Bad Influence

by Desmond Harding

  Apart from the greenhouses, there was a house where he lived, an outbuilding where Giles Denny had established his study, and an old barn. It was there, in the barn, that Jeff found his father. He was hanging from a crudely knotted noose, looped around one of the beams. Dr Denny had been in the United States less than six weeks.

  Jeff explained to the local police that his father had arrived very depressed. No, he didn’t know the reason. But his father had begun to feel better. It was only after his papers arrived from Britain and he unpacked them, that the gloom returned.

  “This is what worried him most.” Jeff showed a file of newspaper cuttings that recorded a growing number of deaths – now more than twenty – from a strange wasting disease. “He would stare at them for hours.”

  Denny left a letter addressed to Jeff. They found it in the back pocket of his Levis after he had been cut down. It said: Sorry to leave you again so soon. But what is one more?

  “Did he feel responsible for these deaths in some way?” the deputy asked.

  “Must have done, but I can’t see why,” Jeff said. “It was something he wouldn’t talk about.”

  The deputy looked at the cuttings again. “These are all in Europe anyway. Way out of my jurisdiction.”

  Jeff watched Denny’s body being taken away by the local coroner. It was too soon to cry; that would come later. Before the grief there were things to arrange. His father had been famous in his field. There were people who should know what had happened.

  Jeff went into Denny’s study. It wasn’t difficult to find his book of contacts. Denny was a perfectly organised man. He phoned long-standing friends, colleagues in the same line of research and people he had served with on committees of learned bodies. Many, when they heard the news, broke down and cried.

  “I was going through my father’s address book and I came across your name,” Jeff said, in his now well-rehearsed speech. “I don’t know how well you knew him, but he died the other day.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Finian said. “I worked with him on the flotation of Lycad. We didn’t know each other that well but I was a great admirer of his work.”

  As the two were obviously not that close, Jeff didn’t invite Finian to the funeral.

  He dialled the next number on his list. Norsteadt’s secretary answered immediately. “Could I speak to Mr Norsteadt? Tell him it’s Giles Denny’s son – Jeff.”

  Norsteadt’s secretary returned after a moment. “He’s in a meeting. Can I take a message?”

  Jeff was surprised. After all, his father and Norsteadt had been close colleagues. “I’m phoning to let him know the funeral arrangements. My father died two days ago.”

  “One moment.” The line went dead for a second and then she returned. Jeff had a feeling that Norsteadt was right there and not in any meeting. “Mr Norsteadt says he’s not planning a trip to the States in the near future, but I should take the details anyway.”

  Jeff gave the necessary directions and timing. “Thank you,” she said.

  Before she could hang up, Jeff stopped her. “One more thing: I have a great number of my father’s papers. Books – his research work – things like that. Who shall I send them to at the company?”

  “One moment,” she said again. Back she came. “Mr Norsteadt says that you should dispose of them yourself.”

  “But they could be of great interest to Norton-Hunter.”

  “Mr Norsteadt feels the company already has an extensive library and you shouldn’t go to the expense of shipping the material back to Britain.”

  “Surely...”

  “Mr Denny. I’m sorry but I can’t spare any more time. I must go.” She rang off.

  “Bloody cheek. As if we have time to go through Denny’s scribblings,” Norsteadt snorted, and went back into his office.

  *

  To Bonnie, contacts were everything. People she knew, people who knew people she might need to know in the future. The danger was that even the best names could fall into disuse unless they were seen and massaged regularly.

  Maurice Dunne and Bonnie had been at Oxford at the same time and often wondered why they had never met. He was now the producer for the most talked about show on television – Channel Twenty-Five Live.

  The hour-long show had captured millions of viewers from other channels. It was unique in modern television. The entire broadcast was live – not pre-recorded, like almost every other programme. This made the whole show more exciting. Every gaffe, regretted admission or slip of the tongue was there for the world to see. While it was a high-risk proposition for anyone who appeared, the enormous exposure people got – its viewing audience averaged over ten million – made it worth the gamble. Particularly if they were well trained.

  “Your call was a coincidence, Bonnie,” Dunne said. “I was about to invite you to lunch.”

  “Perhaps we should split the bill.”

  “No, your expense account is bigger than mine,” he said.

  This was the first time she had been to the Green Door since Angela Nasco’s fateful lunch with Winston Culpin. She would have loved to know if Culpin had managed to bed her that afternoon. Angela, although a real, traffic-stopping beauty, had a soft spot for lame ducks – and Culpin was the lamest she had ever met. Bonnie had a perverse curiosity about the love lives of women she knew.

  “Welcome back, Miss Kelloway,” said Sven, the Swedish head waiter.

  She sat down and put her ever-present mobile phone on the table. Bonnie knew it was a tacky thing to do. All the same, she hated feeling out of touch.

  “Let me start,” Maurice said. “You’re the key to the most fascinating story in Britain today.”

  Bonnie took a sip of her orange juice. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” she said.

  “We want to do the story of Bram Norsteadt’s rapid climb up the political ladder.”

