Death at the Plague Museum

by Lesley Kelly

  ‘Just a twisted ankle. Thanks for asking.’

  ‘Well, I thought that someone should show an interest, seeing as it was clear that senior management had no interest whatsoever in your family crisis.’ She gave a theatrical sigh. ‘In my experience HET management have no interest at all in the pressures their staff are under.’

  Paterson face turned puce. ‘Of course I’m concerned about her mother, Carole.’ He turned to her. ‘She is OK, isn’t she, Mona?’

  ‘Fine, Guv. Do we know if . . .?’

  ‘And I want to make it clear to everyone that I am very concerned about the personal well-being of all my staff.’

  ‘Good stuff, Guv.’ Maitland grinned. ‘Maybe we should all share how we are feeling at the moment. Why don’t you start by asking Mona about her love life? Is there some great big manly hunk that you are currently seeing?’ He made a to and fro gesture with his arms that clarified what he meant by ‘seeing’.

  ‘I said I was interested in my staff’s well-being, not their love life, Maitland. Mona’s love life is entirely her own business.’

  ‘Well said, Mr Paterson.’ Bernard patted her on the shoulder. ‘Totally private business.’

  Her colleagues were being particularly idiotic this morning. ‘Thanks for clarifying that, everyone, but can we focus on this?’ She pointed at the BBC website. ‘Do we know if someone has leaked the information about Nathan McVie’s death?’

  ‘That’s the best-case scenario. Worst case, someone’s found Helen Sopel’s body.’

  Footsteps could be heard in the hall, approaching at some speed. When Stuttle appeared in the doorway he was framed on one side by the tall, bespectacled Marcus and on the other side by Ian Jacobsen. Mona was used to seeing Stuttle looking stressed – you couldn’t be head of an organisation fighting a Virus that had already killed 100,000 people in Scotland without having a few sleepless nights – but today he looked as if his head was close to exploding.

  ‘Close the door behind us.’

  Ian slammed it shut with his foot. Stuttle scowled at them, his eyes moving over each of them in turn. ‘What are you fuckers playing at?’

  Mona immediately flicked through the Filofax in her brain to see if she could have done anything to cause Stuttle’s outburst. He wouldn’t be happy if he knew about her dining companion from last night, and she’d definitely be under suspicion if someone had leaked information about Nathan McVie’s death. Her memory of the night was hazy, but she couldn’t remember referring to him. But then she couldn’t remember much about the evening at all. Anyway, if it was specifically her he was annoyed with he’d come out and say it. He seemed to be blaming them collectively for something.

  She cast an eye over her colleagues. Bernard was looking mildly panic-stricken, which could mean that he’d done something, but then that was his natural expression when there was work-related shouting going on. Maitland looked confused rather than guilty, but he could have done something and just be too wrapped up in himself to notice. Carole was smiling to herself, but it was unlikely that she’d had time to implement some devilish masterplan since yesterday. Which left the Guv . . .

  ‘Well, one of you say something.’

  Paterson sighed. ‘Could you lose the attitude for a second, Cameron, and explain to us what it is that we’re supposed to have done?’

  ‘That!’ Stuttle pointed at the computer, where the death of a civil servant webpage was still showing. ‘And the Internet.’

  ‘The Internet? We’re responsible for that now, are we?’ Paterson rolled his eyes. Mona winced. This really wasn’t the time to wind Stuttle up.

  ‘If I can interject?’ Marcus pushed his little round glasses up to the bridge of his nose and smiled at them all. ‘Mr Stuttle is talking specifically about the “What do they know” hashtag, which I’m sure you are all familiar with.’

  Bernard nodded vigorously, and the rest of them looked at him in confused silence.

  Marcus reassessed his audience. ‘OK, let’s start with hashtag. Does everyone know what a hashtag is and how they’re used on Twitter?’

  Four muted yeses were drowned out by a very loud no from Paterson.

  Marcus walked over to the whiteboard, picked up a pen and drew a # sign.

  ‘A hashtag. Usually found in front of a word or phrase.’ He wrote #football and #community on the board. ‘It helps you to search for posts on a particular theme on social media. If you search, for example, for the hashtag football one, it will bring up everyone who has used that,’ he pointed to #football, ‘in their tweet.’

  ‘OK,’ said Paterson, with a hint of uncertainty in his tone. Mona wondered if Paterson had ever actually strayed onto Twitter or Facebook. She suspected he would have some follow-up questions once they got shot of Stuttle.

  Marcus wrote #WhatDoTheyKnow on the whiteboard. ‘Now, hashtags are often used for political discussions, particularly on Twitter, and this one is used a lot with reference to the Virus.’

  ‘What do they know?’ Maitland frowned at the board. ‘What do who know? About what?’

  ‘A good question,’ said Ian. ‘I usually find that nobody knows anything.’

