Bad Influence Read online

  BAD INFLUENCE

  Desmond Harding

  © Desmond Harding 2017

  Desmond Harding has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Forty Two

  Forty Three

  One

  The nurse tugged at the tape measure again. “That’s as tight as I can get it,” she said.

  Freddy “Two-Pies” Gough looked down and sighed. “Try again, please.”

  She wrapped the measure around his waist again. “Still the same. You’re just not suitable.”

  Ivan Getz and Laslo Potter both laughed. “You shouldn’t have had that second breakfast,” Getz said. Two-Pies pouted his lips.

  Potter turned to the nurse. “Now you know why we call him Two-Pies.”

  She prodded his massive paunch and grinned. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Doesn’t make sense. How can someone be too fat to test an obesity cure?” Two-Pies asked. He shook his head in confusion.

  “All new drugs have to go through a series of tests. One of the earliest is on healthy humans,” the nurse explained.

  “But I haven’t been sick in years.”

  “You don’t understand. By healthy humans, we mean those who aren’t suffering from the same condition we’re trying to treat.”

  “Can’t you pretend?”

  “No, Mr Gough. This isn’t a game. It’s scientific medicine.”

  Two-Pies nodded and reluctantly put on his shirt.

  “On the other hand, your two friends are just fine,” she said. Getz and Potter cheered. “We want people with low body fat.” She patted the two men on their shoulders. “Both your colleagues are in great shape, especially Mr Potter. He has less than eight per cent fat.”

  Potter stood up and took a mock bow, while Getz applauded politely.

  “That’s because he runs marathons,” Two-Pies said.

  “Perhaps you should take up jogging, Mr Gough,” she said. Two-Pies looked horrified at the idea.

  The nurse turned to Getz and Potter. “Now if either of you two would like to be involved in the trial, Dr Denny will explain the next step. He’ll be here in a moment.”

  The two men looked at each other and nodded. “Lead on,” Getz said.

  Two-Pies, Getz and Potter were maintenance engineers with Norton-Hunter, the international pharmaceutical giant. They had been sent to repair a particular piece of machinery that had been giving trouble at the research centre the company ran at Bridgeworth Hospital. The equipment was used to analyse the DNA of human blood and was part of the large support it gave to Lycad, one of the small but potentially highly profitable biotechnology companies springing up across the company.

  “We saw your appeal on the hospital notice board,” Getz said.

  “The one for volunteers?”

  “It was the promise of money that caught our eye,” Getz said.

  “Norton-Hunter is not the greatest payer,” Two-Pies grumbled.

  “Most of the people we use are hard-up undergraduates who need extra money to top up their student loans,” the nurse said.

  The door to the research centre swung open and Dr Giles Denny breezed in. He walked with a permanent stoop and Two-Pies thought it made him look very academic. “Why don’t you wait outside, Mr Gough,” he said. “Your colleagues won’t be long.”

  Two-Pies left the room and Denny turned to Getz and Potter. “I should tell you that this test is different... in fact very different.” He thought about how to continue. “Do you know anything about genes?”

  “They’re the things we inherit from our parents. Make us tall or short, give us blue eyes or red hair. Stuff like that.”

  “Right. It’s what makes us unique,” Denny said. “But unfortunately, things can sometimes go wrong. Then you get terrible afflictions, like Huntington’s chorea or haemophilia.” He sipped from a coffee cup he had been carrying. It was cold and he pulled a face. “Scientists are now learning how to replace a bad gene with a good one. Correcting nature’s inborn mistakes, if you like. We call it gene therapy. It’s probably the most exciting development in biotechnology.”

  He leaned closer to the two men.

  “You see a gene is a chemical. Repairing it is like replacing a dud light bulb in a string of Christmas decorations. Get it right and we’ll be able to cure cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. We could wipe out hereditary diseases for ever.”

  “How do we fit in?”

  “Okay. Genes also determine whether we’re fat or thin,” Denny said. “That’s what this is all about. I believe we have isolated the gene that makes people obese. And we’ve also discovered a way of correcting it.” Denny was not only the founder of Lycad and head of research, but its conscience and number one cheerleader. He spoke about his work with bubbling enthusiasm.

  “We all know people who can eat like a horse till their mid-twenties and not put on an ounce. Then suddenly everything changes. Now, if they even look at a piece of chocolate – Bang. On goes ten pounds. Their weight simply runs away with them.”

  “So you’ve met my wife,” Potter said.

  Denny grinned. “Or there are the slimmers who put back all their lost weight once they start eating normally again.”

  Both men looked at their flat stomachs in relief.

  “And we use this to repair that gene.” Denny held up a small phial. “Mitsanomol. With this the body will always be able to control its weight. It’ll mean the end of dieting for ever.”

  “That would be worth a fortune,” Potter speculated.

