Fatlands (24 page)

For just a second I thought I was going to lose my primary witness to an act of nature. Or rather nature helped by a little product enhancer. He stood up and put his hand over his heart. ‘Get out of here,' he said hoarsely. I shook my head.

From the kitchen Myra shouted out, ‘Did you call, Maurice?' I let the silence grow. ‘Maurice?'

‘It's up to you,' I said quietly at last. ‘I don't care who I tell.'

He stared at me. And it was clear from his eyes that he'd been waiting for me in his nightmares. He just
hadn't known what shape I would take. ‘No,' he said, raising his voice to meet hers. ‘No, Myra. It's fine.'

Then he sat down heavily. ‘I don't have anything to say.'

‘Sure you do,' I said cheerfully. ‘I tell you what. I'll make it easy. I'll start, then you pick up where I leave off. OK?'

How much of this do you need to hear? I suppose that depends how far you got without me.

Like all good stories you need the background to understand the action. After I had talked to Maringo, I had dug a little deeper into the patent system of drug manufacture. He'd been right. In Vandamed's case time was running out. The development of AAR had already taken a while, even before Shepherd was brought in on it. He'd got things moving, but then there had been clinical trials and the extended farming ones. Even if it got its expected government approval—which technically could happen any time—it would still only leave them six years as the sole marketers. That was enough, of course. In that time they could get back their costs and start the profits rolling in; profits which, in Marion Ellroy's multinational Utopia, would no doubt help find a cure for cancer and all other major diseases not yet bought up by the drug companies. On the other hand Vandamed wouldn't want to leave it any later. No sir.

So you'll appreciate the importance of the timing when fifteen months ago Maurice Clapton collapsed in his humble cottage and was rushed to hospital with a major heart attack. On its own, of course, a heart attack is just Nature's way of telling a man he's eating too many chips. But in this case there was more to it. For anyone bright and willing enough to look. And, as everyone in this story agrees, Tom Shepherd was that kind of scientist.
After his friend's heart attack he started doing a little digging around. And as soon as Clapton came out of intensive care, Shepherd talked to him about what he'd found.

What they discussed was the possibility that the drug in the pigs' feed might somehow be ingested into the lungs of those administering it. By his wife's admission Clapton had been very involved in the practical side of the trials. And according to Maringo's sources the consistency of the feed as it was then produced did give off considerable dust. Easy to breathe in. One of the farmers, a man called Peter Blake, had suffered heart palpitations earlier the year before. Nothing serious, but Shepherd had heard about it, and well, Shepherd was an honourable scientist …

So he went to the bosses. Whatever he said obviously put the fear of failure into them, which was to prove worse than the fear of God. Most likely he would have recommended the cessation of the trials and a return to the drawing board. But, of course, that was something they didn't want to hear. So they reached a compromise. Ellroy agreed to an immediate overhaul of the feed to reduce its dust percentage. And Shepherd … well, Shepherd allowed himself to be satisfied. In more ways than one. He came out of the meeting with the promise of promotion to head of research, and a little gift for the vet who had helped him along the way—an early retirement package the like of which would make your mouth water (if, that is, you knew about it, which one suspects the rest of the employees did not). Not exactly being bought off. Just rewards for services given, and silence assured.

So Shepherd went off to London, and Clapton to Beamish Drive. But despite, or maybe because of, the rewards Shepherd was not a happy man. According to his wife this was the time when Dr Jekyll became Mr Hyde, a man obsessed, not able to talk to anyone about anything.
Guilt at the small print of his pact with the devil?Or just the exhaustion of trying to do two jobs at the same time, the one he now had and the one he was too worried about to give up completely?

Meanwhile back in the country the dust level had been reduced and the trials were progressing very nicely, thank you. Well, except for the odd little vagary of country living. Over the next eight months Tom Sheperd kept his ear to the ground and by autumn, what with the odd dog keeling over, his scientist's nose was twitching again. Which meant it was time for another chat with his friend and confidant, the vet.

