The Ears of a Cat

by Roderick Hart

  She replied to Cooper at once. This is fish to the cat. Cooper thought she knew what this meant but just to make sure asked her anyway, only to find that Saito would explain it only when all concerned “embraced” end-to-end encryption. Until such time, all she was prepared to say was that she, Saito, was a big fan of Moxie Marlinspike. So Cooper checked out the many and varied works of this gentleman online, didn’t understand a word of it, but downloaded WhatsApp anyway.

  Adalbert Pearson spotted the change at once. As he put it to Dieter Klein, something was going on. One minute they’re happily exchanging messages anyone with half a brain can read and suddenly they’ve gone private. This can’t be an accident. If you ask me, these ladies are up to something. Klein hadn’t asked him because he no longer cared, but if Pearson was so concerned there must be something a tech-savvy person like him could do? Well, Pearson conceded, I have access to the metadata. That will tell us something. Like who these people contacted, when, and where they were at any given time. Provided their phones were on.

  But he pinned his hopes on the bugs in Cooper’s apartment, something Klein knew nothing about. Right, so I’ll keep a watching brief. Klein was sure he would, his thoughts turning with relief to the first page of his Symphony in Eb, exploding on an unsuspecting world in a blaze of brass.

  In life, the trick was to work out what mattered most, and he was inching his way towards it, making the slow transition from monitoring the unsavoury elements of society, a demoralising task, to becoming a creative artist in sound. Each day as he arrived at work and entered the building, he had the feeling, unnerving at first, that he was a trumpeter of the mind gradually hitting higher and higher notes. In the fullness of time, if he practised enough, his colleagues wouldn’t be able to hear him play at all. Even their dogs, if they had any, would be challenged by the stratospheric heights to which he rose.

  To save Grönefeld travelling all the way to Berlin as she had before, the women who were up to something met in Prague. The café was situated in the Stare Mesto just behind the Charles Bridge. It had an intimate feel, in part because the tables were so small, but also offered tempting fare to those so inclined, including a speciality of the house – an impressive lattice pie. They hugged when they met; they’d known each other for years, or so it felt.

  ‘Well, Catherine, how was Christmas for you?’

  Cooper explained about her mother’s marital problems and her return to England.

  ‘So I visited her. Two weeks. Cost a small fortune, what with the travel and the cat-sitting.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Dead.’ Seeing Grönefeld’s surprise, she explained. ‘Metaphorically speaking. To me. As far as I am concerned.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it is. So, Gudrun, what’s this about?’

  Over coffee and berry fruit cheesecake, Grönefeld explained again that some of the research currently conducted at her place of work was potentially dangerous.

  ‘Worst-case scenario, it could lead to disaster.’

  Since this confirmed her suspicions of bio companies, Cooper wasn’t surprised to hear it.

  ‘What do you mean, an epidemic of some sort?’

  ‘Maybe even a pandemic, yes. That’s how serious it is. Management at Breakout know the risks but believe they have them covered.’

  As Grönefeld turned her head to check if other customers were listening, Cooper caught the brief flash of an earring, silver, in what looked like a copy of an archaic style in keeping with the old-fashioned braiding of her hair. She no longer wore jewels herself, no adornment of any kind. Why would she? Life was a serious business.

  Judging it safe to continue, Grönefeld filled in the detail. Under their esteemed head of research, Dr Lucas Heidegger, her team was working with H7N9, an avian flu virus which didn’t infect people easily, but when it did, mortality was high.

  ‘But if it doesn’t infect people…’

  ‘That could change overnight. It’s happened before; it will happen again.’

  Viruses mutated constantly. All Breakout were doing was giving this one a helping hand, making it more dangerous than it was already. They would go on to produce a vaccine for the new mutation; then, when it occurred in nature, they would be ready with their solution.

  ‘At a price.’

  ‘Of course. We are not a charity.’

  Cooper sat back in her chair and thought about this for a moment. Surely there was a problem here?

  ‘Research costs money.’

  ‘A great deal.’

  ‘What if you do all this work only to find that the mutation doesn’t occur in nature after all? How do you get your money back? Surely there would be a temptation to release your new, deadly version?’

  Grönefeld was shocked by this suggestion. ‘Dr Heidegger would never agree to that!’

  ‘Maybe not, but someone else might. Human nature being what it is, there is no level so low someone won’t sink to it. I mean, Gudrun, come on, you contacted me for a reason.’

  Despite the many precautions they took, there was always the danger of a colleague becoming infected and taking the virus out of the lab into the world, which was where, for its own survival, it needed to be. Working in hazmat suits was no fun. One mistake would be all it took. But her fear had been of accidental escape not deliberate release; that would be unthinkable.

  Cooper liked Grönefeld. As far as she could tell, Grönefeld liked her. And trusted her, or she wouldn’t be talking to her now. But what was unthinkable to Grönefeld was exactly what Cooper hoped to bring about. Harming people you don’t know was one thing; hurting a thoughtful young woman with a conscience something else again. Coming close to betrayal, it was an uncomfortable thought, which she neatly deflected with a forkful of food.

