Hurst turned his own head as he was half-led, half-dragged to his chair and caught Ben’s gaze, and for an appreciable moment the two men stared at each other, Hurst’s eyes gleaming dully through the visibly swelling flesh around them and Ben’s wet with the tears of his exhaustion. It was as though for a moment, they spoke to each other. As though Ben had said, ‘That’s it then. Now you know,’ and the other had replied submissively, ‘Yes, now I know.’
There was more noise at the door and Ben turned his head to look, and it was a great effort to do it; his neck ached, his eyes ached, every part of him ached, and he blinked to clear the sting of saltiness from his eyes and saw a cluster of people there, girls staring with wide awestruck eyes, a couple of young men and then, pushing through them, a couple of uniformed policemen.
And Ben looked at them, and began to laugh, a silly hiccupping almost giggling sound, and the woman behind him, who was still holding his arms, shook him slightly, clearly disapproving, but he couldn’t help it. All he’d thought about had been getting to Hurst and dealing with him. He’d given no consideration to what might happen afterwards. And now here he was, about to be arrested.
‘And back in the news again,’ he said and hiccupped once more. ‘Back in the bloody news again.’
They left him sitting alone in the green painted bare-boarded room for a very long time, and after a while he folded his arms carefully on the rather rickety wooden table, spreading his blood-encrusted and painful fingers wide, and rested his head on his forearms, thinking – I’ll just rest a little. And fell deeply and dreamlessly asleep, only waking when someone pulled on his shoulder and made his muscles shriek a protest.
‘Well, well, sir, clearly you’ve no sort of bad conscience, have you?’ The policeman who was standing there looking down on him seemed to be in a jocular mood and Ben blinked at him and then, moving carefully, drew himself up, letting his now very stiff and painful hands rest in his lap.
‘Bad conscience?’ he said, and was surprised at how thick his voice sounded. He must be more tired than he realized. ‘No, I’ve no conscience. I’m glad I did it.’
‘Personal problem, I take it, sir?’ The policeman sat down and leaned back in his chair and grinned at him. ‘Something that got up your nose, that this fella did, was it?’
Ben looked at him suspiciously. Were policemen interrogating men who’d attacked other men usually as chatty and relaxed as this? His experience of legal matters was sketchy in the extreme; his only contact with the police over the years had been an occasional search for lost property. He’d never even broken a motoring law, let alone any other, until now; and he frowned. All those films he’d seen, all the TV shows that dealt in police affairs, were all he had to go by.
‘I think I’m supposed to ask to see my lawyer, aren’t I?’
The policeman grinned. ‘Well, now, why should you want a lawyer, sir? Here we are with a chap that it seems you treated to a fair old basinful sitting there but refusing to say a bad word about you, let alone willing to make a proper complaint against you, and since it all happened on what you might call private – certainly enclosed – premises and no harm done or obstruction caused, no need for us to make any fuss. So what would you be wanting a lawyer for?’
Ben closed his eyes and stretched his neck with great care and then opened them and said cautiously, ‘Then I’m free to go?’
‘Not precisely, sir. Not at the moment. I mean, you did attack another citizen, didn’t you? Even if he seems willing to let bygones be bygones, I’m interested … well, any man would be, in why that should be. I can guess, mind you. Gather that Hurst’s wife works for you. Yes. Personable lady, is she?’
Ben sat up straighter and stared back at the policeman, determined to keep his face free of any expression, but clearly he failed because the man said easily, ‘Well, now, no need to get agitated, is there? No. It’s none of my affair, I suppose. But I’ll tell you what is, and I’d be glad to have my curiosity satisfied!’ He leaned forwards chummily and folded his arms on the table so that his face was quite near to Ben’s. ‘How is it that just after you get here we get this instruction that there’s to be no fuss made and no problems about letting you go? It was an easy instruction to follow, seeing that Mr Hurst’s behaving so magnanimously, but all the same … it’s a fair old puzzle.’
