Lost Causes (18 page)

The evening broadcast from the advisory committee urged caution. People must remain on their guard against a disease which could still kill if given the chance. Water supplies were being kept under constant surveillance, but should suspicion be aroused the public were urged to report it quickly to the
authorities
. Arrangements for vaccination against cholera were proceeding as planned, and it was envisaged that there should only be a gap of around ten days after the first wave of vaccinations before the entire population could be protected. Together they would
wash away the evil
.

Steven had noticed the new government slogan appearing on posters in the city. Swine flu had had one too: someone in Whitehall believed that all epidemics should have a slogan. His mind strayed to what it might be if weapons-grade smallpox or bubonic plague came to call.

‘Anything in from Lukas?’ Steven asked Jean when he arrived at the Home Office in the morning.

‘Nothing apart from a memo yesterday evening saying that the lab had the strain and would be working on it all night.’

‘Let me know if anything comes in. I’m going over to Belmarsh prison after the COBRA meeting. I need to speak to the Asian who claims he was set up.’

‘Aren’t you going to say good morning to Sir John?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Jean inclined her head towards John Macmillan’s office, a gesture that made Steven break into a disbelieving smile. He knocked on the door and waited for a response before entering. ‘Good to see you back. Does your wife know you’re here?’

‘She made a bit of a fuss, but frankly I think she’s glad to be rid of me.’

‘Well, I’m delighted to see you sitting there,’ said Steven. ‘Are you officially back at the helm?’

‘No. Call me an interested observer until the medics sign me off completely.’

‘I was just telling Jean I’m going over to Belmarsh to talk to Anwar Khan. If you were to attend the COBRA meeting instead of me, it would save some time.’

Macmillan smiled. ‘You never were much of a one for
meetings
, were you, Steven?’

Steven concurred. ‘There’s quite a lot to tell you about, but it’ll wait till later. Will you attend COBRA?’

Macmillan nodded. Steven set off for Greenwich and HMP Belmarsh, home to some of the most violent prisoners in the country. He paused at the door to check with Jean that full code-red status had gone through. This was important because, although Sci-Med agents always had the right to request
assistance
and co-operation from the police and many other
authorities
, having full code-red status entitled them to demand it with total Home Office authority should it not be forthcoming – not something to be used lightly, but a useful power when opposition was anticipated.

‘The Home Secretary signed it yesterday.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t forget to remove your weapon before you try to enter the prison or we’ll be seeing you on the six o’clock news.’

Steven had a brief meeting with the two MI5 interrogators on duty before his interview with Anwar Khan. ‘None of them is saying anything,’ one told him. ‘They’re shit scared but they’re not talking.’ 

‘It’s not us they’re scared of,’ said the other. ‘It’s the Muslim mob in here. They’ve obviously been told they’re dead if they say anything. It was a mistake bringing them here.’

‘I agree,’ said Steven.

‘What’s Sci-Med’s interest?’

‘The cholera,’ Steven lied, knowing it would be a reasonable angle for Sci-Med to follow up on, and hoping it would defuse any animosity about his muscling in on security service
territory
. ‘We’d like to know if they have a lab in this country.’

‘So would we if you learn anything. Good luck.’

Steven remained seated when two prison officers brought in the nineteen-year-old Khan, his eyes betraying conflicting emotions. Steven guessed that fear was winning but currently defiance was emerging as a front-runner.

‘What are you looking at?’ the boy snarled.

‘A loser?’

Khan made to move forward across the table but stopped himself when Steven didn’t react at all. ‘We’ll see who the losers are,’ he said, sinking back down in his chair.

‘Indeed we will.’

‘Our war is a holy war.’

‘But what you don’t realise, Khan, is that you were never part of it. You were set up just like you said you were. Weren’t you? You were conned. They set you up, then blew the whistle.’

‘Shut the fuck up.’

‘Come on, son, you’re the one who worked it out. Who set you up? At least make sure the bastard gets what’s coming to him.’

‘Fuck you.’

‘Fair enough … but think about it. How many virgins do you get in Paradise when you’re a loser who was set up from the very start? You’re young, you made a mistake; someone used you and your friends. You’re not going to get off after killing all those people but if you help us to get the brains behind it … maybe, just maybe, your whole life won’t be wasted in a place like this …’

‘Fuck off.’