  “On your show?” she said. “You must be joking. It would be like playing catch... with a live grenade... with a loose pin.” If she could extract the right assurances from Dunne, she would of course recommend Norsteadt to appear. But for the present, Bonnie played hard to get.

  “This is such a positive story for your client.”

  “Like the one you did on Councillor Ethel Clarke?” Councillor Clarke had been the leader of a borough council in the north-east of England. She thought she was appearing in connection with a story on slum clearance. Instead, the programme uncovered her involvement in a housing scam. For a thousand pounds, couples could immediately jump to the front of the council’s housing queue.

  “She was a crook and deserved what she got,” he said. “Norsteadt is one of the few really good news stories around today. And we want to tell it.”

  “We’d have to be involved at every stage,” she said.

  Dunne had obviously set his heart on doing the story. “You can have a man permanently attached to the production team if you like.” That was something Bonnie wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for, an almost unheard of concession.

  “Plus vetting of all questions?”

  “Okay.”

  “... and power of veto over interviewers.”

  “Bonnie, leave me some vestige of editorial independence.”

  She knew she was pushing her luck. “Hmmm. In that case I want to see video recordings of say half a dozen of your most recent shows. The ones closest to what you have in mind for Bram.”

  “They’ll be biked to you this afternoon.”

  She smiled. “I’ll recommend it to Norsteadt. But in the end it’ll be up to him.”

  “Great. And to celebrate, I’ll pick up the bill.”

  “Before you make such a rash offer, one more thing: if at any stage we don’t like the way things are going, we reserve the right to pull out.”

  “As I said, the meal is on me.”

  *

  There had been no repeat of Andrew St Norris’s pill popping. He was back to his old bouncy self, a pleasure to have around again. In fact he was more of a live wire
than ever before.

  The only problem now was that he seemed to have picked up an allergy to something in the air. The poor boy was always sniffing and blowing his nose. But Bonnie didn’t think it a reason for Andrew not to be given the job. She wanted him to shadow Maurice Dunne and report back on everything he and the “Live” production team did.

  “You’re to eat, sleep and breathe these people for the next few weeks,” Bonnie said. “I don’t trust them.”

  “But Dunne’s a friend.”

  “Bollocks. There are no friends in this business.”

  *

  The first of Dunne’s recordings was in the DVD player when Norsteadt arrived home. Bonnie poured him a large whisky and sat him down in front of the television.

  “Watch this.” She pointed the remote and pressed the play button.

  For the next hour she showed him snippets from the show. Dunne had made his selection well. All the central players in the programmes came across as stars.

  “How would you like them to run the Bram Norsteadt story?”

  “How would I like to be the King of England?”

  “Seriously.”

  “You’re joking?”

  “I hadn’t wanted to raise false hopes. But it’s something I’ve been working on for a few months. And today they finally agreed.”

  Norsteadt hesitated. “You know the programme’s reputation.”

  “I’ve got cast-iron assurances. Even managed to twist their arm and get Andy made part of their production team.”

  Norsteadt hoped he wouldn’t have to waste any more of his time in a phoney television studio, getting extra training he was convinced he no longer needed.

  “Is that a coup... or is that a coup?”

  *

  Jeff had finished the last of his calls. It had taken two days to reach everybody. He sat in his father’s room and looked at the mountain of papers Denny had accumulated in his lifetime. His mother had always complained that Denny refused to throw anything away. At that moment Jeff sympathised with her view. To burn it all would be such a waste, he thought.

  He picked up Denny’s address book one more time. There was one entry he hadn’t called the first time round. No person was mentioned, just the name of the organisation.

  Jeff checked his watch. It must be nearly six o’clock in Britain. They may have left work for the day. He would try anyway.

  His call was answered by a woman. She sounded as if she was halfway out of the door. In the rush, Jeff missed the name she gave. “Could I speak with someone in connection with...” Jeff looked at the address book again, “the Friends of Norton-Hunter Shareholders.”

  “One moment,” the voice said. It was Jeff’s day for running up large phone bills.

  “Can I help you?” said a man’s voice.

  “This is Jeff Denny and I found your name in...”

  “Mr Denny, this is Finian Kelloway. We spoke the other day.”

  Five minutes later, Finian replaced the phone and pulled down an atlas from the shelf. “Where is Tri-City?”

  “Why on earth do you want to know that?” Kit asked.

  “I’m going there to attend a funeral of a man I barely knew – and look at a private medical library.”

  *

  Andrew was delighted to get out of the office. The Channel Twenty-Five people didn’t care whether he was there or not. He would turn up at the studios just long enough to get the gist of what was happening and then to Benny’s for a little help to get him through the rest of the day. Before he went back to the office, Benny would inspect him and brush away the white powder Andrew always managed to spill down the front of his suit.

  “So far, everything seems straight,” Andy told Bonnie. “It’s the story of the rise and rise again of Bram Norsteadt.”

  “Keep at it. I don’t want them pulling a fast one.” Andrew thought she was getting paranoid. “I’ll hold you personally responsible for anything that goes wrong.”

