Ken McClure - Resurrection

He didn’t find the answer growing in any of the huge Victorian hothouses or floating in the placid waters of the lily pond among reflections of weeping willows. It wasn’t to be found in the tea room where he had tea and chocolate cake to the muted sound of Scottish country dance music or in the small cottage gallery that hosted an exhibition of modern art — although it could have been in one of the pictures. He just didn’t recognise it as the answer, or art for that matter.

He spent the evening writing up his report for Sci-Med. In it he indicated that he believed there was an Iraqi intention to resurrect live smallpox virus. Ali Hammadi had been involved but it was not clear to what extent. A friend of Hammadi’s had witnessed the hand over of what was almost certainly illegal linear fragments of the virus DNA to Hammadi but it was unknown if Hammadi had actually done anything with these fragments before committing suicide. Nothing untoward had been found among the solutions and reagents he’d left behind in the lab, suggesting that he might have refused to cooperate and had possibly taken his own life to protect his family back home. Everything belonging to Hammadi in the lab had been destroyed but the Iraqis, for some worrying reason, still showed no signs of leaving the city. It would be up to WHO and the UN to decide what steps they should take to prevent them making any more attempts to get their hands on live virus.

Dewar acknowledged the cooperation and excellent work by Inspector Grant of the Lothians and Borders police in identifying the Iraqis, Abbas and Siddiqui.

Dewar read his report over twice and was satisfied after a few minor changes. He pressed the SEND button on the computer then switched it off after confirmation of transmission. He picked up the phone and called Karen at her work number. She was there.

‘Still got a bad feeling?’ she asked.

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ said Dewar. ‘And it’s getting worse by the day.’

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘Maybe not over the phone. How are the good folk of Kensington?’

‘Getting back to normal,’ said Karen. ‘The figures are right on the graph line for a Salmonella outbreak that’s had its source removed so we got that right. I’m looking forward to having an evening off.’

‘I’ll probably fly back some time tomorrow. We could go out to dinner?’

‘I feel more like flopping out. Why don’t you come round when you get back. I’ll rustle up something simple for us and you can tell me all about your problrms before we succumb to the lure of strong drink?’

‘And sex?’

‘Your honeyed words may win me over.’

‘Sounds good. ’

‘Mmm,’ said Karen. ‘Sometimes I worry about the intellectual plane of our relationship.’

‘Right now, horizontal sounds good to me.’

‘And sometimes I wonder why I bother,’ sighed Karen.

‘Because I’m so loveable?’ offered Dewar.

‘There has to be something else,’ groaned Karen.

Dewar had hardly put the phone down when it rang again. It was Grant at police headquarters. Dewar looked at his watch. ‘Are you still on duty?’ he exclaimed.

‘I could say yes and make a good impression,’ replied Grant. ‘But there was a bit of a do for one of the blokes who’s leaving. I just popped into the office on the way out and there was a message for me. Your friend Saadi.’

‘What about him?’ asked Dewar.

‘He was on the 7 o’clock shuttle to Heathrow. He’s on his way home.’

‘Shit,’ said Dewar under his breath. ‘It was my fault. I hope to God, being sent home is the only thing that’s going to happen to him.’

‘They should have nuked these buggers while they had the chance in Desert Storm. Nukin’ Norman would have sounded just as good as Stormin’. It even has …. what d’you call it?’’

‘Alliteration,’ said Dewar. ‘It’s just a case of one lousy regime that won’t go away. The ordinary people are basically no different from any other nation.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ said Grant sourly.

‘Thanks for letting me know. Hear any more on Siddiqui?’

‘Huge embarrassment all round. He entered the UK as a delegate to an international scientific conference in Birmingham. It was a pretty clever way to come into the country, using his academic credentials without any reference to diplomatic status. Story is he came through Cyprus, Schippol and into Birmingham as one of a large contingent of scientists bound for the meeting; they used a charter flight. I wouldn’t like to be the guy who was on passport control that day. He’s gonna finish up as a lollipop man in Caithness. Apparently Siddiqui came up to Edinburgh after the meeting ended, ostensibly to visit Iraqi science students and see how they were getting on. All quite legal and above board.’

During the night the weather changed. The wind got up and rain came in from the north west in great heavy but intermittent downpours. It was the sound of rain being driven against the window at 3am that woke Dewar. He got up to look out at windswept, deserted streets bathed in yellow sodium light with water pouring down the gutters in fast-flowing streams. It collected in pools above storm drains that were blocked with autumn leaves, creating a series of mini lakes that the occasional car ploughed through with caution.

For some reason he started to think of Ali Hammadi and wondered where he had been buried. He supposed there must be a Moslem cemetery in Edinburgh. He seemed to remember that Moslems were traditionally buried as quickly as possible after death but couldn’t remember anything about how the faith viewed suicide, if he’d ever known. He wondered if it had excluded Hammadi from some promise of afterlife or affected his right to the ritual and ceremony of a funeral. He felt sorry for Hammadi, as far as he could determine, the evidence pointed to his suicide having been an act of bravery rather than guilt. He had laid down his life rather than take part in something that might have caused the death of many millions. Maybe some day the full story would be told. For the moment the thought of rain water gathering in puddles on Hammadi’s grave as he lay in a strange land thousands of miles from home, it accentuated the fickleness of fate as it applied to all mortals.

He closed the curtains again and went back to bed but sleep was elusive as the rain kept up its tattoo on the window. He lay in the darkness thinking about what Grant had said about the involvement of other agencies in the watch on Siddiqui. He would contact Sci-Med in the morning and ask that they make these agencies aware of Sci-Med’s interest in the man and his activities. This should be allied to a request that they keep their surveillance low key. On the other hand Siddiqui and Abbas should most definitely be stopped when they left the country. The pretext didn’t matter, it was a question of making sure they weren’t carrying anything on them of a biological nature. They may not have handed over all their stocks of smallpox DNA fragments to Hammadi. If not this would be a good opportunity to get hold of them and destroy them. If by any chance — and against all the odds — Hammadi had actually done what they’d asked of him and had delivered the goods before killing himself it would also be the moment to stop either viral DNA or even live virus leaving the country. He would feel a lot happier with such a safeguard in place.

In the event, Sci-Med asked him to report in person when he contacted them in the morning. He caught a flight at lunchtime and was at the Home Office by two thirty. He went straight there; there was no time to go to the flat so he left his travel bag and computer case in Jean Roberts’ office while he went in to see Macmillan.