Observation

A Dangerous Remedy is my latest book, published by Synergebooks.com and the following is a brief summary :

The owner of a multinational pharmaceutical company fears that the arrival on the market of a scientifically tested herbal medicine, shown to halt the onset of a common disease, will seriously damage his profits. He is so opposed to the new product that he sets out ruthlessly to destroy his competitor with extreme violence.

The book comes within the suspense/thriller genre and details are also posted on Goodreads.

This is the first chapter :

“A desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy.”

Guy Fawkes
6 November 1605

　
　
　
　CHAPTER ONE
　
The bed was high; all hospital beds seem to be. Further to fall and more chance of a terminal injury if you do. But it keeps the costs down, helps the budget, and afterwards, it’s still there, inimitable and unrivalled, waiting for the next victim.
He stared down at the waxen-faced patient, held to life by wires, drips and equipment to monitor every bodily function – blood pressure, sugar level, fluid balance and respiratory rates. Electronic and chemical analysis under continuous assessment...but what would happen if he switched something off or pulled out a tube or connection? And how long would it take for the electrical activity of the heart, displayed as a trace on a graph, to change its shape and sound a call to everyone on duty to come running, panicking to help or to switch everything off? He was tempted to find out, but he simply grinned and stepped out into the corridor.
It would have been easy. Nobody to see him. The only person there comatose and corpse-like, eyes open, mind closed. Presumably, it was closed. And so very easy. A quick tug, a switch turned and a back turned on the bastard lying there waiting without any awareness of voices, footsteps or hands stretching out to finish the job. Presumably. But how could anyone be sure?
They had asked his friends and relations to talk to him, played his favourite music, even attempted to shock him by making outrageous references to political decisions that would have turned him purple with fury before the accident. If it had been an accident, that is. They weren’t sure. Would they ever be sure? He hoped not and grinned again as he strolled to the door.
Cameras clicked, digital machineguns firing at him and catching every gesture he made: flickers of annoyance, impatience and finally resignation. He dared not show his real feelings, unless he had already done so without realising and reacting in time. The trouble was, he couldn’t avoid the press, the cameras and the questions. Always the bloody questions. They were always following him, especially here. You’d have thought that after all this time they’d have lost interest, or if not lost it, found someone else to pester or something more exciting and sensational than a dying, brain-dead bastard taking up all this time, effort, money and unnatural morbid nosiness.
“No. I’ve nothing more to say. I’ve said it all before...” Careful; don’t give them anything to misquote. “What I mean is, there’s no change. It’s all very sad and frustrating.” He had tolerated it for too long and would have to stop them.
“Do you mean you want them to switch off the life-support machine?”
Now he could look really angry, disguise the reason for it, and let them know what he wanted them to believe.
“I don’t think that merits any polite comment, do you?” He glared stonily at the reporter and gave a sympathy-demanding smile at two of the female contingent. They were the pretty ones; young, casually-dressed, seemingly pleasant, but probably as hard and cold as frozen granite, playing their own games and checkmating everyone who got in their way.
“Are you sure you’ve got nothing else to say? No hopes or plans?”
“I’ve said all I can say. Now excuse me, please.”
What could he have expected? Anyone who’s a celebrity or mixes with one has to put up with the lack of privacy and the intrusion. Maybe, but he didn’t want them trespassing into his thoughts. And that had become a real danger.
He finally reached his car and opened the door, but they all crowded around him and prevented him from getting in. And outside the main group was a face he recognised, staring expressionlessly as if the man had never felt any emotion and didn’t know how to respond to any stimulus. But he did.
Him! What’s he been doing here? he thought. He’s not a reporter. He’s nothing, not a relation, just a colleague. So why’s he here?
Something in his eyes must have transmitted itself to the milling bodies, and they drew apart, asking more questions for the sake of justifying their presence there, probably, though moving away to let him get into the car. But before he could close the door, the man with the face of a plastic mask pushed two photographers aside and jammed himself against the driver’s seat.
The murmur of questions ceased. Something was about to happen. No one knew what, but nobody was prepared to interfere to try and stop whatever it might be. And when it was too late to intervene, it happened. A fist crunched the driver’s nose and, as the blood spurted over the windscreen, the door slammed shut and the man ran away.
An hour later, the man who had attacked the previous visitor arrived and appraised the room as he did every time. The bed was high. All hospital beds are designed to help the nurses. Too low, and they would cause back problems. He stared down at the patient and glanced at all the equipment, then watched the dials and monitors and listened to the electrical hum, anxious that none of it should fail. He was careful how he moved, fearful of inadvertently touching something and causing a problem… or worse.
