Dust to dust

TWENTY

Steven called Tally in Leicester.

‘Steven! Where are you?’

‘I’m up in the north. I’m just about to start back to London. I thought I might stop off at your place tonight unless you have other plans?’

‘No, that would be great. I’ve been wondering how you were getting on. I kept getting your answering service.’

‘And I yours,’ said Steven. ‘Let’s go out to dinner and catch up.’

‘So, I’m a romantic at heart,’ said Steven as he drew up outside the French restaurant where he and Tally had eaten together shortly after meeting for the first time. His investigation had led him to the children’s hospital in Leicester where Tally worked.

‘It’s nice to be back,’ said Tally, looking at the Provencal posters on the walls. ‘I think I was a bit hard on you earlier in the week. I didn’t really mean to suggest there was some kind of competition between Jenny and me for your affections.’

‘I never imagined that having two women in my life would be easy,’ said Steven with a grin that suggested he knew he was embarking on a dangerous course.

‘As long as the other one’s called Jenny and she’s nine years old,’ said Tally with an icy glance.

‘You know how I feel about you.’

‘Pretty much how you feel about your Porsche is probably the best I can hope for,’ said Tally. ‘How did you find the new one, by the way?’

‘Not a patch on you,’ said Steven.

‘Is the right answer. But pretty pathetic, Dunbar. Still, I suppose I should be grateful it’s not on fire in some field somewhere and bullets aren’t coming in through the windows of the restaurant as we speak.’

‘That was an exception,’ Steven insisted. ‘Sci-Med investigations are usually quite straightforward and often very dull.’

‘So how’s the current one going? Or can’t you tell me?’

‘Of course I can. I’ve been up to Dryburgh Abbey in the Scottish Borders where an academic went off his head and started attacking his colleagues after entering a seven-hundred-year-old tomb which was home to sixteen Black Death victims.’

‘I read something about that in the papers,’ said Tally.

‘Sci-Med were worried in case the academic’s condition had anything to do with the contents of the tomb.’

‘And had it?’

‘The tomb contained nothing but dust and bones, which was a big disappointment for everyone, but unfortunately for the chap in question the dust contained a large quantity of poisonous fungal spores. He breathed them in and ended up with severe mycotoxin poisoning: it’s touch and go whether he’ll recover. But now that the panic’s over, Public Health will disinfect the chamber and that’ll be an end to the investigation. See, I told you you were exaggerating the dangers of the job.’

‘Mmm,’ said Tally, not convinced. ‘So, what’s next?’

‘Don’t know yet. I’ll make out my report on Dryburgh when I get back to London and see what John Macmillan has lined up for me.’

‘Exciting.’

‘Probably mundane and boring,’ said Steven with a one-up smile.

‘All right, Dunbar. Don’t over-egg the pudding.’

‘What have you been up to?’

‘Working my socks off in an under-staffed, under-funded, over-administered excuse for a hospital where management — and I use the term humorously — are more concerned with ticking boxes than they are with treating sick children.’

‘So no change there then.’

‘NHS, the envy of the world? It’s as fucked as the banking system. People just haven’t realised it yet.’

‘Obviously time for a change,’ said Steven. ‘How does the idea of being the full-time mother of a nine-year-old girl sound?’

Tally fixed him with a stare. ‘Don’t be flippant, Steven. We’ve been through all that. I have a career; it’s important to me. I love medicine; I love the kids; it’s the crummy system I hate.’

Steven nodded. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I know and, believe me, I do understand.’

‘Do you?’ asked Tally, searching his face for the truth.

‘Yes,’ Steven assured her. ‘But it’s also true that I love you… and it’s unconditional.’

Tally was about to say something when Steven’s phone went off. He apologised but said he had to take it. Switching off his Sci-Med mobile was never an option. He left the eating area to take the call in a small cocktail bar adjoining the restaurant which was currently empty, and perched on a bar stool with one foot on the ground.

‘Dr Dunbar? It’s Cassie Motram.’

Steven remembered giving Cassie his card and inviting her to call if she thought of anything relevant. ‘Hello, Dr Motram. What can I do for you?’

‘Have you seen the TV news this evening, doctor?’

‘I’ve been on the road most of the day, Dr Motram. Why, was there something interesting?’

‘I’ll leave that for you to decide, doctor. I found it very strange. Do let me know what you think when you see it.’ The line went dead, leaving Steven looking at his phone with a slight feeling of embarrassment.

‘Problems?’ asked Tally when he sat back down.

Steven shrugged. ‘Don’t know. That was Cassie Motram, the wife of the chap who was poisoned in the tomb. She’s a GP. She wanted to know if I’d seen the TV news tonight.’

‘What have we missed?’

‘She didn’t say.’

Tally looked surprised. ‘How odd.’

Their starters arrived and they tried to get their evening back on track, but the phone call was ever present at the back of their minds. ‘Would you like to go home?’ Tally asked half way through the main course, when she saw Steven’s attention wander yet again. He did his best to assure her that there was no need to rush off and the news item was probably something trivial anyway, but Tally said, ‘On the other hand there just might have been an outbreak of Black Death in the Scottish Borders…’

‘Oh my God,’ said Steven. ‘Would you mind?’

Tally smiled. ‘I think this is the bit in those police programmes where I accuse you of being married to the job and storm out in high dudgeon… but as we’re both staying at my place there’s not much point really.’

‘Good.’

‘Mind you, if this should turn out to be an elaborate subterfuge to ensure an early night, Dunbar… you’ll be spending it on the sofa.’

It was nine thirty when they got home: Steven turned on the TV and tuned to Sky News, waiting for a headline update while Tally made coffee. ‘Anything?’ she asked coming in with a tray and putting it down on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

‘Nothing yet.’

Tally patted the sofa with the palm of her hand. ‘Won’t be too bad

…’

Steven was about to respond when he froze and stared at the screen. A news item, Dead Marine’s Family Seek Answers, had captured his undivided attention. It was reported that the family of a Scottish Royal Marine, Michael Kelly, who lost his life in Afghanistan, were claiming that they had not been told the whole truth about their son’s death. They claimed to have information that he had been sent back to the UK on a secret mission and that the circumstances surrounding his death were clouded in mystery. They were demanding answers.

The report ended but Steven continued to sit staring at the screen unseeingly.

Tally seemed incredulous. ‘Is that it?’ she exclaimed. ‘What on earth has that to do with Black Death and the excavation at Dryburgh?’

‘What an awfully good question,’ replied Steven distantly. He finally moved his attention away from the screen to face Tally. ‘Cassie Motram told me that her husband saw the original report of that marine’s death on TV and thought he recognised him as the donor in a bone marrow transplant he’d been asked to advise on. Then they heard he’d been wounded in Afghanistan on the same day that John Motram saw the donor in London, so they put it down to mistaken identity. But now this…’

‘So, if what the marine’s family is saying is true, he could have been the donor after all?’

‘Apparently.’

Tally left Steven alone with his thoughts for a moment. She returned with two brandies and handed him one. ‘Do you know what I think you need now?’

‘What?’

‘That early night.’