by Roz Watkins
‘I think it’s a possibility.’
‘Do you really think a heart transplant from a traumatised donor together with Immunoxifan could make someone a murderer?’
‘I had hoped not.’
My breath puffed into the cold air. ‘Do you have a list of patients who’ve taken Immunoxifan?’
Michael reached into his pocket. ‘You met Gaynor Harvey? She’s one, but I’m not concerned about her.’
My phone beeped. A text must have come through in one of the occasional-signal-moments that appeared in this area, just to torment you. ‘Hang on,’ I turned away to read the text. It was from Fiona.
Are you OK? I found out Michael Ellis shorted shares in own company after he left.
I stared at the screen. My financial experience mainly consisted of Mum telling me to improve my pension, but I had watched the film, The Big Short. I knew enough to realise that if Michael had shorted shares in his own company, he made money if the company failed. He’d effectively betted on the value of his company declining.
My understanding shifted. If Michael wanted the company to fail, could I believe anything he was saying?
23.
I shoved the phone out of sight. I couldn’t text back without Michael seeing and I didn’t want that. ‘Shall we walk back to the car?’ I took a step in that direction.
‘What was the text?’ Michael looked at my pocket. ‘Someone’s told you something. Trying to discredit me or frame me. I can see it in your face.’
I was on a snow-covered, deserted moor, my only transport Michael’s car. My heart pattered unevenly. I reached into my pocket and felt my radio. If I pressed the orange button, a pack of cops would hot-foot it here. I ran my finger over it.
Michael did the same scan I’d done. Deserted moor. ‘They’ll be watching us,’ he said.
I moved my finger to the side of the button, thinking about all the questions I’d have to answer if I summoned help. I was already on a warning.
I shuffled from one freezing foot to the other, eyeing the distance to the pub.
Something grabbed my arm and yanked it from my pocket. The arm that should have been able to reach the orange button, if Michael hadn’t been holding it in a limpet grip.
‘What is it? What have they told you?’
‘Nothing. Let me go.’
He didn’t let me go. ‘What have they said? You can’t trust them.’
‘You’re not doing yourself any favours here.’ My voice sounded calm, but my pulse was racing.
I could stab him in the eyes, kick him in the balls or shins, I could –
He gripped my arm tighter. ‘They’re trying to discredit me. I’m the innocent one here.’
‘Michael, let go of my arm.’
He seemed to be on the edge of a complete melt-down, wild eyes flitting to and fro, fingers stabbing into me, his voice high and shaky. ‘Tell me you believe me.’
I cursed myself for being so reckless. I always shouted at the TV when detectives chose to confront the potential homicidal maniac alone on a deserted moor. I certainly wasn’t going to challenge him. ‘I believe you.’ I looked pointedly at his hand on my arm.
‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I just told the truth.’ He stared into my eyes and blinked several times in quick succession. Didn’t psychopaths do that? Then he dropped my arm and jumped back.
‘That’s them.’ He looked over the moor towards the car park. A four-wheel drive sat next to Michael’s. A Toyota, I thought. I couldn’t see the number plate.
Michael’s voice was jittery. ‘They’ll try to make you think I’m mad. They’ll do anything.’
I took a step away from him. ‘You need to let us protect you then.’
‘No. No.’ He shook his head fast and muttered under his breath.
I edged further from him and started walking slowly towards the pub, my hand in my pocket over the orange button again.
Michael followed close beside me. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
I hurried to get some more distance between us. ‘I believe you.’
My foot caught on something. I lurched forward and fell onto my knee, one hand trapped in my pocket and unable to break my fall. Adrenaline burst into my stomach.
I clawed myself up, my pulse thudding in my ears. Michael grabbed at me again. I gasped; then realised he was only helping me.
I brushed snow off my sodden trousers. The wind whipped at my legs and I realised I was so cold my teeth were chattering. I looked across the hillside. The Toyota was gone.