He had spent a lot of time in the room, trying to talk about trivial, uncomplicated matters that would have meant something to the injured man, and he was no longer embarrassed if anyone came in and heard him. The nurses and doctors smiled their encouragement and sometimes joined in, emphasising a point or acknowledging a simple comment. And he returned time after time, several days a week, in the hope of seeing some improvement, but he always left aware that there was never any change and there probably never would be until the inevitable happened.
But what was the inevitable? The continuity of unconsciousness, death or...and he asked himself the same question as the previous visitor: was it a silent uncommunicative awareness of everything that happened around the bed?
The room, though, repelled any sign of intimacy, certainly offered no hope of contentment, and its very nature refused to permit anyone a sense of belonging; to anyone, that is, other than the uniformed nurses and stethoscope-wearing doctors. It was a prison, but the instruments of torture gave pain and suffering to those who came to see the patient. Not to the patient himself. He was there to attract the visitors, remind them of their relationship with him and to demand silently their return on another day or some other week.
When his time was up, unlike his predecessor, he went to the small office and spoke to the duty nurse. And his smile was gentle and sincere.
The woman arrived dutifully at four o’clock and cursed the bed that seemed to take over the whole room. Too high, too low, it didn’t matter. It was a nuisance. There was nowhere for her to put down her handbag and the few parcels she had acquired that morning. She came to pay her daily respects, a need to be seen to be performing the appropriate obeisance and showing the social courtesy due to someone in his situation.
She hated it. It was a charade, a farce, a theatrical role she was having to play alone, yet everyone in the hospital knew it was all an act and knew that she was playing her part badly. She had learned the lines, knew when to respond and frown diligently, yet she really wanted to laugh, cackle even, and see the shock on everyone’s face. The doctors and the sisters in particular. Self-righteous prigs, she considered them. But they had their job to do – saving lives and showing concern for the patients. Or was it all hypocrisy, an act like the one she was playing? Who knows and who cares. All she wanted was to be free of the daily homage. Not Orwell’s to Catalonia, she smiled to herself, but her own to Catatonia. But it was more than that, even though his state was abnormal, his posture rigid and he could make no voluntary movement. No, this was Comatosia. And it was a very boring place to have to visit so often.
She looked at him, greeted him as if he were an unwelcome door-to-door salesman and promptly left the room to speak to the doctor and ask the question she had put off for so long.
The door slammed; it was the only way anyone could close it against the effects of years of neglect and warping. He came in and slumped into a battered old armchair. The room was untidy, an all-purpose central London apartment with a lived-in appearance… lived in beyond its use-by date.
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“No change. Never is. Probably never will be. Not a positive one, anyway, poor old devil!”
“What you going to do?”
“There’s nothing I can do except wait.”
“Wait? What for…or should I say…who for?”
“Them. Both of them. To see what they’ll do or say if they see me.”
“You wouldn’t let them, surely?”
“Not if I can help it. It’d be too risky.” Another awkward question.
“Well, why think about it, then?”
“Because I can’t stop thinking about their coldness. Cruelty, if you prefer.”
“I do prefer. Evil, malignity, unkindness, malevolence, inhumanity. I can’t think of anything appropriate to describe them. You know, they’d torture him if they could, but the way he is they wouldn’t know if he could feel anything, so they wouldn’t get any pleasure out of it. Therefore...”
“I know.” He did know, but he couldn’t tell her. She would be terrified to learn that he’d confronted him, punched him in the face, possibly even broken his nose. And possibly been photographed by some of the cameramen in that group outside the hospital. And if they had filmed him, they would easily recognise him again, find out who he was, where he lived, who he lived with, how much he earned and on and on…Privacy was a thing of the past. Years ago people had been frightened at the implications of Big Brother and a totalitarian state. Now they laughed at the out-dated sense of horror it still tried to convey, unaware that they were living in one and that the future had become the present and an electronic, information-full one from which no one could escape. The danger was that the more they knew about you, the more they could, and did, pass on to every organisation that touched on your life, no matter how limited and peripheral a way that might be. And it was one particular organisation that had caused all the problems, together with the pressure of the government in their support of their influential and demanding sponsor.
