The Chosen Dead (Jenny Cooper 5) (24 page)

‘Government and military. It’s also where the HPA have their Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response.’

‘That would explain the secrecy. I still don’t see why they singled out Adam Jordan’s body. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of people who had travelled to Britain from central Africa in recent months.’

‘What about the girl he was with?’ Andy Kerr said. ‘Do you think she was African? What do you know about her?’

‘Nothing,’ Jenny admitted.

‘Maybe someone else does? She could be the connection.’

‘What sort of connection? Do you mean she might have been carrying the infection?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s all shooting in the dark. I don’t like to speculate.’

‘I’m asking you to. I need to make some decisions. Do you think I should be looking further, or should I just sign Sophie Freeman and Elena Lujan’s deaths off as due to natural causes?’

He looked uncomfortable being challenged so directly.

‘Natural causes would mean that there had been no human act or omission that contributed, of course,’ Jenny added. ‘But last time we met you seemed to think that might not be the case. You were talking about recombinant strains.’

‘All right.’ He couldn’t have sounded more reluctant. ‘I’m going to stick to logic, OK? We’ve got a drug-resistant strain of a highly dangerous organism. It either evolved naturally in a human host or, less likely, it’s leaked out from a vaccine-research project, possibly through someone who works in a lab becoming infected. If it’s entirely human in origin, your initial suspicion would be an African source. If there’s a connection with a lab, you’d turn to the Public Register of Genetically Modified Organisms to see who in the UK has a licence to work with these bacteria. As I mentioned to you, I’ve checked it – there are currently three university labs working with meningitis, all on standard strains, none of them modifying to create anything like what we’ve seen here. But if government or military scientists have a project running it might not be on the register – there’s an exemption from publication on grounds of national security.’

‘So there’s a possibility this strain might have escaped from a government laboratory?’

‘It’s one possibility among many,’ Andy said. ‘No more than that.’

‘How could that happen? They must have every precaution imaginable.’

‘You’d be surprised. All it takes is one act of carelessness. One of the lab staff gets infected, goes to a shopping mall or cinema and sneezes, or leaves a trace of infected mucus on a door handle or rail. It’s not particularly likely, but it’s not impossible, either.’

‘It sounds plausible,’ Jenny said, ‘but if that’s the case, I can see even less reason why Adam Jordan’s body would be of any interest.’

Andy Kerr’s glance told her he had a suspicion.

‘You’ve already speculated once,’ Jenny said, ‘so don’t try to convince me you’ve got a rule against it.’

‘I could make a wild guess, but that’s all it would be.’

‘Go on.’

‘He could have acted as a courier, bringing samples from Africa. If you’re importing a new strain, someone has to bring it in. It’s the kind of job you would only give to someone entirely trustworthy.’

‘Why would a courier jump off a bridge?’

‘If he thought he was doing one thing, but found out he was really doing another?’

They exchanged a look, both suddenly suspecting they were dealing with something far darker than they had feared.

Andy stepped back out of sight as a car crept past. The driver, a woman, appeared to glance in their direction.

‘Relax,’ Jenny said, ‘it’s just someone looking for a space.’

‘Yeah,’ Andy said, turning sharply, ‘nothing to worry about.’ He pushed through the door and disappeared inside.

Jenny had never seen Andy Kerr frightened, and the ominous feeling that there was more going on in his mind than he had felt able to share grew stronger during her short journey back to the office. She knew him well enough to appreciate that he wouldn’t have mentioned the highly secretive government laboratories at Porton Down unless he was convinced of their involvement, but it was the implications of that prospect that he hadn’t felt able to discuss. Was he frightened for himself or for her, she wondered. Now, as she thought of Jordan standing on the motorway bridge, she pictured him filled with an irredeemable guilt at his part in something that had gone far beyond whatever he had intended. But she still had no clear insight into the inner man. Had he remained an idealist or had he been corrupted? Was it conceivable that he’d been turned and was doing the bidding of the ‘spooks’ Harry Thorn so loathed?

‘Mr Moreton just called,’ Alison said, the moment Jenny stepped through the office door. ‘He wanted to know when you’re planning to resume the Sophie Freeman inquest. He seemed a little impatient.’

‘He’ll have to put up with it. I’m still gathering evidence.’ Her spirits sank at the sight of yet another fresh pile of reports waiting for her attention.

‘Dr Verma phoned earlier.’ She handed Jenny a note. ‘They’ve found the other two girls from the Recife and they seem to be clear. I think she’s hoping you’ll see your way to writing Elena Lujan’s death certificate without an inquest.’

‘There’s a short answer to that,’ Jenny said, and dropped the memo into the bin.

‘As long as you think you’ve time.’ Alison got up from her desk and pulled on her jacket.

‘You’re going?’

‘I haven’t left my desk since 8.30 this morning, Mrs Cooper. Some of us do have lives.’

It was a comment intended to both wound and inspire guilt. It succeeded on both counts.

‘Of course,’ Jenny said.

‘Good night, Mrs Cooper.’ Alison picked up her briefcase and left.

Jenny lifted the heavy heap of papers and moved into the quiet cool of her office. Often this solid Georgian room, closed off from the world by its heavy oak door, served as a place of respite and sanctuary, but in the stillness of a late-summer afternoon its quietness soon became oppressive. The harder she tried to push Adam, Sophie and Elena from her mind and concentrate on the mundane tasks before her, the more she imagined their ghosts moving through the slanting light and their whispered voices in the empty rooms beyond. She looked up from her desk, frustrated at being impeded by such irrational thoughts, but there it was: a force as irresistible as it was confounding, leaving her no choice but to push all else aside and dig deeper. Immediately.