We walked down to the pub car park, stiffly, like a couple of cats that might fight at any moment.
‘I’ll just pop to the toilet,’ I said.
‘You’re going to call your colleagues, aren’t you?’ Michael took a few sheets of A4 from his pocket. ‘This is a published paper which confirms what I’ve told you.’ He handed me the paper, which looked like a photocopied excerpt from a scientific journal. I slipped it into my pocket.
Michael looked over his shoulder, then fished a piece of paper from his trousers. ‘These are the names of the other patients who took Immunoxifan. I have records because it’s such a new drug. You won’t be able to get these from anywhere else. You probably think you will, but you’re wrong.’
‘Are you going to give me the list?’
‘I need to go now. I won’t see you again. I’ll get this list to you once I’m safe.’
I eyed the paper. I couldn’t see what was on it.
Michael shoved it back in his pocket. ‘You need to give me your word that you’ll let me get away.’
‘I’ll let you get away. Just tell me the names. Or it could be too late. What if there’s another death?’
Michael looked over his shoulder. ‘I can’t do that, I’m afraid. I need to make sure you’ve stuck to your word first, you see.’
‘You should let us help you. You know – ’
‘You stick to your word and it will be okay. I think you’d better get someone else to give you a lift back. The pub will let you use their phone if you can’t get a signal.’
He beeped open his Land Rover, clambered in with snow still caked to his feet, and drove away.
*
I eked out enough signal to call Fiona, and then installed myself in the softest sofa of the Cat and Fiddle.
I started on the scientific paper. The purpose of the experiment hadn’t been about the side-effects of course, so I was looking for information buried in the appendices. It did seem to note which technicians had handled the mice, but I was still struggling to work out the connections when Fiona arrived. She rushed over. ‘Are you okay? What happened?’
‘I’m fine. I’m not sure they’ll ever get me out of this sofa though.’ I sank deeper into the leather. My feet were sodden and my trousers steamed gently.
‘You look a bit cold.’ Fiona was never one to exaggerate.
‘I’m warming up now. Thanks for coming. Get yourself a drink, and I’ll tell all.’
‘I struggled to get my car up the road in the snow,’ Fiona said.
‘Sorry. It’s a bit high up here. The sign behind your head says sixteen hundred and ninety feet. Almost Everest.’
She slapped her bag down beside me. ‘Are you drinking gin?’
‘What on earth makes you say that?’ It could have been mineral water for all she knew. And I’d only had one.
Fiona fetched herself something sensible and appropriate for the driver, and sank into the sofa beside me.
‘I know you like to play everything by the book,’ I said, ‘but it might be easier if we kept some of this to ourselves.’
Poor Fiona, I was such a bad influence. She nodded.
I told her the gist of what had happened.
‘Oh my God. So he’s saying the mice remembered something from the hearts they were given? The ones who’d had Immunoxifan?’
‘He thought something from the donor heart had affected their behaviour. He’s not sure what exactly. Or how.’
‘But they killed their cage mates? The mice who’d been given hearts from donor mice who had traumatic deaths?’
‘That was what he said. And only the ones who’d had Immunoxifan. We need to check it out.’
‘God, Meg, if this gets out . . . ’
‘He might be delusional. Or lying. I didn’t think he was lying, but you can’t always tell. You say he shorted the shares.’
‘Yes. It looks like if the company goes under, he’ll be pretty rich.’
‘So he’s not exactly objective.’
‘And he’s in a financial mess if that company doesn’t fail. Why did you let him go?’
‘Even if I’d called for back-up, it wouldn’t have arrived in time.’
‘And you didn’t want anyone to know you’d gone up there with him.’
‘We needed the information, Fiona. About Immunoxifan. What if it did somehow cause Abbie to kill her father? We need to know.’
‘Was she really remembering things from her donor’s death?’
‘That’s what Michael Ellis seems to think.’
