by Alex Caan
‘Somebody must know who she is,’ said Rob.
‘You sure you haven’t slept with her?’ asked Stevie.
‘Ouch!’
‘Where is DCI Riley?’ said Stevie, ignoring him.
‘I’m guessing she decided not to come back after all,’ said Michelle. She turned to Zain, and it was a touching gesture on her part. ‘What happens now DS Harris? Where do we go from here?’
‘We need to keep looking for Natalie. Find out who this dead woman is and what relationship she had with Julian. I’ve looked through the Internet chats and adultery websites he was on, but nothing has been a match so far. He may have met her somewhere else; after all, he met Natalie in real life, not online. And the rest, we really need Dr Kapoor to get us some . . .’
Zain stopped. Kate was walking across the office, with Dr Rani Kapoor in tow. The women had serious expressions on their faces, and were walking with purpose. Kate met his eyes, nodded briefly to him, through the glass walls. She opened the door, and let Dr Kapoor take a seat.
‘Apologies for being late, everyone, I got an urgent call from Dr Kapoor this morning so was up at the Royal Free. Zain, please continue with your briefing.’
‘Erm, I think I’m done, boss. We were just saying how we need Dr Kapoor to get us some test results on what killed Leakey.’
‘That was why she called me this morning. I believe we may have some answers to that part at least.’
Zain sat down, as Dr Kapoor began her explanation.
‘Apologies everyone, especially if I get technical now.’
‘No worries. How come it took so long to get these results through?’
‘You have to understand, DS Harris, testing for neurotoxins is not a simple task. There is no key test that will identify their use. I think I’ve explained before: if you’re infected with something like Lymes disease, for example, the symptoms take time to show, and it is difficult to really pinpoint them. They could be related to a number of other illnesses. Yet, if you are bitten by a snake, immediate action can be taken. Most neurotoxins don’t enter the body quite so dramatically though.’
‘Snakes?’
‘Snake venom is a form of neurotoxin, Zain.’
‘Didn’t know that.’
‘There are hundreds of neurotoxins, as you know. Tests are developed for some of the major ones, the ones that occur quite regularly. We can match samples of code in bloods, but the tests are not universal. The test that might pick up one neurotoxin is only specific to that particular one. It won’t work on any others. And for the majority, tests don’t exist.’
‘So what have you been doing exactly if there aren’t any tests?’ said Zain.
‘We ran tests sequentially, testing for the known neurotoxins. And then checked the structure of what infected Julian Leakey to see if we got a close match. We did, eventually. But we went about it the wrong way. It’s partly my fault.’
‘Not at all, Dr Kapoor; we are not placing blame in any of this. We are all trying to find out the same answers,’ Kate assured her.
Let’s see, thought Zain. He wasn’t beyond placing blame on anyone.
‘I asked Professor Gerard to focus on the blood fluids I had taken at the crime scene. I was blindsided, convinced that was where we would find the answers we needed.’
‘It wasn’t?’
‘No. You see, the neurotoxin found in Julian Leakey has very low levels of presence in the plasma of the human body. A urine sample is much more effective. And that’s where we found what we were looking for.’
Kate was tapping on her tablet, and brought up an image on the screen from Google.
‘This is our killer,’ said Dr Kapoor.
Zain looked at the innocuous picture on screen.
‘It’s a fish?’ he said.
‘Yes. It’s a member of the Tetraodontidae family.’
‘In English?’
‘It’s a puffer fish. The most famous one is called Takifugu. Often eaten as fugu.’
‘That’s the Japanese delicacy?’ said Zain. ‘I remember. The fish carries poison in its liver, but is eaten as a challenge almost. They had to close down that Japanese restaurant in Mayfair because it wasn’t handled properly and a customer was poisoned.’
‘Yeah, I remember that,’ said Rob. ‘But that’s quite common. Loads of people in Japan get poisoned all the time eating this stuff.’
‘Yes. The puffer fish carries a toxin called Tetrodotoxin, or TTX, and we tested for this early on when we suspected a neurotoxin. As I said, we found no match in the blood, but the urine sample showed something that was a close match.’
‘A close match?’ asked Zain.
‘Yes. We know the structure of the neurotoxin the Tetraodontidae carry. It’s ten thousand times more powerful than cyanide as a poison, but the substance we found was only a 70 per cent match to TTX. And in the blood, there was none.’
‘So what exactly have you found?’ Zain massaged his temples. He barely had a grasp on what Dr Kapoor was telling them. He understood binary code and information security, but the complexities of science were always hard to follow.
‘As I said, the variant of TTX had a partial match with the Tetraodontidae, DS Harris. It wasn’t a full match. It’s basically been doctored, heavily. You’re looking at a new generation of biological weapon, jumping from a toxic poison to incorporate elements of a Cat A virus. It’s like loading a cluster bomb with radioactive material. I hope you understand that analogy?’
‘Yes.’ Fuck. Yes he did. ‘Who would know how to do that?’
Dr Kapoor looked embarrassed now.
