Steven nodded and said, ‘Leila said vaccination will be effective in two to three days so if Ali’s operation is not mounted some time in the next eight days, we should be out of the woods.’
‘That has a nice ring to it,’ said Macmillan. ‘So what do I tell our political masters meantime?
‘They should keep their fingers crossed for eight days.’
‘Seriously,’ prompted Macmillan.
‘Definitely no crowing to the Press about having smashed an al-Qaeda plot,’ said Steven. ‘We had enough of that rubbish last time and we haven’t. Vaccine distribution must remain our number one priority and every minute counts. And of course, that old favourite of ours…’
‘Heightened security measures,’ said Macmillan.
‘With special emphasis on confiscating nail clippers,’ added Steven tongue in cheek. ‘That should show al-Qaeda we mean business…’
‘Let’s not go there again,’ said Macmillan. ‘I know we’re of a mind about that but at least in this instance it should create an impression of alertness. You need sleep. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Do we know who Ali was yet?’ asked Steven as Macmillan rose to leave.
‘They’re still working on it.’
‘His mother, father and a sister died in an American air attack — collateral damage,’ said Steven. ‘He told me.’
‘I’ll pass that on.’
Steven drifted off into a fitful sleep for another few hours, a sleep which was permeated by bad dreams but above all, by feelings of great unease. Ali had sensed that he hadn’t swallowed the city centre attacks story and yet he had still seemed unperturbed. He also knew that a vaccine against Cambodia 5 was entering the final stages of production and still… he exuded the air of a winner, not of someone who was still running the race. At one point, thoughts of what Ali must have done to Leila to make sure she was telling the truth started to intrude and he woke to sit bolt upright in bed, sweat running down his face, before sinking back down again and imagining Macmillan saying, ‘All the angles, Steven, all the angles.’
Three days later, Steven’s knee swelling had died down enough to let him drive back to London. His face still looked as if he had collided with a door at speed but in general he was feeling much better and he limped into the Home Office to see John Macmillan.
‘Ali was Mahmoud Ali Mansour,’ said Macmillan. ‘Iraqi father, French mother. She and his father and one of his sisters were killed in an American air attack on Baghdad — mistaken coordinates apparently. He was educated at a public school in Britain before going home to study at Baghdad University where his father was a professor of mathematics. He himself studied microbiology and got a post graduate degree fromomeHH
Lund University in Sweden before seeing the light — or is it the darkness in this case — and joining up with Osama in Afghanistan. He spoke four languages fluently and had been used primarily in liaison between al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.’
‘Until this time,’ said Steven.
‘Until this time,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘He comes from a very bright family apparently.’
‘So maybe this was all his idea, his big chance to impress.’
‘Could well be. I take it you’ve had no further thoughts on the subject?’
‘’Fraid not.’
‘Then it’s still fingers crossed time. The first batch of vaccine will leave the factory in three days for distribution to key personnel. You and I are considered to fit into that category.’
‘Nice to feel appreciated,’ said Steven dryly.
‘An RAF Hercules aircraft will leave from RAF Lineham at noon on that day bound for Washington carrying vaccine for key US administration personnel.’
‘I also thought you might like to know that, on the same day, Dr Martin’s brother is due in from the USA to carry out formal identification of her body and make arrangements for her return to the United States.’
‘How… traumatic is that going to be for him?’
‘The Pathologist’s report said that she hadn’t been tortured or disfigured in any way. Death was by strangulation.’
‘Strangulation,’ repeated Steven, finding that the news that Leila had not been tortured was not so much a cause for relief as for puzzlement. He had been wrong again.
‘You look surprised,’ said Macmillan.
‘Ali was the kind of person who would have to make sure that what he was hearing was the truth. If he went to the trouble of seeking out Leila, he must have wanted to know something and he wouldn’t just have accepted what she told him.’
‘Unless he already knew from another source,’ said Macmillan.
‘In which case why seek her out?’
‘Good question.’
‘There’s something wrong here,’ said Steven.
‘About what?’
‘Everything,’ said Steven. ‘I’m going back to Norfolk.’
‘To do what?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Steven confessed. ‘But I need to be there. I need to walk around the scene of the crime if you like. Drive around the area. Hope something comes to mind that I’ve missed before. I’ll also be there to meet Leila’s brother when he arrives.’
‘Whatever you say,’ conceded Macmillan.
‘He’s due at the mortuary at twelve noon,’ said Frank Giles when Steven arrived in his office. ‘I’ll run you over.’
‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve been feeling guilty about not saying good bye to her properly.’
Giles nodded. ‘How’s the war against al-Qaeda going?’
‘We’re sitting with our fingers crossed,’ said Steven.
‘A comfort,’ said Giles. ‘A good time for me and the missus to take a holiday in Barbados then?’
‘We don’t think they’re going for a city centre attack any more but we’re still gambling on them using Cambodia 5 virus in some way. The good news is that the vaccine starts going out today. Of course, if it should turn out not to be a Cambodia 5 attack… we’ll all be left sitting in that well known creek without a paddle.’
‘And on that happy note,’ said Giles. ‘Maybe we should start out for the mortuary.’
TWENTY
It was raining on the drive over to the city mortuary and the two men sat in silence — apart from Giles’ occasional mutterings about roadworks and the state of the traffic. Steven sat as if mesmerised by the sweep of the wipers but he was deep in thought. He found it a perpetually annoying fact of life that it always seemed easier to predict other people’s reactions and responses to given situations than his own. Lisa, his wife, had put this down to him thinking about things on too many levels at once. ‘Not everyone’s playing chess with you,’ she had pointed out. ‘Not everyone in life has an ulterior motive.’
The trouble was that in his line of work they usually had and it was unavoidable that natural suspicion would spill over into his personal life, making him ‘think round all the angles’ as Macmillan put it. Sometimes it was a cross that was hard to bear. It would be so good, perhaps just on occasion, to be able to react spontaneously to events, to take things at face value, to give in and display natural emotion without going through some vetting process. Right now, he was going to say a final goodbye to Leila Martin, a woman he had had feelings for. He should feel sad… and he did. He needed to feel grief… and he did… but it was not unequivocal. A day’s driving around on his own, visiting all the old spots, had left him with lingering doubts and unanswered questions and he wished that this wasn’t the case.
Giles parked the car in the space marked for visitors outside the mortuary and they both went inside.