by Lesley Kelly
‘Of sorts?’ Maitland looked intrigued.
‘It’s a little bit ambiguous. Could be suicide note, or it could be a resignation letter.’
‘From what? What was his job?’
‘I’ll come back to that in a minute. Bernard, did you have a question?’
Bernard was sitting patiently with his hand raised. Maitland nudged Mona in the ribs. ‘Probably wants to know what was going on while he was too scared to look.’
‘Shut up.’ She tried not to smile.
Bernard looked put out but kept going. ‘It’s more of a comment really. I think it’s a strange place to choose to commit suicide.’
‘Jumpers often choose somewhere significant to them . . .’ said Mona.
‘Yeah, maybe he was also a member.’ Maitland smirked. ‘Probably wanted one last 10% off at the shop. Check his bag for souvenirs.’
Bernard’s cheeks were scarlet. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. I was trying to say that it was an odd place to choose to jump, because there is no guarantee that you would actually die. You’d end up horribly injured, but depending on where you landed you might survive.’
‘A very valid point, Bernard.’ Stuttle nodded.
If possible, it appeared that Bernard’s cheeks turned even redder.
Stuttle continued. ‘Particularly as in this case, the fall didn’t immediately kill him. He’d probably have splattered if he’d landed on the marble floor at reception, but the plastic model thingy cushioned his fall.’
‘So was it the fall that killed him?’ Paterson raised an eyebrow.
‘We’re not sure yet. The pathologists are running some tests even as we speak, but the initial indications are that there was something in his bloodstream that shouldn’t have been.’
‘Like poison?’ asked Mona.
Cameron shrugged. ‘Possibly.’
There was a small ripple of interest, which Paterson raised his hand to quell. ‘Fascinating as this is, I don’t see what it has to do with the HET. We search for people who have missed their monthly health check. If this guy is overdue for a health check he’s got a really, really good excuse.’
‘I’m aware of all that.’
Paterson continued to look suspicious. ‘This isn’t one of those scenarios when you need some dirty work doing, and you are going to pressgang us into helping you?’
Mona’s mind went back to her recent trip to London with Paterson to search for a missing professor. The words ‘pressgang’ and ‘dirty work’ had all been entirely applicable to it.
‘I’m hurt that you would think that of me, John,’ said Cameron, smiling. ‘Let me explain . . .’
His justification was interrupted by a knock on the office door. Their heads all swivelled round to see Ian Jacobsen from Police Scotland appear. Mona felt a wave of fury rising up from her feet. She tutted loudly, and turned back to glare at Stuttle, who was busy not catching her eye.
‘Ian, perfect timing. I was just explaining to our HET colleagues about the unfortunate incident at the pandemics museum.’
‘Morning all.’ Ian smiled at the company. Only Bernard smiled back, then looked slightly alarmed when he realised none of his colleagues was extending similar pleasantries. ‘I’m hoping that the HET and Police Scotland can work jointly on this.’
‘No way.’ Mona couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
‘Mona . . .’
‘No, I’m sorry Mr Stuttle, but I’d rather resign than work with Ian and his colleagues.’
A look passed between Stuttle and Paterson that she didn’t understand.
‘Seriously, Guv, last time we worked together I nearly got shot.’
It was Ian’s turn to tut. ‘Last time we worked together I was under the impression I saved your life . . .’
Mona’s jaw fell open at this flagrant rewriting of history.
‘Mona,’ Stuttle’s tone was at its most conciliatory, ‘just listen to what Ian has to say. I’m sure we can accommodate everyone.’
She was torn between continuing to make her point, and having her curiosity satisfied about the body. She ended up not saying anything, which Ian took as a signal to start talking.
‘I have to stress to you all that everything from today’s meeting is confidential . . .’
‘Of course.’ Paterson responded for all of them.
‘The gentleman that you just watched take a tumble was called Nathan McVie.’
‘I recognise that name,’ said Bernard.
‘You should. He is – was – Director of Pandemic Policy for the Scottish Government. Which made him probably the second most important civil servant with regards to the Virus. Not, it has to be said, a particular fan of the HETs. He regarded them as largely window-dressing, with limited actual impact on the Virus.’
‘Always nice to meet a fan,’ said Paterson. ‘But I still fail to see what this has to do with us. He’s dead, not missing.’
‘True. And if that’s all there was to it I wouldn’t be imposing on your time. But let me tell you about Mr McVie’s last day. At 10am last Friday, he turned up here for a meeting–’
‘With the museum staff?’
‘No, they’d no involvement in the meeting at all. The museum rents out conference spaces on the top floor, and McVie had booked one late on Thursday. Although we are wondering why Mr McVie couldn’t find a meeting room anywhere in Victoria Quay, St Andrews House or any of the other Edinburgh buildings owned by the Government. Anyway, four people attended the meeting; Mr McVie, Carlotta Carmichael MSP—’ he broke off in response to the low growl of dismay that was coming collectively from the HET staff ‘—the same Ms Carmichael who was recently spotted at the North Edinburgh HET office, complaining about the standards of housekeeping and threatening to establish an Inspector of HETs post, if my sources are correct.’ Ian grinned.
‘Shut up and get on with it.’
‘So McVie, Ms Carmichael, and two other civil servants were at the meeting: Jasper Connington, who is Director-General Health for the Scottish Government, and Helen Sopel, Director of the Virus Operational Response team.’
‘Still not seeing what it has to do with us.’
‘At 8.30 this morning, Helen Sopel failed to turn up for her monthly scheduled health check. As you can imagine for someone in her position, missing a Health Check is unthinkable. She didn’t turn up for work this morning, and her colleagues couldn’t get any answer from her mobile. While her staff were wondering what they should do about her unexpected absence, her sister phoned up looking for her. Apparently she was worried as Helen stood her up for a cinema trip on Sunday night.’
‘That’s not good.’
‘Quite so.’ Stuttle nodded. ‘The four most important people in Virus policy in Scotland had a meeting here on Friday morning. At 11.30pm on Friday night, one of them kills himself, and at some point over the weekend, another one goes missing.’
‘Carlotta Car . . ..’
‘Carlotta Carmichael was absolutely alive and well as of an hour ago, so don’t get your hopes up, John.’
‘Do we know what the meeting was about?’ asked Bernard.
‘No, we don’t. But we need to get Helen Sopel found and into a health check before anyone notices that she’s gone. Because these are the people at the very top of Virus policy, these are the people who are continually popping up on the TV telling us that everything is under control, these are the people who are supposed to be making everything all right. If word gets out that they are going crazy, there’s going to be panic on the streets.’ He looked round at them all. ‘There’s going to be bloodshed.’
* * *
Death at the Plague Museum will be available in 2019
READ THE FIRST IN THE SERIES
In an Edinburgh reeling from a deadly Virus, two students go missing. Mona and Bernard have to tackle cults, late night raves and the mysterious involvement of overseas governments, to reach the girls before anyone else does…
Pages which virtually turned themselves.
I bloody loved it.
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READ LESLEY KELLY’S DEBUT
‘I enjoyed my first day at primary school. Of course, I didn’t know then that this was the first day of a suffocating friendship with a psychopath, a friendship I’d still be trapped in thirty years later.’
Longlisted for the 2016 Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize
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