Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  •

  I leaned back in the chair. My aches and pains were almost healed now and I’d finished the job that had started with my search of Tony Bonning’s bedroom. It seemed a lifetime ago now. It was time to let the Federal and NSW police do their jobs; my part in it was complete. I hooked up to the printer and soon had a neat document printed out and ready to send to the relevant authorities.

  I wanted to be there when the arrest was made. I wanted to see the look on the killer’s face when I pulled out the damning piece of evidence I’d found hidden in the henhouse—or a perfect copy of it. The original, now in the hands of the Government analyst, would make its reappearance during the trial.

  But there were a couple of things I needed to sort out before I left work. I went down the hall to Vic Agnew’s office and found him there, beavering away, head down, with the disconcerting drawing above his desk. I owed a lot to that drawing, I thought. He looked up as I knocked and I thought I saw fear in his eyes.

  ‘A word,’ I said, going in and closing the door. ‘I’ve checked the security print-outs recently and I found you made two visits to the SEM. On each occasion a stub with a sample of BA was left in the microscope.’

  ‘I wanted to see it close up,’ he said. ‘I probably should have asked Florence if it was okay.’

  ‘There’s no “probably” about it,’ I said. ‘In future, if you wish to access any area that is not part of your immediate work, please see me or—’ I stopped. ‘Just make sure you get approval.’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, looking suitably contrite. ‘I will.’

  I wondered how he’d look later on in the evening.

  Florence wasn’t in her lab. I wanted to check the run she’d done on Alix’s kiss-print. I was in luck, the print-outs were still in a folder on her desk with my name on it. I opened it and examined them and, sure enough, there they were, the twin peaks at the sex locus, marking a male. I sat down at Florence’s desk where a science magazine lay open at an article about an American sportswoman, banned from playing the sport of her choice at a professional level. Florence had stuck a note on it ready to pass on to me: ‘Jack,’ I read. ‘This could throw some light on your “friend’s” mysterious admirer.’ Her quotation marks around the word ‘friend’ indicated she’d seen right through me. I started reading it, puzzled at why Florence might think I’d be interested in an American sportswoman. Until I read it. ‘Of course,’ I said, out loud. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  Every time I think I’ve got a handle on the way things are, events explode around me and I have to be humble again. Now it all made sense. Alix’s legginess and some of the remarks she’d made now became crystal clear. I re-read the piece, but there was nothing about preferring older men. That at least was her own idiosyncrasy.

  This should go into the database, I decided, because it was an important deviation from the norm and we should have a sample. I went back to my office, entered it in the system and checked it against the automatic matching program. I was about to leave, when the program stopped. It had found a match to the assault case we were working on. Curious, I looked at the two identical profiles. Then I noticed the name of the victim of crime. Alix was in very serious trouble.

  I went back to University House, noticing the green mist just showing along the willows, and disturbing a pair of noisy miners who seemed to be already looking for a nesting site. Ducks wandered on the lawn under the bare trees and it seemed unseasonably warm for a late winter day. I rang Brian Kruger and told him what I’d just discovered from the profiling system.

  ‘We’ll pick her up tonight,’ he said. Tonight wasn’t early enough for me, but it would have to do.

  I put on my best suit for the dinner and finally I was ready. The chookhouse notes lay on the desk. I didn’t want to leave them lying around until we’d made the arrest, just in case. I didn’t want the killer to have the slightest whiff of a warning that justice was about to come crashing down. I picked up the duplicate weapon and slipped it into my pocket together with the notes.

  The Wesley Morton memorial dinner was being held in the large conference centre near Administration and I caught a glimpse through the folding doors of the long tables set for a formal dinner: spotless napery and shining crystal. People were arriving in large numbers now, academics in their colourful robes, wives and girlfriends decked out to the nines. Over a period of about half an hour, the foyer to the dining room filled fast. I saw Florence drifting around in a strange outfit that looked as if it’d been made out of a number of highly contrasting tablecloths. Near her, Vic Agnew stood, uncomfortable in a too-big suit, talking to Digby and the dean’s wife. Sarah and Jane, visions of glamour very different from their white-coated workday appearances, had their heads together over the bar, and waiters dispensed drinks into the rows of glasses on several long tables covered in white linen.