‘Okay. So, does this explain it? I mean, how she knew the names of the donor child’s brother and dog, and how she drew that picture – the man by the lake, and the girl in the pink and white spotty swimming costume. Was it the drug that let her remember it all? I’m really starting to think that girl was murdered. We’ve got to look at the donor child’s father.’
*
There was one light on in Dr Li’s clinic, but the reception area was in darkness, and the front door was locked. Lights were on in the attached bungalow. I could barely make out its surroundings in the dark, but it sat beneath the cliff, and was enclosed by a little garden and a low hedge that separated it from the clinic car-park. I rang the doorbell. I knew it was a Sunday night and there was a chance Dr Li would charge us double and I’d get more bollockings from Richard, but she had offered another meeting for free. Besides, I was desperate to discuss what Michael Ellis had said, and Dr Li seemed our best bet for someone who might have a clue what was going on.
The door swung open and Tom Li backed his wheelchair away. ‘Come in.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘I assume you want to see my mother?’
‘Sorry it’s a Sunday evening. If it’s a bad time . . . ’ I tried to look like someone who hadn’t recently plunged into a quagmire.
‘No. She’s in her office doing paperwork anyway. She’ll probably be glad of the interruption. It’s her accounts, I think.’ There was no trace of the man who’d been intent on throwing himself off a cliff. I wondered if I should pretend it had never happened.
I shook my coat outside and followed him into a wide, show-home-smart hallway, Fiona just behind.
‘How are you?’ I tried to keep my tone neutral so he could choose whether to take it as a genuine enquiry as to how he was, or a social greeting, depending on how he was feeling.
‘I’m not so bad, now.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m ashamed actually, about the other day. I’m sorry to have put you to all that trouble.’
I felt a flash of pity for his situation. ‘There’s no need to be ashamed.’
I was surprised he was at home. I supposed they were relying on Fen to keep an eye on him. Budget cuts and all that.
Tom wheeled up the corridor. ‘Anyway, come through here – it leads into the clinic.’ He pushed a door to the side and ushered us through. I recognised the corridor that led to Dr Li’s room.
‘Thanks. We can find our way now.’
The clinic was dimly lit and almost sinister in its silence. Tiny red security lights flashed above us, and the before-and-after images stared down at us, their eyes seeming to follow us as we padded up the corridor. I glanced behind and saw I was leaving a trail of wet footprints. ‘Oops.’
‘They won’t invite you back,’ Fiona said.
I knocked on Dr Li’s door, and she shouted for us to come in. I pushed the door open, glancing guiltily down at my wet shoes.
Dr Li looked up from behind a pile of papers. ‘Hello, this is a surprise.’
‘I’m so sorry to come on a Sunday,’ I said. ‘If it’s not convenient, we’ll come back another time.’
‘No, it’s fine. It’s good to have an excuse to ditch this paperwork for a while. I have half an hour before I need to phone someone I supervise. I suppose this is about Abbie Thornton?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. But is Tom okay?’
‘He’ll be fine.’ She shook her head as if denying her own assertion. ‘It’s so sad. I wish I could help him feel better about his life. He doesn’t seem to value what he has . . . ’ She trailed off and looked at Fiona. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’
I introduced Fiona, and Fen directed us to the casual corner.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m a bit damp. I hope I don’t drip bogwater on your chair. I’ll sit on my coat.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Fen eyed my trousers. ‘But maybe do put your coat down.’
‘We just wanted a word with you again. I’ve managed to speak to Michael Ellis about the immunosuppressant. And you said the other day that there was more basis to the cellular memory theory than you’d thought.’
I explained what Ellis had said on that freezing hillside, and dug out the paper he’d given me. ‘It’s quite hard to find the relevant bits.’ I passed it over.
‘How interesting.’ Fen scrutinised the paper. ‘The information about the aggressive mice will probably be hidden away under Side Effects and dismissed as irrelevant.’ She flipped the pages. ‘Here. There’s a table. Not easy to interpret. But it seems that the information’s there if you know where to look. See these initials? They’re the technicians who handled the mice. Here are the donors. And here are the notes about the mice which became aggressive.’ She stared at the page for a few minutes. We sat in silence.
