The Gulf Conspiracy (16 page)

Steven ran his fingers gently through her hair.

‘
Bet you don’t know who wrote that?’ said Jane.

Steven looked at her as if he were about to agree then he said, ‘There were fathoms in her too, and sometimes he crossed them and landed and was not repulsed.’

‘
Oh my God,’ exclaimed Jane, resting her head on Steven’s chest. ‘A literate lover. Now I know there is a God.’

Jane returned from the shower with a white towel wrapped round her. It emphasised her smooth, tanned shoulders. She was carrying another towel, which she tossed to Steven saying, ‘Your turn.’

When he returned Jane had put on a summer frock and was trying on a large brimmed sun hat. He thought she looked like a figure from a French impressionist painting.

‘
What d’you think?’ she asked. ‘Over the top?’

‘
Beautiful,’ he replied, coming towards her and circling his arms round her from behind.

‘
We’ve done that bit,’ she said, holding up her hands. ‘If we start that again we’re never going to get out of here.’

‘
Would that be so bad?’ said Steven, coming closer.

‘
No . . .’ murmured Jane. ‘But I do love strawberries . . .’

It was well after six in the evening before they got back to the house. ‘That was a wonderful afternoon,’ sighed Jane as she slumped down into a chair and kicked her shoes off.

‘
I enjoyed it too,’ said Steven, sitting down opposite her and smiling at the way she was sitting in the chair, arms and legs akimbo. ‘If 4b could only see you now.’

‘
Bugger 4b,’ replied Jane, looking up at the ceiling. ‘What now, Prince Charming?’

‘
We sit in the garden with our eyes closed and listen to the birds herald the end of the day, then we shower, get changed and go out to dinner at a good restaurant, which you will choose. We’ll sip chilled wine from crystal glasses and tell each other things that we’ve never told anyone else before.’

‘
Before your regiment marches at dawn . . .’ said Jane.

‘
No regiment,’ said Steven.

‘
Oh day that I have loved . . .’ said Jane.

The sky was overcast next morning and there was a threat of rain in the air. It seemed to match their mood as they sat together having breakfast in the kitchen. The looks that passed between them said more than the small talk.

‘
So how will you go about finding out what George worked on at Porton?’ asked Jane.

‘
I already know,’ replied Steven. ‘At least I know the official version.’

‘
You do?’ said Jane, sounding surprised.

‘
He and the team he was assigned to were working on a vaccine against the HIV virus. That’s what the Ministry of Defence told my boss.’

‘
A vaccine?’ said Jane. ‘Why would anyone have nightmares about making a vaccine?’

‘
My thoughts too,’ said Steven.

‘
Then you don’t believe them?’

‘
Not a word of it,’ said Steven.

‘
So what can you do?’ asked Jane.

‘
I know you think it was Gus Maclean’s visit that pushed your husband over the edge and into making contact with the press but I’ve spoken to Maclean about that and he seemed to think your husband was already uptight about something when he arrived. He agrees his visit might have made things worse but he doesn’t think he was the root cause of the problem.’

‘
I just remember it as being one shit awful day,’ said Jane. ‘Maybe Maclean’s right. It’s possible that George was having one of his days.’

‘
This is really important,’ said Steven. ‘If something else happened to upset your husband that day, I have to know about it.’

‘
I can understand that,’ said Jane, trying to think back. ‘But it’s hard to think what. He didn’t go out at all and no one else came to the house that day before Maclean.’

‘
No telephone calls?’

‘
None that I remember.’

‘
E-mail?’

‘
He always picked these up in his office at the university and the postman just brought a couple of bills I think. I remember he was absolutely fine at breakfast. He planned to spend the day marking essays at home. I had the day off because I had been supervising a school trip the previous weekend so we thought we’d have lunch together at the local pub. When the paperboy brought the morning paper I remember he made a joke about reading some facts before changing to fiction. He was sitting reading the paper and drinking coffee at the kitchen table when I left to go down to the local shops for some odds and ends.’

‘
So you went out?’ said Steven.

‘
Only for ten minutes or so,’ said Jane, then she added more thoughtfully, ‘But you’re right. I remember it now. His mood had changed when I got back from the shops. I asked him if he was feeling all right because he seemed very pale but he said it was nothing and went off to his study to start his marking.’

‘
Did you go out to lunch as planned?’ asked Steven.

‘
No we didn’t, come to think of it,’ said Jane. ‘When I asked him about it he said he’d changed his mind and didn’t feel like it after all.’

‘
It was the paper,’ said Steven.

‘
The paper?’

‘
Something he read in the paper upset him,’ said Steven. ‘You said he was reading the paper when you left.’

‘
But what?’ said Jane.

‘
Can you remember the date?’ asked Steven.

‘
It would be . . . Monday the 28
^th
,’ said Jane.

‘
Time for a trip to the local library,’ said Steven. ‘What paper do you get?’

‘
The
Guardian
.’

‘
Want to come?’

‘
Of course, this is fascinating.’

Jane gave Steven directions and they drove to the nearest public library where Steven used their computer reference facility to access back issues of the
Guardian
. He brought up the edition for June 28
^th
and after a few moments said, ‘There it is. It has to be this.’ He read out, ‘
Gulf War Veterans slam Ministry of Defence over plans to use up old vaccine stocks.
’ He paused to read it fully before saying, ‘The government were planning to use up old stocks of vaccine on the troops being put on alert for a new conflict in the Gulf. The veterans’ associations are up in arms because they believe that the vaccines were faulty in some way.’

