by Jack Ford
Cooper was lost for words. But Michaels was happy to carry on regardless.
‘Look, it’s clear the pressure of whatever he was doing caught up with him. By all reports he had turned to drink. Apparently he was a heavy drinker as well as a gambler. He was a difficult man.’
Cooper remembered the quote from the papers which Jackson had given him.
‘Where did the papers get that information from, Dr. Michaels?’
‘I have no idea.’
Cooper stared hard. The guy was a jerk. ‘What? You didn’t tell them that? You didn’t say to them he was a difficult man?’
Foster shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, I… I… I might’ve said a bit. I don’t know. Maybe when the local reporters asked me about him, I might’ve said that I thought he drank, and, perhaps, and this is only a guess, Mr. Cooper, maybe I said he was a difficult man. But I make no apologies for it, the man was a menace.’
‘But you didn’t know for sure if he drank.’
Foster snapped. ‘No, but the man was very furtive, especially when he came back from the DRC. And I’ve read up on it, it’s often a sign of a drinker, and he chose to take his own life. I think it kind of proves my point don’t you?’
‘I’d hardly say that.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong, Mr. Cooper, it was only my opinion and whatever the papers choose or don’t choose to write, that’s down to them.’
Not for the first time, Cooper rubbed his head. ‘Okay, look, is there anything you can tell me about his trip to the DRC? Did he mention anything about a man called Bemba? Or anything about the mines?’
Michaels, exaggerating his disinterest by looking at his cuticles, sniffed. ‘No and no. Foster was supposed to write a report when he got back, for this company as well as for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.’
‘Remind me, please.’
A long heavy sigh came from Michaels. ‘They’re an intergovernmental organization. They represent eleven countries including the DRC. They often subcontract mine certification to us. Anyhow, his report never saw the light of day, and let’s face facts, it’s not like I’m going to get it now, is it? So to answer your question, Mr. Cooper: I can’t help you with anything.’
*
‘Mr. Cooper…! Hold on…! Wait!’
Running across the carpark, a woman waved to Cooper. He allowed her to catch up with him and by the time she did, her face was red and patchy and she spoke breathlessly. ‘Mr. Cooper, I saw you just now, I heard everything Dr. Michaels said to you.’
Cooper smiled, recognizing her as the typist who’d been in Michaels’s office.
‘It’s about Dr. Foster. I was his personal secretary. All the things Dr. Michaels was saying about him are simply not true. He was a good man, Mr. Cooper. A conscientious one. I’m not sure how much I can help you, but I can tell you all that I know. But not here. There’s a coffee shop, Abbotts, it’s two blocks down from here, I can meet you there in half an hour.’
103
Sitting at a table with a yellow plastic checked cloth, and the worst imitation flowers he had ever seen, Cooper hesitated to drink the tepid coffee in the chipped brown mug as he sat opposite Dr. Foster’s secretary, Karen, listening to her talk.
She looked nervous and had a habit of pulling at her brown bobbed hair every couple of minutes. And although her face was young, her turtle neck and tweed skirt were better suited to a woman almost twice her age.
‘Dr. Foster, he’d been shaken up pretty badly by the time he got back. I spoke to him a few times on the phone when he was in the DRC, and I saw him when he arrived at the airport, but only very briefly so he could give me something. We were supposed to meet the next day, but he didn’t show.’
‘Why didn’t you meet, Karen?’
‘I don’t know, he just didn’t show. Which is unlike him.’
‘Where were you supposed to meet? At the office?’
Karen shook her head. ‘Oh no, he didn’t want anybody to know.’
Cooper looked puzzled. ‘Know what?’
‘That’s the thing. I don’t know. He didn’t want to talk about it on the phone.’
‘But what do you think it was?’
She shrugged, pulling on her hair and said, ‘I wish I knew. But on the morning we were supposed to meet, he did call me. Not to cancel, but just to tell me…’ Karen stopped. Looked around, chewing on her lip.