  Marcus beamed. ‘It’s a kind of catch-all, if you like, for all kinds of conspiracy theories. Sometimes there will be a flurry of tweets suggesting that the Scottish Government already has a cure for the Virus which it is refusing to share, sometimes there are tweets suggesting that the Government knows that there is no cure for the Virus and is refusing to tell people. Sometimes it’s SHEP and the HETs in the firing line, sometimes the NHS, sometimes Police Scotland. But the general thrust of it is that the public is not being kept informed. So, for obvious reasons we keep an eye on it and today it’s been going crazy. So, I phoned Mr Stuttle to draw his attention to it, and he wanted to know . . .’

  ‘Why bloody Twitter is full of information that I thought was confidential to this investigation? How did Twitter know about the civil servants’ meeting at the Museum of Plagues and Pandemics? Answer me!’

  ‘Wherever the leak came from, it won’t be from here,’ said Paterson, firmly. ‘But before we get any further into this nonsense, can you at least tell us who they are talking about? Have they leaked the fact that Nathan McVie killed himself, or has Helen Sopel turned up dead?’

  Stuttle glared at him as if he was crazy. ‘It’s neither of them. Jasper Connington was found dead in his bed this morning, with an empty bottle of pills on his bedside table.’ He sank into a chair. ‘Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on?’

  4

  ‘Do you ever think, Bernie, that we get the least interesting leads to follow up?’

  They were in a pool car, heading to the Royal Bank of Scotland complex on the northern outskirts of Edinburgh. Maitland had insisted on driving, which suited Bernard just fine as it let him surf the Internet, while paying a minimal amount of attention to his colleague’s chat.

  ‘I mean, Mona’s off with that Ian bloke following up the Connington suicide, and we’re schlepping across town to chat to some woman from Sopel’s address book who probably won’t have anything useful to say to us, on account of not having seen her for months.’

  ‘Is that so bad?’ He looked up from his phone.

  ‘Yes! Yet again we’re doing the boring drudge work while Mona is off with the exciting leads!’

  ‘I’m not sure how exciting going to see a recently bereaved man is going to be. He’s probably still in shock after finding the body. I’m far happier going to see this friend of Ms Sopel’s.’ His eyes returned to his phone.

  ‘What are you tapping away at?’

  ‘I’m following the #WhatDoTheyKnow hashtag on Twitter. It’s no wonder Mr Stuttle’s annoyed.’

  ‘Give me a flavour of it, then.’

  ‘OK. Try this one. “What was purpose of Civil Service meeting? No minutes, agenda? #WhatDoTheyKnow”.’

  ‘That is actually a fair point. We don’t know that either. But how does Twitter even know that ther
e was a meeting?’

  ‘Either someone found out about the meeting and tweeted about it, or they told someone else who did. And given the top-secret nature of our briefing with Mr Stuttle it would have to be someone either from the HET, which I’m assuming it isn’t . . .’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Or one of the participants, or someone who was close to them . . .’

  ‘Not Helen Sopel, then, who doesn’t seem to be close to anyone.’

  ‘True. Or it could have been a member of the Museum staff?’

  ‘Well, that can be one of our questions for them when we see them later. Hit me with another tweet.’

  Bernard scrolled down until he found a good one. ‘“The Virus is man-made civil service caused this rot in hell #WhatDoTheyKnow.” There are a lot of tweets on that particular theme. And we’re coming in for a lot of stick too. “HET = Nazis going to kill us all #WhatDoTheyKnow”.’

  Maitland tutted. ‘Why do people persist in thinking that the HET is trying to kill them?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they are very persistent in that view, and very vocal about it on Twitter. And then there are the crazies who want to get their retaliation in first. Listen to this one: “time that we killed these HET fuckers whos with me? #WhatDoTheyKnow”. Honestly, the grammar and spelling in some of these tweets is appalling.’

  ‘What? Did someone seriously write that – a death threat? Do you think we should tell Stuttle?’

  Bernard wondered how much time Maitland had spent on Twitter. ‘If we’re going to tell him about that one, there’s about another million he needs to consider as well.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Maitland swerved and came dangerously close to the wrong side of the road. A car on the other side beeped at him.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Maitland, don’t do the Internet’s work for it and kill us both! And slow down – the turning we want is coming up.’

  Muttering under his breath, Maitland turned the car on to the slip road with seconds to spare.

  ‘Seriously, Bern, there are people on the Internet who want to kill us?’

  Bernard was quite enjoying his colleague’s distress. As soon as Maitland had got out of the car, he’d pulled his mobile out to check that Bernard wasn’t winding him up about the tweets. Scrolling through them, he had sworn furiously under his breath as he took in the full range of hatred expressed for the HETs.

