Dead End

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘You think it could be the person who killed her?’ asked Parnell.

  ‘We won’t know what to think until we match it,’ said Benton.

  ‘Judge Wilson made some court orders,’ reminded Jackson.

  ‘Sir?’ queried Dingley.

  ‘About civil suits and claims, for wrongful arrest,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Which you haven’t pursued?’ said Benton.

  ‘Not yet. If Mr Parnell chose to sue, there’d legally have to be full disclosure.’

  ‘Yes, there would,’ acknowledged Dingley, smiling now.

  ‘I think my client and I should talk about that, don’t you?’

  ‘Full, legally required disclosure might be interesting,’ said Benton.

  ‘Anything, beyond what we’ve got, would be interesting,’ said Dingley. ‘Mr Parnell’s in a kind of limbo until we get somewhere with this, wouldn’t you say?’

  Parnell hadn’t considered himself to be in any sort of limbo, but supposed he was. He’d definitely have to speak to his mother tonight. And reply to the letters. There’d been two more that morning, one enclosing cuttings of the English media coverage of the case. The extent had surprised him. One article had, quite wrongly, identified him as the leading British research scientist in the genome-mapping breakthrough. He said: ‘If you all think this might break the logjam, let’s do it.’

  ‘We’ll discuss it,’ cautioned Jackson.

  Jackson began that discussion directly upon leaving the FBI field office building. ‘They’re good.’

  ‘What?’ frowned Parnell.

  ‘Those guys back there, they’re good. They got exactly what they wanted.’

  ‘I’m needing some help,’ said Parnell. As usual, he thought.

  ‘Ed Pullinger, the FBI counsel, was in court, remember? He heard the judge’s orders. The Bureau are getting the closed door. A civil suit might be the way to open it, just a little. It would certainly tighten the media screw on Metro DC police department.’

  ‘You mean that was a set-up back there! The whole meeting?’

  ‘I think so. Even to the disclosure about the thumb print.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘From their point of view, it’s a good move.’

  Beverley abruptly came into Parnell’s mind. He said: ‘You warned me to be careful of police harassment, as well as being a target for whoever killed Beverley. Won’t the risk of harassment increase if we sue?’

  Jackson shook his head, positively. ‘Not even Metro DC would dare. It’ll act more as a protection. I should have thought of it earlier.’

  ‘But is it really likely to get the investigation any further forward?’

  ‘We shan’t know that until we serve the writs and start demanding disclosure,’ said Jackson.

  * * *

  Dwight Newton had expected an inquisition but not that it would be led by Grant, nor that it would be so scathing. With virtually no defence, he tried to hide behind jargon – talking of hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase instead of HPRT, and mutations and the unpredictability of drug cocktails – but there was sufficient knowledge among some of the board members not to be deflected, and at one stage the white-haired president told him to cut the scientific crap and explain the problem in words they would all understand. Newton tried, too, to shift the primary responsibility onto Russell Benn, minimizing his function to that of a secondary check, but was refused that escape by having to concede – as he had earlier had to admit to Edward C. Grant at one of their private encounters – that if that had been his role, then he’d singularly failed to perform it.

  The accusations and recriminations logically gave way to a slightly less hostile – but even more commercially based – debate upon the damage to public confidence – as well as that to be expected from the regulatory authority – that Dubette would suffer from any leaks, publicity or exposure, which brought into the exchanges a renewed use of words like catastrophe and disaster and meltdown. And kept the concentration upon Newton. He tried, in a desperate snatch for recovery, to stress Parnell’s assurance of discretion, to be confronted by two separate challenges from directors, about the loyalty of the rest of the pharmacogenomics unit, who’d demonstrated his blatant scientific inefficiency. Which were the precise words that were used, blatant scientific inefficiency.

