BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

shut, tugged at her skirt, and wriggled off on pink heels toward the Marriott.

In the rearview mirror, Hoffman caught the Brahmin half-smile that Dr. Viraj Grahacharya, Executive Vice President, Research & Medicine—or “Doctorjee” as he encouraged everybody to call him—had perfected in a lifetime of condescension. It was a mix of I know something that you don’t know and I’m not going to tell you what it is.

“I do fear we need to be prudent in this matter,” Doctorjee said. “If there is the least implication of impropriety.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning we might consider eliminating San Francisco’s data from the study, if what this young woman indicates about Frank’s conduct is substantiated.”

“You what?”

“Of course, I’m concerned about the verbal abuse. But there also appears to be an allegation relating to data. If there’s any remote possibility of such issues being substantiated, our ethical duty might be nothing less than to remove any potential for confusion and pull the center altogether.”

Hoffman groaned. “That’s as wrong as two left shoes. How the fuck can you pull the center? Wilson’s first author of your paper. You’d have Wilson et al. with no Wilson.”

Doctorjee shifted on the Ford’s red vinyl, provoking a squeal like a balloon on glass. “Of course, he’s fulfilled an admirable mandate across the study, if perhaps his interpersonal manner is less satisfactory. But I must confess, if there are indications of any possible misconduct, it may even be incumbent upon us to request a brief respite in the application.”

As the doctor repositioned, an acrid smell reached Hoffman’s nostrils: of tangerine and lavender cologne.

“You what?”

“We will have the Brazilian results shortly, which should suffice with the regulator.”

“Brief respite? For Christ’s sake, we’ve put it out on Wall Street that FDA’s greenlighting us in ten days. The company’s punted nine hundred twenty million dollars on that damn vaccine. You know the Year One sales estimates?”

“I do.”

“Two hundred twenty-five million doses at sixty-eight dollars a dose. In Year One. Brief respite over some damn woman whining about Wilson? Great idea.”

“One is merely offering conjectures, pro tem.”

“And they’re pretty fucking useless conjectures.”

“Here he comes.”

BEN LOUVIERE turned the corner as the Man from Versace: tie loose, jacket draped from a shoulder. How he’d changed since he first turned up in Atlanta at the interview for the company scholarship. He’d arrived in a borrowed suit, sporting an oily black ponytail, bragging about his band, Plus Tax. Asked about his interests, he cited baseball and girls. His role model: Jay Farrar, a country-rock singer from Belleville, Illinois. His life goal: to live in Louisiana.

Hoffman reached over and popped the passenger door lever, letting a soup of moist air into the car. He loved the capital’s humidity in summer: the old marshland felt good on his skin. As a kid in Detroit, he’d suffered bad with eczema and, though he’d grown out of the ointments and bandages of childhood, the dryness never let him be.

“Ben Louviere, Doctorjee. Doctorjee, Ben.” The kid climbed in. They shook.

The executive vice president undid his tie and sawed it against his collar. “So, Ben, please assist us. We are most interested to know what Dr. Honda has told you.”

The kid twisted round and spoke into the back with a smartass look-at-me kind of face. “So, she says the San Fran Clinical Evaluation Center’s a shambles. That’s the word she used. ‘Shambles.’ Started off with stuff Dr. Wilson says to volunteers, she says. Some heavy homophobic stuff. But she also reckons he altered data. And she reckons he’s had an effect on the no-shows, dropouts, lost to follow-ups, and stuff.”

Doctorjee leaned forward. “What about the lost to follow-ups?”

“Says the percentage in San Fran was…”

“Three point four-nine.”

“Yeah. That’s what she said.”

“And her implication? The ‘so what?’ if I might use such abridged terminology.”

“Well, I didn’t quite follow that part, to be honest. The stuff he says, I get that. But then there were these two deaths, she said, and coming down to the lobby she said his conduct was what she called an ‘uncontrollable variable’ in the data. An ‘uncontrolled variable.’”

Hoffman stabbed buttons and the car’s windows shuddered open. “Gotta say, that’d be some so what?”

“Indeed.” Doctorjee folded and pocketed his tie. “But what about the data and deaths? What did she say precisely?”

“Reckoned people were complaining about data getting changed. Retrospectively, she said. And she found two deaths online and in the San Fran Chronicle. Two of fifty-six lost to follow-ups, she said. One drowned and the other had heart failure, apparently.”

“One big fucking so what?”

“Just so.” The EVP brushed fluff from his shoulders. “In point of fact, I once executed a study of fatalities within seven days of Christian baptism. Our findings were intriguing.”

Hoffman spoke into the rearview. “Your point being?”

“My point being people do die, even whilst enrolled in clinical trials.”

“Gotta say, we get some pretty frivolous suits these days in legal, but nobody’s come after us on a drowning.”

“Which raises the pertinent question of precisely where she’s going with this? Ben, does she have any kind of agenda, did you detect? She’s not gone anti-vax on us?”

“Agenda? I don’t know, sir. I don’t know any more than that. Seems genuine enough. Sure loves Dr. Wilson.”

Doctorjee squeezed the front passenger-side headrest. “And assuming none of these alleged issues are entirely new to her, she posits her concerns ten days before our product licensure?”

“Guess so.”

“Are you aware, has she informed anyone else of her concerns? I would point out that she did inform you.”

“Well, yeah, she did inform me. And didn’t need much persuading, that’s for sure.”

“And you told Trudy Mayr?”

“I did. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing exactly. I don’t know.”

Hoffman snorted. “It wasn’t.”

“Think now, Ben. Did she perhaps indicate any consultations with anyone else?”

“Not to me she didn’t. No. But, I mean, we weren’t talking long. She stopped by the Montreal Room for an iPad.”

IN THE street beyond the car, Friday evening was advancing. Here and there, office lights were snapping on. This ought to be a calm time. A time