‘Instruction?’ Ben said carefully, and stared back at the pleasant face in front of him. ‘Who from?’
‘Ah, now that’d be telling, wouldn’t it? But I’ll tell you, why shouldn’t I? Office of the Chief Constable, that’s who. And that seems to me to suggest Special Branch.’
‘Special Branch? What does that mean?’
Now the policeman looked a little less affable. ‘Come on now, sir, I’m not so daft as I look, you know.’
Ben shook his head, and then stopped, wincing slightly. God, but his neck muscles ached. He must have held his own head like a vice to have had that effect on them. ‘I’m sorry, I really don’t … I’ve always been an ordinary sort of person, you see. Never had any dealings with the law. Except when I bought my house, things like that. I really don’t … Special Branch? What’s that to do with me?’
The policeman leaned back. ‘Well, sir, that’s what I’d like to know. But if you’re not prepared to tell me, what can I do? Not a thing. I’ve no right to ask, neither, I suppose. Still, I thought I’d try. Curious, you know. Any man would be.’
‘If I knew I’d say,’ Ben said, and began slowly to get to his feet. ‘You say I’m free to go?’
The policeman stood up too. ‘I’ll check again with the Chief Constable’s office. They said they’d call back, but some of those women there … right dreamy lot they are. I’ll find out, call ’em myself. If you’d care to come along to the canteen, sir, you can have a cuppa. Do you good, that would ….’
‘Thank you.’ Ben followed him out of the room, his body screaming its fury at him, but as he moved the stiffness eased and he began, very slightly, to feel better, less battered and more alert. A cup of coffee would be a great comfort, come to think of it.
He was sitting in the canteen sipping his second cup half an hour later when the affable policeman came back, this time with a tall man in a neat dark suit behind him.
‘Well now, Dr Pitman, it’s all settled. We’ve got the clearance we need to let you be on your way, and here’s your driver to take you back to the hospital.’
‘My … who?’ Ben looked at the other man who nodded at him in a cheerful way. ‘Who are you?’
‘Just your driver, Dr Pitman. Will you let me have the keys to your car then? You’re parked over at the Civic Centre I think? The chaps here’ll give us a lift back to it – but I think I’d better take over now, don’t you? You don’t really look in any fit condition to drive yourself, after all.’
33
‘I don’t believe this,’ Ben said, and shook his head again. ‘I’d have known if people were watching me, for God’s sake!’
‘But they were and you didn’t,’ the man said gently. ‘I do assure you, ever since the first piece of publicity on this affair appeared, we’ve been interested in you. Your work, you understand rather than any … ah, personal aspects.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘Not that we don’t know a good deal about you. Inevitable, really. You can’t watch a chap, do a bit of vetting on him, without picking up a lot of information about his little ways and his private preoccupations.’ He reached into his neat briefcase and took out a green cardboard folder and Ben blinked; his name was printed neatly on the front of it and the man smiled as he caught the direction of his gaze and said even more gently, ‘You see? We really do have you well documented.’
‘But why? I still don’t understand. You turn up out of the blue when I’m in a … at a sort of crisis time, announce yourself as my driver and then tell me you’re a … what is it? Civil servant? What sort of civil servant, for God’s sake? Are you from the DHSS? Is all this because I’ve been doi
ng my own research on DHSS premises? Is that it? If it is, and I was wrong, then I’ll do what I can to put it right, but all this cloak and dagger stuff – it’s bloody ridiculous. Do you people really go about spying on hospital staff to make sure we don’t waste NHS money? Because if you do, by God, you’re missing some pretty obvious ….’
‘No, no, no!’ The other man was holding up one hand, laughing gently. ‘Nothing of the sort. I know damn all about the Elephant House, my dear chap! The DHSS has nothing to do with my department and I have nothing to do with it, I do promise you. You can rest assured about that.’
‘Then what is your department?’
‘I did tell you.’ He sounded reproachful, as though they’d been introduced at a suburban tennis party, and Ben had committed the social solecism of forgetting. ‘I’m Richard Franey of Division Seventeen, not that that need worry you.’
