White death

EIGHTEEN

Steven talked Tally through what would happen if the Pinetops affair was made public and saw the same frustration grow inside her that he had felt — the battle against an inescapable logic which concluded that saying nothing was the right thing to do — however unpalatable.

‘The bastards,’ said Tally. ‘There’s a reason for all these safeguards.’

‘My heart agrees but my head understands why everyone wants to speed things up if we really are at risk of a biological attack.’

‘What’s the evidence for that?’ asked Tally.

‘I haven’t seen it but the government believes an attack is inevitable. They insist that the intelligence is overwhelming. There’s no chance of getting the vaccines we require developed and tested through the normal channels so they’re smoothing the way wherever possible.’

‘And giving rise to misunderstandings…’

‘So it would appear,’ agreed Steven.

‘Do you believe them?’ asked Tally, watching Steven closely for the slightest flicker of his eyes or any change in body language that might belie his response.

Steven was aware of her scrutiny. ‘There are still some things that disturb me,’ he said. ‘Yet I have no option but to accept what they say. On the other hand… I don’t think I’ve been told the whole truth about the Pinetops disaster… There’s something not quite right with their version of what went wrong with the vaccine and how.’

Tally saw this as a scaling down of the main argument and it showed on her face but she reined in her temper, recognising that continuing to express outrage wasn’t going to get them anywhere. She poured them both a drink and sat down. ‘How so?’

Steven told her about his discussion with Dutton.

Tally looked doubtful. ‘If that’s what they were bottling before the vaccine run, surely it has to be the number one suspect?’ she said. ‘Even if they didn’t actually use the same production line, they might still have transferred parts from it, a filter, a dispensing head, a piece of tubing. How else could it get in, or are you suggesting that someone actually injected it into the vials deliberately?’

Steven made a face and shook his head. ‘No, you’re probably right but Dutton is an experienced man… He wouldn’t have made an elementary mistake like transferring a contaminated filler head from one line to another…’

‘It didn’t have to be him,’ said Tally. ‘I still think it’s odds on the fault was in the production process.’

‘Maybe that’s what we were meant to think…’

Tally looked at him questioningly. ‘Very cryptic,’ she said. ‘You could write tag lines for EastEnders… Doof, doof…’ She hummed the theme tune.

‘I just don’t feel comfortable about it. And now they are closing down the company. Something doesn’t ring true.’

‘You’re right,’ said Tally. ‘A company admitting liability and doing the decent thing doesn’t ring true at all these days.’

‘But don’t you see, there was no pressure on them,’ said Steven. ‘The affair’s not going to be made public so there will be no tabloid editors demanding blood, no TV reporters standing outside the building, demanding to know what happened. It’s a small company so there are no shareholders to worry about. Why shut up shop before any detailed investigation has taken place?’

‘I hate to say it but isn’t this a minor consideration, Steven?’ asked Tally. ‘Does the precise mechanism of how the toxin got into the vials really matter in the great scheme of things when the damage has already been done and these children have been harmed? Isn’t it academic?’

‘No, it isn’t,’ insisted Steven. ‘People keep saying this but it’s like the piece of a jigsaw puzzle left over at the end when you thought the picture was complete. You can either hide it and pretend everything’s okay or admit there’s a problem and take a closer look only to discover that some of the pieces don’t really fit at all: it’s all just an illusion.’

Tally looked at him with an indulgent smile. ‘If you say so,’ she said. ‘I don’t know about you but I think I’ve had enough of cold reality for one week. I think we should make good our escape from it by drinking far more than the BMA would recommend and end up behaving in an absolutely outrageous and wanton manner, finishing up in a scenario featuring my bed with my backside bouncing off it… like there was no tomorrow.’

Steven broke into a huge smile. ‘Talk about good ideas…’ he said, slipping his hand slowly under Tally’s sweater. ‘But let’s not rush things…’ He pushed Tally’s bra up and sought out her right nipple with his tongue.

‘If you… say so,’ murmured Tally appreciatively.

‘Oh, I do,’ said Steven. ‘I have a feeling this is going to take… ages.’ He moved his attentions to Tally’s left breast while continuing to circle her right nipple with the side of his thumb.