Cooper encouraged her. The woman was a nervous wreck. ‘Go on, it’s fine.’
‘Well he thought he was being followed. He was frightened. Real frightened, Mr. Cooper.’
‘Frightened of what?’
‘I think of what he’d found out. Which, like I say, I don’t know what it is.’
‘Where was he when he called you?’
‘I’m not sure because he called from his cell, but I do know he was going to see someone from Nadbury Electronics before he was supposed to meet me.’
‘Did he say who? Do you know who he was going to visit?’
‘A man called Parker. Donald Parker.’
‘I don’t suppose you know why he wanted to see him?’
‘No. I’m sorry if I’m not being very helpful, but he really didn’t tell me anything much. But, like I say, he was very frightened.’
‘I appreciate you talking to me, it must be difficult.’
Karen’s eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s terrible, Mr. Cooper. They said awful things about him in the papers. Dr. Michaels told them stuff which was untrue. He’s a horrible man.’
‘Did Dr. Foster say anything about feeling depressed or anything to do with money worries?’
Karen shook her head forlornly. ‘No. And I realize you can’t always tell, but he didn’t seem depressed. I don’t believe he took his own life.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because he was planning to go back to the DRC.’
‘When, and what for?’
Karen, seeing the waitress walk past, spoke quickly to her before she went by. ‘Excuse me, can I have another black coffee please?’ She turned back to Cooper, looking apologetic for ordering in the middle of their talk. ‘I think he wanted to go back as soon as possible. Once he had the evidence. Well, that’s what he said.’
Slightly frustrated, Cooper tried to keep any hint of it out of his tone. ‘Evidence of what?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know.’
‘Did he mention anyone call Bemba? Or Ballard?’
Tugging at her hair again, Karen shook her head. Said nothing.
‘What about the name Charles Templin-Wright? Does that mean anything to you, Karen?’
‘No.’
‘How about when he flew back to the States? Can you remember the date Foster arrived home?’
‘Oh yes, because he was due back May 22nd but I had to change his ticket. I remember because they wanted to charge double for it if he flew back in June, so I booked him a flight for May 27th from Kigali.’
‘Why was the date changed?’
‘He said he had to go and see some place before he came home, and that’s why I had to move it.’
‘Is there anything else he said?’
‘No, sorry. But when I met him at the airport, he gave me something to keep safe for him until we met the next day, but we never did… I’ve got it here.’
Karen went into her oversized gray handbag and pulled out a lipstick and an empty bottle of perfume and a couple of magazines and some old receipts and a hairbrush, before bringing out a small white padded envelope. ‘This is what he gave me. I haven’t opened it.’
She handed it to Cooper. It was cool to the touch. There was some handwriting on the front.
Karen Kirby, to be stored at 4°C
‘Is that Dr. Foster’s handwriting on the envelope?’
‘Yes.’
Cooper didn’t say anything. Just gathered his thoughts. Pulled out his phone in half the time it’d taken Karen to pull out the envelope, scrolled through some photos and zoomed in o
n the photo he’d taken of the names in Lemon’s visitors’ book.
‘Is this Dr. Foster’s writing as well?’
Karen studied it. ‘The top one looks like his writing. But why did he write someone else’s name?’
Cooper looked at the entry:
Phillip Holt.
‘I don’t know Karen, that’s what I’m trying to find out. Can I ask why you didn’t give this to the police? Why give it to me?’
‘Mr. Cooper, I don’t want any trouble. I look after my elderly parents. They live with me in a small apartment. They rely on me for everything. I can’t afford to lose this job, and I know Dr. Michaels is always looking for an excuse to let me go. He’s not interested in what did or didn’t happen to Dr. Foster, he’s just interested in me doing what I’m paid to do.’
‘Sounds like somebody I know.’
‘Jobs are hard to come by around here and, if I’m truthful, Dr. Foster sounded frightened the last time I spoke to him. I’m sorry but I’ve got to think of my parents. If anything happened to me… ’ She stopped then added, ‘You do understand?’