Steven returned to the Home Office.

‘How did you get on?’ asked Macmillan.

‘He wouldn’t say anything but I hope I planted a seed of doubt in his mind. I’m sure he knows he was set up, however much he might regret admitting it now.’

‘You said earlier you had some other news?’

Steven brought Macmillan up to date with what he’d learned about the disks and told him of his request that Lukas Neubauer subject the cholera bug to a full analysis. ‘I think that’s why they didn’t make it resistant to antibiotics, to stop us thinking it might have been altered at all.’

‘Why would they want to do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Steven, feeling his position weaken: he seemed to be saying that a lot.

‘Well, your instincts usually serve you well. Meanwhile, I haven’t been idle myself.’

‘Really?’ Steven immediately hoped he hadn’t sounded too surprised.

‘I’ve been checking through the things the computer’s been picking up on.’

The Sci-Med computer was programmed to highlight any article appearing in the UK press with a scientific or medical content that might conceivably concern Sci-Med.

‘An elderly woman living in Edinburgh, Mrs Gillian McKay, reported to the police that her next-door neighbour, a Mr Malik, had gone missing; she hadn’t seen him for some days. When police checked the premises they found nothing amiss – he’d apparently just gone away – but they volunteered to check with Malik’s relatives if Mrs McKay knew of any. She said Malik had told her all his relatives were back in Pakistan. Later, however, when a young reporter from the local paper came to see her, she remembered he had a nephew who worked for the water board … she’d seen the van at the house.’

‘Oh, you beauty,’ murmured Steven.

‘She’d spoken to Malik about it: he was going to ask his nephew to investigate her complaint that there was too much chlorine in the local water. She claimed it made her tea taste funny.’

‘Well, well,’ said Steven, ‘if you’ll pardon the pun. Do we know what day the van was there?’

‘We do,’ said Macmillan, breaking into a grin. ‘I checked the dates. The day of the attack on the Edinburgh flats. What’s more, with the story being taken from a local newspaper, a report about a missing person …’

‘The police didn’t pick up on the nephew?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Maybe we could hand it over after I’ve spoken to Mrs McKay?’ suggested Steven. ‘Actually no,’ he said, having second thoughts. ‘I could pass the info on to John Ricksen at 5. One good turn deserves another and all that …’

‘Frightening,’ said Macmillan with a shake of the head belied by a look of admiration. ‘You put one over on MI5 and then get a round of applause from them. I suggest you get started.’

Steven decided to go up to Edinburgh that evening on the British Airways shuttle out of Heathrow. He wouldn’t try to see Mrs McKay until the following morning, but he thought he might like to have a wander round the streets of Edinburgh. Although he’d never lived there, he knew it well enough. He and Lisa had set up home in Glasgow after their marriage and had often gone through to Edinburgh to see shows or just spend time there.

He’d also had occasion to visit the city several times in the course of his work with Sci-Med, so his memories were not all rosy and, in truth, he’d had some experiences there that he would rather forget. He’d found himself at cross purposes with Lothian and Borders Police on more than one occasion too, so rather than check into a hotel in the city he would keep a low profile and stay at a B&B recommended to him by Jean Roberts – Fraoch House in Pilrig Street, on the north side of the New Town. As one of the cities affected by the cholera attack, he wanted to get a feel for how Edinburgh was dealing with it.

If, as he suspected, he didn’t get much out of Mrs McKay, and Lukas Neubauer had not been in touch, he thought he would go down to Dumfriesshire to see his daughter before returning to London. With this in mind, he bought some children’s books for Jenny and his sister-in-law’s children at the airport before boarding the flight. He was flicking through the pages of
Mother Goose
when the man sitting beside him said, ‘I see you’re a Booker Prize man.’

Steven laughed. ‘Beats celebrity memoirs.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said the man. ‘I’ve just been interviewing a couple.’ He answered Steven’s enquiring glance with, ‘Liam Rudden, entertainments editor with the
Edinburgh Evening News
.’

The two men shook hands. ‘Steven Dunbar. The book’s for my daughter, honest.’

‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ joked Rudden. ‘
Mother Goose
is a favourite of mine too. In fact I’m directing it at the Brunton Theatre this Christmas.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘No, I do a panto every year – the perfect antidote to
interviewing
too many celebrities. Panto’s more realistic than some of them are. What line are you in yourself?’

‘Civil servant,’ said Steven.

Rudden gave Steven his card. ‘Give me a call nearer the time. I’ll sort out some good tickets for you and your daughter.’

‘I may take you up on that.’

* * *

Steven’s planned evening walk around the streets of Edinburgh came to an abrupt halt when the heavens opened and
torrential
rain had everyone running for shelter. He found his in the bar of the Roxburghe Hotel where he stayed until the deluge abated more than an hour later. The talk in the bar was about the weather and how unpredictable it was. Global warming found its proponents and opponents until, with nothing decided, the conversation changed to the terrorist attacks.

As most of the people were out-of-towners – businessmen on trips to the capital – Steven learned precisely nothing about how the locals were viewing them. He gave up eavesdropping and went back to Pilrig Street for an early night, winding his way downhill through the New Town, with the gutters still running like rivers and the professional premises closed and dark.

He was in a deep sleep when his mobile went off. It was Lukas Neubauer. ‘Don’t bother telling me it’s two in the morning. I know it is; I’m the one still working,’ said Neubauer.

‘Fair enough. I’m impressed,’ countered Steven. ‘Is that what you phoned to tell me?’

‘The cholera strain
has
been genetically modified.’

Steven was suddenly very wide awake, his mind filling with the possible horrors that could stem from that statement. ‘In what way?’ he asked in trepidation.

‘A bizarre way,’ said Neubauer. ‘A cassette has been inserted in its genome. Basically it’s a self-destruct mechanism.’

Steven struggled for words. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘I’m sure that’s what it is,’ said Neubauer. ‘In the early days of molecular biology, people were worried about altered
organisms
escaping from labs, so scientists came up with ways of disabling such bugs if they ever did. This is a very sophisticated version of that. The bug has a requirement for an amino acid which is being supplied by a gene on the cassette, but the cassette has a limited life span. When it stops supplying the amino acid, the bug will die.’ 

‘You mean the cholera was meant to die from the outset?’

‘That’s what it looks like.’

‘Well, that explains why the epidemic isn’t spreading like a forest fire,’ said Steven. ‘It was never meant to. What kind of a terrorist attack uses a microbe that’s weakened instead of strengthened?’

‘Happily,’ said Neubauer, ‘that’s your problem.’

Steven had breakfast early at Fraoch House and walked up to Princes Street in sunshine. He felt he’d been cheated by the weather the night before and wanted to see Edinburgh do itself justice. Last night’s rain had freshened the air and he found a spring in his step as he caught his first sight of the castle, high on its rock beneath a clear blue sky. If ever a building could be said to have seen everything, it was that one, he thought … and now a bio-terrorist attack.

He tried to put that thought out of his mind for the moment. Princes Street Gardens stretched out beneath him, empty at present but sure to fill up with tourists once they’d had their … The thought came to a juddering halt. There were no tourists to speak of. Tourist flights to the UK had all but disappeared because of the emergency. He passed some more time by having coffee at the one street stall that he found open – obviously to catch office workers on their way to work – and then started looking for a bus going to Corstorphine.

Thirty minutes later, Steven showed his ID to the woman who opened the door. ‘Mrs McKay, I’m Dr Steven Dunbar from the Sci-Med Inspectorate. We specialise in finding missing persons. I wonder if I might have a word?’

The woman looked at him over her glasses and then said, ‘Oh, you mean Mr Malik. Yes, of course, please do come in.’

Steven found himself in a time warp. He was sitting in the front room of a bungalow with furniture and décor that belonged to another age. The three piece suite in uncut moquette complete with crocheted chair-backs, the tiled fireplace, the standard lamp in the corner, the green Wilton carpet, all belonged in the aunt’s house he had visited thirty-five years ago. It wasn’t that anything was old or dilapidated; far from it. Everything was clean and polished and lovingly cared for but probably never used. Like the one in his aunt’s house, this room had only ever been sat in on ‘special occasions’. It smelt of furniture polish. Mrs McKay smelt of lavender.

‘I take it Mr Malik hasn’t come back?’

