Ken McClure - Dust to dust

‘Dr Dunbar? It’s Cassie Motram.’

Steven remembered giving Cassie his card and inviting her to call if she thought of anything relevant. ‘Hello, Dr Motram. What can I do for you?’

‘Have you seen the TV news this evening, doctor?’

‘I’ve been on the road most of the day, Dr Motram. Why, was there something interesting?’

‘I’ll leave that for you to decide, doctor. I found it very strange. Do let me know what you think when you see it.’ The line went dead, leaving Steven looking at his phone with a slight feeling of embarrassment.

‘Problems?’ asked Tally when he sat back down.

Steven shrugged. ‘Don’t know. That was Cassie Motram, the wife of the chap who was poisoned in the tomb. She’s a GP. She wanted to know if I’d seen the TV news tonight.’

‘What have we missed?’

‘She didn’t say.’

Tally looked surprised. ‘How odd.’

Their starters arrived and they tried to get their evening back on track, but the phone call was ever present at the back of their minds. ‘Would you like to go home?’ Tally asked half way through the main course, when she saw Steven’s attention wander yet again. He did his best to assure her that there was no need to rush off and the news item was probably something trivial anyway, but Tally said, ‘On the other hand there just might have been an outbreak of Black Death in the Scottish Borders…’

‘Oh my God,’ said Steven. ‘Would you mind?’

Tally smiled. ‘I think this is the bit in those police programmes where I accuse you of being married to the job and storm out in high dudgeon… but as we’re both staying at my place there’s not much point really.’

‘Good.’

‘Mind you, if this should turn out to be an elaborate subterfuge to ensure an early night, Dunbar… you’ll be spending it on the sofa.’

It was nine thirty when they got home: Steven turned on the TV and tuned to Sky News, waiting for a headline update while Tally made coffee. ‘Anything?’ she asked coming in with a tray and putting it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

‘Nothing yet.’

Tally patted the sofa with the palm of her hand. ‘Won’t be too bad

…’

Steven was about to respond when he froze and stared at the screen. A news item, Dead Marine’s Family Seek Answers, had captured his undivided attention. It was reported that the family of a Scottish Royal Marine, Michael Kelly, who lost his life in Afghanistan, were claiming that they had not been told the whole truth about their son’s death. They claimed to have information that he had been sent back to the UK on a secret mission and that the circumstances surrounding his death were clouded in mystery. They were demanding answers.

The report ended but Steven continued to sit staring at the screen unseeingly.

Tally seemed incredulous. ‘Is that it?’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth has that to do with Black Death and the excavation at Dryburgh?’

‘What an awfully good question,’ replied Steven distantly. He finally moved his attention away from the screen to face Tally. ‘Cassie Motram told me that her husband saw the original report of that marine’s death on TV and thought he recognised him as the donor in a bone marrow transplant he’d been asked to advise on. Then they heard he’d been wounded in Afghanistan on the same day that John Motram saw the donor in London, so they put it down to mistaken identity. But now this…’

‘So, if what the marine’s family is saying is true, he could have been the donor after all?’

‘Apparently.’

Tally left Steven alone with his thoughts for a moment. She returned with two brandies and handed him one. ‘Do you know what I think you need now?’

‘What?’

‘That early night.’

‘You still seem troubled,’ said Tally as they sat having breakfast together with the sun streaming in through the kitchen window, creating an oasis of light.

‘I thought this investigation was over but it’s not,’ said Steven. ‘Someone’s been playing me for a fool.’

‘In what way? I thought you said everything was straightforward.’

‘That’s what I thought. But that’s what I was meant to think. I’ve just realised what’s been niggling away at me ever since I went up to the Scottish Borders. The timing was all wrong.’

Tally looked blank. ‘Whose timing? What timing?’

‘MI5.’

Tally’s eyes opened wide. ‘Am I missing something here?’ she asked, a look of bewilderment on her face. ‘What on earth have MI5 got to do with anything?’

‘When Motram lost his mind and there was a possibility that his entering the tomb at Dryburgh might have had something to do with it, John Macmillan told me that Porton Down were interested.’

‘The microbiological defence establishment?’

Steven nodded. ‘And that made sense. You’d expect them to be, in the circumstances. In fact, I was worried about them getting there and stopping anyone else gaining access, but the Public Health people beat them to it: they had already been inside the tomb to take samples by the time I phoned. Porton still weren’t on site when I arrived. An MI5 officer who’d been detailed to look after their interest did turn up but he arrived after me and told me he was expecting the Porton people the following morning. They were just pulling into the car park when I was leaving.’

‘So?’

‘They were going through the motions,’ said Steven. ‘They knew damn well that Motram’s condition had nothing to do with any new virus inside that tomb. They turned up to collect samples for my benefit.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Tally. ‘You’re about to cross swords with MI5 again, aren’t you?’

‘Not deliberately,’ said Steven. ‘But I’m not going to end the investigation just yet.’

Tally suddenly realised she was going to be late if she didn’t get a move on. She went into overdrive, muttering about what she had to do at the hospital, gathering her bits and pieces together, hopping on one foot while she pulled a shoe on to the other and finally kissing Steven on the cheek before rushing out the door. Steven smiled at the ghost of Tally past and cleared away the breakfast dishes, still wondering how best to approach what now seemed to be an entirely new investigation — one that he would have to seek John Macmillan’s approval for before proceeding. But if MI5 and Porton Down had not been in any great hurry to investigate what had caused John Motram’s condition… it suggested they already knew.

‘Aren’t you reading too much into this?’ asked John Macmillan. ‘I mean, it could be that Porton were just a bit slow in getting their act together.’

‘Porton and MI5 slow off the mark when the possibility of a new killer agent was in the offing?’ exclaimed Steven. ‘I don’t think so. Public Health had had time to examine the chamber, take samples, confer with the hospital guys and actually work out what had caused Motram’s illness before they arrived. If the security services had really believed there was a possibility of something new and nasty being down there…’

‘Public Health would never have got near the place,’ Macmillan conceded.

‘They were putting on a show of turning up and taking samples for our benefit.’

‘But why?’

Steven took a moment before saying slowly and deliberately, ‘I thought about that all the way down. The only explanation I could come up with was that MI5 knew exactly what happened to John Motram: they might even have been the cause of it, with or without the collusion of Porton Down.’

Macmillan wore the expression of a man who had just been given some very bad news. ‘And why would they do something like that?’