by Ken McClure
There was an uncomfortable pause before Tally shook her head slightly and her eyes filled with renewed doubt.
Steven took her hand and said, ‘I served with Special Forces. I was a doctor but I acquired certain other skills along the way — but they’re a legacy of the past — nothing to do with my current job, and I only carry a gun when there’s cause to believe my life’s in danger. I don’t have a double 0 licence… although I have a TV one… and a driving one with three points for speeding on it.’
Tally couldn’t resist a smile. She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked Steven straight in the eye. ‘I hope I don’t live to regret this but I’m going to believe you,’ she said.
Steven closed his eyes and gave silent thanks.
‘What are your plans when you leave here?’
‘Back to London. I’m going to pick up the pieces of the investigation.’
‘Please be careful.’
‘I will, I promise. I’ve got too much to live for.’
‘You could always stay at my place until you decide what you’re going to do… Special Branch could look after both of us?’
Steven kissed Tally and thanked her for the offer. ‘I have to talk things over with John Macmillan face-to-face. We’ve not been told the whole story about the vaccine. I’m convinced of it.’
‘Keep in touch,’ said Tally. It sounded so poignant that Steven took her in his arms and held her close. ‘As soon as this thing’s over we’ll start making plans about us, right? We come first.’
Tally gave a slightly distant smile and nodded. ‘Take care, Steven.’
Steven was officially discharged next morning after final tests on his reflexes and cardiac and respiratory functions were completed to George Lamont’s satisfaction. ‘You’ll never be that lucky again,’ said Lamont. ‘There can’t be too many people in the world who’ve been injected with cyanide and lived to tell the tale.’
‘I believe you.’
Steven dressed and thanked the unit nurses for looking after him before having a word with Jenkins and Ritchie, the two Special Branch men on the door. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, I’m grateful to you but happily I won’t be requiring your services any longer.’
‘Oh, just when we were beginning to enjoy ourselves,’ said Jenkins, a thickset, bald man who would not have looked out of place in the front row of a rugby scrum. ‘Nothing we like better than baby-sitting Sci-Med agents. Delicate flowers they are, George,’ he said, turning to his colleague. ‘Did you know that?’
Ritchie, his more thoughtful-looking colleague, gave an embarrassed smile.
‘They’re all graduates,’ continued Jenkins. ‘Brains the size of planets, some of them, they reckon. Isn’t that right, Doctor?’
‘Well, all things are relative,’ said Steven, making sure he was looking directly at Jenkins when he said it.
‘But when push comes to shove… it’s Special Branch they call on when noses need blowing and arses wiping…’
‘And an excellent job you do,’ said Steven.
Jenkins bristled at being patronised. ‘Now are you sure you wouldn’t like us to see you across the road, Doctor?’ he asked Steven. ‘Check to see if there are any bad people out there? I mean, are you quite sure you’re fighting fit again…?’
Before Jenkins knew what had hit him, Steven had his arm twisted painfully up his back, his legs splayed apart and the side of his face rammed hard up against the wall in the corridor so that he looked like a gargoyle on a cathedral wall. ‘Yes,’ said Steven thoughtfully. ‘Everything seems to be working well… but thanks for asking. It’s always just as well to check…’
As the two Special Branch men walked away, Steven heard Ritchie say to Jenkins, ‘You arse, didn’t you know he was ex-Regiment?’
Steven found an official government courier waiting patiently for him in Reception. The man smiled politely and examined Steven’s ID carefully before handing over the package Steven knew would contain the pistol and ammunition he’d requested. He signed three forms and wished the man a safe return to London before following the signs for the ground floor visitors’ toilets where he used a cubicle for privacy while he loaded the weapon and secured it in its shoulder holster which he put on with some difficulty in the confined space. Finally, he adjusted the straps for comfort before putting his jacket back on and coming out to check in the mirror that there was no telltale bulge showing.
He used the exit nearest to where taxis dropped off their passengers and timed it so that he was exposed for the minimum of time before jumping into one that was just about to drive away after dropping off an elderly couple.
‘You’re supposed to wait at the stand,’ growled the driver.
‘Twenty quid says you’ll overlook it this once.’
‘Where to?’
Steven deliberately had the driver follow a circuitous route to the police compound where his car had been taken at Macmillan’s request. He first asked to be taken to the hotel he’d stayed at on his first visit to Leicester, changing his mind half way to ask instead for the French restaurant that he had taken Tally to before finally directing the driver to the police compound when he felt sure that they weren’t being followed.
‘Are you having a laugh?’ the driver growled.
‘Call it the gypsy in my soul,’ replied Steven.
He picked up the Honda and drove back to London without incident but spent the entire journey wondering why anyone should want to kill him, trying his best to work through things logically but without much success. Both attacks had originated in Leicester not London. He was certain that the first had been because of the tracking device on his Porsche — the fact that someone had reported his car stolen in order to get the information on its whereabouts seemed to confirm that. But that couldn’t have been the method employed to trace him for the second attack. The Honda wasn’t fitted with a tracker — at least he didn’t think it was… He called Stan Silver.
