The Secret

TWENTY ONE

Steven left Liam and headed off to walk by the river. He was glad that he now had help on the inside, and the revelation about the disk was exciting. If Simone had thought it necessary to keep the disk and its key separate, she might have suspected there was more to it than vaccination schedules. Alternatively, she might simply have assumed that the disk and the card were copies of the same information — proof of faulty vaccination practices — and she’d kept them separate because she’d been unsure about whom among her colleagues she could trust.

Despite making good progress he started to feel very uneasy about what he was planning next. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d crossed the line of what was strictly legal in the course of an investigation — sometimes it was unavoidable — but this time it was different. It was just… downright stupid. That was the depressing conclusion he reached as he leaned on the embankment wall to take in the view.

Below him, about thirty metres away, a man in a knitted hat was sweeping the exposed low-tide mud with a metal detector, wholly captivated by the prospect of unearthing buried treasure. Steven couldn’t help but see the parallel. He’d been planning an unauthorised entry to a university lab to search for the answer to a puzzle but there was something that he’d been failing to properly acknowledge. He was seeking to uncover a secret that the governments of the UK and the US and their intelligence services didn’t want him to know. Was he out of his mind? He had to be if he really believed he was going to find it lying around. The guy with the metal detector had more chance of coming up with the Koh-i-Noor.

Steven was tempted to abandon all thoughts of a break-in, either assisted or unassisted, but steeled himself to go on thinking things through from every angle as he’d done so often in the past. At last he thought he might have found a loophole. The work that Hausman was doing might be top secret but it wasn’t being carried out in a top security lab like those you’d find at Fort Detrick or Porton Down. Why not? Because… the North lab was a more suitable place for the work… but this had to be for scientific not security reasons. That was the compromise that must have been made. The North lab must have expertise that was relevant to the work. There was a connection with polio.

Steven felt a little better. His conclusion fitted well with what Liam had told him about Tom North's being in on what was going on — something he’d been unsure about. It also made sense because he would have had to agree at some point to taking Hausman into his lab, although perhaps he’d been under some government pressure to do so.

Unfortunately, according to Liam North’s office had been cleared out so any carelessness an academic might have shown in record keeping or file storage couldn’t be exploited. Hausman was a different kettle of fish. He was CIA; it would be second nature for him to cover his tracks.

Steven cursed under his breath as he seemed to be back where he started… but he wasn’t. Hausman might be rock solid but the lab and its resources weren’t. Hausman would have had to use — and still be using — the university computer system, its servers and IT provisions. Could this be the Achilles heel he was looking for?

Next day Steven talked things through with John Macmillan. ‘With a bit of luck we might still be able to access some of Tom North’s stuff on the university computer system as well as have a go at accessing stuff from Hausman.’

‘You mean on their servers and back-up systems?’

‘Precisely.’

Macmillan nodded. ‘So how do we go about doing it? It’ll require a high degree of computer expertise… which gives us a bit of a dilemma. Under normal circumstances we’d just call in expert assistance from one or more of our consultants…’

‘But in this case we can’t because we’d be soliciting their help in committing an illegal act,’ Steven completed.

‘An illegal act against our own government. Difficult.’

Both men sat in silence with the distant sounds of London traffic appearing to become louder because of the quiet in the room. Eventually, Macmillan posed a question. ‘We’ve been assuming that all the authorities are in on this secret. Can you think of one that isn’t?’

Steven thought back to the meeting they’d had with the Foreign Secretary and heads of the security services. Who was present… and who wasn’t. ‘The police?’ he ventured.

‘The police,’ Macmillan repeated with a smile. ‘It’s my guess that someone decided that London’s boys in blue didn’t need to know what was going on.’

‘Maybe time for a lunch with Charlie?’ Steven suggested. He was referring to Chief Superintendent Charles Malloy, a friend of Macmillan’s who had been helpful to Sci-Med in the past. Steven knew and liked him too. He was his own man and didn’t always go by the book — maybe something that had denied him access to the very top of the career pole.

