Ken McClure - White death

Steven assured him that he would.

He shook his head as he got into the car and sat for a few moments thinking about what he’d just learned. It was a totally unexpected twist and not at all what he had been looking for in an investigation in which the ground continually seemed to move beneath him. A boy with TB in a Leicester hospital? — no such boy — a boy with TB in a Swedish clinic? — no such boy — the boy disappears completely. All lies, smoke and mirrors designed to obscure the truth about a secret trial of a new vaccine. Children receiving the new vaccine fall ill and a rogue toxin getting into the production process is blamed. But now… there was no rogue toxin in the production process of the vaccine according to Dutton, so where did it come from?

Steven called Tally. There was no reply from her home phone so he left a message saying he’d called. He set out to return to London but had barely gone a mile when she rang.

‘Hi, I’ve just got in. I found your message. Where are you?’

‘Near Milton Keynes. I thought I might come up but maybe if you’re just in…’

‘No, that would be great. I look forward to seeing you.’

Steven suddenly felt a whole lot better. The thought of seeing Tally was just so good — the prospect of light, warmth, company and intelligent conversation — not to mention sex — instead of going home to sit in silence and brood about the latest puzzle in the green sticker saga was the perfect antidote to feeling depressed about his progress. He joined the motorway and gunned the Honda up to seventy, reckoning that he should be there in about an hour.

Traffic was light and, as the miles passed by, he allowed himself to wonder if it could ever be this way on a more permanent basis. Driving home to Tally was a nice thought; it had a comfortable ring to it… or maybe it was just a daydream? Yes it was, but there was no harm in that, he reckoned. He started to wonder how Jenny would take to Tally and vice versa if they should ever meet. The two ladies in his life, would they get on? Could they get on? It was seductive to imagine that they would and a short step from that to thinking about picnics, days out, whispered confidences, Christmas at home…

The reality would probably be different, he conceded. Tally’s career was every bit as demanding as his own and equally important to her. His cosy notion of domestic bliss — if it really existed — probably required a completely different cast or enough commitment to change things to make it possible… Old doubts returned. Were the problems really insurmountable or was he looking for an excuse to treat his association with Tally as a finite thing, a beautiful love affair but doomed from the start because of fate — his preferred reason — or maybe the fact that he was a selfish bastard — a strong contender.

Steven turned the car into Tally’s street and drew heavily upon his favourite mantra: Life is what happens to you while you’re planning for the future…

Tally was waiting for him at the door to her apartment when he emerged from the lift. She was dressed casually in a sweater and jeans, barefoot and her hair still damp from the shower and smelling of shampoo. Steven kissed her and wrapped his arms around her, unwilling to detach himself from the perfumed heaven he found himself in.

‘What have you been up to?’ he asked.

‘Working,’ replied Tally ruefully. ‘I should have known. As soon as I arranged to meet up with my sisters for a boozy lunch and a long gossip, something turned up at the hospital and I had to work on my weekend off.’

‘Bad luck,’ said Steven. ‘I didn’t know you had sisters.’

Tally laughed and said, ‘I’ve got two. There’s a lot you don’t know about me. We hardly know each other. And if you say it seems like we’ve known each other for ever, I’ll knee you where it hurts.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Steven with a smile.

‘Anyway, what have you been up to? That’s got to be much more interesting. What happened at the meeting?’

‘The government are hell-bent on developing new vaccines because of fears of a biological attack.’

‘And?’ asked Tally when she saw Steven hesitate.

‘It seems a number of over-ambitious civil servants thought they’d please their masters and accelerate their own careers by setting up an unofficial trial of a new vaccine against TB using the kids at Pinetops. The company involved, a biotechnology outfit called St Clair Genomics, convinced them that getting the necessary paperwork was just going to be a time-consuming formality. There was some talk of a misunderstanding over how far the officials could bend the rules but, in any event, it all went terribly wrong when the vials got contaminated with a toxic agent on the production line.’

Tally was speechless for a few moments during which she spread her hands and looked up at the ceiling. ‘A misunderstanding?’ she exclaimed. ‘How could you have a misunderstanding over something like that? And then they managed to poison them? How on earth could something like that happen? That’s absolutely outrageous. They should all be hung, drawn and quartered…’

Tally suddenly realised what Steven’s long silence implied. ‘Oh God, you’re not going to tell me they’re going to get away with it, are you?’

‘I’m afraid that’s the bottom line,’ said Steven. ‘I’m as sick about it as you but the alternatives are just too awful to contemplate.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tally, her eyes full of accusation.

Steven talked Tally through what would happen if the Pinetops affair was made public and saw the same frustration grow inside her that he had felt — the battle against an inescapable logic which concluded that saying nothing was the right thing to do — however unpalatable.

‘The bastards,’ said Tally. ‘There’s a reason for all these safeguards.’

‘My heart agrees but my head understands why everyone wants to speed things up if we really are at risk of a biological attack.’

‘What’s the evidence for that?’ asked Tally.

‘I haven’t seen it but the government believes an attack is inevitable. They insist that the intelligence is overwhelming. There’s no chance of getting the vaccines we require developed and tested through the normal channels so they’re smoothing the way wherever possible.’

‘And giving rise to misunderstandings…’

‘So it would appear,’ agreed Steven.

‘Do you believe them?’ asked Tally, watching Steven closely for the slightest flicker of his eyes or any change in body language that might belie his response.

Steven was aware of her scrutiny. ‘There are still some things that disturb me,’ he said. ‘Yet I have no option but to accept what they say. On the other hand… I don’t think I’ve been told the whole truth about the Pinetops disaster… There’s something not quite right with their version of what went wrong with the vaccine and how.’

Tally saw this as a scaling down of the main argument and it showed on her face but she reined in her temper, recognising that continuing to express outrage wasn’t going to get them anywhere. She poured them both a drink and sat down. ‘How so?’

Steven told her about his discussion with Dutton.

Tally looked doubtful. ‘If that’s what they were bottling before the vaccine run, surely it has to be the number one suspect?’ she said. ‘Even if they didn’t actually use the same production line, they might still have transferred parts from it, a filter, a dispensing head, a piece of tubing. How else could it get in, or are you suggesting that someone actually injected it into the vials deliberately?’

Steven made a face and shook his head. ‘No, you’re probably right but Dutton is an experienced man… He wouldn’t have made an elementary mistake like transferring a contaminated filler head from one line to another…’