The Secret

SEVEN

Steven arrived at the Monsonnier at five to eight and sipped kir while he waited. At fifteen minutes past, the waiter asked if Monsieur would like another. Steven said not; his friend wouldn’t be much longer. At half past he decided that Aline wasn’t coming. He apologised, paid for the drink and tipped well before leaving to walk up and down outside for another ten minutes until he felt absolutely sure she wasn’t going to turn up.

Aline’s hotel was only a five-minute walk away so Steven thought it might be an idea to go there and check that she was all right. He had almost reached the entrance before impulse gave way to consideration and he decided that this might not be a good idea after all. It might look as if he were annoyed that she hadn’t turned up and was looking for an explanation when it was a lady’s prerogative to change her mind, he seemed to remember from some way-back code of manners. They had exchanged contact details so presumably she would be in touch to explain at some point — or not.

Steven smiled, thinking how pleased Tally would be when he told her his ‘date’ had stood him up. He smiled again when he considered that Tally was the best thing that had happened to him for years and then felt the familiar pang of guilt before adding the rider since Lisa of course. He had loved Lisa dearly and their time together had been all too short. Maybe that was the reason why loving someone else still felt as though it had elements of betrayal about it. Silly after ten years but still undeniable.

He was passing a bar when he thought how inviting it looked, typically French with the kind of effortless atmosphere that business people back home tried and failed to emulate by calling their place a bistro, leaving bare boards on the floor and kitting it out with tables and chairs reclaimed from derelict churches. He went inside and ordered un ballon de rouge. It was served quickly and efficiently but without comment, making him reflect on the dislike the English had for the French and in particular for Parisians. It was a view he didn’t share. He preferred to see their perceived rudeness as sophistication. They spoke when they had something worth saying: they listened when there was something worth hearing. Steven ordered a sandwich tunisien and had another glass of wine before deciding on an early night.

In the morning he was on the first flight out of Charles de Gaulle to Heathrow and was sitting in John Macmillan’s office by eleven thirty. Jean Roberts brought in coffee and Steven reported briefly about the Paris trip before Macmillan told him about the two cases of polio in Leicester. Steven had to admit he already knew.

‘Of course, that’s where Dr Simmons works,’ said Macmillan. ‘I should have remembered. How is she, by the way?’

‘Just fine,’ replied Steven, once again noting that Macmillan always referred to Tally formally. He wasn’t quite sure why but suspected it might be because Sir John saw her as the main obstacle to his agreeing to take over at Sci-Med one day. ‘I’ll be seeing her later. I hope to get more details.’

‘It seems straightforward enough,’ said Macmillan, leaning back in the chair, elbows on the arm rests, fingers interlaced in a steeple. ‘Recent immigrant family from Afghanistan.’

‘Do we know which region?’

Macmillan searched briefly through some papers on his desk. ‘North West Frontier country… FATA if that means anything to you?’

‘Federally administered tribal areas,’ said Steven.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Macmillan. ‘I’m told polio is still rife there.’

‘Much to the chagrin of the World Health Organisation,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve learned quite a bit about this over the past couple of days.’

‘I remember now, that’s where Dr Ricard was working. Well, the Leicester situation is something we can’t do much about. It’s a straightforward case of importing a disease from the wilds of Afghanistan into our multicultural wonderland. God help us all.’

Steven smiled wryly. He was well aware of Macmillan’s views on modern Britain. Multiracial was fine, multicultural was the death of all things British and the road to disaster. ‘I was thinking…’ he began.

Macmillan raised his eyebrows.

‘Well, I was wondering as things are a bit quiet for us at the moment if I might take some time off. I’ve been trying to persuade Tally to take a holiday. She’s been working so hard that I’m starting to worry about her, and if this polio business should become more than an isolated incident she might not get a chance again for quite a while.’

‘Makes sense,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘It’s a while since you had any real time off too apart from the odd weekend here and there. Recharge your batteries, that sort of thing.’

‘Thanks, John. I’ll work on Tally this evening.’

‘Give her my best.’

Steven had a quick mental picture of Tally’s face when he passed on Macmillan’s regards. She saw him in much the same light as he saw her: a threat.

Steven was already at the flat in Leicester by the time Tally got home. He hugged her and thought how tired she looked but didn’t say so. She slumped down in the sofa and swung her feet up on a footstool.

‘Would gin and tonic help?’ asked Steven.

‘You bet,’ sighed Tally, reaching behind her to release her hair, which was always tied back for work.

‘Coming right up, my lady.’

‘That sounds like guilt to me. What did you and the French dolly get up to last night?’

‘She didn’t turn up,’ replied Steven from the kitchen as he got ice from the freezer. ‘Are we out of lemons?’

‘Haven’t been to the supermarket,’ Tally replied. ‘What d’you mean she didn’t turn up?’

‘Stood me up. No message. No apology.’

‘Must have been the pins I was sticking in that little doll last night,’ murmured Tally, eyes closed, her head back as if to survey the ceiling.

Steven smiled as he returned with the drinks. ‘Did you ask about time off?’

Tally opened her eyes, made a face and looked guilty.

‘You didn’t,’ Steven accused.

‘I just can’t see how they could manage right now.’

‘Tally, you need a break, and if you wait any longer…’

‘Yes, I know, there just never seems to be a good time. We seem to have an ever growing population in the city who’ve never had proper medical care in their lives.’

