牛津書蟲《奧米茄文件》：第349號：英國，倫敦

OMEGA FILE 349：London, England

'There's a young man in London called Johnny Cook,' Arla said. 'He's about eighteen. He doesn't have a home, but he goes clubbing nearly every night. Those all-night dance clubs for young people. Here's a photograph of him.'
He put the photograph on the table, and Jude and Hawker looked at it.
'And?' Hawker said.
'He wants to sell a story to a newspaper,' Arla said. 'Some story about a drug company. Find him. Talk to him. What's his story? I want to know.'
Jude and Hawker took an afternoon plane from Brussels to London, and then went to a hotel.
'What are you going to wear tonight?' said Jude. 'Not those old jeans, please!'
'What's wrong with them?' Hawker said. 'We're going clubbing, not out to dinner at the Ritz Hotel.'
'Well, wear a different shirt, then. That one's dirty.'
'You can wash it for me,' Hawker said.
'Get lost!' said Jude.
They had dinner, watched television for an hour or two, and then went out. It was a warm night, with a little rain now and then.
'London weather,' said Hawker.
They found a taxi with a young driver, and got in.
'Where to?' said the driver.
'We want to go clubbing,' Jude said. 'Where's the best place this week? Do you know?'
'Bruno's,' the driver said. 'Or Garcia's, down by the river. Everybody's going there this week.'
'OK, let's go!' said Hawker.
They went to Garcia's first, then moved on to Bruno's. They found Johnny Cook in a third club, called Monty's. It was two o'clock in the morning.
'That's him, all right,' Hawker said. 'Look at his ear.'
Johnny Cook was tall and thin, with long yellow hair and two black earrings in his left ear.
'Johnny! Johnny Cook!' shouted Jude suddenly. She ran and put her arms round Johnny Cook's neck. 'Hi, Johnny! You remember me—Jude. We met last week, at Garcia's. You remember? Oh, this is my friend Hawker.'
'Hi, Johnny. Good to meet you,' said Hawker.
'Hi,' said Johnny Cook. He looked at Jude. 'Did we meet at Garcia's?'
'Of course we did,' laughed Jude. 'I was with Sara and Patti and the others, remember?'
'Oh. Yeah,' said Johnny. 'I remember.' He looked around. 'Are they here tonight?'
'No, it's just me and Hawker tonight,' said Jude. 'Come on, let's dance.'
They danced for two hours. Then they left with about ten other people, and went across the river to a new club. The music there was louder and the dancing was very fast. After two more hours of dancing, Hawker was hot, tired, and thirsty.
'I'm getting old,' he said to Jude. 'Don't these people ever go to bed?'
'You're only twenty-five !' said Jude. 'That's not old. And you can't stop yet. He's getting very friendly now, and we can take him to breakfast soon.'
At seven o'clock the club closed, and Jude and Hawker took Johnny back to their hotel. Jude picked up the phone and asked for three big breakfasts in the room.
Hawker took his shoes off. 'Ah, that's better,' he said. He looked at Johnny. 'How often do you go clubbing, Johnny? And what do you do in the daytime?'
'Not a lot. Sleep, usually. I go clubbing most nights.'
'Where do you live?' Hawker asked.
'On the streets,' said Johnny. 'When I'm rich, I'm going to get a boat and live on that.'
'Rich?' Jude said. 'Oh yes, we all want to be rich!'
'But I am going to be rich,' Johnny said. 'I've got a good story, see?' He laughed. 'I'm going to sell it. A newspaper wants to give me 100,000 Euros for it. They gave me 1,000 last month, and I'm going to get the other 99,000 very soon.'