  ‘Glad you could get here,’ I said to Bob as he came over to me.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss this for quids,’ he said, taking an orange juice from a passing tray. Then he was pounced on by the head of Biochemistry and dragged away. George must be running short of people to talk at, I thought. Or to do lectures for him.

  I nursed my lemon, lime and bitters and made small talk with people I hardly knew, or fielded questions about my state of health, which apart from the fading bruises was pretty good. I spotted Gavin Wales standing near the main entrance and went over to him, a surge of adrenalin coursing through me. The time had come.

  ‘How many of you are there?’ I asked.

  ‘Just me and my partner,’ he said, indicating an unmarked car parked outside. ‘We didn’t think we’d need to bring the posse in for this one.’ He looked around. ‘Is the target here yet? Am I allowed to smoke in here?’

  ‘Yes, to the first,’ I said. ‘About ten minutes ago. And no to the second. No smoking.’ I’d been watching our quarry who’d left the foyer area several minutes ago with someone else I knew. And because they’d gone into a small room near Reception, used for storing baggage and trolleys, I was concerned that the target might have sensed danger.

  Gavin pushed the cigarettes back into his pocket. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’

  He took out the warrant for arrest and I only had to raise an eyebrow in Bob’s direction and he got the message, immediately putting his juice down and heading over.

  ‘They’re in there,’ I said to Gavin, indicating the door to the storeroom as we approached. I put my hand around the replica weapon in my pocket and when we reached the door, I stepped back to allow Gavin precedence. The first murder had been in New South Wales. It was his arrest.

  He shoved the door open and the four of us burst into the small room. I don’t know who was the more shocked—us or them.

  Alix, kneeling in front of his trousers, screamed. And the expression on Digby Worthington’s face almost kept me from noticing the way he was fumbling his fast-shrivelling penis back into his fly.

  ‘How dare you just barge in like this!’ Alix screamed. ‘You’ve got no right! We’re engaged!’ They must have got together over immunotoxins, I thought. Or at the Drama Society. Alix shoved a hand in our direction, flashing a large diamond. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong.’ She swung round to her companion. ‘Tell them, darling!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Digby cried.

  ‘This is the icing on the cake. This is the person whose DNA matches the third campus assault,’ I said, indicating Alix.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Alix shouted, her pretty face squeezed in rage.

  ‘It was you who attacked Iona Seymour, Alix,’ I continued. ‘You’re looking at a prison sentence now. Grievous bodily harm.’

  ‘Take your hands off her!’ Digby yelled. ‘My fiancée is carrying my child.’

  ‘You’re a liar, Alix,’ I said, still ignoring my ex-boss. ‘“Built for pleasure not r
eproduction,” you told me. You have no ovaries, no uterus. You’re an XY woman, Alix. There’s no baby and you know it.’

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Digby said. By this time, my ex-boss had recovered some of his dignity. ‘I know it looks bad, Jack,’ he started to say, ‘with Livvy scarcely cold in her grave—’

  ‘You should know how bad it is, Digby,’ I said, advancing towards him. ‘You put her there.’ As I spoke, I pulled from my pocket the replica of what I’d found in the chookhouse. Digby stood transfixed. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  ‘How did you—?’ he started to say.

  ‘How did I know?’ I asked.

  But his face sagged. He was utterly confounded.

  ‘You started to get worried about how much I knew,’ I said, ‘because I quite innocently asked you a question about your journal article. And you snapped at me. Remember? Your guilt did the rest. You thought I knew a lot more than I did. That’s why you locked me in your henhouse, Digby. You hoped that by the time I was found, you’d be happily installed in New York, covered in glory, raking in your first millions, living it up with your floozie.’