‘Oh, that is gorgeous…’

Steven saw that Tally had her eyes closed but the smile on her lips spoke volumes. He continued his adoration of her breasts while he loosened her jeans and eased them off: Tally assisted by raising her bottom, letting Steven’s right hand roam freely over her buttocks and between her thighs, taking direction from the sighs and groans he was provoking.

‘You’re all wet…’ he whispered as he slipped his hand into her panties while moving his mouth down over her stomach and tracing a line with his tongue. ‘Deliciously wet…’

‘And you are all hard,’ groaned Tally, reaching down to free what was pressing for release from Steven’s trousers.

‘Time to see if your mattress will take it…?’

‘Absolutely,’ gasped Tally.

‘The sun’s shining,’ whispered Steven in Tally’s ear. She responded by turning away and pulling the covers up.

‘It’s a beautiful day.’

‘It’s Sunday,’ complained Tally. ‘Have you no heart?’

‘No… I think I’ve lost it to a beautiful lady,’ whispered Steven as he kissed Tally’s neck gently.

‘Mmm… You’re a heartless monster…’ she murmured but a smile had settled on her lips. ‘How is a girl to get her beauty sleep…?’

‘She doesn’t need it. She’s already gorgeous.’

‘Too much,’ giggled Tally. ‘What is it you’re after, Dunbar? As if I didn’t know…’

Steven smiled broadly. ‘Well, that too,’ he agreed. ‘But I thought we might have the perfect Sunday. We’ll have a walk in the sunshine, find some place that’ll serve us Bloody Marys while we read the papers and then have a long, self-indulgent lunch… before we come back and watch the football on TV.’

Tally’s eyes shot open. ‘What?’ she exclaimed.

‘Just joking,’ smiled Steven. ‘But I got your attention.’

‘Monster, monster, monster,’ complained Tally as she rained mock blows on Steven’s chest. ‘What am I going to do with you?’

‘Well, first…’ murmured Steven. ‘I thought you might…’

Tally had a fit of the giggles. ‘You are impossible,’ she said but she gave in.

Tally, dressed in jeans and a soft leather blouson over a white T-shirt, slipped her keys into her handbag and gave the flat door a final check before saying to Steven, ‘You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had a Bloody Mary before.’

‘It’ll give you an appetite,’ said Steven, slipping his arm round her shoulders. ‘But I’m depending on you to suggest a nice place?’

‘My sister keeps talking about a place called the Riverside Tavern, out by Marley Wood. We could try that?’

‘Excellent.’

They stepped outside into the sunshine and paused for a moment to enjoy its warmth on their faces. ‘Mmm,’ said Tally. ‘This is how weekends should be.’ She looked up at Steven who smiled and hugged her closer.

‘No argument there.’

‘Let’s go in my car,’ said Tally. ‘Then I won’t have to shout directions at you.’

Steven rested his arm on the roof of Tally’s Renault Clio while she got her keys out. He was about to say something about women and handbags when he felt a sudden pain in the back of his left thigh as if he’d been stung by a wasp. He clutched at it and turned to see a male figure who had been walking towards them turn on his heel and run off.

‘What the…’ he gasped as his senses started to reel and he felt his knees become weak.

‘Steven!’ Tally cried out in alarm as she ran round to the passenger side to find him slumping to the ground. ‘What’s happened?’

Steven was fighting a losing battle but he pulled out the thing that was sticking in the back of his leg. It was a small dart — the kind that could be fired from an air pistol. He matched this up with his observation of the man who had taken to his heels. Something about his suit said that he wasn’t English… he was east European, maybe Russian. ‘Sweet Jesus,’ he murmured as he realised that he had been wrong about the two Russians who had driven him off the road. It hadn’t been a case of mistaken identity at all. It had been him they’d been after all along.

Steven looked at the dart through blurred vision as consciousness threatened to leave him. ‘Ricin…’ he murmured. ‘Ricin… There’s no antidote. I’m so sorry.’

Tally, her eyes wide with horror, saw the dart fall from Steven’s hand and did her best to cushion his head as he slumped unconscious to the pavement. She put him in the recovery position and snatched her mobile phone from her bag to dial three nines. With her fingers resting lightly on the carotid pulse in Steven’s neck and feeling a mixture of shock and anguish, she brought out a pair of tweezers from her bag and picked up the dart from the pavement.

