The Health of Strangers

by Lesley Kelly

  ‘Nice one, Maitland. Even by your usual standards of tact that was superb.’

  She motioned them into the front room of the house. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Pastor Mackenzie disappear into the kitchen.

  ‘Emma, what’s going on?’ Maitland asked.

  ‘Keep your voice down. She was raped, but not by Malcolm.’

  ‘By Donny?’

  ‘Jesus, no! Please stop trying to guess. Donny’s a good guy. For someone that works in law enforcement you’re not too hot on spotting villains, are you?’

  Maitland glared at her and threw himself down on to the leather of the burgundy sofa. Bernard placed himself gently on the other corner.

  ‘Just tell me who,’ asked Maitland.

  Emma perched on the arm of the sofa, and lowered her voice. ‘That businessman who owns the pub you were talking about – Vince something?’

  ‘Vic Thompson?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Christ,’ said Maitland, sinking further into the cushions.

  ‘So why . . .?’ began Bernard.

  ‘Why did Donny think Malcolm was responsible?’ said Emma, asking his question for him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because Donny would have got himself killed squaring up to Vic Thompson. He got the wrong end of the stick about Malcolm, and it was safer for everyone just to let him think that.’ She hit Maitland on the shoulder. ‘You owe Malcolm a huge apology, you know.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Maitland did not look all that contrite. ‘But there’s something not right about the set-up at Morley’s, Emma. I mean that back room is full of vulnerable young women. Why is it all women? Where are the men?’

  ‘A good question.’

  Pastor Mackenzie was standing in the doorway.

  ‘My congregations are eighty per cent female. Most church congregations are eighty per cent female these days, if you care to look. Women seem in particular need of comfort in these dark times.’ He sat down in an armchair. ‘Perhaps all the men are in the pub, Mr Stevenson?’

  ‘You’re up to something, Mackenzie.’

  The Pastor looked exasperated. ‘Is it not even remotely possible that all my church is interested in is providing reassurance to individuals troubled by the Virus? Have you been in the Police so long that you can’t believe in anything good?’

  ‘I’m not in the Police; I’m in the Health Enforcement Team.’ Maitland got slowly to his feet. ‘Colette,’ he called, ‘I’m sorry but we need to go.’

  She appeared, wearing her coat.

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said the Pastor.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ said Maitland. ‘Emma, can you come?’

  Emma and Pastor Mackenzie looked at each other and he gave a slight nod.

  Maitland was turning purple again. ‘You don’t need his bloody approval!’

  Emma addressed herself to Bernard. ‘Give me a minute and I’ll get my bag.’

  He nudged Maitland toward the door. ‘We’ll be in the car.’

  6

  Mona peered through the glass pane on the door to the computer suite. The IT guys were both concentrating on their screens, shoulders hunched, their hands tapping away at the keyboards. She wondered if they were researching the Virus or playing computer games.

  ‘Hi.’

  The typing stopped. Marcus did a double take when he saw Mona walking through the door. He grinned at Bryce, and leapt up to find her a seat. Mona felt a stab of irritation. She wasn’t sure she could bear half an hour of an IT nerd fawning over her, even to get the information that she needed.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting the pleasure so soon. What are you two working on now?’

  Word travelled fast.

  ‘The same – missing Germans etc.’ Mona sat down and avoided looking at either of the IT staff.

  Marcus frowned. ‘It’s just that I saw the e-mail saying that Heidi had been found in Germany, case closed.’

  ‘The e-mail?’ The Guv must have been unusually quick off the mark.

  ‘Yeah, Paterson cc’d me into an e-mail round your team saying there would be no further work undertaken on this case. He was quite emphatic on that point.’ He looked at her. ‘Didn’t you get the message?’

  ‘No.’ Mona pulled her chair up the side of the IT guy’s desk. ‘Anyhow, we may need a favour. I need an update on Heidi’s e-mail traffic.’

  ‘But you’re not working on the case now.’ One of his eyebrows emerged above the rim of his glasses.