‘And now polio’s joining in the fun. How’s that situation developing?’

‘Public Health are hopeful they can contain it. There’s no treatment of course; it’s a case of vaccinating all around the epicentre. The British kids have all been vaccinated already of course, but the immigrants… well, that’s a different story. Some have, some haven’t and in many cases, they don't know. But if everyone stays calm and vaccination is carried out in a systematic and methodical way, we should be all right. What we don’t need is any sort of panic. Any kind of story breaking about a killer stalking the streets and we’re in real trouble. We need people to stay where they are, not start running all over the place.’

Steven sat down beside Tally and put his head back on the couch beside hers. ‘You know, what you said just now — there’s no treatment, of course — you’d think there would be by now.’

‘How so?’

‘Well, we’ve known about viruses and studied them for over a hundred years but we still can’t treat them. From the common cold to smallpox or polio, we’re no more able to cure them than Florence Nightingale was in her day.’

‘But we have vaccination.’

‘Yes, we can stop people getting the disease but if they do get it… there’s zilch we can do about it. When you think about it, antibiotics came along quite quickly for treating bacterial disease: you’d think anti-viral drugs might have progressed much faster than they have. Don’t you think?’

‘There’s Tamiflu.’

‘Which is more successful at making money for shareholders than it is for anything else.’

Steven’s phone rang before Tally could reply. It was John Macmillan.

‘Steven, do you know a Dr Aline Lagarde?’

‘Yes, I met her in Paris. She worked with Simone. Why?’

‘You’re wanted in connection with her murder.’

Steven’s exclamation brought Tally to full, sudden wakefulness. She saw him pale as he stammered, ‘Her murder?’

‘Dr Lagarde was found dead in her hotel room this morning. She’d been strangled. The Paris police have established that she was meeting you last night but you were nowhere to be found.’

‘What do they mean nowhere to be found? I’m here where I belong. This is crazy. I was due to have dinner with Aline last night at a restaurant called the Monsonnier but she didn’t turn up.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I went to a bar, had a couple of drinks and a sandwich, went back to my hotel and had an early night.’

‘The French police say they have witnesses who saw you outside Dr Lagarde’s hotel.’

Steven rubbed his forehead in frustration. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘My first thought when I left the restaurant was to go along there to see if she was okay but when I got there I changed my mind.’

‘Why?’

‘God, I don’t know. It’s not as if we were friends. Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that she might think I was annoyed about her not showing up when in reality I just wanted to know if she was all right… so I didn’t actually go into the hotel. I just turned away. You do believe me?’

‘Of course,’ replied Macmillan. ‘But I think you’d better get yourself back to Paris of your own accord before any official requests start coming in.’

‘First thing in the morning.’

‘Good. I’ll tell the French to expect you.’

Steven took down details of where he should report to and ended the call. He turned to face Tally. ‘I take it you got the gist of that?’

‘Your date last night was murdered. The French police are hunting you down. Do they still use the guillotine in France?’

‘Jesus Christ, what a mess. Poor Aline. What kind of a sick bastard would do something like that?’

‘I hate to say it, but maybe the same kind as killed Simone Ricard?’ suggested Tally tentatively.

Steven stared at her unseeingly for a few moments before reluctantly conceding reluctantly possibility. ‘Not just a mess, more a complete can of worms.’

‘You never said why you were having dinner with her in the first place,’ said Tally.

‘She suggested it; I agreed. We were both friends of Simone; that was the reason we were in Paris. I was coming back to the UK in the morning, Aline was returning to Pakistan… actually she wasn’t. At least not right away.’ Steven had remembered that she was going to speak to her bosses at Médecins Sans Frontières.

‘What about?’ asked Tally.

‘She wasn’t sure if Simone had a chance to speak formally to anyone from Med Sans before her death. Apparently Simone and her team had come across a remote village with lots of sick people in it and kids who hadn’t had their second dose of polio vaccine when they should have. When Simone contacted the agency officially covering that area, she was told to push off and mind her own business.’

Tally frowned in puzzlement.

‘I gather it was a demarcation thing,’ said Steven. ‘The village wasn’t in her designated area.’

‘Sounds like they have NHS managers in Pakistan. Mind you, they would have noticed an unticked box in the vaccination schedules… For what it’s worth, Steven, that doesn’t sound like such a big deal to me. I mean oversights are bound to happen in that sort of environment. We’re talking Rudyard Kipling country here. The Khyber Pass and all that.’

Steven nodded. ‘You don’t have to convince me of that, but Aline told me that Simone felt embarrassed that polio was still endemic there. She took it personally so I guess she’d be hypersensitive about any shortcomings she came across. She always gave a hundred per cent and expected others to do the same.’

‘Even so…’

‘There may have been something else,’ said Steven.

‘Like what?’

‘Aline was going to tell me that at dinner.’

Tally raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘And now you’re going to be hell-bent on finding out what it was?’

‘I would like to know.’

‘Well,’ said Tally. ‘It would appear that, yet again, I am to be denied the presence of my man because the fight for truth and justice must go on. You really must start wearing your underpants on the outside, Steven.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Steven, knowing how weak it sounded. He took Tally in his arms. ‘I love you, Dr Simmons. I love you very much.’

‘And I you,’ murmured Tally. ‘Take care. Come back to me.’