about it.’
He gave her the gist of his Chrombindin work and she listened carefully, let out a low whistle.
‘This is going to make Camgene a mint, Stephen. But what’s the hurry? I can’t believe someone else is going to beat you to the punch. We’d have heard rumours.’ She gave him a sudden glare. ‘You haven’t been blabbing, have you? You scientists never know when to keep quiet. I’ve lectured you before. No chit chat, no conferencing, no publishing, until after you’ve filed.’
‘It’s not that.’ Stephen watched the pages coming out of the printer and felt depression tug at him again. He waited until they were back in Katherine’s office with the door safely closed behind them.
‘I suspect someone else has been in here.’ He tapped his computer.
‘Someone who shouldn’t have been?’
Stephen shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s just it. I haven’t got any certain proof. But I don’t want to take any chances. It’s safer to file as quickly as we can.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
Stephen considered. ‘Well, it could have been an accident. A mistake.’
He replayed the story he had tried to tell himself. Ariane sitting down to play another game of chess while he was in the bath, getting into the wrong documents. Eventually finding the chess programme. The trouble was that every time he put this innocent light on it, the fact of her disappearance hit him in the face. And then he was confronted by the next problem. If she had read through the material, even perhaps copied it once she had sniffed its importance, what would she do with it? He didn’t like to think of that.
‘Shall we get on with this, or you’ll tell me my hour’s up.’
Katherine gave him a questioning glance. He deflected it, took her through his discovery point by point: the design of the protein, the laboratory process, the trials that would still need to be done, the eventual uses.
‘Okay,’ she said when he had finished. ‘I’ll have to go through the specification again on my own. Get all the legal bumpf in order. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get some time today. I can’t promise. It may have to wait till the end of the week. I’ll fax through any queries. You’ll be at the office?’
‘Most of tomorrow. Then you can reach me here.’ He scribbled a number from his diary.
‘Prague?’ She looked aghast.
‘It can’t be helped. I’m meant to be hosting a big conference. I’m already late.’
‘You don’t make my life exactly easy,’ she grumbled.
‘No. Mine neither.’
‘Hey. Don’t look so grim.’ A smile lightened her face. ‘You should be drinking champagne. Save the bleakness for when we send you our bill.’
Stephen was in no mood for celebration. He took the tube to King’s Cross and arrived in time for the next Cambridge train. As he watched the endless suburbs of London roll past, he forced himself to think of the worst possible scenario.
If Ariane had stopped to read the Chrombindin programme, she was knowledgeable enough to grasp its implications. Would she then have copied the programme onto a disk? She had said she needed money. That would mean selling his discovery on to someone. Japan would be a ready market. So would America. Neither country fell into European patent agreements and the buyer could always invent a case for first discovery, alter some tiny points in the process or in the making of the compound. That could lead to a costly court case he would rather not face. And if it was the Americans who got hold of it, they would gear up to aggressive clinical trials at twice the speed of anything that could be managed here.
France or any country in Europe was a possibility too. It would take a year before an application could be made to the European Patent Office. They would then initiate a thorough search of publications and other research in the field. His prior claim to discovery could be contested.
Over the weekend, he had tried repeatedly to trace Ariane through Natalya, through the few mutual friends they had. He had even managed to contact her brother in Moscow. But all enquiries abutted at a dead end. He considered hiring a detective and chasing up the lead Simone had suggested in the US. But he felt uneasy about that. Even if Ariane were located, she wouldn’t have to admit anything to a stranger. The trace on his computer could all-too-easily be denied. Her word against his. And Ariane could act her way through anything. He was all too dismally aware of that. Then, too, if it came to court, he would have to explain the situation publicly. Tessa would find out. He didn’t like to think of her distress.
Shame engulfed him. And with it a looming depression. If only he had gone to see Katherine before he had left for France. But he had wanted the time to double-check. And to share Chrombindin with Jan.
Jan had refused his gift. After the congratulations and enthusiasm, when he had at last understood that Stephen wanted the work to be patented with both their names listed as inventors, he had stared at Stephen in astonished silence for a long time before at last saying, ‘But, my friend, that would be a lie. We have lived with lies for too long in this country. Now we need a solid diet of truth.’
Stephen had tried to convince him that it didn’t constitute a lie, that Jan had been at the genesis of the idea; that if Jan had been in his shoes, he would have been capable of far more. But Jan would have none of it.
‘I know you want to help us in some way Stephen,’ he had said. ‘But it will be enough if by some miracle we can arrange to have some of the trials done here. Perhaps even establish a scale-up manufacturing unit to produce the quantities of Chrombindin needed for the trials.’ He had laughed then. ‘What did you tell me that would cost? Half a million. Maybe the investors will trust us with that. The Czechs are good at breweries and the process is not so different.’
At some point in their discussion, he had put his arm round Stephen’s shoulder and murmured, ‘You know, Stephen. We should have no more secrets now. Only open relations. We need that.’