‘TTX mutations are being trialled at a number of institutions around the world,’ said Kate. ‘Commercially there’s a possibility they can lead to breaking down brain tumours, without the need for operating.’
Zain looked at Dr Kapoor, who still couldn’t meet his eyes.
‘Name some of these academic institutions.’
‘Zain,’ warned Kate.
‘Let me guess. The leading institution for testing this stupid bloody toxin in the UK is University College London? Is that right? Your own fucking university, Dr Kapoor?’
‘DS Harris, I suggest you go outside and cool down. And that’s an order.’
Zain left the conference room, banging the door behind him.
What the hell had Dr Kapoor been doing these last few days? She was playing test tube at the Royal Free, when the actual place she should have been looking was in her own backyard, at her own university.
*
Kate found him half an hour later, sitting in the faith room. It was an empty room with a cupboard full of materials used by various religions when they prayed there. He was sitting cross legged on a prayer mat, trying to calm himself down.
‘This is the male prayer room,’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to be next door.’
‘Depends which faith you believe in. I don’t have an affiliation so I’ll stick to my own rules of free movement.’ She sat down next to him.
‘That was not professional, Zain.’
‘Really? How else should I deal with dumb doctors?’
‘Unfair and harsh. How could she know?’
‘You know what the PCC is doing.’
‘Have you any idea how big UCL is? Thousands of students, lecturers, researchers. There is no way anyone can know everything that’s happening there. Dr Kapoor is a pathologist; she is the PCC pathologist. You will not behave like that towards her again, do you understand? You will apologise to her.’
‘Whatever.’ He guessed he was being unfair, when he thought about it. UCL was a massive campus, and Kate was right. How could Dr Kapoor know what everyone was doing?
‘As soon as she discovered the toxin, and its origin, she started an online search. And she found UCL. It doesn’t mean there’s a link; it’s just a source of the raw materials.’
‘The only source?’
‘The likely source. TTX is manufactured synthetically for testing purposes by a n
umber of institutions, UCL is one of those places, but not the only one in the world. We can’t assume.’
Zain breathed out, hoping some of his anger would go with it.
‘It’s been a long few days,’ he said.
‘Yes. It has. Don’t forget Rani has been at the very heart of the pressure throughout.’
He breathed out. ‘I’ll think about an apology.’
‘Good. My primary focus though is to go and find out who at UCL had access to the TTX neurotoxin, and the ability to mutate it.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
University College London was based in Bloomsbury close to a number of other universities including SOAS and Birkbeck. It was associated with the central dome structure that filled its main courtyard, but the actual academic buildings and institutions were spread out across the area.
Kate had parked on Gower Street, and walked the rest of the way on foot. The building she needed was close to the British Museum and Senate House, and looked more like a house than a lab. It was accessed by broad stone steps, and was made from the same light stone of the museum.
There was a security guard at the entrance, who was suspicious but not probing. He said she wouldn’t be allowed in unless accompanied by one of the staff. Kate saw CCTV, plus a number of locks on the main entrance door, but it didn’t seem very robust or secure.
She was greeted a few moments after signing in by a Professor Bernhard Keller. He was an attractive man, in his early thirties she guessed, tall and well built. He was wearing jeans, trainers and a T-shirt, despite the cold, and didn’t strike her as being particularly academic. His accent was Germanic, or Swiss maybe.
‘Dr Kapoor called and told me you would be coming. Please follow me.’
Kate was more assured by the secure fob he needed to get through the main doors.
‘I believe you are interested in our TTX?’ he said.
She nodded, and he led her to a basement and into a corridor lined with foil-covered pipes that was obviously a dumping ground for laboratory equipment and boxes of paperwork.
There were a number of doors leading off this main artery, all of which looked heavy and which had secure locks built into them.
Keller used his fob on one of them, and then put his eye close for a retina scan. It was safe, as safe as something like this could be.
Behind the door was what looked like a student common room. Low chairs, tables, a soda machine and a vending machine full of snacks. None of them healthy. Copies of New Scientist and National Geographic were on the tables.
Keller invited her to take a seat on one of the chairs. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ he asked.
‘No, thank you.’
‘So how can I help?’
‘Professor Keller—’
‘Please call me Bernhard.’
‘Bernhard, I need to understand your research in more detail. I believe Dr Kapoor has spoken to you about what we found, a potential victim of TTX, and she thinks it’s from a strain that you are working on?’
‘Yes, she did. We have about a dozen puffer fish in tanks on the UCL main campus, that we use for our source of TTX. I had a check and they are all accounted for.’
‘What about previous specimens?’
‘We normally dispose of the ones we use. We extract the Tetrodotoxin from their organs, and keep it stored safely. All of it is monitored and logged.’
‘Who has access to it?’
‘I have a number of PhD students who have access to the laboratory. To the actual TTX that we are working on, only myself and two other staff. Both are researchers.’
‘I will need to speak to them. Have you a record of how much TTX you have in storage? Did you do a preliminary check on whether any is missing?’
‘I did, and it is all accounted for.’