‘Everything worries me! Look here, Mr Franey ….’
‘Doctor actually. But call me Richard. So much more agreeable to be friendly, don’t you think?’
‘You come here, Dr Franey, and you tell me some tale about getting me out of trouble with the police and ….’
‘But it’s true. You really mustn’t call it a story, you know! We had cause to know – well, suspect – that you were about to, shall we say express a difference of opinion with Mr Hurst. And when the disagreement became so profound that the police became involved we thought it better to sort things out ourselves. It saves time, you see. Can’t have a chap we’re interested in turning up in court on charges of causing affrays or inflicting grievous bodily harm or whatever it is these chappies call it. Low profile, that’s us. Very low profile.’
‘But you still haven’t told me who you are!’ Ben said almost despairingly. It was impossible to get angry with the man; he was so friendly, answered every question so readily – albeit unsatisfactorily – and seemed so anxious to please that getting angry would have been absurd. But the bewilderment that had filled him ever since the man had escorted him, half-dazed, from the police station to collect his own car and bring him back here to the lab was threatening to become more than he could handle, and he rubbed his head with both hands, forgetting how his fingers hurt and wincing at the effect of his own action.
Franey was at once all concern. ‘My dear chap, you must be feeling dreadful, and here I am not offering you any comfort! Have a quick one, what do you say?’ And he reached again into his briefcase and this time brought out a silver flask. ‘Brandy? Mind you, your opponent probably needs it more than you do. Long time since I’ve seen a chap quite so satisfyingly flattened. You were angry with him, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Ben said, and after a moment took the little silver cup Franey had unscrewed from the flask and filled, and swallowed its contents. They burned his mouth and his throat, made him cough a little, but warmed him.
‘It really is very simple, Dr Pitman.’ Franey bent over his folder, smoothing out the sheets of paper that were in it. ‘We – the department, you know – are very interested in your work. Very. We can see there is a considerable potential there, and we would like to discuss with you the possibility of working with us. Excellent facilities, you know, and all the resources you need. Just have to write a requisition, and you have it all, staff, materials, the lot. And of course, we’ll be able to give you a better salary than the poor old NHS can! I worked it out. It would be eighty-three per cent more than your present income, after tax,’ and he handed Ben a sheet of paper covered with neatly typed figures.
Ben took it and stared down at it, and the numbers printed there as income, and as additional expenses on which he could draw, read like telephone numbers, they were so large, and he looked up at Franey and said almost in awe, ‘This is a salary scale?’
‘Indeed it is,’ Franey said, and leaned back in his chair in high good humour. ‘And of course that doesn’t mention the resettlement cash that’s available. You’d sell your house here, of course, before coming North, and you’d need a new one, and the way house costs vary between the areas means you could have something rather more elegant than you now have; I’m sure your wife would love it … if, of course she chooses to come with you.’ He stopped and coughed, a genteel little sound in Ben’s small cluttered office that sounded oddly muffled as the small refrigerator started up its motor behind him and settled to a steady hum, and Ben looked at him, suspicion leaping even higher in him.
‘I mean, you may decide that the time has come for a parting of the ways, hmm? We did notice that – how shall we put it – you and your wife aren’t as close as some married couples, are you? No. But of course you could take anyone else with you you choose. We aren’t interested in private matters, I repeat, Dr Pitman, even though we had to do some vetting, you understand. If you chose to bring your own assistant with you to the job, wanted to … ah … arrange shared accommodation for you both, well, that’s no business of ours. Might in fact have a lot to commend it. A partner who understands one’s work, is really in sympathy with its objectives, such a help, don’t you think?’
‘Why?’
‘Why share accommodation? Well, I can’t say really! It’s entirely up to you. I’m just making the point that you’ll be free to do as you choose, and that we offer generous resettlement cash to help you do so and ….’
‘No, I mean why offer me all this? What for? What do you want me to do?’