  It was not so much the final straw that broke the camel’s back, but the final, unendurable bruise from the misdirectedly wielded stick. More loudly than he had intended, Newton said: ‘OK! Let’s take a few things into consideration here. I am—’

  ‘You’re not,’ Grant stopped him, positively, refusing any awkward defensive outburst. ‘A mistake was made. Mistakes do get made. It’s the nature – the sometimes inevitable result – of the business we’re in. It’s been isolated – dealt with. I do not recommend – would argue as strongly as possible against – any reprimand or censure …’ He paused, a man with the fifth ace in his hand. ‘This is, in fact, an unrecorded composition of the board, and therefore restricted by regulations, of which I am sure we’re all aware. I repeat, a mistake was made – a series of mistakes. We’re all of us fallible. Those mistakes have been corrected. We are, I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, meeting in unrecorded session, to which all of us agreed earlier. One of the regulatory restrictions is that decisions made during such discussions legally need to be confirmed by a recorded meeting of the board, the records made available to an annual meeting, or by a specially convened meeting of shareholders …’ The pause was as timed as the words were rehearsed.

  ‘But that means …’ said a voice.

  ‘Each of you know the terms of reference of the board’s composition – the company restrictions I have just outlined. My concern – which I anticipated to be the concern of us all to preserve the company – is to limit within corporate legality the sort of public exposure we’ve agreed during this discussion would lead to the total destruction of Dubette …’

  Newton was never to be sure that, however briefly, his mouth didn’t visibly fall open in his incredulity at the piratical manoeuvre. Certainly the expression on at least three of the men around the table was of astonishment. Another began scrabbling through a document case, Newton presumed in a search for the company formation regulations.

  ‘I don’t agree with this … it can’t possibly be legal …’ said the man who had first protested.

  ‘Everyone has a copy of our formation and incorporation documents,’ said Grant, looking at the man still rummaging through his briefcase. ‘For those who haven’t, I’ll specify the section I’m referring to – it’s paragraphs four through seven – but I’d draw your attention to paragraph nine. Those preceding sections, four to seven, can be superseded by a majority vote, here and now, for us to go on record. Or for a special shareholders’ meeting to be convened.’

  ‘To commit commercial suicide, like lemmings jumping off a cliff!’ said the outspoken objector.

  ‘Each of us around this table agreed the terms, presumably upon the advice of our individual investment lawyers,’ said Grant. ‘I certainly did.’

  The searching man found what he was looking for, consulted it and sat back in his chair, shaking his head.

  Grant said: ‘I am not coercing this board into anything illegal, merely reminding it of its operational parameters. Our research vice president, Dwight Newton, has acknowledged and apologized for his oversight and his error. I propose that is how it remains, a rectified matter restricted to a very limited number of people. The alternative is in your hands, as I have already set out.’

  ‘How is this board going to look if it does become public knowledge?’ demanded the man with the regulations still in his hand.

  ‘Like a responsible body of responsible men operating as it is legally empowered to do, to protect its shareholders’ interests and investments, as well as reacting promptly to prevent any harmful effects from a mistaken batch issue,’ said Grant. ‘I invite a vote on the course I am proposing.’
/>   It was unanimous.

  A buffet lunch was arranged to follow. At least half the board left without eating anything. Those who remained picked and sampled, the most token of token gestures. What conversation there was was mumbled, serious-faced, with a lot of head-shaking. Newton ate nothing and drank club soda. At his shoulder, as the room thinned with tight, perfunctory farewells, Grant told Newton: ‘Don’t go, not until we’ve talked.’

  ‘Where can I go?’ asked Newton.

  ‘Nowhere,’ said Grant, refusing the self-pity.

  It was a further hour before they got yet again into the president’s office. As soon as the door closed behind them, Newton said: ‘You hung me out to dry back there.’

  ‘You deserved to be hung out to dry. You fucked up. There wasn’t a member of the board, me included, who didn’t want to sacrifice you. What I did instead was save your ass.’

  ‘Yours with it,’ fought back Newton. ‘I didn’t say anything about other meetings like this.’

  ‘Because there was nothing to say. I told you all along everything had to be safe. You didn’t ensure that it was. You still got a job. Be grateful.’

