Ken McClure: The Secret

She had been working for some years for MSF, prepared to go wherever they chose to send her, but she was also a very charming and persuasive woman who had been used by the organisation to seek funding and practical help from big business — mainly the pharmaceutical industry — on many occasions, something she’d proved good at, with company executives often complaining with good humour that she could pick their pockets without their realising what had happened.

Steven had first met her when he had been seeking information about an outbreak of Ebola in one of the African countries where she had recently been working. He had been trying to identify the source of a possible case being held in a UK isolation unit. They had liked each other from the outset and their friendship had been cemented when Simone spoke of the difficulties of performing surgery in the bush and Steven was able to help her with tips and suggestions gained from his own wide experience of field medicine. Carrying out emergency surgery on the wounded in the deserts of the Middle East and in the depths of the South American jungle had given him a lot to pass on.

Simone could never understand why Steven had joined the army in the first place — You train to save life and then you train to take it? It’s crazy — just as he didn’t understand why she had devoted her entire life to what he saw as taking on an impossible task with the odds continually stacked against her and everyone like her. He was a very practical individual who didn’t believe in getting into fights he couldn’t win while she was very much an ‘ It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness’ sort of person. Although he’d never said so, Steven had always suspected that religion might be behind Simone’s outlook, as was so often the case with those involved in the apparently selfless doing of good, but this idea was torpedoed when on one occasion Simone had volunteered that she didn’t believe in God. It had taken him so much by surprise that he could only mumble ‘Me neither’.

They had met at irregular intervals, usually when Simone was in London with her ‘begging bowl’, as she put it, although it sounded better with a French accent. They would get together for dinner and discuss the state of the world, Steven’s views reflecting his ever-growing cynicism while an apparently eternal optimism that always made him laugh shone from Simone. He smiled at the memory as he picked up another handful of pebbles to throw into the sea. He had once said to her that he could understand why everyone liked her but failed to see what she saw in him. She’d laughed and put her hand on his arm to reply, ‘You have a good heart, Steven. Don’t try so hard to hide it.’

‘All right?’ asked Sue, who was working in the kitchen when Steven entered by the back door.

‘Yes thanks,’ Steven replied. ‘Sorry about running off.’

‘Don’t be. It’s when the death of a friend doesn’t affect you that you should start to worry.’

Steven smiled. ‘How come you always know the right thing to say?’

‘You obviously weren’t at the last meeting of the PTA when I suggested that the collective IQs of the local council wouldn’t break three figures.’

‘Did you really?’ exclaimed Steven, his voice betraying more admiration than shock.

‘ ’Fraid so. Maybe you should go talk to Jenny for a bit. She’s on the games console with the other two.’

The children were arguing about whose turn it was next when Steven entered the playroom. Jenny rushed over to him and gave his waist a big hug. ‘Auntie Sue said you’d had some bad news about one of your friends, Daddy.’

‘I’m afraid so, nutkin.’

‘Are they dead?’ asked Peter, the eldest of the three.

‘Yes she is, Peter.’

‘Was she a policeman like you, Daddy?’ asked Jenny. Sue and Richard had brought her up to believe that this was what Steven did in London.

‘No, nutkin, she was a very kind doctor who worked in far-off countries helping sick children.’

‘Was she eaten by a lion?’ asked Mary.

‘Don’t think so, Mary.’

‘What will the sick children do now?’

‘The other doctors will have to do extra work.’

‘I’d hate it if one of my friends died,’ said Peter and the other two concurred with nods.

‘Maybe we should talk about something else, like what we’re going to do tomorrow,’ suggested Steven.

‘Swimming,’ exclaimed Peter.

‘Yes, swimming,’ echoed the other two.

‘Swimming it is then,’ said Steven, pleased that the tradition of going swimming at Dumfries pool during his visits was not to be broken, although he suspected that the junk food lunch afterwards followed by as much ice cream as they could handle had more than a little to do with their decision.

With the children in bed and Sue and Richard parked in front of the TV watching a serial they followed, Steven went off to his room to call Tally.

‘Having fun?’ she asked.

Steven told her about Simone.

‘I don’t think you’ve mentioned her before.’

‘It’s been a couple of years since I last saw her.’

‘Was she... special?’

‘Not in the way you mean but she was a special sort of person.’ Steven told Tally about Simone’s work with Médecins Sans Frontières .

‘So what was it? Guilt or booking a front-row seat in heaven?’

‘Neither,’ replied Steven, permitting himself a small smile. Tally was nothing if not forthright. ‘Simone didn’t believe in God and she had nothing to feel guilty about. She told me she had a very happy childhood; sailed through medical school with an armful of prizes before joining Med Sans.’

‘Then she really was special,’ conceded Tally. ‘A truly good person. You don’t meet many of those along the way.’

‘Yep.’

‘So what happened?’

‘John didn’t know. He just thought I should be told. He’ll call back when he learns more.’

‘Are you going to stop off in Leicester before you go back to London?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Oh, I’ll have you all right,’ murmured Tally.

A broad smile broke out on Steven’s face. ‘You could make good money with a telephone voice like that.’

‘Where d’you think the flat came from?’

‘I find out a little more about you each day.’

‘I’ll have to watch that. Take care, Steven. Sorry about your friend.’

John Macmillan called just after nine thirty. ‘It was an accident.’

‘What kind?’

‘She died in a fall from a gallery in the library of the Strahov monastery in Prague.’

‘What?’ Steven exclaimed as if it were the last thing he expected to hear.

Macmillan repeated it but added, ‘It’s not quite as strange as it sounds. She was attending a scientific meeting in Prague and a visit to the monastery was arranged for the delegates. Apparently the monastery library has a particularly beautiful painted ceiling. Dr Ricard was one of those who climbed up to the gallery to get a better look. For some reason she fell and broke her neck.’

‘God, how awful,’ murmured Steven.

‘I understand her body is being returned to Paris tomorrow. Will you be attending the funeral?’

‘I’d like to; depends what we’ve got on, I suppose.’

‘Not much at the moment. I was going to ask you to take a look at a hospital in Lancashire where the cardiac death rates were sky high but the situation has resolved itself. The usual reason — an ageing surgeon not realising his faculties had declined and his colleagues being too respectful to tell him.’

‘Always a problem,’ sighed Steven.

‘Well, finally someone plucked up the courage. Anyway, you can let me know what you decide when you get back. When will that be?’