  ‘The case is still open.’

  There was no response from Marcus.

  ‘Cases remain open until the Defaulter is found.’ She could hear a slight screechy tone to her voice. It wasn’t pleasant.

  He leaned back on this chair, his hands folded behind his head.

  ‘Please, just check her account to see if there have been any recent e-mails.’

  He unfolded his arms and slapped his hands down on his knees.

  ‘That’s a sackable offence, Mona, hacking into someone’s e-mail account without legitimate reason.’

  ‘There is a legitimate reason – Heidi is in danger!’

  ‘OK,’ he nodded enthusiastically. ‘Get me authorisation from Paterson and I’ll happily do it.’

  She glared at him, and he winced under the violence of her stare.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’d dearly love to help you but not at the expense of my job.’

  Mona felt a sudden urge to throw something across the room. She settled for standing up and shoving her chair back. She reached down and grabbed her bag.

  ‘Are you going back to your office?’

  ‘No, actually, I’m going to find a café with decent Wi-Fi and put in every password I can think of until I get into Heidi’s account.’

  A look passed between Marcus and Bryce.

  ‘Yes, I know it could take me a while to guess, not least because it might be something in German . . .’

  The look passed between them again. Bryce raised his eyebrows and returned to his computer.

  Marcus sighed, and signalled to her to sit back down. ‘Mona, Heidi could, in theory, choose any combination of words and numbers in the world.’

  ‘Oh God, this is doomed.’ She slumped back in her chair.

  ‘But people don’t generally do that, do they? Most people go for something really straightforward, and incidentally, easy to hack, like their name and 123.’

  A vision of mona123 came into her mind and she wondered how Marcus knew her password. Did IT read their e-mails? It was probably just a lucky guess. She’d change it tomorrow, although she might have to ask Bernard how to do it.

  ‘So you could try heidi123 or weber123, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘But Heidi’s young, she’s IT literate, and we’re pretty sure she’s got stuff in her inbox that she definitely doesn’t want anyone to see. So my guess is that she’s gone for something really random, like the first letter of each word in a particular sentence out of a book.’

  ‘Probably something in German. So, I’m back to being doomed.’

  ‘Except, most people do write their passwords down somewhere, unless they are doing something really stupid like using the same password for everything.’

  mona123. She was definitely changing it tomorrow.

  ‘And Heidi definitely wasn’t doing that. She kept an encrypted document with all her passwords on her laptop, which could only be hacked by the smartest of tech geeks,’ he pointed to himself, ‘which is the only reason we got into her e-mails.’

  Something occurred to her. She grabbed her bag, and pulled out her laptop, almost dropping it in excitement.

  ‘What’s your Wi-Fi code?’

  ‘Seriously? There’s no chance you could do this somewhere else?’

  ‘Please, Marcus?’

  He wrestled with his conscience for a second, then passed her a sheet of paper with the Wi-Fi code.

  ‘Have you cracked it then?’ He stood next to her, waiting to see what she typed.
>
  She pulled out the fluffy pink book, and gently picked at the cover. As she had recalled, the outer layer was designed to be removed. She eased it off, and stared at the neatly written line of poetry. So wise so young, they say do never live long.

  Marcus ran his finger over the sentence. ‘You reckon this is it, then?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘That’s you halfway there, then.’

  She stopped typing Heidi’s e-mail address into G-mail.

  ‘What do you mean, “halfway”?’ ‘Well, even if this sentence is the right code, you could use a capital letter at the beginning of the password where she hasn’t or vice versa. Or it could be all lower case, or all capitals.’

  ‘Oh, God. Oh well, here goes nothing.’

  She typed in the e-mail address. At the password prompt she typed ‘swsytsdnll.’

  A message appeared in the centre of the screen telling her that either the address or password was wrong, and advising her to check that her Caps Lock wasn’t on.

  She tried again, with capital letters this time. SWSYTSDNLL.

  Again, the error message appeared. She slapped the diary in frustration, and swore.

  Third time lucky. Swsytsdnll.

