The Secret

He stood at the window for a few moments wondering if he was really ready to commit to any such thing. The office could be seen as a first step in coming in from the cold — an end to front line investigation — something that would please Tally but alarmed him. It gave him the same sense of foreboding he’d experienced when faced with leaving the army, but luckily on that occasion Macmillan had come along to save him from ending up in the kind of job he’d just escaped from in the pharmaceutical industry. He moved over to his desk and started going through the mail.

He stopped suddenly when he came to an envelope with a handwritten address on it. It had a Czech Republic stamp on it. He didn’t recognise the handwriting but knew it had to be from Simone. The letter was brief and seemed to have been hastily written. It had a small computer memory card stuck to the bottom with Sellotape.

My dear Steven,

I’m at an international meeting in Prague this week to discuss progress in the eradication of polio programme. Something’s not right. My team and I have been working in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan and I know it sounds silly but I’m sure there’s something very wrong and they won’t let me address the meeting. I’m in London next week to meet with Dr Tom North at City College University. I thought I might come and see you? Please keep the memory card safe and I’ll explain when I see you.

As ever,

Simone.

Steven ran the tips of his fingers lightly over the signature. Simone was worried about something and a day later she was dead. Coincidence? Re-reading the letter clearly wasn’t helping. He cut the memory card free of the paper and inserted it in his computer. Nothing on it made sense: the contents comprised a series of unrelated letters, numbers and symbols which caused him to give up after a few minutes. His suspicion was that the card had been corrupted by security scans used by airports or the mail service. Fed up with trying to interpret gobbledegook, he took out the card and set up a Google search for Dr Thomas North.

There were a number of Norths listed but he quickly found the one he was looking for — a senior lecturer at City College, a virologist with a special interest in polio, especially the problems patients who survived paralytic polio encountered in later life. Steven remembered reading something about that recently. Arthur C. Clarke, the celebrated science fiction writer, was one such example.

North’s research group was profiled on the university website along with its research aims and a substantial academic publications list suggesting that North was a top man in his field. Steven called the number for City College and asked to speak to him. He was put through to North’s lab where a young man with a Scandinavian accent said North was in a meeting. Steven left his number and North called him back an hour later.

‘Good of you to call back, doctor. My name’s Steven Dunbar; I work for the Sci-Med Inspectorate. I was a friend of Simone Ricard.’

‘Ah, what happened to Simone was absolutely tragic. If ever there was an example of the good dying young, that was it. Such a lovely person.’

‘I understand she was coming to see you this week?’

‘Yes, that’s right, she was, and now... I can still hardly believe it.’

‘Will you be attending the funeral, doctor?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t; I have a prior commitment — one I can’t get out of.’

‘A pity, I was hoping to have a word. I wonder; do you think I could possibly come over and have a chat with you?’

North hesitated. ‘Ye... es, but can I ask what this is about? I mean, sorry to be rude but who exactly are you?’

Steven told him. ‘I’m interested in the work Simone was doing on polio eradication. She wrote to me about it.’

‘I see. Look, at the risk of sounding macabre, Simone was down to come here on Wednesday morning. You could come in her place?’

Steven agreed and arranged to be there at eleven.

He went through and told Macmillan about the letter from Simone with the computer card attached.

Macmillan raised his eyes and sat back in his chair. ‘But no actual indication as to what she thought was wrong?’

Steven said not. ‘But my curiosity’s been aroused. I’ll ask our lab boys to take a look at the card.’