Not bad for someone who isn't even a pretty face, eh? Except from here on out it was all a little bit sketchier …

‘So what exactly did Shepherd say when he came to see you last October, Mr Clapton?'

The trouble was I had done so much of the talking that he had grown used to his own silence. He shook his head. ‘I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't seen Tom Shepherd since he visited me in hospital over a year ago.'

‘Oh, come on, Maurice. Don't insult me. I already know he was here.'

‘Says who?'

From the kitchen doorway Myra chose this minute to call out with requests for milk and sugar. I let her voice waft between us before gracefully declining either. I smiled at him sweetly. ‘It was just a short chat. Gossip, really.'

He scowled. From the bosom of the family. ‘He just came for a visit, that's all. A friendly call.'

‘So he didn't say anything about Malcolm Jones's farm dog?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘Of course, on paper there was nothing immediately
suspicious about that death, was there? I mean I gather she was almost twelve years old and well past her prime. But the same couldn't be said for Edward Brayton's house dog, could it? I mean according to your colleague in Fram-lingham she was just playing in the yard one moment, dead the next. He was very puzzled about it. Told me that himself. Still, he's only a local vet, isn't he? Doesn't have your depth of knowledge and experience. Yours and Tom Shepherd's.'

I waited. Eventually he looked up at me. And we both knew it was over. I didn't even need to mention the hounds in the Otley Hunt stables. ‘It was the dogs that gave it away, wasn't it, Maurice?' He stared at me, then nodded abruptly.

‘Except, of course, this time it had nothing to do with the feed.'

‘No,' he said almost too quietly for me to hear.

‘Because the dogs hadn't eaten the feed. They'd eaten the trial pig meat, hadn't they?'

‘Yes.'

‘And they weren't the only ones. So had some of the farmers. And so had you.' I saw it in his eyes, but I also needed to hear it from his mouth. ‘Hadn't you?'

‘Yes,' he said softly.

‘I'm interested why you didn't tell Tom Shepherd that back in January.'

He was flustered. But then it wasn't an easy one to answer. ‘I … I didn't think it was relevant. I mean I wasn't the only one. Lots of us were doing it.'

‘Absolutely. You and Peter Blake, to name but two. Of course, officially you shouldn't have touched it. Officially it should either have gone to the dogs or the knacker's yard. But if you had told him then, you might not have qualified for that handsome medical handshake of yours. Not to mention the even more handsome pension.'

‘I deserve that money. I've been twenty-five years with the company. And the doctors said I'd been under great stress.'

‘Yes, I'm sure you had. And I bet it hasn't let up, either. Must have been a great strain trying to decide whether or not to mention it to the other farmers.'

‘As far as I was concerned, the problem was with the feed. The meat was perfectly safe. They'd done the tests.'

‘Oh yes, they'd done the tests, but not enough. Or rather not enough to be sure that in some cases, where the drug was used in conjunction with certain antibiotics, the hormones wouldn't pass over into the food chain. Because that's what happened, isn't it? And that was what Tom Shepherd had found out last October when he came to talk to you.'

He sighed. ‘More or less, yes.'

‘And what did you say?'

‘I told him to let it be. Not to rock the boat. I mean all he had was questions. There was no proof, no proof at all. The incidents with the dogs could have been pure coincidence. And even if by some remote chance they weren't, it was because the dogs ate the offal, where the residue build-up would have been much worse. Humans would never be affected to that degree. That was, and still is, my professional opinion as a veterinary surgeon.' Well, he had to try it, really, but it wasn't with much conviction.

I waited. He closed his eyes. ‘Do you know how much Vandamed had spent developing AAR to that stage? Upwards of four million pounds. They weren't going to throw it all away because of a couple of freak results. It wasn't as if Tom's own hands were that clean, anyway. If he had gone to them, they would have just reminded him how he got his new job in the first place.'

‘You're saying he took your advice and didn't go back to Ellroy?'

‘That's right. He didn't.'

