Larry had no desire to stay on in Kano with police on every corner and a general feeling of insecurity. He walked back to Jonathan’s taxi, headed for the airport, and took the first flight back to Lagos.
The next morning, he again found himself looking out of the office window. Finally, he had some clear focus, but it had nothing to do with what the US government was paying him to do. He turned to see Joseph and the others settling behind their desks, ready for another day. “What time do you call this, Joseph?” he asked.
Joseph glanced at his watch. “9 am., Larry. Time to start work.”
Larry turned back to the view from the window. “How many healthcare companies have said they’re interested in a trade shows, Joseph?”
“I’m still working on the computer trade show.”
“I’m glad the computer industry is getting all the support it deserves,”
Larry said. “Tell me, Joseph. Has anyone ever called seeking advice on where to run consumer tests on a new medicine?”
“Uh, no.”
“So, who suggested that the area around Dala Hill, Kano, might be a good place to run such tests?”
“Ah yes. That was me. He wanted somewhere in the north, near a city.”
“So now you’ve remembered that, would you mind checking the man’s name for me? Office procedure is that we log all this, isn’t it?”
“Sorry, Larry. Maybe I didn’t log it. It didn’t seem important.”
Larry looked around for something to throw at Joseph but thought better of it. “What was his name Joseph?”
“Uh . . .”
“Was it El Badry?”
“I forget.”
“Was he an American?”
“He said he worked for a US company.”
“I suppose you’ve forgotten the name of the US company.”
Joseph didn’t answer because he was looking at his two colleagues.
Getting a telling off in front of them wasn’t funny, but maybe they could have a laugh about it afterwards.
“So, whoever this man was might well have been a liar. Right?”
“Maybe.”
“Did it then register in your wooden head that Kano was the place where I’d come across a hundred or so deaths of Nigerians, which I subsequently reported to the World Health Organisation?”
“Yes but…”
“But what Joseph?”
“I thought it was a fluke, Larry.”
“A fluke? So why tell a Nigerian guy living in England about it? Did you tell him it was just a fluke?”
“Sorry, Larry.”
Larry looked out of the window again. In his mind, he was strangling Joseph with his bare hands. But what was the point? Whatever had happened, it had led him to Kevin Parker.
“What time is it in England, Joseph?” he asked calmly.
Joseph sighed with relief. “8 am. To be precise, it’s 08:03.”
Larry picked up his phone, walked out of the office, and phoned Kevin.
***
As it was Tuesday, Kevin was still in bed.He had no students on Tuesdays, and so he normally had a lie in before either going up to the university for a subsidised lunch or wandering down to the Richmond to meet Tom Weston. When his mobile rang, he automatically assumed it was Tunji. “Been up all night again, Tunji? Couldn’t you sleep?”
“Kevin?”
It was not Tunji’s London-Nigerian accent but American. “Sorry. I thought it was a friend of mine. It’s Larry, isn’t it?”
“No problem. I was in Kano yesterday. I now know a lot more about what went on.”
“So, is it true? A lot died?”
Kevin sat up in bed and listened to Larry’s story.
“I’m going to phone WHO again,” Larry concluded “It’s the only organisation I can think of who might know what to do.”
Larry had called from the corridor. Now he returned to his office.
“What time is it in Geneva, Joseph?”
“10 am Larry. To be precise, it’s 09:57.”
By 10:15 a.m., Larry was speaking to the WHO in Geneva from outside in the street. There was no way Joseph was going to hear what he had to say.
The WHO, though, had a system for handling calls from the general public, and it took him three hours to fix a time to speak to Joseph Musa. But then, at 3:30, Musa’s secretary called to apologise that their allocated time slot of 4:45 p.m. needed to be changed as other meetings had overrun. Dr Musa would return his call next morning.
Larry refused to accept it. “Please give him a message would you,” he said. “It’s urgent.”
***
At 5 pm in Geneva, Musa read the message and decided to discuss it with the director general, but the DG was attending a meeting to finalise a long overdue report entitled “The Social Determinants of Health - a Conceptual Framework.” He didn’t want to interrupt her.He finally caught up with Mary Chu next morning.
“I haven’t actually spoken to Dr Larry Brown,” he told her, “But it seems there are grounds for thinking that something totally unethical, possibly bordering on criminality, is, or was, going on. It seems someone, maybe not even a qualified doctor, had been testing out a new drug. They were all being paid money to be tested.”
“So, some kind of herb medicine made from heaven knows what?”
Chu replied. “It’s happened before, especially in West Africa.”
“So, are we dismissing it, ma’am?”
She nodded. “There’s too much else going on.”
“What about the Thai cases? Do we play them down also?
“A few asthma inhalers outside a watermelon warehouse? It’s becoming ridiculous. Leave it to Vichai in Bangkok.”