  Heidi’s e-mails appeared.

  ‘Fantastic!’

  Marcus looked markedly less delighted than she felt. ‘Just remember, if anyone asks, you worked that out all by yourself.’

  ‘Whatever.’ She grabbed her phone and called Bernard. ‘We’re in!’

  He cheered, then she heard him say. ‘High Five, Maitland?’

  A faint voice said, ‘Get stuffed, Bernard.’

  There were no e-mails in Heidi’s inbox. Mona panicked until she noticed the row of folder icons at the side of the screen. ‘She files all her e-mails, Bernard,’ she said. ‘A woman after your own heart, I would have thought.’

  There was the sound of laughter from her phone. ‘It would be helpful if there was one marked “Illicit Drugs” or “Loopy and H”, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘There’s one marked “Purchases”.’

  She clicked on the Purchases folder. The first e-mail thanked Heidi for her order, and noted it would be dispatched to the address she had given when she ordered. Mona relayed this to Bernard.

  ‘Not overly specific, is it?’

  ‘There’s a file marked “Personal” – I’ll try that.’

  She clicked over. The first e-mail was from Kevin, and had been sent a few hours earlier.

  ‘Bernard, listen to this.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘“Heidi, I don’t know why you aren’t answering my texts but I’m not waiting any longer. I’m going to find you. I know you’ve gone to Dunblane.”’

  ‘“I’m going to find you.” Is that a threat?’ Bernard sounded pensive.

  ‘It could be. I wonder how he knows she’s in Dunblane?’

  ‘Dunblane? That’s near Stirling, isn’t it? Must be about an hour, maybe hour-and-a-half’s drive from here?’

  ‘Fancy a trip, Bernard?’

  ‘Let’s just hope he’s gone straight there. I’ll get the car from Maitland as soon as we’ve dropped off his Defaulter, then I’ll pick you up.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Mona?’ The phone sounded anxious.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We need to let Mr Paterson know.’

  He was right, but there remained a danger that the Guv would just hand it over to one of the Stirling HETs to deal with.

  ‘Mona?’ Bernard’s tone was insistent.

  ‘Leave the Guv to me.’

  She hung up, placed her phone on the table and sat staring at it, working out what she could say to her Team Leader that would still result in them being allowed to go to Dunblane. Inspiration was in short supply.

  Mona’s mobile rang, and an unfamiliar number came up on the screen.

  ‘Hello?’

  A faint voice said something unintelligible at the other end.

  ‘Who is this?’ Then she realised. ‘Amanda, is that you?’

  The voice whispered again.

  ‘He’s here.’

  7

  ‘Finished speaking to your boss?’ Maitland shot Bernard one of his more annoying smirks.

  ‘I was speaking to Mona, as you well know.’

  ‘Exactly my point.’

  Maitland was driving them to the nearest Health Check Centre, which was in a GP’s surgery at the West End. The two girls sat in the back, and Maitland had taken the precaution of putting the child locks on, in case they were planning to hop out at a traffic light.

  ‘So, what are the two of you up to?’

  Bernard affected a look of innocence, but left it a second or so too long to answer. ‘What?’

  ‘You and Mona – you’re plotting something that the Guv doesn’t know about. Is this to do with that German lassie you were after?’

  Before Bernard could answer there was a banging on the internal window of the car. He turned round to see Colette waving to him. He fumbled around until he got the intercom working.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Do I have to tell them about . . .about the rape?’

  ‘No,’ said Bernard. ‘You are not legally obliged to tell the nurse anything. You don’t even have to tell her you are pregnant.’

  Colette’s face lit up. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, though you’re going to have to tell your doctor at some point. If you get the Virus both you and the baby are in serious danger.’

  Colette didn’t answer.

  ‘The Health Enforcement Team can’t make you have an abortion, or haul you into hospital against your will, Colette. All we want to do is make sure you are not infected.’

  She still didn’t reply. He looked at Emma, who shrugged helplessly. He turned back in his seat, but left the intercom on.

