Grave Island: a compelling mystery thriller

by Andrew Smyth

  The tide was still in and the mud flats were covered and there were only the fields stretching down to the water’s edge. Greta had spent her childhood holidays here and played “Swallows and Amazons”, messing around in a succession of sailing dinghies. This was something I had in common with her since I’d sailed often at the other side of the harbour.

  ‘So when were you here before?’

  ‘The home I was in used to organise trips out here. One of the sailing clubs provided the dinghies and we’d race each other around the harbour. I sort of got hooked and went on to sail bigger boats after I’d joined the army. We had quite a team. We even won things.’

  ‘Can I ask something?’ Greta hesitated. ‘Why were you in the orphanage? What happened to your father?’

  ‘I don’t mind you asking. I got over it a long time ago. I never knew my father. Never even knew what happened to him. It was just me and my mother. But then she died and there wasn’t anyone else.’

  ‘And you said it was suicide? That must be difficult to live with.’

  ‘But it wasn’t her fault. It was the medication she was given I’m sure she didn’t mean to leave me alone.’ I shrugged. ‘By the time I found out, I was already settled in the army, so that provided some kind of reassurance. It had a structure.’ I started walking again. ‘Come on, let’s talk about something cheerful for a change.’ I’d need more time to consider what I’d overheard and I wasn’t going to raise it with Greta.

  13

  Lots of people say they don’t like Mumbai. Too many people, too many beggars, too much pollution. There was certainly a murky pall hanging over the city when I arrived, but as for the people, that’s what makes it India and without the incessant bustle of its millions it’d be like the Sahara without the sand. I’d booked a small hotel in the downtown area, off a side street near the grand Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. It was an anonymous sort of place, one you wouldn’t really notice unless you were looking for it, which suited me fine.

  When I’d last visited India, it had taken me a while to work out what side of the road people were supposed to be driving on, so the prospect of hiring a car didn’t fill me with great enthusiasm. I would have preferred to get someone more accustomed to the local driving habits, which seemed to require more the skills of a toreador, but I needed flexibility, so I reserved a car before I left London. I was flying out over the weekend and had arranged to visit the Bakaar facility outside Mumbai the Monday after I arrived and thought that I’d need to do a bit of sniffing around afterwards. Fortunately, my Indian visa was still valid which saved a great deal of bureaucracy – something the Indians had inherited from the British and elevated into an art form.

  I’d been pushing on an open door when I’d reported to Ken Maxwell. He’d been frustrated at his inability to follow things through within his agency and when I told him what Sally had told me about the vaccination programme he was able to confirm this through the MHRA. He realised what was at stake and made immediate arrangements for me to go out to Mumbai and for one of his staff to meet me out there.

  The SIS contact in Mumbai – Ranish – came around to the hotel later that day and I explained about the imminent vaccination programme and why we needed to check up on the Bakaar facility. I couldn’t see where else they could be coming from and he briefed me on the extended Bakaar family. Like all dynasties in India, they’d had their share of arguments and press speculation, but the family’s head, Ajmal Bakaar, now a grandfather of six, ruled his empire with a pretty firm hand. His various sons ran different parts of the business and it was his youngest son, Jamaal, who ran the company’s operations in East India. They were one of the most prominent in India’s Muslim business circles and pharmaceuticals was only one of their divisions, which included engineering and mining. They were still active amongst the Mumbai Muslims and supported numerous Islamic charities. There was no suggestion that Ajmal Bakaar had cut corners on his way to the top, but in Indian business that didn’t necessarily mean much. After giving me a recommendation for a restaurant that evening, Ranish arranged to meet me at my hotel the next morning.

  It was just as well he did, since I doubt that I would have been able to find my way without his directions. Bakaar Pharmaceuticals Mumbai division was in an industrial estate near the docks and it was a large complex, I guessed about the size of Holden Healthcare’s and built only ten years previously but already showing its age. There were several other businesses on the estate with premises of a similar period, as well as a few older units around the site. Despite the high-tech nature of its production, Bakaar’s industrial estate had a rather run-down feel, with grass verges overgrown and empty lots abandoned to squatters. It wasn’t the sort of place that inspired confidence. I dropped off Ranish and left him investigating the estate while I drove into their car park and went in for my appointment.

  I was taken around by their general manager, Ahmed Bashara, who turned out to be a cousin of Ajmal Bakaar – they were clearly keeping nepotism in the family. His English was nearly perfect, as it is with so many Indian businessmen, and despite the state of the premises, the manufacturing facility he took me around was quite impressive, with rows of machines pumping out pharmaceuticals of a bewildering variety. My cover from Orion seemed to hold up well and I was starting to recognise some of the machines, or at least some of the processes.

  My guide was clearly enthusiastic at the prospect of gaining a new customer. ‘We’re shipping to the UK every week through the docks at Jawaharlal Nehru Port, a few miles west of here. Holden Healthcare is one of the biggest customers but then they have the IHG account. There’s room for an intermediate size of operation – one that can reach the smaller pharmacies. A lot of Indians go to the local market to buy their medicines which makes distribution difficult, so we have to use wholesalers even for sales on our own doorstep.’