‘Just what you’re doing now, my dear man, exactly what you’re doing now. Only better. Trials of your Contravert, large-scale trials of every sort. Animal, then human. All the help you need, access to our excellent computer for all the statistical work, and for some very sophisticated predictions too. It’s amazing what the machine can do, I’m told. It’s beyond my simple understanding, of course – my doctorate is in chemistry, not the sort of fancy physics these computer chaps go in for – but there it is. I know the results they get and you’ll enjoy them, you will indeed. A lot of the donkey work will be taken off your back and you can concentrate on what you do best. Which is getting a really pure source of Contravert that can be given in standard doses and which is safe to use. We’re well aware of the fact that you’ve been working here on a shoestring. Looking around now it amazes me that you’ve done as much as you have with such limited resources. You are clearly a resourceful man, Dr Pitman, if you’ll forgive a bad pun!’ And he laughed gently.
Ben bent his head and looked again at the piece of paper in his hands. ‘You’re offering me all that, and this salary and … I don’t understand,’ he looked up and shook his head. ‘I’m probably being very stupid, but I’ve had a … it’s been a difficult day and I’m being a bit slow on the uptake one way and another. You still haven’t explained fully who you are, who’s offering me all this. And why.’
‘Division Seventeen,’ Franey said and smiled at him. ‘That’s us, Dr Pitman. Division Seventeen.’
‘But that tells me nothing!’
‘It isn’t meant to.’ Franey sat and gazed at him for a long moment and Ben stared back and there was a silence broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and, from the animal room, the subdued chatter of Castor and Pollux, and then Franey sighed and leaned forwards.
‘I can see that there’s more to you than I thought. I had a distinct impression that you cared only for your research, that given the chance to do more of it, and do it better, you wouldn’t care unduly about who you were doing it for ….’
Ben frowned. ‘Who for? I’m doing it for myself. And I suppose, ultimately, for people with virus infections. Who else would I be doing it for?’ And suddenly his face darkened and he got to his feet to stand and stare angrily down at Franey. ‘My God, I should have realized this ages ago! I’m a bloody fool – or I nearly was. You’re one of these damned pharmaceutical firms, aren’t you? Want to get me to make the stuff for you, patent it, make yourselves a fortune? Go to bloody hell! If I get Contravert right it isn’t going to be picked up by just one firm and used to make them fat. It’ll be
available to everyone who wants it, and it’ll be made as cheaply as possible and ….’
‘I absolutely agree, Dr Pitman!’ Franey said and again smiled up at him. ‘Do sit down, old man, you’re giving me a crick in my neck. I agree totally with your views of these multinational pharmaceutical firms. Parasites, some of ’em, downright parasites. Not all, mind you. There are some we negotiate tight contracts with and get excellent materials and excellent products for a very low rate. You’ll see if … when you start with us. No, my dear chap, I keep telling you, I’m a civil servant! I’m not one of your businessmen. I am here to represent the Government of this country, and telling you that your country has a job to offer you. That sounds rather like a bad American TV show, doesn’t it? Your country calling you and all that. But it’s true, all the same. I was about to explain to you when you jumped to the wrong conclusion.’
He waited till Ben sat down, again still moving rather stiffly, and then said with a casual air, ‘Division Seventeen is part of the MOD.’
‘MOD?’ Ben repeated stupidly.
‘Defence,’ Franey said.
Again a silence filled the room as Ben looked at the other man, who looked benignly back at him, and then Ben said carefully, ‘Defence. To do with war and weapons, is that it?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Franey said with an air of genuine regret. ‘Sad, isn’t it, that a word that should conjure up images of high walls and nice secure doors and gates actually makes you think of offensive weapons. But that’s how it is these nasty days, isn’t it? To defend yourself you have to be fairly ferocious.’ He smiled again, then, a sly little grin this time. ‘As you showed this afternoon. Defending your Mrs Hurst, you see, weren’t you, who was treated so badly by her husband, and so you attacked him with great energy, very great energy indeed.
The Virus Man Page 33