Dead End by Brian Freemantle

Grant.
    Newton’s stomach dipped again. ‘We need to consider the company and its global reputation, don’t we?’
    â€˜Always,’ said Grant, at once.
    â€˜That’s what I’m doing.’
    â€˜Of course you are,’ said Grant, the smile as tight as the bitten-off words. ‘How about this? It’ll take a while to get French licensing approval. You finish off what you feel you have to do in the laboratory while Paris goes through the formalities. That way we’re on the block ready to take off the moment we get the go ahead.’
    He was a puppet in a responsibility-clearing performance, accepted the research vice president: the decision had already been made to go ahead with manufacture for Africa. ‘What happens if I don’t confirm Saby’s insistence on the preservative?’
    â€˜I’ve already given you my word, Dwight. We scrap everything.’
    â€˜That’s what I have, your word?’
    â€˜That’s what you have: what you’ve always had.’
    â€˜OK,’ agreed Newton, as he’d known he would agree from the beginning.
    â€˜We’ve got other things to talk about,’ announced Grant, hand on the familiar, although expanded, file to the left of his desk.
    â€˜Security put a trace on Rebecca Lang’s office phone,’ started Newton, knowing what Grant expected. ‘Got the full transcript of a conversation with the girl she talks to in Paris, Stephanie Paruch …’
    Grant pulled the extract from the file, flicking the edge of the paper with an irritated finger. ‘ Your great mystery ,’ he paraphrased. ‘ I’m going to keep on until I find out … known here as a smoking gun … You know the trouble with guns, Dwight? They go off and hurt people. That’s when they smoke.’
    Newton hesitated, briefly unsure how to respond. He took his own copy of the transcript from his briefcase and, reading from it, quoted: ‘ It’s the talk of the division here. Benn and Newton have locked themselves away: haven’t been seen for days. It’s got to be something big …’ He looked up. ‘I don’t like that, my name being on the record. I don’t like that at all.’
    â€˜What about Parnell?’ Grant hurried on.
    â€˜Caught Benn in the elevator a day or two back. Asked him outright what was going on.’
    â€˜What did Russell say?’
    â€˜That it was an experiment that wasn’t working out.’
    â€˜Parnell accept that?’
    â€˜Asked if pharmacogenomics were going to get a look at it. Russ said there wasn’t any point.’
    Grant sat silently for a long time, the only sound the increasingly rapid click of his irritated flicking against the paper edge. Finally he said: ‘Is it true, what she said? That it’s the talk of the division?’ There was an unquestionable benefit, repeating the questions he’d already put to Harry Johnson, the security director with whom he was talking, personally and only ever one-to-one, with increasing frequency …
    â€˜It’s not my reading. Or Benn’s. Security – Harry, personally – are tapping all outgoing calls from the floor. I’ve told them we suspect a competitor informer. Rebecca Lang’s the only person who’s shown any interest in France – spoken to Paris, even.’
    â€˜Not Parnell?’
    â€˜No. But they’ve got to be talking, haven’t they? They can’t just screw all the time.’
    â€˜She’s a goddamned nuisance!’ angrily declared the Dubette president, who’d had a contradictory conversation with Harry Johnson, whose professional experience and opinion he trusted more than an amateur like Newton.
    â€˜You think I should officially warn her off?’
    â€˜No!’ refused Grant, still angry. ‘That’ll just make her more curious.’ She certainly had to be stopped. It was not something