He tried to change the subject, but inadvertently came back to the same theme.
“How were things today in the shop?”
“Busy. In fact, busier than it’s been for ages.” She smiled. “And you know why, don’t you? Because of Medeor. For the moment, anyway.”
“Is it really going that well?” He knew perfectly well that it was. They both did, but couldn’t get out of the habit of checking up on each other’s day when they both returned in the evening.
“No doubt about it. Everyone who comes in asks about it. Whether it’ll be good for the liver, sore throats…Hmm…You think of an illness, disease or natural ageing process and I’ll bet you anything they’ve been asking about it. Wrinkles, eyesight, hearing, in-grown toe-nails…It’s quite amusing in a way…and sad, of course, but we’ve been absolutely honest and told them the truth.”
“So you should.”
“You know what I mean. We only tell them what we know and only sell it to people who specifically refer to the relevant condition and have, as far as we can judge, the proper symptoms.”
“That’s the danger, isn’t it? Not knowing if they’re conning you. But that would apply to anything you sell, I suppose.”
“Yes. Too many people regard us as a group of New Age witches with medicines that can cure anything. If only…”
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
“Not really, I’d prefer to talk about what we should do now that things have gone wrong. And it’s all thanks to that bloody man.”
“There’s no proof.”
“Rubbish! They’ve done it before. Anything natural that can do what Medeor can do, they’ll try and synthesise it and create a monopoly. And God help anyone who gets in the way of their profits.”
“You mean that village in South America?”
“All dead. Wiped out by a fire that just happened to start during the wedding celebrations. And no trace of the leaves they used to make up the remedy has ever been found…And, of course, nobody knew which plants and trees they used. Gone. All bloody gone. Until, in a couple of years’ time, quite out of the blue, Beaumont and Warden will come up with something similar, an artificial product, less effective and a bloody sight more expensive to buy.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“I am. I’m absolutely certain. And that man, that…I can’t think of words to describe him.” She held her head in her hands and her jerky movements told him she was crying.
“Oh, come on.”
“I can’t help it. I know it’s only a matter of time before they ban it completely. At the moment there’ve been only a few hints in some of the quality newspapers, one or two references in scientific journals and criticism from a couple of the older universities. Then a controlled attack from the tabloids demanding support for us and justice and consideration for their deprived readers…and finally there’ll be the crunch. And it’ll come. Medeor will be taken off the market and our stocks are getting low as it is. We haven’t got enough to see us through a month.”
“So, if they ban it tomorrow, what are you going to do?”
“Hide the supplies before the ban comes into force.”
“Where?”
She wiped away the last of her tears and tapped her nose. A secretive smile was the only information she would give.
“Okay, don’t tell me. Probably safer not to, anyway, if things go the way you seem to think.”
“Wrong. I know which way. But, yes, I’d rather not tell you. Then if they try to drug you, you won’t give anything away.”
He looked at her, bemused and ready to say something about logic and inconsistent opinions. Then he reconsidered and said nothing; she would have another answer to throw at him and he had enough to worry about without spoiling the rest of the evening. And he cringed at the memory of what he had done to Ralph Warden and feared the inevitable comments on radio, television and in the next morning’s papers. He had probably spoiled the evening already and attracted unwanted attention to her, all of which she could well do without, especially now.
“What’s the matter? You’re looking worried. There’s something you’re not telling me.” She stared at him, patient as a cat, willing him to confess, because she was convinced he had done something risky and was trying not to admit it. Unless…
“You’ve seen them, haven’t you? Or at least one of them. If I’m right, just be honest and say so.”
He nodded, sighing and covered in guilt.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He was coming out of the hospital as I was going in.”
“And you said something to him?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie, please.”
“I’m not. I didn’t say a word.” There was a long pause before he could bring himself to tell her. “Nothing at all. I punched him in the face and ran.”
“Oh, God! Did anyone see you?”
“Just the press. Reporters and photographers. About a dozen of them. Yeah, at least a dozen.”
“And they took photos?”
“Probably. I didn’t wait to see.”
“Did they follow you?”
“I don’t think so. I just ran and jumped over a wall. Then I came back and went in through the main door. But I’ll swear they weren’t there waiting. They wouldn’t have known I intended to go in. They didn’t even know who I was.”
“How do you know? You can’t be sure. Not after all the publicity there’s been with the so-called accident and the fuss over the remedy.”
“But is it a fuss? Look, you haven’t told me much, but maybe they did find arsenic in the capsules.”