  I had the pleasure of hearing Alix explode at this.

  ‘My time in your henhouse was a huge turning point for this investigation.’

  I slipped the weapon back into my pocket. Looking at Digby now, I was reminded of the hell I’d seen in his eyes that night at hospital. Then, he’d been forced to confront the horrifying death he’d inflicted on his wife. Now, he was seeing the yawning pit of the future for him, public disgrace and prison. The end of his high-reaching ambition. The end of his thespian fun. The rich fruity actor’s voice that had lent itself to his performance as the grieving widower now had no words left to mouth.

  Gavin moved forward and touched Digby’s arm, like the end of a tag game. ‘Digby Worthington,’ he said, ‘I have a warrant here for your arrest and also for your extradition to New South Wales where you will be charged with the murder of Dr Tony Bonning.’

  By the time he got to the end of the cautioning, Alix had slunk away. Digby, dazed and silent, was led away by Gavin and his partner and we followed, making our way through the thronging onlookers.

  ‘What’s happening here? Where’s Dr Worthington going?’ drawled Digby’s patron, Lennie Lowenstein.

  Someone told him. I stood near the doors, watching my ex-boss being put into the unmarked car by the two Sydney detectives. Alerted by the screech of tyres, I saw Alix speed away in her car.

  ‘She’s a student here,’ I said to Bob. ‘Brian Kruger will find her. All her contact details will be with Administration.’

  The noise in the foyer reached a crescendo. All around me came questions and looks of bewilderment, as ushers and academics tried to get people to go in for dinner.

  ‘What’s an XY woman?’ Bob asked.

  ‘They’re very rare,’ I answered. ‘Despite the male XY gene, they develop as women, but the vagina is a dead end. They generally have longer bones than average and make terrific models and sportswomen. Until DNA testing began.’

  I wanted to be away from all this, but the dean descended on me. ‘We must carry on, Jack,’ he said. ‘I’m relying on people like you to keep things going. The honour of the university demands it.’ There was no escape.

  A little while later, I looked up from my two asparagus spears to see my daughter and Iona beckoning from the entrance. I gave them Digby and Alix’s settings at the end of my table. I quietly told them most of what had happened. All around me, the conversations were about Digby and the anthrax killings and whether the police might have broken some arcane regulation about making an arrest on university property. I made my way through something blanketed in heavy white sauce, acutely aware of Iona’s presence only inches away. After the first course, the dean rose to his feet and tinkled his glass with his knife.

  ‘Our designated speaker has unfortunately been—’

  ‘Arrested,’ someone yelled out and there was laughter.

  I couldn’t join in. And I was stunned when I heard the dean’s words. ‘Acting Chief Scientist Jack McCain has kindly agreed to speak on an interesting matter.’

  No one had asked me, I thought. But at least he’d left the subject matter open. There were a few things I’d worked out by now and I had the chookhouse notes in my pocket. I left my place and went up to the lectern on the podium near the High Table. There was a hushed silence as I pulled out the notes. I glanced at them and decided against reading them.

  ‘I’m going to tell you about three murders,’ I said, putting my notes back in my pocket. ‘And about the man who carried them out. And why. And how.’

  The hum of conversation had stilled. The atmosphere was electric.

  ‘But because we have a presumption of innocence in this country, I won’t mention the murderer’s name,’ I said and looked out at the audience. No one moved. There wasn’t even the slightest tinkle of glass or cutlery.

  ‘I knew a man,’ I started, ‘who was a brilliant scientist. But he was also a very ambitious man. His wife, another brilliant scientist, was involved with research into possible drug candidates to combat the effect of certain toxin-forming tumours. She was fiercely possessive about her work and discussed it with no one except her husband and her supervisor. After some brilliant investigation and research she had discovered a chemical that had the potential to neutralise the toxins released in the human body by certain tumours. And she’d also discovered that this chemical seemed to have the potential to neutralise other toxins, those produced by pathogenic bacteria, including Bacillus anthracis.’ I paused before adding, ‘More commonly known as anthrax.’