‘No he hasn’t, and if you ask me I don’t think the police are looking very hard.’

Steven shook a sympathetic head and asked, ‘Do you happen to know his first name, Mrs McKay?’

‘As a matter of fact I do. It’s Waheed. I don’t know how you spell it but I heard his nephew call him that. I always addressed him as Mr Malik, of course.’

‘Of course,’ echoed Steven, thinking he’d like to give the woman a hug. Waheed Malik. He’d got the first name of those higher up the chain than the eight in custody.

‘Would you care for some tea, Dr Dunbar?’

‘That would be most kind, Mrs McKay.’

The genteel ritual continued, Mrs McKay returning with tea and fruit scones she’d baked herself. Steven was moved to remember a line from somewhere now long forgotten:
and the rain fell gently on the hats of the ladies of Edinburgh
. He was sitting opposite one of them.

‘Can you describe Mr Malik for me, Mrs McKay?’

‘Yes, of course. He was about the same height as my Angus. Oh, silly me, you never knew my Angus. Actually, it might be better if I showed you a photograph.’

Mrs McKay excused herself and left the room again, leaving Steven wondering if he could believe his ears. She had a
photograph
of Malik? He moved on from wanting to hug the woman to going through with the full marriage ceremony. 

‘Here we are. They’re not very good, I’m afraid, but my grandson’s only twelve. He took some pictures on his phone when he and his sisters were playing in the garden a few weeks ago. His father printed up a few and gave them to me. Mr Malik’s in one of them. I think he’d come to the window to see what the noise was all about.’

Steven found the photograph. An Asian man was framed in a window behind two girls giggling on the lawn, one making faces at her brother.

‘Do you think I could hang on to this for a little while, Mrs McKay? I’d like to make some copies,’ he said. ‘I think it could help enormously in the search for Mr Malik.’

‘Then of course you must.’

Steven waved down the first taxi he saw on Corstorphine Road and asked to be taken to the airport. He was back in London and heading for the Home Office by two o’clock. On the way, he phoned John Ricksen and suggested they meet as soon as possible.

‘What are you after this time, Dunbar?’

‘I have a present for you … if you adopt a more respectful tone.’

‘What is it?’

‘Anwar Khan’s controller for the Edinburgh attack.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Fair enough. Maybe I should pass him over to Special Branch?’

‘Wait. If you’re serious, dinner’s on me.’

‘Is the right answer.’

Steven arranged to meet Ricksen later and went on to the Home Office, where he was relieved to find John Macmillan at his desk. ‘Looks like you’re back full time.’

‘My wife’s been trying to persuade me to think about taking a cruise to recuperate, as she puts it. I’m out of reach when I’m here.’

‘Maybe she’s right,’ suggested Steven. ‘You’ve been through a rough time.’ 

‘It’s mental stimulation I need, Steven, not cerebral atrophy.’

‘Right, you’re about to get some. The antibiotic sensitivity of the cholera strain was a ploy to make us think it hadn’t been genetically modified. It has. Lukas found something inserted in its genome, something he called a cassette.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘In this case, he tells me it’s a self-destruct mechanism. The cholera bug is programmed to die out on its own.’

‘God save us,’ murmured Macmillan. ‘So we’re dealing with a group of Islamic fundamentalist extremists whom no one has ever heard of, who appear out of nowhere and attack us with a bio-weapon that is destined to die rather than kill …’

Steven pushed the photograph Mrs McKay had given him across the desk. ‘The man at the window is Waheed Malik, the missing neighbour with the nephew who worked for the water board.’

‘What a bit of luck. What do you plan to do?’

‘I’ll scan some copies and try running him against our own files but I don’t think that’ll get us very far. I’m going to hand him over to John Ricksen, as we discussed. I’m seeing him this evening.’

‘Good show. There must be a good chance Malik knows more than the cannon fodder in Belmarsh.’

‘At the moment, he’s our only hope of finding out what the hell’s going on,’ said Steven.

He went home and took a long shower before wrapping his bathrobe round him and lying flat on his back on his bed to look up at the featureless white ceiling in search of inspiration. Try as he might, he could not figure out a reason for such an operation. The fundamentalists had carried out a near perfect attack using a horrible disease. They had created terror across the entire nation and had then shopped their own when they’d been in a position to deliver a killer blow. Now it seemed they had even planned the failure of their first attack by disabling the organism. It was bizarre, and he phoned Tally to say so. 