“I don’t doubt they found some traces. No doubt at all. What I can’t prove, though, is how it got in or when some of Beaumont and Warden’s thugs did the dirty work. Because I know they did. The same way they killed those poor Indians in Ecuador and tried to do the same with Nathan Hart. It would have been better if they’d succeeded, frankly. To think of him lying there like a flat battery being slowly charged up and no one sure whether it’s completely flat and impossible to be put to use ever again.”
“Don’t say that. He might improve.”
“Might. Very unlikely, if you’re honest with yourself. And you’ve been to see him more than anybody. Correction, you’ve been nearly as much as his wife, but you’ve been there as a friend to try and help him. She…Mrs. heartless Hart, she’d rather see him dead, then she could get on with her life and settle down with Ralph Warden. Officially and legally this time.”
“Are you suggesting she had something to do with it? Assuming, of course, that it was an attempt to get rid of him.”
“Too coincidental for it not to have been. You know very well that he was the only eminent individual publicly on our side. He’d stood up for us, criticised the big names and reputations at Oxford and Cambridge and their sponsors and he wasn’t afraid to be interviewed by the papers or television. And he was…sorry…is a very nice man. The tests he’d done were all thoroughly checked, validated and confirmed by internationally-respected researchers in France and Germany who’d been very sceptical at first. Everything was pointing to a remarkable cure. And now this.”
“You don’t know for certain that there’ll be a ban. Maybe…”
“There will be. It happens all the time. There are always faults with electrical goods. Cars are recalled to have brakes and faulty timing sorted out. Food is withdrawn. Remember the mineral water problem and baby food. And with tinned products, it’s happening all the time.”
“So Nathan kept telling me. But I’m the up-and-coming specialist in a very different field, and you’re just another shopkeeper crank. Like hell! You know more about health matters than I do, though. I’m only doing molecular genetics, remember. Nothing to do with vitamins and oils in the way you deal with them.”
“No? Well, why was Nathan so interested in Medeor, then? There must have been something in it to have got him interested. And it wasn’t money. He was never interested in the commercial life. If money was involved, he wanted it for research. Nothing else.”
“We’re going round and round in circles. Let’s drop it for the moment and get something to eat.”
Nuala and Dan Collins had married for the sake of their parents’ status and respectability. Otherwise, they would have lived together heedless of anyone else’s perception of morality. But their parents, particularly as they were the church-going variety, put so much pressure on them that they found it less stressful to conform.
They had lived under the shadow of the Telecom Tower for a year, and it was a convenient location for both of them. A short tube ride to the university for him, while a similar distance in the other direction for her to the fashionable health shop in Islington.
They had met at university where she had studied economics and he had shown considerable promise in biochemistry. Neither of them was sure how or where they had met, whether they had been drunk, sober or playing squash. All they remembered was that their attraction had been immediate, like iron filings hitting a magnet, and they still enjoyed each other’s company.
They pushed the empty plates aside and he poured out the last of the bottle of Mediterranean red and poked his tongue out in concentration.
“You look like a chow. Your tongue’s all purple. Are you sure you didn’t bite him?”
“Quick. Put the television on and you’ll find out, probably.”
“Oh, God! I’d forgotten. What time is it?”
“Nearly ten.” He swallowed a belch and felt his stomach lurch. He’d been a fool, a real eejit, as his father used to call him when he was a boy.
“Don’t look so worried. I’d have done the same. Scratched chunks out of him, probably. Excuse the clichés, but what’s done’s done. There’s no going back, and if he dares to take action, he’ll regret it.”
The screen of the old set took its time in crackling into life, and finally the trailer for some new thriller came to an end.
“I’ll get the portable radio and listen as well.” He dashed into the bedroom and returned holding it to his ear.
“A modern equivalent of belt and braces, is it? Radio and TV to make sure you miss nothing. Not pride, surely?” She smiled, but behind the teasing was a lot of worry that she couldn’t hide.
Further attacks on the prime minister, verbal so far, but they were getting stronger each day. The Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, asylum seekers and the latest sound-bites from the opposition parties. Football was taking priority as ever in the middle of the cricket season. Health, education and public transport. Nothing about the physical attack on a leading industrialist. Nothing about him on television or radio.
“Are you sure it wasn’t just wishful thinking?” Nuala’s smile was still covering up her deep concern for him and what he had done.
“Why would they have killed the story? It was more than a brief filler. With all the publicity about him and Nathan’s wife, there was plenty they could have said. So, tell me why there was no mention of him?” He was more worried than he would have been if they had splashed his assault all over the screen.
“Perhaps you’ll be main-featured all over the tabloids tomorrow. Stony-faced Frankenstein researcher tries to murder pharmaceutical giant.”