  ‘Do you know about health stuff, Bernard?’

  Colette’s voice made him jump. He turned back in her direction. ‘I know about the Virus, I’m not a doctor.’

  She started to cry again, and Emma reached over and took her hand.

  ‘What if I damaged my baby taking that stuff?’

  ‘What stuff – Loopy and H?’ he asked.

  She looked miserable. ‘Everyone was doing it, all my friends. It seemed like the only way to protect ourselves.’

  Maitland swivelled his gaze between the road and the reflected image of the back seat. ‘That friend of yours in hospital, and the ones that died, were they taking Loopy and H?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was a whisper.

  ‘So, your friends die after taking the stuff, and you don’t have enough common sense to give it a wide berth?’

  ‘Leave her alone, Maitland.’ Emma pulled her friend toward her. ‘She’s been through enough.’

  ‘Just one more thing that we have to ask.’ The car slowed, and Maitland pulled into the side of the road. He turned round to look at his passengers. ‘We understand that you’ve been the victim of a crime, Colette.’

  The girl buried her face in her hands. Maitland went on, ‘We can support you to make a formal complaint to Police Scotland. There is a specialist Rape Unit . . .’

  ‘Leave it, Maitland.’ Emma looked furious.

  Bernard tried to help. ‘The complaint would be dealt with very sensitively.’

  ‘Colette knows she can make a complaint, but she doesn’t feel up to it at the moment.’

  ‘So, Vic Thompson gets off scot-free, ready to attack some other pretty girl that ends up in his bar?’

  ‘Stop pressuring her, Maitland, it’s her decision to make.’ The couple glared at each other through the Perspex wall.

  Maitland gave up, and turned back to the wheel. ‘OK. Let’s get you in for your Health Check.’

  The Health Check would take all of five minutes, an anticlimactic end to their three days of activity. Maitland and Emma settled themselves onto the orange plastic chairs in the Waiting Room, and watched as the nurse escorted Colette through a set of swing doors, and
into the long white corridors of the medical centre. Bernard stood swaying from foot to foot in his eagerness to get out of there and meet up with Mona. Now that the case was completed, Maitland appeared to be focusing all his attention on his girlfriend, possibly ex. Bernard suspected that any minute now there would be an outbreak of Maitland charm, aimed at seducing the poor woman back into his life. He decided to get in quick.

  ‘Maitland?’

  ‘Yup?’ He didn’t take his eyes off Emma, who was busy flicking through a magazine, in what Bernard assumed was a concerted effort not to engage with her boyfriend, possibly ex.

  ‘I need the car.’

  Maitland turned his head slowly in Bernard’s direction, and he sensed his colleague was not going to make this easy for him.

  ‘I heard you say something to Mona about getting the car.’ He smirked and spun the keys round his finger. ‘Why?’

  Bernard stared at his colleague. He was pretty sure that Maitland didn’t figure in Mona’s circle of trust on this issue. He wasn’t overly confident Mr Paterson was in that particular loop, if he was honest. Either way, he wasn’t in a position to spill the beans to Maitland.

  ‘Just give them to me.’

  ‘No.’

  Maitland’s smirk was getting more punchable by the minute Bernard made a grab for the keys, but his colleague whisked them into his pocket.

  ‘Come on, Bernard, don’t be a dick. What’s Mona up to?’

  ‘Maitland.’ Emma closed her magazine, and sighed. ‘Can I have a word with you in private?’

  Maitland looked from Bernard to Emma and back. Bernard enjoyed the obvious dilemma his colleague was experiencing between patching things up with his ex-girlfriend or continuing to torment him. Maitland scowled at him, but flung the keys in his direction.

  ‘But I want to know what’s going on.’

  Bernard fled down the corridor, hoping that the quiet word Emma was seeking with his colleague was to tell him that he was dumped, binned and quite considerably surplus to requirements. And in this case, there would be no need for Emma to reach for the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech. It was definitely Maitland. He was smiling as he reached for the door handle. As his hand grasped it, his mobile rang again.