Dr Li looked up. ‘I see it. The recipient mice which became aggressive all had hearts from donor mice handled by this technician NPW.’
‘Do you think what Ellis said is possible?’ I asked. ‘Is there any way the drug could somehow allow memories or emotions to pass with the heart?’
Fiona said, ‘It reminds me of a thing I saw about past lives. This little boy knew the complete layout of a house he’d lived in before.’
‘Whenever they look into those things properly, they always find holes in the story,’ I said. ‘We need to look for rational explanations.’
Fiona folded her arms. ‘I don’t see why it shouldn’t at least be possible. And poor Abbie if that’s what’s happened.’
‘But it can’t happen, can it?’
‘I did some digging,’ Fen said. ‘You know I’m highly sceptical, but as I said, there is a little more evidence for this than I’d realised.’
‘That a heart could have memories, you mean?’
‘To a degree. Scientists have found traces of memory in cell nuclei, not only in the synapses. And there does appear to be a sophisticated collection of neurons in the heart, organised into a small nervous system. I’m not saying this means a heart has memories, but it’s more complex perhaps than I had thought. It’s not something I’d looked into previously.’
‘But what about the drug? Immunoxifan. Could that have anything to do with it?’
‘I found an article that suggests it’s a possibility.’
I felt a heaviness growing inside me. Was she really going to say this could have happened? That Abbie might have been affected by the donor child’s heart? ‘What did the article say?’
‘It’s complicated. But did you know your personality can be affected by what we’d normally regard as purely physical things? Like your gut bacteria, for example?’
‘Yes. I read that you can make normal mice anxious by giving them gut bacteria from anxious mice.’
‘Indeed. And have you heard about Toxoplasma?’
‘The parasite you get from eating raw meat and clearing up after cats?’
‘Yes. That can affect your personality too.’
‘Doesn�
�t it make you reckless and irrationally fond of cats? I probably have that one.’ I turned to Fiona. ‘This organism actually makes mice braver and even makes them like cats, so they’re more likely to get eaten by a cat and the thing can carry on its life-cycle inside the cat. How about that? And when it gets into humans it seems to have a similar effect.’
Fiona wrinkled her nose.
‘Seriously,’ I said. ‘Regions with high rates of infection have more car crashes.’
Fiona smiled, not sure if I was being serious.
‘She’s right.’ Fen raised an eyebrow at me. ‘You take quite an interest in science? I wasn’t expecting you to know this.’
‘She’s a geek,’ Fiona said.
‘I skim-read New Scientist magazine, if that counts.’
‘That’s unusual in a detective?’
Fiona again. ‘She is pretty unusual.’
‘Alright, alright,’ I said. ‘That’s not feeling like a compliment.’
Fen smiled. ‘I think you’ll understand what I’m saying then. I don’t know whether the paper I found has any validity. I’ve not had time to look into it in detail, but it was in a peer-reviewed journal.’
‘What exactly did it say?’
‘It suggested there could be something in the heart that affects a person’s thoughts or behaviour, perhaps making use of a microbe. Every day we’re finding more evidence that our behaviour isn’t exclusively governed by our brains.’
‘Okay,’ I said. Fiona and I both sat forward in our seats, focused intently on Fen.
‘The theory is that occasionally this microbe or whatever it is gets transferred when someone has a transplant. Imagine if the donor was infected with Toxoplasma, and this was transferred to the recipient. It could cause the recipient’s personality to change after the transplant.’
I glanced at Fiona. She sat wide-eyed. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘That does make sense.’
‘The paper suggests that new, highly effective immunosuppressant drugs make it less likely that the patient’s immune system would kill this thing off. Which is why we’re seeing more cases of transplant recipients taking on traits of their donors.’