“I hope not. It could damage any chance of ever getting another job. Anyway, what do you mean by stony-faced?”
“When you concentrate on something pleasant, you always stick your tongue out, but if you’re angry, you look positively evil with a cold expressionless look like a mask. It’s quite frightening, actually. I hope you’ll never look at me like that.”
“Now she tells me. And you say it’s when I’m annoyed.”
“No, angry. When you’re bitterly opposed to something or someone. Annoyed is different. Spilling your coffee and confronting Warden aren’t quite in the same category. Coffee makes a mess in one place, but Warden creates irreparable damage wherever he goes.”
“Listen, I’m a bit preoccupied about the no-news syndrome. There must be a reason why they haven’t put anything on. Tell me, if you’d got a good story and pictures to go with it, what would make you spike it?”
“A good price or the promise of a better story later. A sort of blackmail, really.”
“Or do you mean bribing the press and blackmailing me? With a dangerous wife like you, it would have to be a lot of pressure and a believable threat.”
“Why do you think he goes to the hospital, anyway; concern over the accident by one of his drivers or…”
“Hang on; we don’t know who did it yet.”
“I’ll ignore that. Or does he go because of concern for his girlfriend’s husband? Never. The chance of a photo call is the most likely reason to let them see the honest face of a big business research sponsor.”
“Research sponsor? No way. He paid us supposedly to test one of their products, but it was really to familiarise himself with our set-up and then later to get to know Nathan’s wife. The swine.”
“Calm down. I’ll make some coffee and we’ll see what’s in tomorrow’s papers. If there’s going to be anything.”
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　
　

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