  ‘This cake is delicious. I hope these people open a branch in Berlin.’ She took a napkin and wiped her lower lip. ‘So tell me, what do you have in mind?’

  Grönefeld intended to remove samples of variant H7N9 and supply it to other labs so that they could develop a vaccine too. Leaving it to Breakout alone was risky; they might fail to come up with one or fail to do so in time.

  ‘But surely there are security procedures. How would you get round those?’

  Grönefeld pointed to the small blue cool box at her feet. ‘I already have.’

  While all this was music to Cooper’s ears, she was still puzzled.

  ‘Okay, but I don’t see where I come in.’

  ‘I have to look to the future, Catherine. I can’t approach other companies myself. Word would get round, no one would employ me again. Danie Pienaar would see to that.’ She looked apologetic when she said it but said it anyway. ‘I have to eat.’

  ‘So you want me to approach these other companies for you.’

  ‘I’ve studied your website. Future World has already examined the sort of risks I’m talking about, but if you’re not sure where to turn, I have suggestions for you, two in particular. And also who you should at all costs avoid. Unscrupulous people exist in all walks of life, including mine. They are out there, believe me.’

  ‘I do.’

  Cooper felt easy with this discussion till Grönefeld lifted her blue cool box from the floor, moved her coffee cup to one side and placed it on the table. Her surprise showed in her face. In principle, dying was fine, but dying right now wasn’t part of the plan.

  ‘So here we have two 3.0 millilitre specimen bottles, tightly sealed and carefully packed.’

  ‘With lethal viruses inside them.’

  ‘In a liquid transport medium.’

  ‘They have to be kept cool?’

  ‘I used the box to protect the bottles from impact, nothing more.’

  ‘I don’t need to put them in the fridge?’

  ‘You can if you want to.’ Grönefeld smiled. ‘The viruse
s won’t mind. Freezing is nothing to them.’

  ‘You wouldn’t consider telling me how you did it, I suppose?’

  At that point, three new arrivals made for the vacant table beside them. At first, their only interest was deciding what to order, but when they were set up with coffees and pastries, that changed. Given the confidential nature of their discussion, Grönefeld’s instinct was to whisper, but the newcomers spoke so loudly, she had to raise her voice to make herself heard.

  ‘It wasn’t easy. I have never felt such stress in my life.’

  She’d removed existing samples and transferred them to a bottle of her own; taking it in was easy, smuggling it out something else again. She’d topped up the lab bottles with additional liquid medium. That way, they would still appear full and would also contain the viral samples they were supposed to, if not in the original quantity. No one’s suspicions would be aroused.

  ‘But how did you get them out? Surely employees are searched as they leave.’

  Grönefeld laughed. ‘Let’s just say a yellow sharps bin was involved.’

  ‘And you had help.’

  ‘A certain technician with whom I share a bed, though not for much longer. He wants to marry me.’

  ‘And you don’t want to know.’

  Grönefeld smiled grimly. With every passing day, Klaus Wendling was closer to passing his use-by date.

  ‘I see no need for such a radical step. Besides, he already has a son by another woman.’

  ‘Oh dear, that’s not so good.’

  ‘Not for the boy, it isn’t. Anyway, what do you say? Can you help me or not? I need to know now.’

  Having dangerous ideas is all very well when there is no prospect of acting on them. Dream all you like about wiping the scourge of humanity from the face of the earth and feel better for it; that way, your wishes are fulfilled with no harm to anyone or risk to yourself. But now, unexpectedly, a thoughtful woman from Austria, short and slightly plump with signature halo braid, was doing her best to make it possible. Cooper should have been happier than she was.

  19

  In his new managerial role, Eric Wanless had less free time than before. Sunday morning was one of those times, but this particular Sunday did not go well. Whenever an alarm went off in the night, which happened too often, he was alerted by the police and obliged to turn out with his alarm codes and keys regardless of the hour. And so it was at 3 am on January the fifteenth. Another false alarm. When he finally made it back to bed, the sheets now cold after an absence of ninety minutes, the least he could hope for was a lie-in, perhaps till eleven or twelve. But at the ungodly hour of six o’clock, just as he was connecting with the recurrent fantasy who was Cindy Horváth, he was wakened by a pounding on the door. And there they were again, the police. Andris, none too pleased to be wakened so early after a drink-fuelled Saturday night, was swearing in Russian. He did this only when angry, a fact which led Wanless to wonder if this otherwise uncommunicative man was an illegal, a Russian national masquerading as a Latvian.

  ‘Eric Christopher James Wanless?’

  ‘You know I am; you called me out to the warehouse earlier this morning.’

  The officers had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care much either.

  ‘Not us, mate, sorry. We have a warrant for your arrest.’

  Though this was true, they didn’t offer to let him see it. Looking him up and down in his faded boxer shorts and Clever Bastards T-shirt, they gave him two minutes to change and drove him to Bishopsgate Police Station, a place he had recently attended in connection with his problem in the car park. There they ushered him into an interview room, where he remained for half an hour because the plain clothes officers due to grill him didn’t know he had arrived. Finally, two members of the NCA, each with a coffee, entered the room and sat down opposite him, laying a folder of papers on the table. One of them checked a file photograph against Wanless in the flesh.