‘Of course. But if you didn’t want to get involved why give it to me?’
‘It sounds silly but back in the office you sounded like you cared. That was like Dr. Foster, he always cared.’
‘You sound like you cared about him.’
Karen’s eyes filled up with tears, but she held his eye as she spoke. ‘I did… I loved him, Mr. Cooper. He didn’t know. I never told him, there wasn’t any point. Like I say, I’ve got my elderly parents to think of.’
‘I’m sorry, Karen… Do you mind if I open this?’
‘Not at all. In fact, I’d rather you kept it. I haven’t known what to do with it. I’m actually pleased I can give it to you.’
Cooper ripped it open. Inside was a small glass test tube full of blood. There was a label on the side of the test tube.
Emmanuel Mutombo.
104
‘Coop, it’s me, Eddie, can you talk?’ Eddie Cotton whispered down the phone.
‘Yeah,’ Cooper whispered back. ‘Can you?’
‘I’m doing that whispering thing again, aren’t I?’
‘Yes you are,’ said Cooper. ‘For a man with an IQ higher than Einstein’s, I wonder how it is you still don’t get that when you call me, asking if I can talk, you don’t have to whisper.’
‘That’s what having too many kids does to you. Listen, are you still around? I got those results for you.’
‘Okay, brilliant. I should be there in a couple of hours.’
‘Mr. Cooper…? Mr. Cooper…!’
‘Eddie, listen, I have to go, someone’s calling me. I’ll see you soon.’
Cooper clicked off his cell and turned to the large woman who sat at the desk summoning him in the kind of a tone he’d heard dog owners use in the park to call their canine friends.
‘Sorry about that.’
The large woman with the dog owners’ tone neglected to acknowledge Cooper’s apology. ‘Mr. Parker does not see visitors without an appointment. Imagine if everybody who wanted a word with Mr. Parker just turned up unannounced, where would we all be then? It would be chaos. Anarchy. Total pandemonium.’
‘We wouldn’t want that would we?’ Cooper said flatly.
‘No, indeed. Now if you want to make an appointment you need to go through his secretary, but that still won’t guarantee you a meeting with him. Mr. Parker’s a very busy man and if everybody tried to make an appointment with him, it would be…’
‘Bedlam.’
The large woman looked puzzled. ‘No, Mr. Cooper, it would be impractical.’
‘Was this taken recently?’
Cooper nodded to a large color framed photograph on the reception desk.
‘Yes, that’s Mr. Parker accepting the North American Environmental Business Award last month. It’s the second year the company’s won it.’
Cooper studied the photo of Donald Parker smiling broadly as he held a seven-inch tall Silver Star trophy. ‘Okay, well thank you for your time.’
105
Cooper walked into the research lab and looked at Eddie. ‘I’m not even going to ask.’
‘It’s a theme party. The kid likes dinosaurs. What can I say?’
‘But do you have to wear it at work?’
Eddie grinned. ‘What do you take me for, Coop? I haven’t worn it all day. Just thought I’d get ready whilst I was waiting for you.’
Cooper gave him a nudge. ‘Hey, if that’s the story you want to stick to, that’s fine by me. What have you got anyway?’
Eddie flicked on a projector, which threw a huge black and white image onto the far wall.
‘This is an X-ray of a flea. Your flea, actually.’
‘I thought it was some kind of bug.’
‘Nope. It’s a Xenopsylla Cheopis flea, commonly known as an Oriental or tropical flea. It’s mainly a parasite of rodents, but it can live off other animals as well. And see that dark part on the X-ray, right there? Well, that’s a mass of bacteria in the insect’s digestive system. If it were alive what would happen is that the mass would work like a blockage, stopping the flea ingesting a meal, which will make it real hungry. You see once they’ve swallowed the bacteria from the infected animal – say, a rat – the bacteria will multiply inside it. The hunger will make the flea go looking for a host to feed off, but because of the blockage, it can’t eat properly, so it tries to regurgitate the bacteria back up, and this comes out in its bite, infecting the host with the flea’s pathogen.’