She began with the Freemans, and was grateful to reach Ed on his mobile phone. He was unusually quiet – he hinted at a row with Fiona – and Jenny almost thought better of troubling him with more unsettling information. But he had anticipated the promise of another insight and was eager for Jenny to tell him what she had found. She couched the connection with Porton Down as the remotest possibility, but it was one he seized on.

‘That’s who those sly bastards are, sneaking around the hospital.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Jenny insisted.

Ed was dismissive. He had made up his mind. ‘What are you going to do? They’ll be the last people to tell you the truth.’

‘I’ll start by looking for a connection. You don’t know anyone who works there who might have come into contact with Sophie?’

‘No.’

‘Had she been anywhere she wouldn’t normally go in the last few weeks – a friend’s house?’

‘I’ve been through all this with Verma’s people – it was still term time, just the normal routine of home and school.’

‘She must have been somewhere else besides.’

‘She went into town a few times with Fiona. That’s all. There’s no point to this, it’s hopeless.’ He seemed overcome with despair. ‘Don’t you have powers to demand answers? We’re not looking for a public apology; we just want to know where it came from.’

Jenny persisted, ‘Maybe she had a boyfriend you didn’t know about – is that possible? Have you checked all her online activity?’

‘There was no boyfriend.’

‘What about the cinema – or anywhere she might have been close to other people? Just think . . .’

He fell silent.

‘Ed? Are you still there?’

‘I just thought of something,’ he said quietly. ‘I belong to Hampton’s—’

‘I know it. St Edward’s Road.’ Hampton’s, in affluent Clifton, wasn’t so much a gym as a fully fledged country club. David had been a member before he declared that it had become too effeminate for his manly tastes. As Jenny remembered it, there were tennis and squash courts, a gym, and a large and elegant kidney-shaped pool.

‘I dropped in one Sunday morning – about a month ago. Fiona had to go to her mother’s. The girls came with me and went swimming.’

‘You’d forgotten this?’

‘No—’

‘What are you saying?’

He gave a despairing sigh. ‘There’s someone I sometimes have coffee with.’

‘Who?’

‘No one you know. We’re just friends. But Fiona read a couple of texts one time and made assumptions.’

‘She doesn’t know you were there?’

‘The girls had promised her they’d be doing their music practice, so it was all a bit of a secret . . . Oh God. What have I done?’

‘I won’t mention this to anyone, I promise. I’m just ruling out a possibility.’

Ed Freeman fell into another unreadable silence.

‘Whatever I find out, I’ll speak to you before doing anything,’ Jenny said. ‘You have my word.’

‘Sure,’ he grunted.

Hoping that this particular lead would lead nowhere, Jenny called the anxious manager of Hampton’s and, after first assuring him that her inquiry remained strictly confidential, asked him to forward the contact details of all club members who had visited during the twenty-four hours before Ed and his daughters. Alarmed, he tried to play for time, asking to consult with his company’s solicitors. Jenny gave him a straight choice: comply immediately, or find himself a witness at her inquest. She left the decision with him.

Switching her attention back to Adam Jordan, Jenny tried to plot her next moves. She needed to trace the girl he had been with at Great Shefford, but felt it was still too soon to share this information with Karen Jordan. There was no point going back to Harry Thorn or his employees – they wouldn’t break ranks this side of the witness box – which left her with only one possibility: Sonia Blake.

Jenny paused to marshal the rush of thoughts her name prompted. Stay rational, she told herself, reason it through, one step at a time. She knew only three things about her for certain. She was a respected academic with an expertise in African conflicts. She was a pragmatist who didn’t shy from advocating violent means to achieve just ends. And her father had been a geneticist who was murdered thirty years ago in Arizona. Her father’s profession was an odd but resonant detail that Jenny found vaguely disturbing. It was made all the more so by the fact that Adam Jordan went to meet her having just bought a rare, out-of-print book by a Russian microbiologist. Even viewed through the prism of pure logic, there was a theme emerging.

Sonia Blake was, Jenny imagined, just the kind of person who, alongside her academic career, might have become involved with governments or other shadier interested parties in the conflict-ridden areas she researched. But Jenny had no handle on that world and no means of understanding it. For all she knew, Adam Jordan and Sonia Blake might have had a professional relationship that extended far beyond anything she had admitted during their brief interview. To talk to her again felt like a step into the unknown, perhaps even a dangerous risk, though what was at stake Jenny couldn’t say. She paced her office and prevaricated, wrestling with how she should approach her, what she should give away and what she should hold back, until she had argued herself to a standstill. Deciding finally to play it by ear, she searched out her number.

Sonia Blake answered her phone in a distracted voice, as if she had been deep in thought.

Jenny felt a pressure behind her ribs as she opened her mouth to speak; she was inexplicably nervous. Stumbling slightly, she apologized for disturbing her yet again, but explained that certain facts had come to light which she would like to discuss.

‘Oh. I’ll do what I can.’ Sonia Blake sounded mildly irritated by the request.

Attempting to seize the upper hand, Jenny said, ‘May I ask if you work for anyone outside the university, Mrs Blake?’

‘No.’ She was affronted. ‘What does this have to do with Adam Jordan?’

Again, Jenny wanted to prove that she wasn’t afraid of being direct: ‘His employers were under pressure to work for British interests. I wondered if you might have anything to do with that world.’

‘It’s my area of study. That’s why I made contact with him.’

‘And that’s as far as your interest extends?’

‘Yes . . . But I’m intrigued to know what you’re getting at, Mrs Cooper. I don’t know if I can help you, but if you’d like to meet, I’ll happily give you the benefit of what little relevant knowledge I might have.’

Her tone had shifted yet again. Jenny’s instinct was not to trust her, but the offer of a meeting was too enticing to turn down.

‘That would be very helpful. Are you available tomorrow?’