‘In what way?’
‘It’s not the sort of thing she can put in a brown paper bag and have someone hand over to Jean in the supermarket without arousing suspicion.’
‘Does that mean she’s not going to do it after all?’
‘No, no,’ Macmillan assured him. ‘It’s just that your involvement might not be the secret she hoped it might be.’
‘I see.’
Steven took a few moments to think through the implications of this.
‘I know how you feel about firearms,’ began Macmillan, ‘but better safe than sorry?’
‘Agreed,’ said Steven flatly. He was thinking about the five victims and how they had met their end. ‘I’ll see the armourer.’
Steven left the office and approached Jean. ‘Anything new?’ he asked.
Jean sensed an edginess in Steven and, looking at her screen, knew why. She said softly, ‘A little note has appeared, asking me to make an appointment with the armourer for you.’
Steven nodded and thanked her.
‘I did get a little more on Phillipe Lagarde,’ she said, ‘more times and dates than anything else. Jean handed him the information.
Steven saw what Jean meant. The dates of Lagarde’s WHO secondment to Afghanistan were given along with the route he had planned for teams to take along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, providing protection against Polio for the villagers. The dates for his previous secondment to the Democratic Republic of Congo were also given as were they for his time in Uganda. He had gone to DRC in early 2016 and had concentrated his efforts in providing vaccination against Ebola to people in Equateur Province in the north of the country.
‘I hope he did a good job,’ Steven said. He responded to Jean’s enquiring glance with, ‘That’s where Tally is.’
Seven
Tally spent her first full day being shown around the area in Equateur Province she was now responsible for. She wanted to see the villages for herself and get a feeling for their size and the accessibility of their locations. She was accompanied by two young people, Mary Kelly, a nurse with Med sans Frontierès and Hans Weber, a World Health Organisation administrator, who both had experience of working in the area and who had been seconded to come along to answer any questions she had.
After passing slowly through two villages Tally asked if they might stop in the next one so she could walk around and get a feeling for the place, having heard tales of local resentment towards foreign outsiders coming in to interfere with traditional life. She had also been warned that not all people — especially in rural areas — thought vaccination a good thing. A number did not believe that Ebola was a disease at all — it was a curse placed on those who strayed from the path of their elders.
After twenty bone-shaking minutes of bumping along dusty tracks that often hid their presence in undergrowth they arrived at the next village, which Mary Kelly gave Tally some statistics about, reading them in a gentle southern Irish accent, which Tally thought went well with her dark red hair, although she found herself wondering what a young girl who couldn’t have been qualified for more than a couple of years was doing here. She had assumed that volunteers were usually older, having seen a bit more of life and encountered a wide range of experiences which had possibly contributed to their selfless act.
‘This village lost thirty-seven people to Ebola in the 2014-16 outbreak,’ said Mary, ‘but of course, there was little or no vaccine available to protect villagers at that time.’
‘How about this time?’ Tally asked.
Hans Weber, the young Swiss administrator seconded from WHO to help Tally settle in, responded, ‘There still isn’t enough vaccine for universal use. It’s still classed as experimental, which means that there are sorts of restrictions on it use, but it’s certainly better than nothing and believed to be very effective if you fall into the group qualified to get it, that being contacts of known cases, both physical and geographical, and of course, all those involved in the treatment of Ebola victims. I take it you’ve had the vaccine?’
Tally agreed that she had.
Mary said, ‘There are no cases in this village at the moment, but there are in the next one we’ll be coming to...’
‘Four,’ said Hans... ‘that we know of.’
‘You think there may be more?’
‘People tend to hide the fact that there’s illness in the family as long as possible, hoping it’s not Ebola and, with their own care, their loved ones will get better. If the news gets out that there’s Ebola in the village, it affects everyone in terms of jobs and trade and general social interaction. No one wants anything to do with you. Business grinds to a halt.’
‘Understandable,’ said Tally.
‘There are a couple of possible contacts in this village,’ said Mary. ‘We approached them to offer them vaccine, but they wanted nothing to do with it.’
Tally made a sympathetic face. ‘I can see what you’re up against. Nothing’s ever easy, is it?’
Mary and Hans smiled. ‘She’s a quick learner,’ said Hans.
‘I think I’d still like to have a walk around,’ said Tally.
‘Would you like us to come too?’ Mary asked.
Tally shook her head. ‘Unless you advise otherwise?’
‘No,’ Hans assured her. ‘They won’t eat you. Surly indifference is usually as far as it goes.’
Tally started her walk, smiling as she went but generally being ignored. She couldn’t say she was surprised at what she saw thanks to previous exposure to what she was looking at on television. These days everyone knew what poverty looked like just as they knew what refugee camps looked like and drought and famine and civil war. With familiarity had come desensitisation. People might still say the words expressing horror and distress, but it had become an almost Pavlovian response before moving on. The feeling wasn’t there... until you were actually on the ground beside it instead of sitting on your couch munching potato chips.
Tally paused as she came to what was obviously a school class being held in the open. A young female teacher was lecturing a group of about fifteen children who were sitting round her feet on the ground. Tally admired the way she held herself; she was elegant and composed, suggesting effortless authority and was holding them in the palm of her hand until rapt attention was interrupted by her asking a question and a forest of hands jumped up.
The teacher became aware of Tally’s presence and looked across. Tally smiled and prepared to move on, but she saw the teacher start towards her and decided to wait.
‘Hello,’ said Tally, ‘do you speak English?’
‘I hope so,’ replied the girl, ‘that’s what I’m teaching them.’
‘Really?’ Tally exclaimed with a mixture of delight and genuine surprise.
‘I want them to have the best chance of a future. English is the language of so much in the world. Whenever two strangers meet with different home languages, they will choose English to communicate.’
‘You really are looking ahead,’ said Tally. ‘I’m, Tally by the way, I’m a doctor.’ She held out her hand.
‘Monique,’ said the girl taking it with a broad smile. ‘You are here to help with the outbreak?’
‘I volunteered to help manage it.’
‘Thank you,’ said Monique.
It was such a simple thing to say that Tally took an immediate liking to the girl.
‘And your friends too?’ Monique asked, looking back down the road to where the Land Rover waited.
‘Yes, they’re from Med Sans Frontierès and the World Health Organisation. They’re here to oversee the vaccination programme to keep people safe.’
‘Mm,’ said Monique. ‘I’m sure they mean well...’
‘But?’ Tally prompted.