  ‘So you do distribute locally?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s a small part of our business and we have to use specialist distributors.’

  ‘What about East Africa? I understand you’ve got facilities there?’

  ‘In Kenya, yes, outside Mombasa. It’s run by one of Ajmal Bakaar’s sons but we don’t manufacture there, it’s only a distributor.’

  ‘Is one of them Tau Pharmaceuticals? Do you supply them direct from here in Mumbai?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Regularly. In fact, we’ve got a shipment going out at the end of the week. But the main drugs we send them are probably antimalarials and Aids treatments.’

  ‘You make those here?’

  ‘Yes, of course. We’re set up to supply much of what they sell in Kenya. These machines are very versatile.’ The pride in his voice was unmistakeable and from what I had seen probably justified.

  ‘But I’ve read that you have serious problems with counterfeiters in the local markets?’ I thought I’d risk the direct approach.

  ‘It’s what people in the West think of when they think of India and it annoys me. It’s prejudice. They haven’t seen this sort of operation – we may not have the most modern equipment, but we can match what the West has. We don’t need to counterfeit the drugs when we can make them to this sort of standard. I admit that the research behind these drugs is mostly Western, but they wouldn’t license us to make these pharmaceuticals if we couldn’t do it, and we can produce the same quality but also cheaper than they can. We export back to the West anyway and we’re starting to catch up on the R&D side – Indian chemists are starting to match the best in the world. Certainly we have problems in the local markets – that’s where many people have to buy their drugs, but then a lot of what they buy is based upon faith rather than science.’

  ‘As you say, if people could see your operation here, it would shake up a few assumptions.’ I could see nothing wrong with flattery. ‘What about your anticoagulants? Oxaban, for example?’

  ‘Yes, we’re licensed to make Oxaban, it’s one of a range we make here and in Kolkata. Sells very well around the world. Is tha
t something you would be interested in buying?’

  ‘Possibly,’ I said guardedly. ‘It’s early days yet. When is your next scheduled manufacture? Perhaps I could come and watch it?’

  ‘There won’t be much to see that’s different from this. We run it pretty regularly, at least once a week – we use that machine over there. Let me check the schedule.’ He went over to a stand attached to the machine and flipped through the pages. ‘As I said, it’s pretty regular. We’re running it again tomorrow – it’s part of the consignment to Mombasa going out in a couple of days. You’d be welcome to come back but, as I say, it’ll look pretty much the same.’

  ‘Thanks for the invitation – I’ll certainly think about that.’ I looked around the factory. ‘What about your quality control procedures? Do you carry out analysis here?’

  ‘I’ll take you through to our laboratories,’ he said and I followed him through into a long room which reminded me of the labs in Welwyn. ‘Our facilities here are about the same age as the machinery out there,’ he continued. ‘They’re pretty standard analytical techniques. We’re contracted to provide them to our licensors as part of our agreements and so we take random samples of each batch to ensure conformity. You mentioned Oxaban – we keep details of every manufacturing run over there in those filing cupboards, backed up by computer files that we email to the licensor. We do the same for all the drugs we make under licence.’ He led me past the work benches, manned by white-coated technicians, stopping occasionally to boast about some improvements they’d made to the analysis procedures.

  ‘But I’d be interested to see more of the logistics,’ I said. ‘It must be difficult to move things around in a country this size.’

  ‘We have our main facility in Kolkata, in the east. It’s cheaper to move stuff around by sea than by road – it doesn’t take much longer either. Let me show you the despatch area.’

  We left the laboratories and I followed him across the factory floor to a heavily insulated partition that closed off part of the building. It looked like the area I’d visited at Holden Healthcare.

  ‘Through there is the cold area,’ he continued. ‘About a quarter of our products has to be stored in cold rooms. We can manufacture at room temperature, we just have to move it through for storage. We use refrigerated containers for shipping, but on this side we can ship them normally.’

  We followed the partition past racks of cartons to the loading area, where trucks were lined up in bays being loaded. This was the area I was really interested in. ‘Do you use your own transport?’ I asked, although I could see there was a variety of liveries displayed on the sides of the trucks.

  ‘No, it’s not economic. We subcontract all our logistics to various companies, some local, some national. Although we arrange despatch of refrigerated consignments from here, we haven’t got the space to store the bulk of our products so we arrange collections every day. The transport companies make up the containers for us and then take them through to the docks for shipment – Europe or East Africa. The US shipments are manufactured in Kolkata.’

  ‘What about Afghanistan? Do you send much there?’

  ‘Not as much as East Africa, but it’s a growing market. It seems the Taliban don’t agree with Western medicine, so it’s a bit of a struggle to get it into liberated areas.’

  ‘What about this big vaccination programme that’s coming up? I understand it’s one of the biggest for East Africa.’

  Ahmed paused to think. ‘A vaccination programme, you say. No, I don’t think I know about that. We’d normally supply such a programme from here in Mumbai but it’s the sort of thing that Jamaal Bakaar usually deals with, but he hasn’t told me anything about it.’