  “I know some people who think so,” Denny said thoughtfully. “But that’s not why we developed it.” He looked at the two men seriously. “Obesity is the biggest single cause of heart disease. And that in turn accounts for almost half the deaths in the western world.”

  “Then Two-Pies could eat three breakfasts with no ill effects.” Everyone laughed, including Denny.

  “Where do we come in?” Getz asked.

  “We use people like you to see if there are any side-effects.”

  “Such as?”

  “Nausea, vomiting, headaches, heart palpitations. That sort of thing. Right now we’re not testing its effectiveness. That comes later.” Denny started to stride around the room. “In the beginning we do our work in test tubes. Followed by tests on animals,” he said. Getz turned his head away. “I know many people are opposed to the idea, but for the time being it’s the law. After that we move to humans... first healthy people like you, and then on to the sick; people with the condition or
disease we want to cure,” Denny said.

  Potter nodded. “We’re game.”

  “Good. According to the rules you should have a minimum of twenty-four hours to think it over and then come back to us.”

  Getz shook his head and nudged Potter. “We’ve come miles and probably couldn’t get time off for another visit. It’s now or never.”

  “You both sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “In that case, take a few minutes to read this.” Denny gave the two men copies of a patient information leaflet. “Then if you have no questions, sign these consent forms and we’ll get things ready. It’ll be nothing more than a small injection,” Denny said.

  “No pills?” asked Getz.

  “No pills,” Denny said. “We’ve got to get into your blood stream. If you took this orally it would be digested by the gut and excreted. No value at all.”

  Denny left the two men and crossed to the nurse. “Prepare two treatments,” he said. She took a deep breath. “Doctor. We don’t have approval yet.”

  “I know, Maureen. But the pressure from Norton-Hunter is getting impossible to bear.” He looked at his watch. “Anyway, the ethics committee is meeting right now and Ketler is there.”

  “If you think it’ll be okay.”

  “I’m sure,” Denny said. “It’s just a formality. Once permission comes through, backdate the two men’s records.” She shook her head at the suggestion. “It’s been done before.”

  “If you insist.” She handed him the first hypodermic.

  “Roll up your sleeves, gentlemen.”

  *

  Dr Hans Ketler was Denny’s deputy. He was young and brilliant, and he didn’t mind who knew it. He sat at the end of a long table in Committee Room B in the main administrative block of Bridgeworth Hospital and looked at the ten heads bowed over the Lycad proposal. The members of the ethics committee had already started to give him a rough time.

  “Why are bioengineering companies in so much of a rush?” asked Dr Rita Wheatley, the committee chairman. “Everyone’s trying to run before they can walk.”

  “Some might think you’re being pushed too hard by Lycad’s financial backers,” said Cathy Soljak, the hospital pharmacist. Ketler stared back at her fiercely. “Of course, I would never accuse you or Norton-Hunter of letting financial considerations replace scientific rigour.”

  “We can’t conduct our work without your approval,” Ketler said. “Right now, we’ve gone as far as we can go.”

  Dr Wheatley tapped her copy of Lycad’s submission. “This request to use healthy humans; it’ll be ages before such a step is allowed for gene therapy.”

  He and Denny had debated this point for weeks. Because gene therapy was so new, there was confusion on how to proceed. Wherever they went, whoever they spoke to, the two men received conflicting advice.

  Ketler looked round the table in despair. “Our proposals are different. Mitsanomol is not a bespoke treatment for a couple of individuals. Potentially this is for thousands and thousands of dangerously overweight people. Surely we have to follow the same steps as a conventional drug.”

  Almost every head shook in disagreement. How could any scientist make progress against reactionaries like these? he thought.

  “You realise you are manipulating nature,” said the Rev Roscoe Purvis, one of the committee’s lay members.

  “He’ll have us all burned at the stake soon,” Ketler said under his breath.

  “What if anything goes wrong? We’d be responsible,” Dr Wheatley said.

  Dr Amit Patel represented local family doctors on the committee. “This application raises another fundamental question.”

  Ketler rolled his eyes to the ceiling. He refused to hide his contempt for anyone he considered a pedant.

  “The committee will be aware of the growing debate in the medical profession over using healthy volunteers in trials at all,” Patel said. “Be it for gene therapy or conventional medicine,”

  “I’ve heard the arguments,” Ketler said.

  “Well you can hear them again. The big question is whether any healthy human should be given an untried medicine. You’re exposing them to a treatment they don’t need. It could be something that might actually do some long-term, if not permanent, harm,”

  “In this case it is most unlikely,” Ketler said.

  “No, Doctor. You cannot say such a thing. That’s what your trial is supposed to determine,” Dr Patel said.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to tell you exactly the same thing we’ve told every other biotechnology company that’s asked to carry out trials here.” She tossed the Lycad file to one side. “The application is rejected. All agreed?” Wheatley asked. Ten hands went up together.

