Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

‘Got your key?’ asked Lees.

Steven took out his card and held it up.

Lees smiled and said, ‘Let’s get started then.’

Some people were just born to take charge, thought Steven as he followed Lees inside. Nothing dents their confidence, not even coming up with the cretinous idea of working with Cambodia 5 virus at the Crick.

Lees knelt down in front of the safe and Steven did likewise, Lees to the left, Steven to the right. Behind them the two security men stood ready with a steel canister full of dry ice. The fog from it was spilling over the side and tumbling down to the floor, creating a stage mist effect worthy of a rock concert.

‘What’s the virus held in?’ asked Steven.

‘Sealed glass ampoules maintained at -70 degrees.’

Steven held his card over the right hand slot. ‘Ready when you are.’

‘After three. One, two, three.’

Both men entered their cards and the flashing LED turned to green. The safe handle now turned with ease and a waft of icy cold air drifted out from the thick-walled chamber as Lees paused to put on a heavy glove to protect his skin against low temperature burns. He reached in to remove a metal rack containing eight glass vials and transferred them slowly and carefully to the metal flask the guards were holding. One of them then screwed the top back on.

‘All over,’ said Lees.

‘It will be when you recapture the last monkey,’ said Steven.

Lees smiled wanly and nodded to the guards who left the room with the flask.

‘The army have been asked to step up the hunt,’ said Lees. ‘It can’t possibly survive out there in December.’

‘Let us know when you have the body,’ said Steven.

Lees removed the key cards from the safe. ‘I’ll make arrangements for removing this,’ he said.

‘Nobody knew it was there,’ said Steven, unable to resist highlighting the secret nature of its installation. ‘No one’s going to trip over it.’

Lees smiled wanly again.

‘Just as a matter of interest,’ said Steven. ‘What was the procedure for opening the safe?’

‘Professor Devon would phone me at the ministry and I would drive up with the second key at an arranged time.’

‘Can I ask the number at the ministry he would call?’

Lees reeled off the number. ‘It’s my direct line. Why do you ask?’

‘So you wouldn’t be there at weekends?’

‘No,’ replied Lees, ‘unless pressure of work demanded it…’ he added lamely. ‘What’s this all about?’

Steven thought Lees’ first response the more likely. ‘I was just interested in how these security measures work in practice,’ he said. ‘Supposing Professor Devon had needed access to the virus at the weekend and you weren’t there… did he have another number to contact you? Home number, mobile?’

‘No, there was no need for access at the weekend. That was agreed at the outset.’

‘I see.’

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

Steven watched as the convoy drove off. Lees looked directly at him from the back seat of the Rover as it passed but didn’t smile, neither did Steven. It wasn’t rudeness: he was thinking about the number that Lees had given him. It was the same as the one Cleary had found on the call list for the day Devon died. Someone had tried to obtain the second key.

As he stood there outside the institute in the cold of a grey December day with a bitter wind whipping across the empty courtyard, making his eyes narrow, Steven experienced what his friend and fellow Sci-Med investigator, Scott Jamieson, would have called an ‘Oh fuck moment’. The little puddle he had stepped in was actually six feet deep.

So the animal rights intruders had found the safe that none of the staff bar Devon had known about and had tried to gain access to it. They must have forced Devon to make the call to Lees in an attempt to get the second card but that didn’t necessarily mean that they had any idea about what was inside… did it? It was a safe and would therefore be of interest to thieves… but these people weren’t thieves; they were idealists… but also misfits, losers and probably opportunists went the counter argument. ‘Shit,’ murmured Steven under his breath. There was no way to be sure. He tried telling himself that he should concentrate on the positives. The safe had not been breached. The Cambodia 5 virus was now on its way to secure storage at Porton Down. All was right with the world, wasn’t it?

Steven’s first idea, born at 3 a.m. that morning, had been to ask Cleary about the phone register — and it had come up trumps. His second was to have a chat with Frank Giles, the policeman in charge of the case, about the arrest he had made. He drove over to police headquarters and found Giles about to go out for lunch.

‘Join me?’ Giles suggested. ‘I’ve got to get out of here for a while.’

Steven smiled and agreed. He liked people who wore their hearts on their sleeves — probably a reaction to dealing so much with the denizens of Whitehall.

‘Still looking for your monkey?’ asked Giles as they sat down in the lounge bar of The Green Man and were handed two menus that had seen a lot of service.

‘The army are,’ replied Steven. ‘I understand you’ve made an arrest over the Crick case?’

‘We fingered two but one’s dead,’ said Giles. ‘Robert Lyndon and Kevin Shanks. Shanks stabbed Lyndon when he showed signs of blabbing to us. He’s now going down for both murders. Scampi please, love,’ he added when a waitress started to hover round the table.

‘Same for me,’ said Steven. ‘Did they both have form?’

‘Breach of the peace, possession of Mary Jane, low grade stuff for a pair of low grade losers,’ said Giles. ‘Why?’

‘Do low grade losers usually move up to torture and murder?’ asked Steven.

‘What’s on your mind, exactly?’

‘Was there any chance at all that a third person was involved in the crime?’

‘Bloody hell,’ exclaimed Giles. ‘Every chance. What have you got that I don’t know about?’

‘There was a secret safe in the institute. Someone tried to gain access to it on the day Prof. Devon was murdered. That someone left a DNA fingerprint but didn’t have a record. You’ve just told me that Lyndon and Shanks did.’

‘Shanks maintains there was a third man on the raid — as he insists on calling it. His name was Ali and according to Shanks, he organised the whole thing. He claims that the professor was alive when the three of them left the institute but that this bloke Ali must have gone back later and murdered him.’

Steven looked doubtful.

‘That’s what I thought at first,’ said Giles. ‘It sounds pretty weak but after talking to Shanks at length I think I believe him.’

‘Presumably you’re looking for this guy, Ally?’

Giles shook his head. ‘The Chief Super has pulled the plug on that. Too many Alis to interview.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Steven, realising that they were talking at cross purposes. ‘You’re talking about Ali as in Mohammed not Ally as in Allan or Alistair?’ he said.

Giles nodded. ‘That threw me at first because Shanks didn’t mention that Ali was Indian or Pakistani or whatever. I only found out later when I was talking to somebody else. When I asked Shanks about it he said it hadn’t occurred to him because Ali spoke better English than he did.’

‘And the name Ali is all you have to go on?’

‘Afraid so.’

‘Then I see the problem.’

Their scampi arrived so they paused until the waitress had put the plates down and enquired, ‘Any sauces for you gentlemen?’

‘Tartare,’ said Steven.

‘Same,’ said Giles.

‘My inclination was to pursue him through the connection with hunt saboteurs and animal rights groups. Somebody must know something about him but big white boss say no… unless of course he got into this safe you mentioned and something valuable is missing? That might alter things,’ said Giles.