‘No, it isn’t. Don’t tell me you’ve lost the bloody thing,’ said Silver.
‘Nothing like that,’ Steven assured him. ‘I was just wondering how somebody knew exactly where I was the other day.’
‘If you think you’ve been followed and the car’s to blame, maybe someone stuck one on?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ agreed Steven.
‘Bring it round.’
Steven glanced at his watch. ‘I’m driving down from Leicester. I’ll be there in about half an hour.’
‘Inside’s clean,’ said Silver, finishing his inspection and edging out backwards. ‘I’ll put her up on the ramp.’
Silver drove the Honda on to the hydraulic ramp and pressed the button to raise it. He lit a cigarette while they waited for the vehicle to clear head-height. ‘So, are you winning?’ he asked Steven above the noise.
Steven shook his head. ‘Somebody wants me out the game and I don’t know why.’
‘Sounds like bad news,’ said Silver. ‘One particular person or a gang?’
‘A gang, east European.’
‘Shit, not been muscling in on their interests, have you?’
‘I almost wish I had, then at least I’d know what it’s all about,’ said Steven.
Silver was examining the underside of the Honda with a powerful torch, using the fingers of his left hand to rub away dirt. ‘Well, well, what have we here?’ he said, pulling something from the offside rear wheel arch and handing it to Steven. ‘Problem solved.’
Steven looked at the tracking device for a few seconds in silence. ‘I didn’t tell anyone about the Honda,’ he said. ‘No one knew I had it.’
‘Someone must have seen you driving it.’
‘I tend not to drive at all in London.’
‘Well, I’ll leave it to you to work it out,’ said Silver. ‘Maybe you should leave that with me,’ he added, nodding to the tracker.
Steven handed over the device. ‘What will you do with it?’
‘I pass a transport caff on the way home. I’ll stic
k it on one of the sixteen-wheelers heading for the Channel ports. That should keep the buggers amused for a while.’
Steven thanked Silver and headed for his flat. He felt better for having discovered how his attacker had known where he was but was still left wondering how the opposition knew about the car in the first place. He had deliberately opted not to use a pool car and had made a point of not telling anyone what he was using and yet someone had still managed to find and tag it. His blood ran cold when he considered that it could have been an explosive device instead of a magnetic tracker.
Steven was still thinking about this in the bath with a gin and tonic in his hand when the phone rang. Cursing the fact — or was it his imagination? — that it always did when he forgot to take it into the bathroom with him and thinking that it might be Tally — although he had said he would phone her — he got out the bath and padded through to fetch it.
‘Dr Dunbar? It’s Linda Haldane in Edinburgh.’
‘Oh, hello,’ said Steven, remembering with a slight frisson of excitement that he’d asked her to phone him if she recalled anything at all that might throw light on what had angered her late husband so much. ‘How are you?’
‘Well, thank you,’ replied Linda automatically. ‘The children and I are moving out tomorrow. We’ve spent the day packing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Steven, remembering that she and the children couldn’t afford to stay on in the house because of the financial problems raised by Scott’s death being treated as suicide.
‘You said that I should contact you if I came across anything, no matter how small…’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Scott taped something to the underside of his desk. I found it this morning when I was clearing away his things and dropped something on the floor. I had to crawl under to get it.’
‘What was it?’ asked Steven, aware that his pulse rate had risen sharply.
‘An envelope with two cards in it.’
‘Cards?’
‘Record cards like the ones he used in his file index. I suppose he didn’t want anyone to find these ones.’
‘Like the burglars who came to call,’ said Steven thoughtfully.
‘The police said they were looking for drugs,’ said Linda.
‘Maybe,’ said Steven, suddenly seeing things in a different light. ‘What’s on the cards?’
‘Some sort of code. There are letters and numbers, not telephone numbers. They don’t make a lot of sense to me I’m afraid.’
Steven, who was still dripping wet, wiped his hands on the towel he’d hastily tied round his waist and grabbed pen and paper from his desk before asking for details. He copied down the information as it was read out.
‘First one, C-O-L-E space N-A-T space 4-0-9 space 1-0-0-7 hyphen 1-0-1-1 space 2-0-0-1.’
Steven read it back to her.
‘Second card reads, N-R-G space 2 space 2-3-7 space 2-0-0-1. That’s it, nothing else I’m afraid.’
Once again Steven read the letters and numbers back to her.
‘Do you think it could be significant?’ asked Linda. ‘I mean, does it mean anything to you?’
‘Not right now but if your husband went to the trouble of hiding these cards, there has to be a good reason,’ said Steven.
‘Something that will help prove Scott didn’t take his own life?’
‘I hope so,’ said Steven. ‘Keep in touch. Let me know where you are.’
The bath water had gone cold. Steven dried himself and got dressed. His whole demeanour had changed because of the phone-call. At last he had got a break. It might not make sense right now but he felt he had something to kick-start an investigation that had been threatening to hit the buffers. He called Tally and told her about the call.
‘You deserve a break.’
‘All I have to do now… is decipher it,’ said Steven.
‘I have confidence in you.’