  *

  “Idiots,” Denny said after Ketler gave him the news. “All right, scrap the rest of the trial.”

  “What about the two you treated earlier?” asked Maureen.

  Denny pondered for a moment. “Were they ever properly entered into the programme?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then forget about them,” Denny threw his hands up in the air in frustration. “God knows what Norton-Hunter will say after this balls-up.”

  “Telling Bram Norsteadt won’t be fun,” Ketler said.

  “Was the committee right?” Denny asked. “Are we manipulating nature? Is it an abuse of power?” Maureen gave him a cup of coffee. Denny sipped the steaming drink. “If things go wrong, it would be the ultimate public relations nightmare.”

  Two

  The coffin rested on two wooden supports over the newly dug grave. Finian Kelloway looked on and wondered. Why were funerals always on bleak, cold, rainy days? By the law of averages, some must have been held when it was bright and sunny, but he hadn’t attended one.

  The day the Kelloway family buried Robert, the wind and rain lashed the graveside, making everyone pull coats tight for protection.

  While a vicar droned on, Finian placed his arm round Elizabeth, Robert’s widow, and gave her a comforting squeeze. Robert had lost a twelve-month fight with a cancerous growth and died two weeks before his fortieth birthday.

  “... as we commit the body of our dearly departed brother, Robert, to the ground...” the vicar continued.

  Workmen took the strain on two sets of ropes running beneath the coffin, while another removed the supports. Slowly the coffin descended into the earth.

  Nathan Kelloway, the patriarch of the family, watched the coffin edge its way down into the earth, a perfect fit in the artificially neat hole. Ramrod stiff, Nathan studied the scene intently, trying to commit every detail to memory, so in future he could recall it at will.

  Apart from being the grieving father, Nathan Kelloway was the founder and, at seventy, still chairman of the family firm. He had made Kelloway and Bains the most respected and influential public relations consultancy in the country.

  Public relations had become the power fix for captains of industry. The Kelloway and Bains’ client list was proof of that. It read like the Who’s Who of international business. And if all the foreign governments they also advised were to get together at one time, it would have seemed like a meeting of a mini-United Nations.

  Either side of the grave, careful to keep sufficient distance between themselves, stood the two Mrs Nathan Kelloways. May had divorced Nathan many years ago, as a result of his affair with Carol, the second and current Mrs Kelloway. While Carol had produced only Finian for Nathan, May took credit for two offspring, the late Robert, and Bonnie.

  Bonnie was a busy woman, far too involved to waste time saying goodbye to her brother. She stood well back from the graveside, by one of the black limousines that had brought the family, barking instructions into her mobile phone and resenting every minute she was away from her desk.

  She looked stunning, in a hard way. The archetypal modern businesswoman. Her hair in a beautifully kept blonde bob. When she smiled, which she often did at men, she showed a row of perfectly formed, dead stra
ight, very white teeth.

  As Robert became more ill, Nathan had reduced his day-to-day involvement with the firm. And, since his son’s death, he had appeared to have shut up shop altogether. Not so Bonnie Kelloway; she grabbed the opportunity with what some said was unseemly enthusiasm and was largely responsible for the consultancy’s current pre-eminent position.

  The London Scene column in the Evening Star called her the most influential woman in London. Bonnie Kelloway had become more famous than many of her clients.

  Finian watched with horror as his half-sister strutted up and down, telephone pressed permanently to her ear. Her voice so loud, it almost drowned out the parson’s final words.

  “I don’t care what that little toe-rag of an editor says. If our story is not in the next edition of his magazine I’ll ban his entire staff from all future press conferences,” she screamed.

  Finian gently edged Elizabeth towards Nathan and gestured towards Bonnie. Nathan nodded his understanding and took Elizabeth’s hand.

  Bonnie was so intent on her conversation that she didn’t see Finian pick his way round the gravestones and walk towards her. Without a word he snatched the phone and turned it off. “You bitch,” Finian said. “That’s our brother we’re burying.” He tossed the phone into a flower bed and returned to the family. Bonnie picked it up, wiped it clean of dirt and walked to a quiet part of the graveyard to make another call.

  *

  As the Kelloways walked from the service, two workmen shovelled earth on to the out-of-sight coffin. There was a bong, bong, bong as the clods hit the hollow-sounding box. Bonnie was still giving orders. “Looks like things are breaking up. Be back in the office in thirty minutes. Make sure those papers are ready.”

  Finian was helping his mother into her car when Bonnie stepped in front of them. “Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again,” She emphasised each word by prodding him in the chest with her mobile phone. “Somebody’s got to keep their head and run the business.”

  “What you were doing just then was the most disgusting thing I ever saw,” Finian said. “Do you have so little regard for the rest of the family?”

  “Don’t talk about regard, Finn. At least I’m properly dressed,” she snapped. “Look at you. What a mess.” She climbed into her car and tapped the driver on the shoulder with her phone. It was time to go.