‘That’s crazy,’ was Tally’s verdict, and not one Steven was going to argue with.

‘Now I think I know how Alice in Wonderland felt,’ he said. He told Tally about the lead he had brought back from Edinburgh.

‘You’ve been to Edinburgh?’

‘A flying visit. Sorry, I didn’t have time to tell you.’

‘It’s like having a relationship with Lord Lucan.’

‘C’mon, I’m much easier to find.’

‘Marginally. Where am I going to find you next? I have a day off tomorrow. I tell you what, give me a clue and we’ll call it an orienteering exercise.’

‘How about your bed in the early hours of the morning?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Never more so. I’ve got a date tonight and then—’

‘You’ve got what?’

‘With MI5,’ Steven explained. ‘I’m passing over the Edinburgh lead to them. I’m meeting one of their officers and then I could be on my way north to the arms of the woman I love.’

‘Only if I get breakfast in bed tomorrow morning.’

‘’Tis a hard woman ye are, Tally Simmons,’ said Steven in a cod-Irish accent.

‘Take it or leave it, big boy,’ replied Tally, doing Mae West no justice at all.

‘Okay, you get breakfast.’

‘Then we have a deal.’

Steven met John Ricksen in a riverside pub which had recently undergone a facelift and was now styling itself a gastro-pub. He hoped no
double entendre
was intended. Ricksen appeared to know the owner, and they were given a table with views of the river and dry sherry on the house.

‘My only drink this evening,’ said Steven. ‘I have to drive later.’ 

Ricksen looked for a moment as if he were about to enquire where, but he didn’t. Instead he asked, ‘So, what have you got for me?’

Steven gave him the photograph.

Ricksen seemed less than impressed. ‘What am I looking at?’

‘The face in the window is one Waheed Malik.’ Steven told Ricksen about the Corstorphine bungalow and the ‘nephew’ in the water board van on the day of the Edinburgh attack.

‘How in hell’s name did you come up with this?’ exclaimed Ricksen.

‘I have my methods, Watson. You know that.’

‘Tell me about them, Sherlock.’

Steven told him about the missing person report.

‘Jammy bugger,’ said Ricksen.

‘Not me, my boss.’

‘Macmillan’s back?’

‘Yup. So tell me, what have 5 come up with?’

Ricksen made a face. ‘Like I said before, we’re not going to get anything out of the eight in Belmarsh. They don’t know anything. They look like terrorists, they have names we expect terrorists to have, but their accents say they’re English, from Leicester and Birmingham. They were looking for a cause because it was probably easier than getting a job, and some character stepped in and showed them the path to righteousness and martyrdom. They were recruited and groomed for a specific attack and then let loose without knowing up from down.’

‘Let’s hope Malik has form.’

‘I’ll drink to that. Pity you can’t.’

As they finished their meal, Steven said, ‘We’ve known each other quite a while.’

Ricksen looked at him, suspicion showing. ‘What’s coming next?’

‘Have you ever heard of an organisation calling themselves the Schiller Group?’ 

Ricksen stayed quiet for what Steven thought was an
unreasonably
long time before he said, ‘The answer is yes, I’ve heard of them, but that’s about it.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘Right-wing political movement, obsessively secret, patriotic in a way that longs for the past, warm beer, the sound of willow on leather, a sense of order and decency as they see it, and woe betide anyone who gets on the wrong side of them – or so I’m led to believe.’

‘Who led you to believe?’

Ricksen looked as if he’d rather not say any more but Steven’s unwavering gaze persuaded him.

‘A few years ago, one of our blokes succeeded in penetrating a National Front cell that seemed to be getting very ambitious in its plans to persuade Asians to consider leaving. He reported that it wasn’t self-contained. An outside faction was behind it.’

‘The Schiller Group?’

Ricksen nodded. ‘We fished his body out of the Thames a few weeks later. No charges were ever brought, even though it was one of our own. Why are you asking?’

‘A cold case I was working on before the terrorist attack.’

‘I’d leave it cold.’