  ‘This is him, Amrit, no doubt about it.’

  Amrit was a young man of dusky countenance, whose dark hair and heavy eyebrows made him look more serious than he already was. No mean feat.

  ‘I should start by pointing out, Mr Wanless,’ he said, ‘that you are entitled to legal representation.’

  Wanless knew that. He also knew that the police didn’t take kindly to turning out for false alarms, but surely this was going too far.

  ‘It’s not my fault it keeps going off. I’ve contacted the installers several times. They’re total tossers.’

  Officer Bhatt looked up from his paperwork and exchanged enquiring glances with his colleague. Either this man was trying to sidetrack them or he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  ‘On the second of January this year, you were involved in a car park brawl with a Mr Nathan Cobb.’

  So that was what this was about, that bastard Cobb.

  ‘Yes, but wait a minute, hold on, I was told the papers would be sent to the Crown Prosecution Office and the whole thing would take months. Years, even.’

  Bhatt sighed. ‘The mills grind slowly as they say.’

  Wanless never said this but got the drift.

  ‘Right? So what’s going on?’

  ‘You will remember that Mr Cobb accused you of assault.’

  ‘He started it. I have witnesses.’

  Bhatt smiled grimly. This Wanless character was clearly a lowlife knuckle-dragger.

  ‘Be that as it may, you were seen attacking Mr Cobb with a golf club, so we had to take the accusation seriously.’

  His colleague chipped in. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, Mr Wanless, you were interviewed here in this station.’

  Anxious to escape, in mind if not in body, Wanless looked round the room and noticed technology at the end of the table by the wall. He liked technology; it never put him on the spot.

  ‘Shouldn’t that be on?’

  ‘You wish to record our conversation?’

  Wanless decided against it. The last thing he needed was something he admitted by mistake being on the record.

  ‘As part of your interview here on January the second, you were examined by a police surgeon.’

  ‘Too right. I was attacked.’

  ‘In the course of which photographs and samples were taken.’

  ‘To document the damage.’

  Bhatt paused for a moment, sensing a possible lack of communication on the part of his uniformed colleagues.

  ‘The officers who brought you here may not have mentioned that they did so under the powers granted to them under a European Arrest Warrant.’

  And it began to dawn on Eric, or so he thought.

  ‘Ah, I see, I get it. So why didn’t you arrest him while you were at it?’

  ‘To whom do you refer?’

  Eric was astonished to hear a police officer express himself with such formality; he spoke English so well he was probably foreign. For his part, Bhatt was beginning to wonder what Wanless was on, incapable as he appeared to be of thinking in a straight line and possibly not walking along one either.

  ‘My flatmate, Andris Dimants. He’s an illegal, isn’t he? I’ve thought so for a while. He’s over here on false pretences taking our jobs and clogging up the health service.’ He was about to add and shagging our women to the list but didn’t want to push it. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, it’s really our landlord you should be after, not me. I just rent.’

  Bhatt closed his file; the case was simple and all in his head anyway.

  ‘You recently travelled to Geneva by air and returned by train. Coinciding with your visit, a Mr Xavier Grosjean was fatally stabbed through the heart in the presence of his wife.’

  ‘That was on the news.’

  ‘Since which time the weapon has been found.’

  That was not so funny. ‘Right.’

  ‘You sh
ould know that DNA on the handle of the weapon matches yours to an RMP of, let me see,’ he looked at his file, ‘one in thirty-seven million.’

  ‘Yes, but come on, guys, I wasn’t born yesterday. What does that even mean?’

  To his surprise, Officer Bhatt answered the question.

  ‘To put it simply, Mr Wanless, it is thirty-seven million times more likely that the DNA on the handle of the weapon found in Geneva came from you rather than any other person.’

  Making the occasional bet on football scores as he did, Wanless realised these odds were not good. He should have thrown the sharpened file into Lake Geneva, but fearing a tap on the shoulder as he made his escape couldn’t wait to dispose of it.

  The other officer smiled. ‘And if you hadn’t got into a brawl with that nice Mr Cobb, we’d never have known. Makes you think, eh?’

  It did, but not pleasant thoughts. Wanless felt cold sweat running under his armpits and down his back, making his sweatshirt unpleasantly sticky. All he could think of now was playing for time.

  ‘There must be some mistake, a filing error, something like that.’

  Bhatt had no intention of pursuing that thought.

  ‘And the fingerprints, a filing error too? I don’t think so, Mr Wanless. The evidence against you is strong.’

  Memories of crime programmes flooded into his mind. He was down but not out.

  ‘I can make a phone call, right?’

  ‘Of course.’ Bhatt nodded. Why not? For all the good it would do him.

  Wanless stood up, eased his smartphone from the back pocket of his jeans and sat down again. The second officer waited till he’d entered the pin code and reached his hand out over the table.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll have that.’

  Wanless realised at once he’d made a serious mistake.