  What right had this manipulative, never-guilty-of-anything motherfucker to treat him with contempt, Newton asked himself. ‘What did you want me to stay on for?’

  ‘Parnell called Saby direct. Asked about getting everything back. Saby thought Parnell was on the inside. Somehow Parnell knows about the box-number route – he obviously got that from that damned woman.’

  ‘You heard from Saby direct?’

  ‘How the hell else would I know?’

  ‘What did you tell Saby to do?’

  ‘Send the stuff, as they discussed. I couldn’t do otherwise.’

  ‘What else did Saby tell him?’

  ‘That it could be got back – that’s what Saby told me. With the taps lifted, we don’t know exactly what was said, not any more. We got too many loose ends, Parnell the loosest.’

  It never appeared to have occurred to anyone at the board meeting to thank Parnell for what he’d possibly prevented, Newton suddenly realized. But then, he accepted, officially it had been an unofficial, unrecorded meeting, which he supposed meant any corporate gratitude was impossible. ‘You going to see Parnell? There’s enough reason.’

  ‘Arrogant son of a bitch,’ said Grant.

  Not an arrogant son of a bitch, mentally corrected Newton – someone who wasn’t afraid of Edward C. Grant and who hadn’t been sucked into the imploding black hole of Dubette Inc. ‘Are you?’ he repeated.

  ‘Have Johnson set up some surveillance on him again. Let’s find a weak spot.’

  Grant’s modus operandi, thought Newton. ‘What if he hasn’t got one?’

  ‘Everyone’s got a weak spot,’ insisted the president.

  Newton wondered what Edward C. Grant’s weak spot was. Then he thought it was time – long after time – that he tried to evolve some personal protection for himself. But what?

  ‘Talk time again!’ announced Barbara Spacey, sailing into Parnell’s office on a gust of nicotine.

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘That’s good. A lot of psychologists deny it, but work is often a good stress reliever. Would you believe that?’

  ‘I’ll believe anything you tell me.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to go that far. So, how are you?’

  ‘As I was when we met last time, I’m fine.’

  ‘How are you sleeping?’

  ‘Like a baby.’

  ‘How do you occupy your spare time?’

  ‘With the stress-relief of work.’

  ‘You miss Rebecca?’

  ‘That’s an offensive question. Of course I miss Rebecca.’

  The woman appeared unperturbed. ‘The police getting anywhere?’

  ‘It’s not a police investigation. It’s the FBI.’

  ‘The FBI getting anywhere?’ There was no reaction to the correction.

  ‘They don’t take me into their confidence,’ lied Parnell, suddenly attentive to the questioning. Before she could ask something else, he said: ‘This is the third time we’ve talked. You normally interview staff this many times?’

  ‘You’re the first staff member to be involved in a murder. A hell of an unusual murder, at that.’

  ‘I think you misdiagnosed my other assessments,’ he goaded.

  ‘You’re allowed to lodge an objection. Seek a secondary opinion, even,’ reminded the woman. ‘Don’t forget the Freedom of Information Act. No one can sneak any more!’

  ‘Didn’t think it important enough. You get many objections?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘How’d you score?’

  ‘Pretty good. I’ve still got a job.’

  ‘What happens to these assessments?’

  ‘They go on your personnel file.’

  ‘So, who has access to that file?’

  ‘Personnel. Senior executives,’ Barbara Spacey gestured towards the outside laboratory. ‘You’ve got the authority to see your guys’ assessments.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d made any.’

  ‘I haven’t, not yet. About to start.’

  ‘Who else has access?’ persisted Parnell.

  ‘Legal department … Security.’

  ‘Seems a lot of people.’ suggested Parnell.

  ‘Dubette’s a caring company.’

  ‘I think you told me that already. Some people would say it was an inquisitive company.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be difficult for me to think just that.’

  ‘Which I might judge to be paranoia.’

  ‘Do,’ invited Parnell. ‘Are you familiar with a very famous book by an English author named George Orwell, about a control State? It’s called …’

  ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four,’ she finished for him. ‘Yeah, I’ve read it.’