  “Pity they’re not going to shaft him. It would be no more than they both deserve.” Andrew said to himself as he made his way back to Benny’s. Andy had stopped popping pills. This new stuff was much better.

  Thirty Four

  Finian’s flight out of Gatwick had been delayed and he touched down in Atlanta five hours late. He had spent the time talking to an Atlanta lawyer who complained non-stop about the economy.

  “Business has gone on Mogadon,” he said.

  “Thought things were improving,” Finian said.

  “You’ve been listening to the politicians. What do they know?”

  Finian didn’t think this was true, but let him drone on.

  Finian slept over in a Holiday Inn and the next morning caught the first local Delta flight to Tri-City. He emerged from the small airport building and looked around. A man dressed in a dark suit and black tie stood by an old pick-up truck. He seemed out of place in the rural setting.

  “You waiting for me?” Finian asked.

  “If you’re Finian Kelloway, I am.” he said. “I’m Harry. Work with Jeff.” He took Finian’s bags and tossed them into the back of the truck. “Expecting you last night.” The man looked at his watch. “Should just about make the funeral.”

  On the plane over, Finian had been told by his lawyer companion that he was visiting the most God-fearing part of the United States. The man had been right: it seemed that every other building in the town of Westfork was a church.

  Finian recognised Jeff immediately. He was just a younger version of his father. “Good of you to make this effort,” he said.

  Jeff hadn’t lived in the town long. All the same, the people of the community were moved by his tragedy and many turned out to pay their respects. With them were luminaries from the world of medicine and research. Sir Peter Runciman, probably Europe’s leading cancer specialist, had flown over: he and Denny had been students together. Travelling with Sir Peter was Walter Ruff, one of the few men who knew as much about biotechnology as Denny. Professor Grant Dimmion from the Harvard Medical School, Denny’s postal chess opponent for the past thirty years, read one of the lessons.

  In all, more than seventy-five mourners swelled the little Westfork Third Reform Baptist Church. People were already bunched up tight when the former Mrs Denny arrived but they happily squeezed up some more. At a pinch more room still could have been found if any representative of Norton-Hunter had appeared. In the end that didn’t prove necessary.

  After the funeral, everybody went back to Jeff’s farm for the wake. His house was small and those who had travelled some distance spent that night at the Westfork Motor Inn. All the same, Jeff assured Finian that there would be room for him.

  “There’s a lot of reading to do and you shouldn’t waste your time traipsing between the town and here,” Jeff said.

  The next day, after breakfast, Jeff took Finian across the yard to the outbuilding where Denny had made his study. Despite being there only a short time, he had managed to fit the room out with shelves. Some of his books and papers were already out on display. The rest remained in ten unopened wooden packing crates.

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but help yourself,” Jeff said.

  “Neither do I.” Finian looked at all the papers and wondered what he had let himself in for. “Only hope I’ll know it when I see it.”

  Finian picked up books and files and quickly put them down again. He didn’t know where to start.

  “Apart from being a brilliant scientist, my father was methodical.” Jeff took a spiral-bound notebook from a shelf. “Look at this. He listed every book he had ever read.” He flipped open a ring-binder. “Here he catalogued his entire CD collection – all two thousand of them.”

  On a desk were five plastic boxes, each filled with rubber bands. “He even filed these according to size.”

  It took a while, but once Finian got an idea how Denny’s system worked, he was able to ignore everything before the start of Lycad. He found files of newspaper stories on th
e planned float of the business. Many of them Finian wrote himself as press releases. In a separate folder were reports from the stockbrokers’ analysts forecasting the enormous success of the company. Then there was an envelope of cuttings describing the failed float and subsequent take-over of Lycad by Norton-Hunter.

  Finian packed them away again. “Nothing there,” he said.

  On the desk were a pile of bulky envelopes, all unopened. “Do you mind?” Jeff shrugged and Finian ripped open the first package. Out tumbled what looked like hundreds of cuttings from various newspapers and medical journals. Some in English, others in German, French, Spanish and Italian. There were a few in a language Jeff said was Finnish. All mounted on separate pieces of paper, giving the names and date of the publication from where they were clipped. Finian recognised them as coming from one of the big international press cuttings agencies.

  “Dad had been getting packages like that since he arrived. Each one made him more miserable.”

  Finian had read some of the stories himself in Britain. Others were new to him. But they all reported a growing number of deaths from the same wasting disease.

  “Are these the same stories you mentioned on the phone?”

  “Similar.” Jeff passed Finian what looked like a scrapbook from one of the desk drawers. All the stories were the same. The key difference was that, beside each, Denny had made notes. “Not again”, was written against the first. Another read, “So very sorry” A third comment simply said, “Markers”, and was followed by three large question marks.

  Both men looked at each other and shook their heads.

  “Why is your father blaming himself for these?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Something’s here... but I can’t see it.”

  “This reference to markers – is it important?” Jeff said.

  “What the hell’s a marker?”

  Finian quickly turned through the rest of the scrapbook. Against another story Denny had asked again, “Where are the markers?”

  “That’s the second reference,” Jeff said.

  The rest of the stories all looked the same and Finian put the book back in the drawer.