'Great!' said Jude, 'So what's the story then, Johnny? Have some more coffee, and tell us all about it.'
'Well, you know the Tyler Drug Company?' Johnny began. 'They make drugs and medicines.'
'Yes,' Hawker said. 'It's a very big European company. They've got offices in all the big cities.'
'Yeah, that's right,' Johnny said. 'Well, they're taking young people off the streets, and using them for tests.'
Jude laughed. 'Nobody's going to believe that !' she said. 'Drug companies use animals, not people, for their tests. Some new drugs can be very dangerous at first. Nobody wants people to die from a new medicine!'
'It's true!' Johnny said angrily. 'Think about it. All those young homeless people in London. They sleep every night along the Strand, and other streets. Nobody wants to know them, nobody asks questions about them. They've got no home, no family, nothing.'
'But they've got legs,' Hawker said. 'They can run away. '
'You don't understand,' said Johnny. 'Listen. I know, because I was there ! I live on the streets, right? And late one night, along the Strand, they came and took me and some other people—a boy and two girls. They wanted to help us, they said. Hot food, nice beds, new clothes—everything! They took us to this big house—'
'Where?' said Hawker.
'I'm not saying where,' said Johnny.
'And what happened?' asked Jude.
'They gave us food, and new clothes, and beds to sleep in, all right. But we couldn't get out of the house, and men in white coats watched us all the time. And they put drugs in our food.'
'How do you know that?' Hawker asked.
'I felt ill. My eyes went strange, and I couldn't see very well. And one of the girls—she got very ill one night. She screamed and screamed, and the men in white coats came. I was in the next room and I listened through the wall. "This is very strange," one of the men said. "She had 20 grams of Coplas in her dinner tonight. Was that too much, do you think?" "I don't know," said a second man. "We don't want to kill her. Let's try 20 grams again tomorrow, on this girl and on one of the boys. We can't stop this test now. We must get answers quickly." After that, they talked more quietly, and I couldn't hear. But I didn't eat any more food in that house, and the next night I got into an office downstairs and took some papers. Then I broke out of the house and ran away fast.'
'What papers?' said Hawker.
'Papers with Tyler Drug Company's name on them.'
'And where are those papers now?' asked Jude.

'That's my secret,' Johnny said. 'When the newspaper gives me the money, I'm going to tell them. But I'm not going to tell you. '
*　　*　　*
The next day Jude and Hawker flew back to Brussels and went to Arla's office. Arla listened to Johnny Cook's story, but he didn't say anything.
'So, what do we do now?' Jude said. 'Do we look for this big house and—'
Arla picked up his telephone. 'Come back in an hour,' he said. 'Get a coffee or something.'
An hour and three coffees later they went back.
'OK，' said Arla. 'You can forget all about this. Cook's story isn't true.'
Jude stared at him. 'Who told you that?' she said.
'I want to talk to Johnny Cook again,' Hawker said.
'You can't,' said Arla. 'He's dead.'
Hawker looked at Jude, and then back at Arla. 'He was alive yesterday,' said Hawker.
'Well, he isn't alive today. He came out of a club at three o'clock this morning and fell in the river Thames. When they got him out, he was dead.'
'But—' Jude began.
'Forget it, Jude. The file is closed.'

□　□　□

'And was that the end of it?' I asked, when Jude and Hawker finished telling the story.
'Yes,' said Hawker. 'Arla never spoke about it again.'
'And did you believe Johnny's story about the drug company?' I asked.
'Before a company can sell a new medicine to people,' said Hawker, 'there are years and years of tests. They do the tests on animals, of course. But they learn much more quickly from tests on people. There are lots of drug companies, and every company wants to be the first with a new medicine.'
'About five years later,' Jude said, 'the Tyler Drug Company began to sell a new drug, called Coplastin. It was a medicine to stop some kinds of cancer, and it worked. Everybody wanted it. The company made a lot of money—and so the government got a lot of money from the company in taxes. Governments like rich companies and big, fat taxes. They're not very interested in homeless young people sleeping on the streets.'
'So Johnny Cook's story was true,' I said. 'And he didn't fall into the river — somebody pushed him.'
'Of course they pushed him,' said Jude. 'Dead men can't talk, can they?'