  The room erupted in a buzz. When it subsided I continued. ‘Because of the anthrax letters in the USA and growing fears that so-called “rogue” states might use biological weapons, this work of hers suddenly became immensely significant. The patents on such a discovery, the manufacture and marketing of a simple, cheap and efficient antidote to contamination by Bacillus anthracis could make her a billionaire many times over.’ I paused and looked around the room. Still no one moved. They were gripped by my narrative.

  ‘Last year,’ I continued, ‘this man had a paper published in a prestigious American journal. The very distinguished American analyst—’ I nodded in the general direction of Lennie Lowenstein—‘Dr Lowenstein, who’d been impressed by the journal piece, was about to visit this university.’ I realised I was getting ahead of myself. ‘Meanwhile,’ I said, ‘I was locked in a henhouse.’ A puzzled titter broke the silence but soon subsided. ‘I spent hours stuck there, in uncomfortable surroundings. Because I had nothing to do, I read through a box of the scientist’s wife’s research notes. And in the box I found a copy of the article based on this research which had been accepted for publication by the most prestigious science journal. Except the name under the title wasn’t the wife’s name, but the name of her husband. I knew then I’d stumbled on a case of enormous academic dishonesty and that if this became public, it was the end of this man’s professional life. It was inevitable that there’d be discussion of the paper and its contents and his wife would quickly realise that her husband had stolen her work. I don’t know what he’d been planning to do about this in the long term. Perhaps he hoped that running away to the US with another woman might solve the problem. But with the proliferation of publications on-line, getting away with intellectual theft of this sort would ultimately require his wife to disappear. In the short term, two people had to die. First, the man who supervised his wife’s earlier thesis—toxicologist Doctor Tony Bonning, who might have questioned the authorship of the article if he’d ever seen it—and of course, the wife herself.’ I drank some water and saw Iona and Jacinta leaning forward, listening to me intently in the hush.

  ‘After many more hours of just looking around,’ I continued, ‘I realised that it wasn’t a henhouse I was
sitting in, but a very well-equipped laboratory. There was reverse cycle air-conditioning which hadn’t been installed only for the fowls’ comfort, there was an incubator for culturing up bacteria, a home-brew kit which could equally brew up quantities of the required pathogen, there was a centrifugal mixer for the bran mash that could also be used to agitate and stir the bacterial soup, there was a glass-fronted cupboard, which could easily double as a biological safety cabinet, behind which the murderer could work to dry and mill the bacteria in safety. And there was a fridge, ostensibly to keep medicines in but which could also be put to good use in keeping the bacterial preparation. In the medicine cabinet, I’d noticed vaccination for poultry and horses. I’d remembered that the property on which the scientist and his wife had a hobby farm was not suitable for cattle grazing. I’ve since checked and found that anthrax is endemic on that section of the river flats. So the scientist had everything he needed. All he had to do was go out into his paddocks, dig up some soil, culture it up, purify it, then grow quantities of BA, treat it and use it. He had plenty of test animals available to him to test toxicity.’ I looked around the dining room in the perfect silence that filled it. All the faces were turned to me, there was a complete absence of movement.

  ‘We were puzzled, we investigators,’ I continued, ‘as to why the killer had changed modus operandi. For his first victim, he’d injected the vegetative form of the bacteria into a chocolate and sent it as a gift to his wife’s former supervisor. But for his wife’s death, he needed to go the extra distance. He needed to force spore formation. Because he’d devised a brilliant, devilish idea for delivery. Time was of the essence because his American patron had suddenly announced he was due to arrive. The plagiariser needed his wife to die quickly, from the inhalational form of the disease. So he inserted anthrax spores into an article she used daily, knowing that the aerosol in the article would deliver the spores deep into her airways. The killer’s wife would willingly inhale them.’