‘So what kind of disease are we talking about?’
‘Primarily this sort of flea is a vector for Yersinia Pestis.’
Cooper looked at him as blankly as he could.
‘The common name being the plague.’
‘As in the bubonic plague?’
‘That or the septicemic plague or the pneumonic plague.’
‘Jesus. And that’s the bacteria in my flea?’
Eddie shook his head, flipping off the projector. ‘No, I thought at first it was, but although the initial tests show a lot of clinical similarities to the bacteria, it isn’t it. Thing is, bacteria and disease do mutate, either naturally or from human intervention, but unless there’s a lot of research done, it’s hard to tell exactly what it is. But I have no doubt it’s probably pretty nasty if you get bitten by it. You may even get similar symptoms to the plague. Say like swollen lymph glands, fever, bleeding, large boils, coughing up blood, black spots. But again, these are all on a maybe.’
‘Do you think it’s contagious?’
‘I don’t know, you’d have to do a lot more tests and observations before you could know how this bacteria works.’
Cooper tried to push him on it. ‘What about giving me an educated guess?’
‘I think it’d be wrong to do that because although the actual plague is an extremely virulent pathogen that’s likely to cause severe illness and probably death if it isn’t treated, it doesn’t mean this pathogen does the same thing.’
‘So what would you do to find out?’
‘Sometimes the best thing to do is to go back to the source, as in the area it was found. In your case, if someone were to want to research this bacteria more, they’d go back to the area of the DRC where your flea came from. See if people there have been bitten by these fleas. Maybe they’ve fallen ill from the bites, maybe they haven’t. If they have, then it’s a question of finding out how it affects the individual. You also need to test the rats in the area, to see if they’re carrying it, and, if not, why not. For all we know the people who live there may already know of the bacteria’s existence in that area. If it’s a remote place, there’s no reason why we should know about it here in Washington, especially if it’s never been reported or broken out into a massive epidemic like Ebola. It could just be isolated to that particular area.’
‘Is that likely?’
‘Well, the bacteria might’ve mutated in response to the area, like the environmenta
l conditions. It could be a common problem there and it’s been around for years. The local medics might not worry about it or call the World Health Authority in because they know that simple antibiotics will make it better. After all, it’s simple antibiotics which cure the actual plague. So before you can even try to make an educated guess, you have a hell of a lot of questions to ask. You alright, Coop?’
‘Yeah, just thinking.’
‘You sure? You don’t look so good… But this might put a smile on your face. Even though I can’t tell you exactly what the bacteria is, I can tell you I’ve seen it once before. Here in DC in fact. Just recently.’
‘What?’
Cooper leant on the side of the table.
‘About a month ago, one of my colleagues was off sick from work, though in actual fact turns out he’d gone to Vegas and got busted by the cops with three joints of marijuana. Anyway, his work needed covering so I thought I might as well do it, even though it wasn’t strictly my department. There were some clothes to analyze. Really general stuff. The police weren’t looking at anything in particular but there was a question mark around the circumstances. Anyway, I didn’t find anything – apart from on the jacket, where I found a couple of fleas. It’s not that unusual to find fleas. On the contrary, I often find them concealed in clothing fibers. It’s quite common, really, people just don’t know they’re there. When I did some tests, the fleas were Xenopsylla Cheopis, tropical fleas, same as yours. And what I found that was really unusual was the bacteria inside them, which I hadn’t come across before. Until now that is. That’s crazy right?’
‘Who was the person?’
‘I can find out, hold on.’ Eddie walked over to some files by the window. ‘I do remember in the end they ruled it as a suicide. Here you go, his name was…’
‘Foster. Dr. Foster.’
Eddie looked surprised. ‘Yeah, Tim Foster. How did you know?’
‘It’s a long story, I’ll tell you over a beer when I catch up with you properly. In the meantime, could you do me one other thing? Can you test some blood for me? I’d like you to test it for the same bacteria.’