‘Must you use Blu-tack, Toby?’
Ashe had just fixed a blow-up of an old sepia photograph to the plain white wall in front of his desk in his Shrivenham office: a sixty-five-year-old image of a group of Yezidi girls dancing the debka in their velvet caps.
‘Very striking. Still dreaming of the princess you left behind, Toby?’
‘No, Karla. It’s the dance. Round in circles to ecstasy. Rather sums up the investigation so far.’
‘Ever-decreasing circles?’
‘Promising circles.’
‘And ecstasy?’
Ashe looked cheekily at Karla’s crimson velvet miniskirt and matching tights. ‘Hmm…’
‘Flirt.’
‘Have you tracked down Sir Moses?’
‘Nearly, maestro. Expected at his club shortly – the Savile.’
‘Sounds about right. Old-style liberal with a hint of the raffish.’
‘Just like me.’
While Ashe studied the bulky Beerbohm file, he was also thinking about Hamburg and Sherman Beck. Clearly, the CTC’s primary objective was getting al-Qasr back; the Baba Sheykh was incidental to that.
Who was al-Qasr working for? He’d worked for the Americans. He’d worked for Sir Moses Beerbohm. Now it seemed he was wrapped up with Ansar al-Sunna. Over dinner in Alexandria, Lee Kellner had let it slip that there was an Israeli angle to the story: still a jigsaw – or a jig. Ashe looked up at the image of the young Yezidi girls dancing, then back down at Beerbohm’s career summary.
Sir Moses Beerbohm. Born 15 April 1927, Lithuania. Raised and educated in Australia. Left University of Melbourne on overseas scholarship, 1951. PhD in Physics, University of Cambridge, UK. Joined the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge, 1963. Director of MRC Laboratory, 1985–7. President of the Royal Society, 1997– 2001. Member, Order of Merit. Foreign Associate, US National Academy of Sciences; Foreign Associate, French Academy of Sciences. Honorary Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge.
In the fifties, Beerbohm began to study viruses. In the seventies he used electron microscopy and structural modelling to study the three-dimensional nature of polio and other viruses. The more Ashe read about Beerbohm’s groundbreaking research into the interactions of proteins and nucleic acids, leading to his discovery of the transcription factors used to regulate the expression of genes, the more Ashe realised what a unique research guinea pig the Baba Sheykh represented to someone like Al-Qasr.
‘Your call to Sir Moses Beerbohm, Toby, on red.’
‘Sir Moses?’
‘Is that the young Dr Ashe who made such an impression over a college lunch? Ran Crayke intimated you might be in touch. Cloak-and-dagger stuff, eh? What can I do for you, my dear fellow?’
‘I wonder, Sir Moses, if you recall referring to Sami al-Qasr in the course of our conversation?’
‘Oh, him: the Thief from Baghdad. I’m sorry if I sound disappointed, but Sami al-Qasr can have that effect on people. Works at RIBOTech, California. Very hush-hush. He was after the family jewels, Ashe. In more ways than one.’
‘Sounds quite something.’
‘Oh yes. He could impress. That talent was obvious from the start.’
‘What was he doing when you met him?’
‘Linking genes to diseases. I presume you already know that one of the common differences between the DNA of one person and another comes in the form of a single nucleotide polymorphism, known as a “snip”.’
‘Sounds familiar, Sir Moses. What exactly do you mean by a “snip”?’
‘Wasn’t it in that book of yours… Generous Gene?’
‘You flatter me, Sir Moses. But that was a while back. More philosophy than fact.’
‘All right, let’s put it this way: why is Person A going to get Huntingdon’s Disease but not Person B? Can it be predicted? Seems pretty old hat now in some respects, but in the sixties and seventies it was foundation work. Al-Qasr was good, no mistake. But the little bum seemed to get bored easily. And I always had the impression he was looking over my shoulder. Curious. Always wanted to cut corners. He was, I suppose, as unstable as many young gifted people. That’s why I wouldn’t let him marry my daughter.’
‘Your daughter?’
‘Esther. Al-Qasr said it was because she was Jewish and he was an Arab. Race prejudice. And God, don’t I know about that! I told him I was only half Jewish – on my mother’s side. My father was East Prussian. He said, “Oh, it all comes through the mother” – which is racial tradition, not first-class genetics. I mean this Jewish thing was one of the reasons my parents left for Australia in the twenties. I wouldn’t have thrown it at al-Qasr. But he never believed me. I tried to tell him he just wasn’t ready for marriage. But he felt I was trying to keep him down. For heaven’s sake, he was my student! He could hardly be my equal.’
‘Chip on the shoulder?’
‘Or “snip” on the shoulder. Who knows? More of a mountain. As big as his ego – which was big enough, Dr Ashe, believe me. Al-Qasr wanted to be the star. The number one star. Then, when he couldn’t have Esther to himself, he wanted to prove he was bigger than me. And, like a fool, I suppose, I encouraged him. Maybe to compensate for the heartache he seemed to be suffering. Don’t get me wrong. Al-Qasr was not as horrible as he may sound. We all liked him. But you never felt entirely comfortable with his…’
‘Ambition?’
‘Yes, ambition. I mean, he joined us at MRC in 1974, just after the Yom Kippur War, and we all knew he had a thing against Israel.’
‘Did he include you in that, Sir Moses?’
‘Didn’t seem to. He recognised a difference between politics and personal matters. After all, he was happy enough to ask a Jewess to be his bride.’
‘But not happy to be refused. What did he take from you, if not your daughter?’
‘Amusing way of putting it, Dr Ashe. I suppose you could say he ran with the whole ZFP research – you know, the zinc finger protein stuff I was working on. He was close to all the research prior to the big discovery in 1982. He had a hell of an apprenticeship. I should have been so lucky! Then, the following year, he runs back to Iraq. He’d always told me science was bigger to him than any nation, but, when I think about it, Sami al-Qasr probably meant more to him than science.’
‘He was an egomaniac?’
‘In Iraq, he could be the star.’