Well, it wasn't his first lie and it wouldn't be his last. ‘So he kept his suspicions to himself. But just in case, just for his own protection he wrote it all down, didn't he? The whole deal. Wrote it down and sent a copy to you for safekeeping?' He opened his mouth. ‘Don't bother to try and pretend. You've already told me he did.'

He scowled. ‘What of it? By that time it was too late anyway. The police said he was already starting to receive those death threats.' He snorted. ‘Animal rights. Poor old Tom. Who would have thought it?'

‘You know, you're a really bad liar, Maurice.'

‘Listen. I know nothing about what happened, you understand. Nothing. I've worked hard all my life. Done the best I can for the animals in my care. I nearly died because of their wonder drug. But in the end I've made it work for me. I'm sorry for Tom and I'm sorry for Mattie, but my grief is my own affair. And I'm not going to let it take away from what's rightfully mine. Mine and Myra's.'

‘Even though Shepherd and his daughter are dead?'

‘Animal rights, not me.'

Interesting, the power of auto-suggestion. ‘And what about the others? The ones in two or three years'time who buy a leg of pork and end up deader than the pig it came from?'

He shook his head. ‘Even if it were possible, which I dispute, thousands of people have heart attacks every year. Most of them are prime candidates. Tom said himself it's almost certainly random. It'll affect less than one pig in a thousand, if that. It probably wouldn't make any difference anyway. They'd need to stuff themselves silly and then some.'

‘And what happens when someone finds out?'

‘How're they going to do that? Some chap with heart trouble snuffs it. Who's going to think to ask him how
many pig's kidneys he's been eating recently? No doctor would make the leap. Unless they already knew.'

‘Or unless someone told them.'

‘I told you. I nearly died once. I want to stay alive a bit longer.'

‘Well, you're going the right way about it. I mean, seeing as you've already outlived the only people who could have prejudiced your happy retirement, I'd say their deaths put you home and dry.'

‘Mattie Shepherd's killing had nothing to do with this. It was animal rights. And Tom committed suicide. Injected himself with his own rat poison. Everybody knows that.'

‘Yes. But nobody but you knows what he said that afternoon when he called you.' I waited, then pushed. ‘However, let me give it a guess. He'd worked it out, hadn't he? Worked out who was really behind his daughter's death. How far did he blame you, I wonder. Not enough, obviously.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' he said in a voice of a man sleepwalking through lies. ‘Tom committed suicide. It was nothing to do with me.'

‘Yes. Well, let's just hope the anxiety of continuing to believe that doesn't give you another heart attack.' I stood up. There comes a point when you just don't want to be around someone with so little courage. Especially when you're going to be so much in need of your own.

‘It's been an education, Mr Clapton. I can see now why Tom Shepherd kept coming back to you. I mean everybody needs a good friend when they're in trouble. I'm sure you'll do the same for me too, though you should know that according to his secretary Marion Ellroy is at meetings all day in London and not contactable until this evening's reception. I wonder what they can be celebrating? Maybe you'll know when you get your next cheque in the post.'

I picked up my bag and walked to the door. In the kitchen I saw Myra putting the finishing touches to the laden tray. ‘Oh, one more thing. Your farmer friend Peter Blake was buried last weekend. A simple ceremony at the local church; nicely done from what I could see. One pig's kidney too many, eh? Don't expect the Vandamed retirement newsletter mentioned that? But then you did say you didn't want to be bothered. No need to worry, though. According to the local registrar's office the death certificate read “natural causes”. Well, he'd already had palpitations. And everyone knows how much he liked his food. Tell your wife I'm sorry I don't have time for her scones. Too much cholesterol.'

I
had to get away from the house with its front garden of spring wonder. I drove down the street and parked by a hole in the road left by British Gas. Farther down the pavement a girl was taking a dog for a walk, or possibly the other way round. It was a young labrador full of puppy energy and the smells of life, entranced by every tree and lamppost. She must have been twelve or thirteen, another would-be Mattie. I felt sick. From what I had heard and for what I had done.