Ken McClure: Lost causes

Sci-Med investigations had, of course, been less demanding in terms of life and death scenarios but had still brought him into conflict with those who would stop at nothing to achieve their ends. How did you go about convincing a man like that that an office job was important in his scheme of things?

‘I’ll try to get home at a respectable time tonight,’ she said. ‘Maybe we could catch a film or something?’ Anything out of the ordinary.

‘Good idea,’ said Steven. ‘See you later.’

He picked up his briefcase in the hall and left for work, running down the stairs rather than taking the lift in an effort to keep fit now that he was chained to a desk for much of the time. He walked round to the car park and got into the Honda CRV that had taken the place of his Porsche Boxster — a sacrifice he’d had to make when his government salary cheque had stopped and the spectre of unemployment loomed large. The hiatus had only lasted a month or so but the feeling hadn’t been pleasant.

In truth, he hadn’t sold the Boxster. It had been put into ‘suspended animation’ at the mews garage belonging to his friend Stan Silver in London. Silver, an ex-Regiment soldier himself — although not at the same time as Steven — was the man who had supplied the Porsche in the first place. It had been he who had suggested storing the car for a while to see how things worked out. He had offered to loan Steven a more modest vehicle until he found himself a job, when they could talk again. No decision had as yet been made about the Porsche, although Steven had started paying Stan for the use of the Honda.

It had been Tally who had suggested the Honda from the cars on offer; it was more of a family car, she’d said, and if he was serious about being a family man… well, look at all that space in the back. My God, he’d thought, he’d be wearing Pringle sweaters and taking up golf next. No, suicide was higher up his list of things to do than golf. The Honda started first time; it always bloody did.

Steven had his own parking bay with a white board on the wall saying Head of Security. It always made him smile. To his way of thinking, the last thing you should be advertising was where the head of security parked his car. But there was no doubting that things were different in the civilian world, so he didn’t say anything. From what he’d seen in the three months he’d been in the job, no one would have any reason to harm him anyway.

His office was on the sixth floor, bright and airy with light wood furniture and an abundance of potted plants. The wide windows had Venetian blinds, necessary in the afternoon when the sun moved round to that side of the building, but it was a dull, grey morning so he opened them fully and looked out over the campus. People in white coats were hard at work in the university labs across the way, as they would be downstairs in his own building, clearly visible in the harsh, white fluorescent lighting that illuminated their domain.

A knock came to his door but before he could say anything it was opened by a short woman in her mid thirties, hair tied back in a severe bun, and dark-framed glasses on her nose. She was Rachel Collins, one of the company’s legal team who specialised in intellectual property. She had the office next door. She smiled and said, ‘I thought I heard you come in. Have you checked your email yet?’

‘No.’

‘There’s a special meeting at ten this morning with the top brass. You and I have been instructed to attend.’

‘Sounds exciting,’ said Steven in a voice that suggested otherwise. ‘Maybe they’ve discovered a cure for cancer downstairs.’

‘I think we would have heard about that,’ said Rachel with a smile. ‘The conga in the corridors would have been a small clue.’

‘How long have you worked for Ultramed, Rachel?’

‘Eleven years. Why d’you ask?’

‘I’m still trying to get a feel for things. Any big discoveries in your time with the company?’

Rachel screwed up her face, seeking an alternative to ‘no’. ‘Can’t honestly say there have been any big discoveries,’ she replied, stretching the word ‘big’. ‘Lots of little things, stuff for indigestion, athlete’s foot treatments, hay fever pills, bread-and-butter stuff, not much better than the remedies they’re replacing, if truth be told, but with a shiny new box and an ad campaign aimed at GPs they bring in a bit. No really big earner.’

‘I guess big earners don’t come along all that often.’

‘And that’s why drugs are so expensive,’ said Rachel. ‘Lots and lots of research that went nowhere has to be paid for. Anyway, see you at the meeting.’ She turned to leave but stopped and turned back as she reached the door. ‘How are you liking it here?’ she asked, her tone suggesting that she really didn’t know the answer.

‘Fine,’ said Steven. ‘Absolutely fine.’

‘Good.’

Steven returned to gazing out of the window, wishing it had been true. He was a very long way from being ‘absolutely fine’. He had known it would be difficult; he had done his best to prepare himself for the feelings he knew were bound to come. The one he had at the moment, that of being trapped, had been odds-on favourite to make an appearance from the outset but he was determined not to give in to it despite the urge he felt right now to run downstairs, go out through the door and keep on going till he dropped.

The first antidote was to think of positives. He thought of Tally and the life they were having and would have together. He thought of Jenny, his little girl who now had a father in an ordinary respectable job rather than one that could result in her becoming an orphan. The second counter-measure was to think of negatives, those that had made him resign from Sci-Med in the first place. The creeping suspicion, built up over the years, that he didn’t work for the good guys after all; that there were no good guys, only various shades of in-between. Our democratic government was a warren of ulterior motives, alternative agendas, horse trading and compromise, connived at by a bunch of greedy self-serving twerps whose egos knew no bounds and whose only duty was to themselves.

He was now away from all of them and their devious machinations but he did miss the intellectual challenge of the job, that of figuring out what the hooks and crooks were up to and then going to war with them. Someone in the SAS had once told him that you don’t know you’re alive until you’re very nearly not, and they were right. Everyone who had experienced danger over a long period of time knew about ‘the feeling’, that heightened sense of awareness which perhaps only drugs could simulate. When it stopped you were relieved, but if it didn’t come back at some point you’d start to miss it, and miss it badly. Formula One drivers, rock climbers, downhill skiers, all knew about ‘the feeling’. Retiral might seem like a good idea at the time but after a year or so, God, you missed it. You just had to go back.

Steven’s game plan was to think of his time with the military and with Sci-Med as a drug addiction from which he was now withdrawing. It wouldn’t be easy but it could be done. He would struggle to keep his twitchiness and bad temper under control while he fought his demons, and in the end he would come through and emerge as a better person: a loving, contented husband to Tally if she’d have him as such and a caring considerate father to Jenny, even if she chose to remain in the north. Enough navel gazing. He turned on his computer and checked his mail for details of the meeting.

Sci-Med Inspectorate, Home Office, London

‘I have Chief Superintendent Malloy on the line for you, Sir John,’ said the voice of Jean Roberts, his secretary, from the speaker on John Macmillan’s desk.