  ‘How’d you diagnose that?’

  ‘How about paranoia?’

  ‘I thought it was about the danger of a control State.’

  ‘I don’t remember Winston Smith, who tried to fight the system, coming out of it all that well,’ said the woman.

  Twenty-Five

  Richard Parnell didn’t set out upon a warned-against personal investigation, although there was something about the last meeting with Barbara Spacey that stayed in his mind, like a distracting noise for which he couldn’t locate a source. But there suddenly seemed to be a lot he found distracting. Although he fully understood his mother’s concern, her insistence upon such regular contact was intrusive and he found it irksome having to respond to letters from former vague acquaintances in England who’d obviously got his Washington address from closer, genuinely concerned colleagues, and written as if it were a members’-club obligation. The most positive, persistent distraction of all, of course, remained the discontinuity within his unit. The lack of a single, feasible experimental idea to further the influenza research had made the previous night’s end-of-day discussion virtually pointless, although he’d thought Sean Sato’s suggestion of a combined discussion with Russell Benn’s unit worth pursuing, until being told by Benn that morning that his scientists didn’t have anything to contribute either. Parnell was increasingly accepting Ted Lapidus’s view that they weren’t ever going to find a treatment as objective logic rather than impatient defeatism, although he hadn’t yet openly admitted it.

  It was the persistent nag of uncertainty from his meeting with the psychologist that prompted Parnell to go to the personnel department, in a part of the complex so remote he had to use the wall guides. As he moved through connecting corridors, he supposed it would have been a courtesy to tell Wayne Denny that he was coming, but accessing his own personnel file – without any positive reason for doing so – scarcely justified bothering the department director.

  He was greeted at the enquiry section, quite separate from an open-plan, glassed-off office beyond, by a blonde, milk-fed girl who clearly recognized him without needing to rea
d his ID tag. Hers identified her as Sally Kline. Adopting the American informality, he called her Sally. She called him professor. With ‘have a good day’ glibness she assured him retrieving his file wouldn’t be a problem, which it obviously wasn’t, because she returned from a side room with a manila folder in minutes. Directing him to one of the several reading tables, she asked if he wanted coffee. Parnell thanked her but refused.

  The folder was thicker than he’d expected. And far more detailed. All his references had been taken up and there were copies of every scientific publication paper he could remember submitting. Surprisingly – the beginning of what became intense, even unsettling, curiosity – there were confirming copies of all his academic testimonials – school as well as college – duplicating every one he’d disclosed on his original application. A substantial reason for the file’s thickness were cuttings of what Parnell judged to be every newspaper account he could remember – and some he couldn’t – of his work on the international genome project, including all the interviews he’d given after his participation became public. There was also at least a quarter of an inch taken up by media accounts of Rebecca Lang’s murder, the inexplicable terrorism connection, his initial arrest and subsequent release. Several, he saw, were even from British newspapers, from which he was able to see how widespread the coverage had been in England and better appreciate his mother’s concern. Beyond the printed text were a selection of photographs of him at the time of his arrest, and afterwards, on the court steps. They were on top of an assortment of other prints, two of him gowned and mortar-boarded at graduation ceremonies, and three showing him in rowing strip at college events. Barbara Spacey’s first and second assessments, her third yet to come, were attached to his itemized personal records, the second so specific that it ran to two single spaced A4 pages.

  Parnell’s surprise had grown into astonishment by the time he finished the dossier. It contained, he calculated, more information than he knew about himself – certainly things he had totally forgotten about himself. And more, much more, than he believed any employer, no matter how caring, to use Barbara Spacey’s justifying word, would or should need. His remark to Barbara Spacey about Nineteen Eighty-Four was very apposite. Parnell’s mind jumped. The FBI had traced Rebecca back to grade school, according to Howard Dingley. Had they had access to her Dubette file? The answer should be obvious, but so very little of what he knew about Rebecca’s murder investigation seemed obvious that it was definitely worth mentioning to the two agents.