TWENTY
Next morning Steven asked Sci-Med for an update on the green sticker children. It was emailed to him within the hour. Eight more children had been referred to clinics and hospitals with skin complaints varying in seriousness from simple rashes to actual skin degeneration and loss of sensation.
He shook his head as he read through the list but then started to feel puzzled. All the children had been exposed to the contaminating agent at exactly the same time and yet they were developing symptoms at widely varying times. This was not normal for poisoning. Poisons were not subject to the vagaries of individual immune systems as infections were. If the production manager, Dutton, was to be believed, the line used for vaccine distribution had never been used for the toxic compound so the toxin must have already been in the reservoir of vaccine when it was attached. That meant all the kids had been given the same dose, so a variation in body weight should have been the only factor in play. The kids weighing least should have come off worst as they would have received a higher dose of poison per unit body weight.
Steven had the relevant information to hand. He checked up on the records he had on his laptop and compared body weight to dates of referral for medical treatment. There was no correlation at all. In fact, the smallest and lightest child in the group had been the last to develop symptoms.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ he murmured as he searched for any other relevant factors among the sick children. He drew a blank but the appearance of Trish Lyons in the list reminded him that he should have checked up on her condition. He’d been avoiding doing this for fear that he would hear nothing good. He called the hospital in Edinburgh.
‘We had to remove her arm,’ said Fielding. ‘But I think you already knew we were going to have to do that?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Steven. ‘Has that stopped the tissue damage?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ came the measured reply. ‘She’s lost sensation in her feet… she’s wasting away before our eyes.’
‘Jesus,’ murmured Steven. ‘Her poor mother must be going through hell.’
‘She is,’ agreed Fielding. ‘Actually she’s fallen ill herself.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Steven. ‘She’s been under such stress for so long. She’s a strong-willed woman but…’
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ interrupted Fielding. ‘We think it may be the same problem that Trish has.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Steve, feeling as if he’d just been hit between the eyes. ‘How can that be?’
‘I quite agree, it’s a bit of a puzzle but she’s developed a large white patch on her arm and she’s been feeling very unwell… She’s been admitted to the Western General for tests.’
Steven put down the phone. How could Trish Lyons’ mother have been exposed to the toxin? Poisons weren’t infectious or contagious like bacteria or viruses. You couldn’t catch a poison… His gaze went back to the green sticker records showing on his laptop. These were solely the records of the children who’d been given the vaccine. There was no information in them about their families. He called Sci-Med and asked for an urgent check on all the families of green sticker children.
‘What are we looking for?’ asked the duty officer.
‘Anyone who has had cause to go to their GP since their children were put on the green sticker list.’
‘You mean, boils on the bum, cut fingers, verrucas…’
‘Everything,’ snapped Steven and put the phone down. He was edgy. His nerves were strung to breaking point. He had the awful feeling that he was on the brink of uncovering a nightmare.
He knew he’d have to wait some time for the information he’d asked for so he got out the codes he’d been given by Linda Haldane and started playing around with them to see if he could make any sense out of what appeared to be a random collection of letters and numbers but obviously wasn’t if Haldane had gone to the trouble of hiding them. There was a very real possibility that the knowledge contained in the codes was the reason Scott Haldane had ended up in woodland with his wrists slashed.
Steven looke
d for anagrams and acronyms among the letters and for jumbled up phone numbers or dates among the numbers but without success. Apart from anything else, he was having difficulty concentrating when his mind kept straying to what Virginia Lyons’ illness was telling him. He was making coffee when the duty man at Sci-Med called back.
‘Four of us have been working on it non-stop,’ said the man. ‘Turns out quite a few have been to see their doctor. Want the report emailed?’
Steven said that he did and thanked him. He tapped the end of his pen anxiously on the desk until the little envelope icon appeared in the taskbar signifying the arrival of the report. He activated the Sci-Med decoder and started to read through the unscrambled document as it scrolled up on the screen. Ignoring the everyday complaints that were the staple of GPs’ surgeries, Steven was left with a list of twenty-eight close family members of green sticker children who had consulted their doctors about skin problems or loss of sensation in one or more limbs. His fears had been realised. There was now no doubt in his mind. He called Tally.
‘Steven? I’ve only got a moment. I’m in the middle of a ward round.’
‘They’ve been lying.’
‘Who’s been lying?’
‘Any or all of them,’ replied Steven. ‘The toxin in the vaccine story is rubbish. The kids weren’t poisoned at all, they’ve been infected. We’re dealing with an infectious agent here.’ He told her about the family members who’d fallen ill.
‘My God,’ gasped Tally. ‘This just gets worse and worse.’
‘The vaccine itself is the problem,’ said Steven. ‘The contamination story was a blind.’
‘Steven, this is truly awful.’
‘Infectious disease in children is your specialty. Can we meet? I need to pick your brains.’
‘Of course. Look, I’ll get someone to cover for me this afternoon. Do you want to come up here?’
‘Let’s not take any more risks. I don’t want your Special Branch minders knowing about the meeting. Do you think you can give them the slip?’
‘I don’t know… I suppose so…’ said a startled Tally. ‘They’re not expecting me to try to avoid them. After all, they’re on my side. I make a point of saying hello to them.’