Kate was losing hope now. Nothing had gone astray. Unless of course Bernhard was lying to her, either to cover up a mishap like the one that had happened at Raxoman, or because he was involved in some way? It was still quite a leap from the lab at UCL to Julian Leakey. That was the part that Kate didn’t understand.
‘Dr Kapoor said you use the TTX to try and eliminate brain tumours?’
‘Yes we do. We are trying to manipulate the TTX, to change its code. The idea is that we bind the changed TTX toxin to a brain tumour, and it literally burns it, melts it away. It does so in a targeted fashion, so there is no peripheral damage to any of the surrounding tissue or nerves. You can imagine the risks involved in brain surgery, and cutting tumours in that area is especially problematic. If it could be done without an invasive procedure, it would be revolutionary.’
Kate could understand that. What she was really interested in was what the process did to the tumour.
‘And the tumour, the melted part I mean, how would that be extracted?’
‘We would hope the bloodstream would carry it away as natural waste, or we would have to find a mechanism for drainage. We believe we can disintegrate it to extremely small amounts.’
‘How are your experiments going?’
‘Still going, as they say,’ he said laughing. ‘We have a research grant for five years, so we are still very much in the testing stage.’
‘And what do you test on?’
‘Mice, generally,’ he said. Kate would have to keep Rob away. He detested animal testing in any form. ‘We also have synthetic tests that we are developing, so we can see the effects on tumour tissue. That can be through human organ donation. Luckily we don’t have much need for brain transplants, so anybody giving up their organs, well the brain is usually not utilised except for research such as ours.’
‘And what about those unsuccessful experiments? What sort of side effects have you observed?’
‘Plenty. And yes, DCI Riley, I checked the sort of symptoms your victim was displaying. We have had reactions similar to that.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
Kate asked for a drink after all. She had a feeling she was going to be there a while. Bernhard brought her a weak vending-machine coffee. She took a sip, then put it down.
‘Sorry, you get used to the substandard taste when you’re in academia. No budget for luxuries like decent coffee.’
‘It’s fine, thank you. You were saying about the reactions you had? In your experiments?’
‘Yes. So we test tissue samples and we also test live subjects. The neurotoxin TTX is very powerful, so we obviously cannot inject this straight into humans. It would mean death. Usually symptoms take twenty minutes or so to start, but death can take anything up to four hours. It is not pleasant.’
‘How do you prevent that?’
‘We haven’t yet. What we are doing though is synthetically altering the TTX, which allows us to crack its structure more easily, and make additions and changes to it.’
‘And you’ve already begun these?’
‘Yes, we have. We have performed experiments where we saw, for example, that instead of just melting the tumour, the TTX2 as we call it, also melted the brain tissue. It broke it down, and I believe this is what happened to your victim?’
‘Yes. And the TTX2 used in those experiments, where is it now?’
‘We destroy most of it, but keep smaller amounts with a detailed structure graph, to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes. It’s a delicate process.’
‘Sounds more like trial and error?’ said Kate, taking another sip of coffee.
‘In a way all science is. Very few eureka moments, lots of painful failed ones.’
‘And the small amounts you keep? Are they secure? Can you vouch for the integrity of your colleagues who have access to them?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the haemorrhaging and the skin lesions?’
‘We have performed experiments where both have happened.’
Kate imagined the mice that were being tested on, writhing around in agony and pain. Rob was definitely not coming here.
‘At the same time?’
Bernhard looked
at Kate intently.
‘No, not at the same time. However, we would keep records of the effects with each mutation we did.’
‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility then that someone could make a combination of those batches?’
‘Technically, no. In reality, the process is so precise it would be difficult to. And there is no guarantee that you would get a similar result. It’s the realm of science-fiction rather than science-fact, I think.’
‘And yet, I have a body infected with the toxin you are working with, displaying all these symptoms that you have described.’
This was it, Kate could sense it. She had found where the toxin had come from. Now she needed to work out who could have administered it.
Kate took her phone out and showed Bernhard images of Julian Leakey and Natalie Davies.
‘Do you recognise either of them?’
‘No. I mean I recognise him from the news reports. Is he the one you found with these symptoms?’
Kate didn’t answer. Bernhard seemed genuine, and she didn’t really understand how the link could be made between his research and the two people on her phone.
‘You said two of your colleagues had access to the toxins? Are they here?’
‘Yes. Emeka Benson is, he’s one of my PhD students. But the other, Mark Lynch, is away on leave.’
‘When is he due back?’
‘Not until next week. He’s taken a month off.’
‘Has he gone travelling?’
‘No, he needed some time out. Rather, I asked him to take some time out.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘It’s how we work. We are so engrossed in what we do, holidays become interruptions. I am guilty of this myself also, and my annual leave builds up. It’s HR policy, use it or lose it, as they say.’
‘You have his details though? I can contact him?’
‘Yes of course.’
‘And Emeka?’
‘He’s here, I’ll get him for you.’
Kate messaged Zain while Bernhard went to get his colleague.
Emeka was polite, with a very broad smile. He didn’t recognise either Julian or Natalie. Kate asked for all their details, including the names and contact details of the other PhD students that worked in the lab.