‘
Do you think one of them could have been the vaccine that George was supposed to have been working on?’ asked Jane.

Steven said not. ‘There would be no call to vaccinate the troops against AIDS,’ he said. ‘Apart from that, no one’s succeeded in coming up with such a vaccine as yet. The troops would be given the WHO recommended vaccines for the region: they would also be given protection against bacteria and viruses likely to be used as weapons - anthrax, plague and the like.’

‘
So why should a story about using up old vaccine stocks have George running to the newspapers after keeping quiet for twelve years?’

‘
Good question,’ murmured Steven. ‘But I’m pretty sure that it did.’

‘
I suppose this would fit with the phone calls I heard George making immediately after Maclean’s visit,’ said Jane. ‘He kept asking the people he was calling why the government were doing something that he clearly thought they shouldn’t. He seemed to be getting more and more angry and frustrated about it all,’ said Jane.

‘
This was before he called Martin Hendry at the
Guardian
?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
So George clearly did think that using old vaccine stocks was a bad idea.’ said Steven.

‘
Surely it must have been something more than that to have made him go to the papers,’ said Jane.

‘
A
very
bad idea?’ suggested Steven.

‘
But why?’ said Jane.

‘
Why indeed?’

‘
What do you think?’ asked Jane as they drove back to her house.

‘
I think the vets’ associations were probably right. There was something wrong with the vaccine and George knew it. But if that were the case why would the government even consider using it again?’

‘
Maybe they didn’t know?’ suggested Jane.

‘
Now there’s a thought,’ said Steven. ‘The government didn’t know but your husband and Donald Crowe did?’ After a few moments he dismissed the idea. ‘But they were a research outfit; they wouldn’t have had anything to do with anything the troops were being given.’

‘
Maybe they really were trying to design a new vaccine and wanted to try it out on the troops?’ suggested Jane.

‘
Giving soldiers an untried and untested vaccine along with other inoculations, you mean? Highly unethical,’ said Steven.

‘
Might explain George’s nightmares,’ said Jane as they swung into the drive. ‘Especially if there was something wrong with it?’ she added.

Steven shook his head and said, ‘Even if that were true and they had experimented with a new vaccine there would be no question of them doing the same thing all over again almost twelve years later, so why was George so alarmed at the story in the paper?’

‘
There must have been something wrong with one of the other vaccines,’ said Jane.

‘
That only George and the research team knew about?’ added Steven.

‘
Yes,’ said Jane.

Steven thought then shook his head again. ‘We’re still not there,’ he said. ‘Doubts about the vaccines the troops were given have been expressed many times,’ he continued. ‘They must have been subjected to the most rigorous scrutiny over the years and nothing has ever been found to be wrong with them.’

‘
Mmm,’ said Jane.

‘
On the other hand . . .’ Steven paused as he thought about Gus Maclean and his efforts to find the cause of his illness and the thing which, according to him, had caused the death of his wife and daughter. He’d come up with nothing but his conviction remained undimmed. ‘I wonder,’ he said.

‘
You’re having second thoughts?’ asked Jane.

‘
I was just thinking that there’s no evidence for life anywhere else in the universe but that doesn’t mean to say . . .’

‘
That there isn’t any,’ said Jane.

‘
Right. It just means that we haven’t found any.’

‘
So you think it’s possible that there was something wrong but they just haven’t yet found out what?’ said Jane.

‘
I have to phone Sci-Med,’ said Steven.

‘
I’ll make some coffee,’ said Jane, leaving Steven alone.

Steven used his mobile and had to wait a few moments to be put through to the admin officer assigned to his case.

‘
I’ve got some news for you,’ said a woman with a pleasant Irish accent who introduced herself as Maureen Kelly when she came on the line. ‘Someone re-formatted the hard disk on the laptop you left with us. We couldn’t retrieve any files, I’m afraid.’

‘
I feared as much,’ said Steven. ‘Any news from the Scottish Police about the post mortem on Martin Hendry?’

‘
Strangely, they still seem to be treating his death as suicide. What do you want to do about that?’

‘
Nothing at the moment,’ replied Steven.

‘
You’re sure it was murder?’

‘
There were slight marks on his wrists consistent with having been tied up,’ replied Steven.

‘
Maybe the pathologist put them down to something else?’

‘
Or maybe someone leaned on the pathologist,’ said Steven.

‘
As a matter of interest, did you find any software for the laptop in Hendry’s cabin?’ asked Kelly.

‘
No, why?’ asked Steven.

‘
When the killer reformatted the disk, he or she would have wiped everything off it - including the standard software - and yet it had Windows XP and Microsoft Office on it, and appeared to be a normal laptop that just hadn’t been used for anything recently.’

Steven saw what the girl was getting at. ‘You mean the killer must have re-installed the software to hide the fact the disk had been wiped - and therefore the motive for murder?’ he said.

‘
And then removed the software disks along with the ZIP disk you said was missing. If it’s of any use we can tell the exact date and time they carried out the re-install procedure. Maybe the police would be interested in that.’ The comment sounded like a mild rebuke.

‘
I’d rather you didn’t tell them for the moment,’ said Steven. ‘It suits me to have the opposition think that I know less than I do.’

‘
It’s your call.’

‘
Did you get the stuff on Martin Hendry I asked for?’

Kelly read out an address in Manchester and Steven wrote it down.

‘
He lives – lived - with his partner, a girl named Lesley Holland. The Manchester Police have been informed of our interest. They’ve arranged for a search warrant to be made available to you if you request it. Anything else?’