Macmillan nodded. ‘We’ll have to be very clear about what we’re asking of him. It could be his head on the block as well as ours.'

Steven agreed.

‘So what are we asking?’

‘Supposing the police had some reason to enter City College and confiscate computer equipment… lots of it,’ suggested Steven.

‘What reason did you have in mind?’

‘Porn,’

Macmillan raised his eyebrows.

‘As bad as it gets. We find a way to plant the stuff on their system and tip off the police. Once we have the gear, Charlie lets our experts examine everything only it won’t be porn we’ll be looking for.’

‘The “planting” bit makes me nervous,’ said Macmillan. ‘Charlie would have to agree to it from the outset.’

‘Of course,’ Steven said. ‘In fact, I was thinking, maybe he might come up with the material we need. You know, stuff confiscated by the police? I mean, I don’t think I could convince Tally I was working at home without sustaining grievous bodily harm.’

‘Lady Macmillan might not be too amused either,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’ll ask Jean.’

‘For porn?’

‘To set up lunch as soon as possible.’

Steven decided to say nothing to Liam about the proposal until Macmillan had approached Charlie: he now knew that would be on Thursday. It promised to be a big day for more than one reason, as Tally would be interviewed for the Great Ormond Street job then. She was taking two days' leave and would travel to London on Wednesday, staying overnight at with him at Marlborough Court before returning to Leicester after the interview to be on duty first thing on Friday morning.

That left Wednesday as a bit of a limbo day. Steven passed the morning cleaning and tidying the flat and thinking about how they might ‘infect’ the City College computer system, assuming Charlie Malloy agreed to the plan — and the more he thought about that the less likely it seemed. He hadn’t come to any conclusion by the time Tally arrived and admired his efforts.

Steven found her looking out of the window when he brought coffee through from the small kitchen. ‘Penny for them,’ he said.

‘I was wondering what it would be like to live here,’ she replied.

‘And?’

‘I think it would be just fine.’

They set off for lunch ‘somewhere in the country’ in accordance Tally’s request when he’d spoken to her the night before — ‘Somewhere where I can take in great breaths of clean, fresh air without the remotest suggestion of hospital smells.’

Steven had decided to put aside thoughts of work for the day and offer Tally his full support, although it did occur to him as they drove out of town, heading for the south coast, that the fact that Liam hadn’t contacted him yet probably meant that he’d failed to locate the disk.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked when they’d placed their order at the country pub he’d decided on.

‘Exactly how you think I’m feeling,’ Tally replied with a wry smile. ‘I think I may have over-reached myself in applying for this one.’

‘Nonsense. You couldn’t do any such thing. You’re the best. I keep telling you that.’

‘You do and I thank you for it but I think I’m the realistic one in this duo. I mean, Great Ormond Street, what was I thinking of?’

‘You’ll see tomorrow. Your references will be fantastic and they’ll see in you exactly what they’re looking for: an outstanding physician who cares deeply about her patients — to the extent that she refuses to take a holiday even when the job is threatening her health.’

‘Let’s not go there. There’s nothing wrong with my health,’ Tally growled.

‘Nothing that a holiday wouldn’t cure.’

‘Dunbar!’

The waitress, a pleasant Australian girl who was ‘doing Europe’, returned with their food and interrupted what Tally was about to say. Tally and Steven sat looking at each other while the plates were placed before them, Tally adopting a mock threatening expression while Steven favoured a smug, schoolboy grin.

‘Things will be easier when you’re a consultant,’ said Steven, continuing with the tease. ‘We’ll be going away all the time.’

‘Are you going to stop this?’

‘Mind you, in my experience, there are certain things you’ll have to do if you hope to be accepted as a real medical consultant.’

‘Like what?’

‘Wear red trousers and a bow tie, adopt a very loud voice and play golf.’

Tally couldn’t stop herself laughing. ‘You’re impossible,’ she said.