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the solution into the barrel of a 10 ml syringe and expressing the solution through the filter membrane into a small, sterile bottle. ‘There we go …’ He returned to his desk in the corner of the lab, not so much to sit at it as sprawl over it, supporting his head with one hand while he made some calculations on a spiral-bound pad with the other, his fingers curled awkwardly round the pen. He occasionally broke off to use the end of the pen to punch numbers into a calculator as he worked out how much of the drug to add to the cell cultures. His plan – discussed and previously agreed with Frank Simmons – was to use several different concentrations of the drug in cultures: one of them would contain the manufacturer’s recommended dose, the others higher or lower levels.
    He rechecked his figures before circling the calculated amounts and bringing out a number of flat glass bottles from the incubator. These were the cell cultures to be used for the experiment. They contained lab-stock tumour cells maintained at human body temperature . The bottles had been mounted on a piece of apparatus which had been timed to tilt them at regular intervals, ensuring that the cells which had stuck to the glass as they grew would be evenly bathed in nutrients and encouraged to form a continuous monolayer.
    He placed each of the bottles in turn on the stage of an inverted microscope. The unusual configuration of this instrument ensured that it was possible to examine the cells from below, rather than above as with a conventional microscope. In this way, it was possible to focus on them without having to penetrate the culture fluid as well as the glass.
    Mary and Tom noticed that the whistling had stopped. Gavin was sitting quite motionless, his eyes glued to the binocular eyepiece in what now seemed to be an eerie silence as his fingers gently moved the fine-focus control to and fro.
    Eventually he sat up and started rubbing his forehead in a nervous gesture.
    ‘Problems?’ asked Mary.
    ‘There’s something wrong …’
    Mary stopped what she was doing and went over to take Gavin’s place at the microscope. She smoothed back a wayward strand of her hair and examined all three cultures in turn. ‘They’re contaminated ,’ she said. ‘Definite signs of bacterial contamination.’
    ‘But how?’
    ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world for bacteria to get into cell cultures when you’re setting them up. Your technique has to be really good, and even then some bug is still going to find its way into them on occasion. Who prepared these ones?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘You did?’ repeated Mary slowly. ‘Why? We have a cell culture lab with trained staff. Why didn’t you ask the technicians to do it?’
    ‘I wanted to do it myself …’
    Mary bit her lip. She was trying to think of something kind to say. ‘That’s fine if you wanted the experience … but did you ask for advice? Did you ask the technicians to show you how to do it properly?’
    Gavin said not. ‘I read up on it. It seemed straightforward enough …’
    ‘You can learn to swim from a book, Gavin. Trouble is, you’ll drown when you hit the water because you’ve no idea what it feels like. There’s a big gulf between theory and practice in everything.’
    ‘Shit. Where do I go from here?’
    ‘I suggest you help yourself to a slice of humble pie and go ask the technicians for advice.’
    Gavin turned and left the lab. Mary shrugged her shoulders and asked Tom, ‘Do you think I was too hard on him?’
    ‘Far from it. He seems determined to do everything on his own. One-man bands are all very well – and you have to admire the ingenuity that goes into them – but at the end of the day … they still sound shit.’
    Mary picked up the phone and called the cell culture lab. ‘Trish? It’s Mary. Gavin Donnelly’s coming down to see you – he’s probably on his way as we speak. He screwed up his cell cultures and needs some help. Don’t be too hard on