Ken McClure - The Secret

Le Grice wasn’t available when Steven called but he rang back thirty minutes later just as Steven was thinking of leaving for the day.

‘So, Aline Lagarde was a big bad drug dealer,’ said Steven, not bothering to remove the scepticism from his voice.

‘Apparently so.’

‘Your people must have come up with some pretty convincing evidence?’

‘Not my people,’ said Le Grice. ‘Apparently our drugs squad have had their eye on her for some time... although strangely my friend in Drugs didn’t seem to know anything about it.’

‘But let me guess, your intelligence people did?’

‘They came up with so much information... in such a short space of time... We are truly blessed to have such talent at our disposal.’

Steven judged the time right to make his appeal. ‘Philippe, an experienced detective like you must know that something wasn’t quite right?’

‘The smell was overpowering.’

‘But?’

‘Madame Le Grice has plans for my pension.’

‘So the case is closed?’

‘Oh no, not until Dr Lagarde’s killer is brought to justice. The investigation will continue... with all the vigour you might expect where a drug dealer and a gangland killing is involved.’

‘Her parents will be very pleased,’ said Steven flatly.

There was a long pause before Le Grice said, ‘Of course, if you should happen to uncover something that contradicts the official version of events...’

‘I’ll let you know.’

‘Have a care, Steven. I think you have a saying... discretion is the better part of valour?’

‘Point taken.’

Steven drove north to Leicester: he was in the flat when Tally got home at ten thirty and gave him a peck on the cheek before plumping herself down beside him.

‘Well, honey, how was your day?’ Steven mimicked in US sitcom style.

‘There aren’t enough expletives in the world to describe my day,’ Tally replied. ‘Do you think these people who go to church on Sundays and prattle on about all things bright and beautiful ever think about the microbial world and what bacteria and viruses do to people?’

‘I think the deal is, God only gets credit, not blame.’

‘Just like the bloody government.’

‘Exactly. Only previous governments get blame.’

‘I’ve got an interview at Great Ormond Street.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Let’s not count our chickens. It’s one of the best children’s hospitals in the world, remember. Competition will be fierce.’

‘The best should employ the best. You’ll walk it.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Tally, getting up. ‘How about you? What was the mystery meeting about?’

Steven told her and Tally’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. ‘Fake aid teams? They were pretending to vaccinate children and leaving them unprotected in a polio endemic area? Is there nothing those bastards won’t stoop to? How many kids have they left paralysed so they could bring in the man who shot their “paw”?’

‘There’s more,’ said Steven thoughtfully. ‘They’re covering up something else, something big enough for MI6, the CIA and possibly French intelligence to be involved in. I’m convinced Simone and Aline were murdered because they stumbled into it.’

Tally’s anger was being replaced by alarm. She pursed her lips. ‘Steven, I know this is all awful but... you can’t bring them back... and if the Foreign Secretary and MI6 are involved... they’re on our side, aren’t they? Wouldn’t you be going up against... your own?’

‘Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do...’

‘Don’t you start! This is not a joking matter. You don’t have to do this at all.’

Steven stared at the floor for what Tally thought was an eternity before he looked up and said apologetically, ‘I think I do.’

Tally felt a hollow appear in her stomach. She nodded slowly. ‘I suppose you do. Drink?’

‘Please.’

Steven called Tom North in the morning and asked about the samples Simone and Aline had taken from the sick people in the village they’d come across, resigned to the fact that by lunchtime Whitehall would know about the inquiry.

‘I don’t think I dealt with them personally but I can certainly find out for you if it’s important?’ North replied.

‘I’d just like to know why so many people, including children, had fallen ill,’ said Steven. ‘As I understand it, the fake aid teams the Americans put in would account for the kids not being vaccinated properly against polio... but that wouldn’t make anyone sick, would it?’

‘Certainly not,’ agreed North. ‘Unless, of course, it was actually an outbreak of polio.’

‘Which Simone and Aline would have recognised,’ said Steven. ‘In which case, there probably would have been no need to send samples for investigation. Maybe that’s what Simone wanted to talk to you about when she came to London?’

‘Could be. Look, why don’t I look into this? Maybe you could pop into the lab and I’ll fill you in on what I come up with?’

Steven arranged to meet North at ten the following morning.

EDINBURGH

‘Mummy, can Mark come in to play after school today?’ asked seven-year-old David Leeming.

‘If his mummy says it’s all right,’ his mother, Julie, replied.

‘Can Sally come in too?’ piped up David’s younger sister, Joanne.

‘No, Sally was here yesterday. It’s David’s turn to have a friend in. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘That’s not fair,’ complained Joanne, pouting her lower lip.

‘Yes, it is,’ insisted her brother.

‘If you two don’t get a move on, you’re going to keep Daddy waiting and you know he hates being late. He’ll stop your pocket money if he is and serves you right.’

Julie hid a small smile as the bickering stopped and was replaced with slurping sounds as the pair finished their cereal in double quick time.

John Leeming, short, bespectacled and balding came into the kitchen, a briefcase hanging open from one hand as he stuffed papers into it with the other. ‘You guys about ready?’

‘They certainly are,’ replied Julie, exchanging a knowing smile with her children.

The sound of the letterbox opening and closing interrupted them and Julie said, ‘Jo, be a darling and fetch Daddy’s paper.’

Joanne disappeared into the hall and was away for longer than expected.

‘Jo, what are you doing?’

Julie’s question was answered when she looked up to see her five year old standing there with excrement all over her hands and a shocked, puzzled look on her face as she started to sob.

‘Oh, Christ, John, they’ve done it again,’ exclaimed Julie as she rushed her daughter off to the downstairs lavatory. ‘The bastards... the absolute bastards.’

Mark, upset by the goings on and the fact that his mother was behaving so out of character, sat wide-eyed at the table and asked with a quavering voice, ‘Why, Daddy? Why did they do that?’

His father, filled with anger and frustration, snapped, ‘I don’t know, Mark. I really don’t.’

Dr John Leeming was fast approaching his wits’ end. A research virologist with over twenty years’ experience who had been working for the last five years to establish the cause of myalgic encephalomyelitis, couldn’t understand why he and his family had become the target in recent months of fanatics who seemed to have decided that the failure of researchers like him and others to find the cause of the condition had been deliberate. This was the second time the ‘nutters’, as he thought of them, had put excrement through their letterbox. He snatched at the phone, intent on venting his anger at the police and murmuring, ‘They’ll be up on the bloody ring road booking motorists for being two miles an hour over the limit...’