‘Welcome back,’ said the voice as Steven blinked at the whiteness of the ceiling and started to take in his surroundings. He tried to focus on the figure in white who had spoken but everything was just too bright.

‘Before you ask, you’re in hospital: it’s ten thirty on Tuesday morning and you are a very lucky man.’

‘Tuesday?’ murmured Steven, suddenly realising that he had lost a couple of days of his life. ‘Tally… must see Tally.’

‘I take it you mean Dr Simmons? She asked to be kept informed when you woke up. I’ll give her a call in a moment,’ said the nurse. ‘Mind you, she’ll have to fight her way through the heavies on the door. I thought it had to be Brad Pitt or George Clooney lying helpless in here when I came on duty last night.’

‘Sorry,’ said Steven with an attempt at a smile.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ said the nurse with a grin as she left the room.

Steven had barely a moment to rest his head on the pillow and think back to Sunday before a middle-aged man in a suit came into the room and introduced himself as George Lamont, the doctor in charge of his case. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘I thought there was no antidote to ricin,’ said Steven.

‘There isn’t,’ said Lamont. ‘But it wasn’t ricin.’

Steven looked at Lamont, feeling confused and wondering if his recollection of events might be flawed. ‘But the dart…’

‘Was poisoned, but not with ricin,’ interrupted Lamont. ‘And you have Dr Simmons to thank for saving your life. She picked up on the slight smell of almonds coming from the dart when she picked it up to examine it and you can be eternally grateful that she made the right call. The dart delivered cyanide not ricin. She and the paramedics managed to counteract the poison with amyl nitrite when your heart stopped and then we took over.’

‘My God… I assumed…’

‘Everyone remembers the Georgi Markov story,’ said Lamont. ‘Poisoned-tip umbrellas and all that.’

Tally arrived and entered the room, wearing a white coat and with a stethoscope slung round her neck. Lamont smiled and made to leave, saying that he would give them a few minutes together before having to give Steven a thorough examination.

‘I hear I owe you my life,’ said Steven.

‘The very least I could do… after Saturday night,’ smiled Tally. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Like I’ve got the worst hangover in the world,’ replied Steven. ‘I’m so sorry for exposing you to danger like that. Christ, it could have been you.’

‘You weren’t to know that somebody was going to make an attempt on your life,’ said Tally, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing his hair back. ‘But I am curious to know why…’

‘I got it wrong,’ said Steven. ‘I should have known better at the time but I made the wrong call. I believed what I wanted to believe.’

Tally looked puzzled and vaguely uneasy as if she suspected that she was about to hear something she really didn’t want to know. ‘I don’t understand.

Steven told her about the attack on the motorway and the two Russians who had perished in the flames. ‘I thought it was a case of mistaken identity… that they were after the previous owner of the car but that’s what I wanted to believe when it was me they were after all along.’

Tally had gone pale. ‘Steven, you’re scaring me. I know you’re an investigator but I thought… you were sort of like a tax inspector… You might have to ask awkward questions from time to time… But Russians forcing you off the motorway and cyanide darts… This is all getting a bit much for me.’

‘I think that’s what I was afraid of hearing when I went for the mistaken identity conclusion rather than even consider it had been me they’d been after,’ said Steven.

‘What else haven’t you been telling me?’

‘You know everything else,’ said Steven.

Tally looked less than convinced. ‘So where exactly do Russians and poison darts fit into an investigation into British children being given unlicensed vaccines?’

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed.

Tally looked as if she didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

‘I really don’t.’

‘Oh God,’ sighed Tally, putting her hand to her forehead. ‘I knew this was a bad idea…’

‘No,’ said Steven, stretching out to take her hand. ‘It’s a good idea,’ he insisted. ‘When this is over, I promise I will do whatever it takes to make you see that it is, even if it means giving up my job and selling double glazing in Leicester… Just don’t give up on me?’

Tally’s expression softened. ‘You know very well how I feel about you,’ she said. ‘But this…’ Words failed her and she looked everywhere but directly at Steven. ‘I need a bit of time. Dr Lamont wants to examine you and there are a lot of people out there waiting to speak to you. I’ll come back later when I’ve finished my shift.’ She kissed Steven gently on the forehead but left him feeling uneasy in his mind.