  I thought that odd. If this programme was as big as I’d been told then surely Ahmed would have been involved in the tendering process. After all, it would be his factory that would be making the drugs. I decided to let it pass. ‘What about shift work? Do you work around the clock?’

  ‘Not on a regular basis. When we’ve had production problems and are running behind our schedule, or when we have an unusually large order to get out, but normally it’s two shifts between seven in the morning and six in the evening. If we’re running a night shift there’s a separate team that comes in – they’re often moonlighting from some of the other pharmaceutical companies around here. We won’t be operating all the machines, only those we need in order to catch up on the backlog.’

  I thought I’d seen enough. It didn’t seem to me that they were manufacturing counterfeits in this facility, but I wasn’t going to find out unless I had access to the product and I didn’t see how I could get a sample. If I asked him for one I’d probably be out on my ear. I thanked him and explained that I was visiting a number of companies in the region and that I’d report back to my bosses at Orion. I wanted to get back to the car and check out some of the transport companies but I told him I’d think about coming back to see the Oxaban being manufactured. It might even give me an opportunity to get hold of a sample.

  Ranish was nowhere to be seen when I got back, so I drove slowly out of the car park looking around to see where he’d got to. He had my mobile phone number so I pulled off outside the estate and waited.

  After a few minutes, he opened the car door and got in. ‘There’s another pharmaceutical manufacturer on the estate. It’s in one of the older units and it’s quite small. Perhaps we should have a look at that?’

  ‘I don’t think so, not without knowing more about them first. I think they’d be a bit suspicious if we went and knocked on their door unannounced. But it’s the supply chain we need to follow up now, so I think we need to check the transport companies they use.’

  ‘There’s a place where we could wait. If you pull in around the corner behind that tree, you can see Bakaar’s loading bays but you’ll be concealed. As far as I can tell the bays this side are despatch, so we don’t have to worry about deliveries.’

  ‘Okay, but why don’t you go over to the other company and track the despatches over there, while I do it here? We could get an idea of which transport companies collect from this estate.’ I checked my mobile. ‘There’s a strong signal here so we can keep in touch, but I think we’ve got a long wait ahead of us.’

  It was past midnight when we finally got back to the hotel. I was still suffering from jet lag and could barely keep awake and simply tumbled into my bed without even eating anything.

  I struggled to wake up the following morning, still unable to reset my body’s time clock. Ranish had taken away the lists we had made of transport companies and was researching them from his office – wherever that was. I decided that I’d do some investigation in Mumbai itself – I thought there was a good chance of counterfeit drugs being sold somewhere in such a big city, so I headed for Crawford Market, the largest in Mumbai and a brisk walk from my hotel.

  By the time I got there, I’d passed half a dozen pharmacies of varying sizes, from ramshackle street-corner operations, to wide-fronted, gleaming shops, clearly aiming at the more upmarket of Mumbai’s residents. I’d asked for Oxaban in each of them and found that half offered me a generic equivalent. At the market itself, I realised that language was going to be a problem, so I backtracked to the last pharmacy which had stocked it and asked them to write down the word for Oxaban in both Hindi and Marathi. Perhaps I should have waited until Ranish was with me.

  Crawford Market is huge and sells everything from bananas to parrots. As with all Indian markets, the stalls are competitively arranged to attract attention from their neighbours by using the most brilliant of colours. The place was thronged with people, mainly locals, but quite a few tourists were obstructing the flow by taking photographs on their mobile phones. The noise was deafening, echoing around the halls, while on display was a bewildering range of products unfamiliar to westerners including many stalls offering patent medicines. These were clearly selling only to locals and I couldn’t identify much of what they were selling but at each I showe
d them the translation I’d been given. Most of them looked at me blankly, but a few nodded and brought out the medicines from under the counter. My main concern was how I would ever find them again, so I made a note of the stall numbers – when I could find them – and noted the locations with the GPS on my phone.

  I could have spent the entire day there; the range of goods on offer was extraordinary and the sights, but above all the smells, were so peculiarly Indian and made even more exotic because I had little idea what many of the items on display were. Snake skins, desiccated lizards, poached ivory trinkets and mysterious-looking plants crowded on rickety wooden tables. The stallholders were friendly and laughed at my inability to speak their language. Many managed some English and helped me find more of the medicine sellers than I would be able to locate on my own. Even so, to judge by much of what they told me, Western medicine appeared to offer inferior cures to those of tradition.

  Back in my hotel, I spread my haul across the table and brought out the Truscan, making a careful list of what I’d bought and where. I analysed each one with disappointing results – all passed the tests, which I thought was unusual. There was one more pharmacy near the hotel that had been shut when I went past, so I thought I had nothing to lose by going back.

  This was a shop for Mumbai’s masses. It had a tiny glass frontage that was so dirty I could barely see through it and the entrance was in an alleyway down the side which had been shut when I first went past it. This time it was open and I went through into the shop which had boxes lying everywhere.

  The man behind the counter must have been approaching seventy, and had a wizened face with skin like parchment. I asked if he spoke English, but he simply smiled and shook his head. I handed over my paper with Oxaban written on it, and he looked at it thoughtfully for a moment as if trying to remember where he’d put it.