The rebuff was mild. Effusive thanks followed it. But Stephen had realised that Jan was hinting at something deeper. It came to him now, as the train rattled over weary tracks, that Jan might have been suggesting that Stephen was attempting to prolong what had once been the necessarily covert flavour of their relationship. That secrecy was no longer appropriate. There was nothing to be secret about.
As the train pulled in to the Cambridge station, Stephen let out a snort of self-derision. Yes, indeed. If his intimacies hadn’t been based on concealment, then the fix he was in because of Ariane would never have occurred. But how did one rid oneself of a habit that had become second nature?
Outside it was already dark. Wet and dark. A cold wind whipped round him and covered him with the dankness of the Fens. Cambridge at its least inviting. A small town with a few good buildings shrouded in bad weather. And nowhere to hide. If he went straight to the lab, he would have to explain why he was back before schedule. He didn’t feel up to that right now. He directed the taxi homewards instead and wondered why he had so emphatically refused Ted Knight’s offer last year of a post in California.
The house was cold and hollow. His shoes trailed mud from the meadow and he cast them off in the middle of the hall. Their clatter echoed up the stairwell. No Tessa. She was off sunning herself on some island. He should be relieved at that. But he wasn’t. Everything felt oddly empty. As he started to brew some coffee, he realised he missed her. It was her house, really. Had no sense without her.
With a sense of exhaustion, he switched off the kettle and left the beans unground. He would go to the office after all. Most people would have left by now. And he should leave a note together with a copy of all the patent application materials for his chief, arrange for a meeting to talk through at least some of the preliminary implications of the discovery. He hated being forced into haste like this, but there was no help for it now.
It was only when he reached the Camgene building that he realised he had left his keys at home. He prodded the bell in exasperation. All he needed now was some new security guard who failed to recognise him.
‘Ah, Dr. Caldwell. It’s you.’
He was grateful for the small mercy of the familiar portly face which greeted him.
‘Forgotten your key?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I’ll see you up.’
‘Thanks Tom.’ The man’s name came back to him as they trudged up the stairs.
‘Pretty quiet tonight. But your assistant’s still in. The foreign chap. So I can leave you right here.’
Pavel. He had forgotten Pavel, who put in even more hours here than he did. Stephen took a deep breath and pushed open the laboratory door.
‘Stephen!’ Pavel pulled back from his computer with a start.
‘Sorry to take you by surprise like this.’
‘No, no. No matter. But I didn’t expect you until at least next week.’
‘Had to come back to…,’ Stephen fumbled with his coat, averted his eyes. ‘Look, Pavel. I think we’ve had a leak. On the Chrombindin programme. You haven’t talked to anyone you shouldn’t have about it, have you? Has there been anyone in here? Anyone asking questions?’
Pavel frowned. ‘No. Just Mira and me, as usual. Dr. Franklin dropped in, but he was looking for you and didn’t stop. And your wife, just after you left.’
‘My wife?’ Stephen stared at him.
‘Yes. Your wife. Pretty woman…’ He stopped, gestured confusion. ‘She said she was your wife. Like the picture in your office. She said you forgot something. She had the key.’
‘Of course. Of course. Thanks. Any messages?’
Pavel gestured towards the inner office. ‘On your desk.’
‘You’ll have to let me in. I’ve left my keys.’
Pavel turned a worried face to him. ‘So we have a problem. A big problem?’
Stephen shrugged. ‘We’ll see. I’m not sure.’ He waved Pavel away. ‘But we may have to work more quickly than I’d bargained for.’
As he walked into his office, a peculiar sensation made its way up his spine. He hadn’t asked Tessa to pick anything up for him. What had brought her here?
He stared at the photograph of her, as if it might provide some clue. He hadn’t really looked at it for some time. There was something different about her then. What was it? That smile. She looked happy. Not that abject, reproachful face she now turned on him at every occasion. With a shiver, Stephen faced the thought that had bounded into his mind. Was Tessa planning to disappear too? First Ariane. Now Tessa.
A wave of panic clutched at him. As he tried to ride its crest, he scanned the office to see if she had left any sign of herself, a note perhaps. There was nothing. He rifled through the sheaf of messages and faxes, thrust them into his bag and hastened towards the car, barely remembering to say a ‘see you in the morning’ to Pavel. He could check his E mail then.
At home, he scoured the rooms for messages. Finding none, he hesitantly opened the door to Tessa’s closet. Her cases were gone, of course. That was as it should be. But he had so little inkling of her clothes, he couldn’t tell whether what she had taken was all that was necessary for a holiday. He held the panic at bay, reiterated to himself that everything was as it should be. He would phone her. Somewhere he had made a note of the hotel she was staying at on St. Kitt’s. The travel agent would have the number. He would try them first thing in the morning.
The Things We Do For Love Page 17