Ken McClure: The Secret

Steven thought for a moment before agreeing that this might be the best plan. There would probably be people he’d want to speak to.

‘Fine, I’ll fix accommodation too.’

Steven smiled when he noticed the new nameplate on his office door. It said Dr Steven Dunbar, Principal Investigator . He had only recently agreed to have an office to himself. Previously he had spent as little time as possible in Whitehall, preferring instead to use the small Sci-Med library when he was there for any absolutely necessary paperwork and his own flat for going through files relating to any assignment he’d been given. He saw the allocation of a pleasant room and a fancy nameplate as part of Macmillan’s strategy to accustom him to permanency.

He stood at the window for a few moments wondering if he was really ready to commit to any such thing. The office could be seen as a first step in coming in from the cold — an end to front line investigation — something that would please Tally but alarmed him. It gave him the same sense of foreboding he’d experienced when faced with leaving the army, but luckily on that occasion Macmillan had come along to save him from ending up in the kind of job he’d just escaped from in the pharmaceutical industry. He moved over to his desk and started going through the mail.

He stopped suddenly when he came to an envelope with a handwritten address on it. It had a Czech Republic stamp on it. He didn’t recognise the handwriting but knew it had to be from Simone. The letter was brief and seemed to have been hastily written. It had a small computer memory card stuck to the bottom with Sellotape.

My dear Steven,

I’m at an international meeting in Prague this week to discuss progress in the eradication of polio programme. Something’s not right. My team and I have been working in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan and I know it sounds silly but I’m sure there’s something very wrong and they won’t let me address the meeting. I’m in London next week to meet with Dr Tom North at City College University. I thought I might come and see you? Please keep the memory card safe and I’ll explain when I see you.

As ever,

Steven ran the tips of his fingers lightly over the signature. Simone was worried about something and a day later she was dead. Coincidence? Re-reading the letter clearly wasn’t helping. He cut the memory card free of the paper and inserted it in his computer. Nothing on it made sense: the contents comprised a series of unrelated letters, numbers and symbols which caused him to give up after a few minutes. His suspicion was that the card had been corrupted by security scans used by airports or the mail service. Fed up with trying to interpret gobbledegook, he took out the card and set up a Google search for Dr Thomas North.

There were a number of Norths listed but he quickly found the one he was looking for — a senior lecturer at City College, a virologist with a special interest in polio, especially the problems patients who survived paralytic polio encountered in later life. Steven remembered reading something about that recently. Arthur C. Clarke, the celebrated science fiction writer, was one such example.

North’s research group was profiled on the university website along with its research aims and a substantial academic publications list suggesting that North was a top man in his field. Steven called the number for City College and asked to speak to him. He was put through to North’s lab where a young man with a Scandinavian accent said North was in a meeting. Steven left his number and North called him back an hour later.

‘Good of you to call back, doctor. My name’s Steven Dunbar; I work for the Sci-Med Inspectorate. I was a friend of Simone Ricard.’

‘Ah, what happened to Simone was absolutely tragic. If ever there was an example of the good dying young, that was it. Such a lovely person.’

‘I understand she was coming to see you this week?’

‘Yes, that’s right, she was, and now... I can still hardly believe it.’

‘Will you be attending the funeral, doctor?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t; I have a prior commitment — one I can’t get out of.’

‘A pity, I was hoping to have a word. I wonder; do you think I could possibly come over and have a chat with you?’

North hesitated. ‘Ye... es, but can I ask what this is about? I mean, sorry to be rude but who exactly are you?’

Steven told him. ‘I’m interested in the work Simone was doing on polio eradication. She wrote to me about it.’

‘I see. Look, at the risk of sounding macabre, Simone was down to come here on Wednesday morning. You could come in her place?’

Steven agreed and arranged to be there at eleven.

He went through and told Macmillan about the letter from Simone with the computer card attached.

Macmillan raised his eyes and sat back in his chair. ‘But no actual indication as to what she thought was wrong?’

Steven said not. ‘But my curiosity’s been aroused. I’ll ask our lab boys to take a look at the card.’

Macmillan nodded. ‘Perhaps her colleagues will be able to throw some light on things when you see them at the funeral. Mind you, French citizen dying in the Czech Republic with a UK investigator asking questions... Could be the overture to a bureaucratic nightmare if you get too involved.’

Steven acknowledged with a grimace. ‘I’ve also arranged to see the scientist she’d set up a meeting with in London. Maybe he’ll have some idea what she was worried about.’

‘Was he at the Prague meeting?’

‘I’ll find out on Wednesday.’

Steven, wearing a dark blue suit and Parachute Regiment tie told the man in uniform behind the desk whom he’d come to see.

‘And what company shall I say you’re from?’ asked the man, barely disguising a sneer and clearly assuming that anyone found wearing a suit in City College must be a sales rep and therefore worthy of derision.

‘The Home Office,’ replied Steven, placing his ID down in front of him.

The man looked up to find Steven looking through him. It spoke volumes.

‘Right sir, sorry sir. I’ll let them upstairs know you’re here. Perhaps you’d care to take a seat over there?’

A few minutes later a young man wearing jeans and a checked shirt appeared from one of the lifts. He had an engaging if lopsided smile and a shock of curly red hair. When he spoke it was with an Irish accent. ‘Dr Dunbar? I’m Liam Kelly. Tom’s expecting you. I’ll take you up to the lab.’

‘You’re one of Dr North’s people?’

‘PhD student, just about to start my second year.’

‘Working on?’

‘Virus survival strategies.’

‘I’m imagining a dozen virus particles sitting round a table making plans for the future,’ said Steven.

‘I’d like to be a fly on the wall at that meeting,’ Liam laughed as the lift doors opened. ‘It would save me a whole bunch of work.’

He led the way through swing doors into a brightly lit lab with a number of people at work in it. All seemed intent on what they were doing as familiar lab smells from long ago of solvents and Bunsen burner-heated air assaulted Steven’s nostrils. Thomas North’s office was one of two adjoining rooms at the head of the lab. Liam knocked and put his head round the door. ‘Dr Dunbar is here.’

North turned out to be a tall, bearded, gangly man in his late thirties — a typical academic, Steven thought, from the open-necked checked shirt under the horizontally striped jersey to the corduroy trousers and casual boat shoes. His handshake was firm but Steven noticed that his knuckles were showing early signs of arthritis.