‘Unfortunately that’s not the way research works,’ said Hutton. ‘Research groups are a bit like Italian city states in the middle ages. There’s no question of the leader of one being able to join the forces of another. His rivals in the vaccine race will see his misfortune as one less runner in the race to worry about.’
‘Not exactly a Walt Disney world, is it,’ said Dewar.
‘What is these days?’ replied Hutton.
That old excuse, thought Dewar.
‘These people who’re coming,’ said Hutton. ‘What exactly are they going to do?’
‘They will take away absolutely everything from Steven Malloy’s lab in sealed containers and fumigate the lab itself when it’s empty. The contents of the containers will be subject to analysis under secure conditions when they get back to Porton then everything will be destroyed, just in case anything has been missed.’
Hutton nodded. ‘This all seems like a bad dream.’
‘For all of us,’ Dewar assured him.
‘Is there anything you’d like me to do?’
‘Just make sure that the Malloy lab is kept locked.’
‘I’ll put the whole corridor out of bounds until your people arrive. I’ll have one of the porters sit by the door.’
‘That might be best,’ agreed Dewar. He returned to his hotel and asked for beer and sandwiches. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast time and it was now four in the afternoon. He called Grant rather than the hospital to ask about Sandra Macandrew’s condition.
‘They say she’s improving,’ replied Grant. ‘Becoming stable, I think was the expression. Do you still want the guard left on her?’
‘Yes,’ replied Dewar after a moment’s thought. ‘It’s just possible that Le Grice admitted to her what he was doing for the Iraqis. Let’s keep her safe.’
‘You’re the man.’
Dewar wondered what film Grant had picked up that expression from. Next he called Simon Barron on his mobile number. ‘Anything happening?’ he asked.
‘Nothing but I hear you’ve been having a lot of fun and games?’ replied Barron.
Dewar filled him in on the details.
‘So panic over, we can expect our friends to pack their bags shortly?’
‘Let’s hope so.’
‘Can we be sure that this Le Grice character didn’t succeed in reconstructing the virus?’
‘All the signs are that he didn’t. Porton Down are going to investigate the entire contents of the lab he worked in to see if they can get an idea about what stage he was at and if Sandra Macandrew comes round she can probably tell us a good deal.’
‘Let’s hope she does,’ said Barron. ‘In the meantime we go on watching while you have all the fun.’
‘I think I’ve had quite enough “fun” as you put it. I just want to see the back of these two up in Forest Road.
* * * * *
Dewar received a call from the Porton team after they landed at Edinburgh Airport just after eight. He arranged to meet them outside the institute and found them already waiting when he got there. He had not taken into account a police escort which cut down their town travel time considerably. The small convoy comprised two police cars and an unlettered black Transit van. Dewar presumed that this also had been supplied by the local police.
He introduced himself to the leader of the team, Doctor Robert Smillie, and briefed him on events.
‘That’s more or less what we’ve been told,’ said Smillie when he’d finished. ‘If you’ll just show us to the lab in question we’ll take over from there. Any special problems? Do we need respirators?
‘No,’ Dewar assured him. ‘The man involved in this affair was a highly trained scientist. If there’s anything to be found it will be in an appropriate container. The question is, which one? There could be several; alternatively there may be none. This is a precaution but a very necessary one.’
The team of three changed into coverall suits and put on gloves before entering Malloy’s lab, carrying a number of sealable plastic containers. They took less than sixty minutes to remove every single tube and bottle in the place, even moving all the furniture to examine the floor underneath for anything that had fallen and rolled.
‘I’m impressed,’ said Dewar to Smillie when his team had finished and were setting the sterilising ‘bombs’ in place.
‘I think this is where I say, all in a day’s work,’ said Smillie.
Dewar grinned and said, ‘But I don’t envy you the next bit.’
Smillie nodded his agreement. ‘There’s no question of analysing the contents of every single container,’ he said. ‘But we’ll do a DNA scan and concentrate on those that come up positive. Can’t say how long it’s going to take. We’ll be using the high containment suite. That always slows things up. It’s like picking your nose with boxing gloves on.’
THIRTEEN
Dewar watched the lights of the small convoy disappear into the night as they headed off back to the airport. Hutton, who had seen it as his duty to be present throughout, looked at his watch and said that he’d have to rush, muttering something about dinner with friends. Dewar wished him good-night and suddenly wondered what he himself was going to do with the rest of the evening. He felt a distinct sense of anticlimax.
So much seemed to have happened since he’d got up that morning but, he asked himself, did he really know that much more at the end of the day? True, Le Grice had been identified as Sandra Macandrew’s attacker and it seemed almost certain that he must be the Iraqis’ man on the inside but he still didn’t know exactly what the Iraqis had asked him to do or how much of it had been achieved, any more than with Ali Hammadi. These were still the key questions in the whole affair.
Maybe he even knew less about them, was Dewar’s next depressing thought. Up until now he’d believed that Hammadi had refused to do anything at all for Siddiqui but that conclusion had been partially based on Le Grice’s report that he’d found nothing out of the ordinary when he’d cleared out Hammadi’s stuff in the lab. That was possibly a lie. If only Le Grice had owned up before he’d taken his life instead of saying nothing. What had been the point of that? he wondered. It was hard to believe that any man about to die would not take the chance to redress the balance of good and evil in his life even if he hadn’t been any kind of believer.
Another man to whom this day had been pivotal was Steven Malloy. It was the day his career had effectively come to an end. Despite having every right to do what he’d done in the circumstances- indeed, he’d had no real option, Dewar felt something approaching guilt. He liked Malloy and believed the good things Ferguson had said about him. Good research scientists weren’t that thick on the ground — much less so than Joe Public imagined. One such person tended to make a university department a good one, two made it a centre of excellence.
He wondered what Malloy was doing tonight. Would he be with friends, or was he brooding at home alone? Almost on impulse, Dewar decided to drive out to Temple and find out for himself but before doing that, he stopped at an off-licence and bought a bottle of good malt whisky.
The drive out to Temple took longer than last time because of heavy rain that started on the way. By the time he left the main road, the wipers were struggling to cope, forcing him to slow right down on the dark winding roads where water quickly gathered into pools in the dips and made estimating their depth a gamble each time before ploughing through. He was relieved when the lights of the village began to flicker through the needles of the pine trees.
When he stopped outside Malloy’s place he could see the lights were on. He sat in the car for a moment listening to a small voice inside his head that told him this was not a very good idea but eventually it was overridden by his conscience telling him that this was the right thing to do. People automatically said sorry; often when they didn’t mean it. He hoped that driving out here to say it again would convince Malloy that at least he did. He got out the car and hurried up the path, pulling up his jacket collar against the rain and hugging the whisky bottle to his chest.