The room fell silent. Everyone looked to McClelland, but before he could even so much as clear his throat, Tim was on his feet. “Thank you,” he said, scanning the room and smiling broadly, at the same time putting a restraining hand on Dick’s arm so that Dick, his face flushed, sank back into his seat and the tension eased. “And thank you, Herb, for your input, and you too, Lloyd”—nodding at Mortenson—“but I do have to say that your fears are unfounded. I admit mistakes have been made, but we are feeling our way here in the research—let me remind you that this is a pioneering study—and I’m confident we are well on our way to ironing out the kinks.”

It was a revelation to see Tim in action, how he so quickly and fluidly took control of the situation and changed the whole tenor of the meeting. He was conciliatory and respectful but at the same time he stood his ground, reasserting the vital significance of the research and citing the dramatic success of the prison project, in which the recidivism rate was less than 25 percent among the sample he’d worked with as compared to something in the vicinity of 70 percent among the general prison population. He talked for ten minutes, persuasive, charismatic, charming, and if he’d left it there, Fitz felt, he would have won the day, but then he made a fatal misstep.

“Well, I can see I’ve held the floor too long,” he said, “forgive me, but I just want to make one more point.” He looked to Mortenson then, smiling serenely on him as if they were not simply colleagues but the best of friends. “Lloyd, I want to thank you again for bringing up the medical issue,” he said, “but let me assure you that we are taking every precaution.” He paused to glance round the room; everybody’s eyes were on him. “The fact is that we are working closely with a distinguished psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Gerald Klinger, who is acting as adviser to the project.”

At that moment, there was a sharp squeal of chair legs on the linoleum floor and suddenly a small man with a receding hairline and an overcoat slung over his right arm was standing in the rear of the room, crying out in a shrill voice, “What is this? What are you saying?”

Tim, taken by surprise, let his smile waver. “I’m sorry,” he said, “and who are you exactly?”