Devil’s Harvest by Andrew Brown Page A

the sharing of truth,’ he went on. ‘The fact that the truth emanates from a plant growing in the middle of untamed Africa doesn’t detract from its significance. Nor from the world’s right to know its secrets.’
    Harrier looked as if he meant to respond, but Gabriel rather obviously turned away and took a last innocuous question from the other side of the lecture theatre.
    Then it was over and the half-yearly obligation was fulfilled. He felt both relieved and impatient. He wanted to waste no more time and to return to his unfinished paper for the
Annals of Botany
immediately. A small, disparate group was holding back, hanging around the first line of seats while he packed his laptop into its bag, no doubt hoping for an opportunity to indulge their own ideas further. He tried not to make eye contact and was tempted just to wave them off, but noted the rosy-faced student pushing forward. He shuffled the last of his papers in ambivalence, knocking them into a straight-edged pile and placing them into the side pocket of his bag. As he stepped off the podium, she moved forward to block his path to the exit. Gabriel was about to put his hand out, perhaps place it firmly on her shoulder and invite her to join him as he walked back to his office, when a figure abruptly pushed between them. A short, thin man with a very dark complexion, goatee beard and white skullcap smiled at him, his arm outstretched. The young woman raised her eyebrows in surprise and took a few steps backwards. The man’s eyes sparkled with almost manic eagerness.
    ‘Professor Cock-Burn, may I introduce myself—’
    ‘It’s pronounced “Coeburn”,’ Gabriel interrupted him. ‘It’s an old Scottish name referring to a hill or stream.’ He didn’t correct the man’s assumption of his professorial status.
    The small man beamed back at him, as if the correction in pronunciation had been a sincere compliment. ‘Thank you. Very good. A name that is not what it appears to be. A mark of heritage and civilisation.’ He grasped Gabriel’s hand. The skin felt like the underbelly of a lizard, cool and soft, but somehow also scaly. Gabriel wasn’t sure that he trusted the man’s tone: there was an obsequiousness in his manner that made his words seem barbed. The young woman in the tights looked ready to give up, fiddling with her cellphone while she waited at a polite distance.
    ‘If you’ll forgive me, Professor,’ the man proceeded, undaunted. He had moved into Gabriel’s body space, his breath somehow industrial. Like anthracite or wet concrete. ‘I am from the “untamed Africa” of which you speak. You talk about this plant, and the land of its origin, like it is a bug under a microscope. Or a distant star seen through a telescope. But are you perhaps aware, Professor, that the plant of which you speak has been used by the Dinka people of Sudan to treat conditions of the blood for centuries?’
    Gabriel saw the combative spark now, the unmistakable challenge disguised by the smile and the warmth of the handshake. Some traditional healer or herbalist come to interfere in his scientific domain, casting his aspersions wide while he peddled his snake oil.
    ‘How interesting,’ he lied. ‘But herbalism is really a matter for social anthropology, which finds its home in the faculty of humanities. My research is a matter of pure science. Please excuse me.’ It was as cutting as he dare make it.
    The man nodded genially and pressed his card into Gabriel’s hand. The aspirant professor closed his fist around the card and headed for the doorway where the young woman was about to make her exit. But up close he found that her face was a little too ruddy, as if she was suffering from an allergic reaction. Her eyes were not so much teary as rheumy. And any passion Gabriel may have harboured fled as she began to speak. A tongue stud flicked about in the lair of her mouth, and her enunciation was unclear and phlegmy. Perhaps the stud was new, but her