Read Online The Body in the Boot: The first 'Mac' Maguire mystery by Patrick C. Walsh - Free Book Online Page B

so perhaps one of them might know something. He did mention Sammy Newell’s name however, said if anyone knew he probably would.’
    ‘I tried ringing him just now but unfortunately he’s on holiday. However I have arranged for you to see one of his colleagues, Dr. Olsen. Sorry Dad but I’ve really got to go, it’s my own outpatient clinic soon, but he isn’t too hard to find. He’s on the fourth floor, turn right out of the lift and it’s the first door on the left. Just ask for him there, he knows you’re coming. Bye Dad,’ she said giving him a big hug. ‘It’s so good to see you back at work, you look so like your old self.’
    Then turning to Tommy she said, ‘Pleasure to meet you Detective Nugent.’
    ‘Just in case you think of something,’ Tommy said as he stood up and slipped a card into her hand. ‘It’s got my mobile on there too, you know just in case…you think of something,’ he said, ending quite lamely.
    Mac watched her as she walked away and waited to see what she’d do. As she neared the door, she turned and looked back and she wasn’t looking back at him.
    Well Tommy, Mac thought, you might be in with a chance after all.
    They followed her instructions and found themselves in a large room filled wall to wall with oversize electronic gizmos and the smell of the seaside. There were a couple of computers but, as for the rest, Mac couldn’t even hazard a guess as to their function. A young man with a three day beard wearing shorts and flip-flops beneath a white lab coat came over to them.
    ‘Can I help?’ he asked in an antipodean accent, giving them a friendly smile.
    Mac assumed he was some sort of lab technician.
    ‘We’re looking for Dr. Olson. If you could just tell us where he works?’
    ‘You’re looking at him. You must be Mr. Maguire,’ he said holding out his hand.
    Mac shook his hand and, feeling somewhat foolish, introduced Tommy.
    ‘Your daughter told me something about what you’re working on. Some sort of hibernation drug that can slow your vital signs down to near enough nothing. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. A couple of years ago some researchers found a way to induce hibernation in squirrels and they’ve found out a fair bit about how bears maintain muscle mass and so on during hibernation but nothing close to applying this to humans as far as I know.’
    ‘If such a drug existed what would it be used for?’ Tommy asked.
    ‘Well, you see hibernation in a lot of science fiction films, don’t you? I believe it would take almost a year to get to Mars, handy if you could pop into hibernation and save on oxygen and food. I think the real application though would be for people with serious injuries. If we could slow their metabolism down instead of a golden hour, when intervention is most effective, we could have a golden day or even longer. We could save a hell of a lot more people.’
    ‘So if you had such a drug why wouldn’t you manufacture it? It sounds as though you could make a lot of money.’
    ‘Absolutely, if such a thing existed every hospital in the world would be buying it. No idea why, unless there were serious side effects of course.’
    ‘Like Thalidomide you mean?’
    ‘Exactly. However a lot of people don’t know that Thalidomide is still in use for some types of cancer and autoimmune diseases, we just don’t give it to pregnant women anymore. However some drugs in development have such serious side effects that they could never be used in any circumstances.’
    ‘Anything else you can tell us?’ Mac asked hopefully.
    ‘Sorry, unfortunately we’re all specialists these days,’ he said waving at the gleaming machinery, ‘all except Sammy that is. He keeps up with anything and everything to do with the nervous system. He calls us tree huggers, he says we may know a lot about a particular tree but we forget about the forest surrounding it. In his work he’s across papers from all over the world, looking for patterns