  ‘Well, it would appear so, wouldn’t it?’ Bernard turned to the receptionist. ‘We’ve got a meeting arranged with Martine Galloway.’

  The receptionist directed them to the seating area to wait.

  Maitland threw himself into the chair next to Bernard. ‘Why aren’t you more upset about this? What’s happened to your usual nancy boy tendencies?’

  ‘I’m cautious, I do not have “nancy boy tendencies”.’

  Maitland snorted.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Bernard, ‘this is all just Internet noise. Twitter is full of fifteen-year-old boys pretending to be tough. And everyone’s upset about the Virus so they’re just mouthing off.’

  ‘But there’s so many of them! All it would take is one of them to actually follow through on the threat.’

  ‘Maitland, you need to . . .’

  ‘Excuse me, are you the people from the HET?’ A woman was standing in front of them. She was in her mid-forties, with long hair with blonde highlights, and was wearing the uniform of female office workers across the world – a black trouser suit. ‘I’m Martine Galloway – I believe you’re looking for me?’

  ‘Hi, I’m Bernard.’ He stuck out a hand.

  ‘Maitland, we spoke on the phone.’

  She pointed to the entrance. ‘Do you mind if we discuss this outside? I’d rather get away from work before we start.’

  They followed Martine out of the building into the weak autumn sunshine. She led them through the green space that surrounded the buildings, following a narrow path alongside an artificial lake. They passed a number of empty benches, but she kept going until she was some distance from her office before sitting down.

  ‘So,’ said Bernard, ‘when you spoke to my colleague on the phone you said you met up with Ms Sopel quite recently?’

  ‘Well, not really recently. We met up a couple of days after my birthday, so it must be, God, over a month ago now.’

  ‘You’re good friends then?’

  She gave a gentle laugh. ‘I don’t know – do good friends see each other more often than every couple of months? We’re old friends; we’ve known each other since we were at primary school. So we do try to keep in touch – birthdays and Christmas – but I’ve got two little ones now, and Helen works all the hours God sends, so it’s not easy.’

  Maitland leaned across Bernard. ‘Did Helen have a boyfriend?’

  She looked away, staring out across the square expanse of water. ‘Can you tell me again why you are asking all these questions about her?’

  Maitland rested his pointy elbow on Bernard’s leg while he explained that Ms Sopel had missed a Health Check, and gave her the necessary disclaimers. Bernard wondered if it would be considered unprofessional to push Maitland off the bench and into a flower bed. He settled for a gentle shove of Maitland’s arm, which led Maitland to lean down harder.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure that Helen missed a Health Check?’ Martine was looking increasingly upset. ‘I can’t believe she would have. That would be her career over.’

  She put her hand over her eyes, and Bernard grasped the opportunity to shove Maitland and his pointy elbow off him. ‘We’re really, really sure. And I know it is upsetting, Ms Galloway, but there is absolutely nothing to say that your friend has come to harm . . .’

  ‘She must have done.’ Her tone was flat and resigned. ‘That’s the only way she’d have missed her Check.’

  ‘So,’ said Maitland, ‘did she have a boyfriend?’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She stood up. For a minute, Bernard thought she was going to run back to her office, but she just paced back and forth.

  ‘It’s an offence to withhold information that might be relevant to the retrieval of a Health Check Defaulter,’ said Maitland.

  ‘I know that! Stop trying to bully me, I’m trying to think.’

  Bernard looked over at Maitland, who winked at him. This woman knew something significant. And judging by her reaction to his question about Helen Sopel’s love life, the horrible prospect loomed that Maitland might have been right all along.

  ‘We could discuss this further at our offices – do you need to make some childcare arrangements because it might take a while?’ Maitland stood up as well.

  ‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’ She looked at Bernard. ‘But I don’t want to get anyone else into trouble either.’

  ‘Was Helen having an affair?’

  After a moment’s pause, she spoke softly. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Can you give us her boyfriend’s name?’

  She didn’t answer, staring again in the direction of her office.

  ‘Right,’ Maitland took her by the arm. ‘You’re going to have to come with us.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her arm free, ‘I can’t help you because I don’t know his name.’ She sat down next to Bernard, focusing solely on him. ‘This is very difficult.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  ‘OK, right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When I met up with Helen, she was really down about something. I thought she was seeing someone, so I asked her about him, and how it was going. And she kind of got really angry, you know? At first I thought she was angry with me for asking, I mean, it was none of my business but she’s my oldest friend and I was worried about her.’

  ‘Obviously. Anyone would be in that situation.’

  ‘Yeah. After a minute or two she calmed down and said she wasn’t angry with me, but she was really fed up with someone she was involved with, said she hated him, in fact, but that he was someone very well connected and she was afraid what might happen if she told him to get lost.’
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  ‘“Well connected”? What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know really, I didn’t push it at the time. I mean, she works with politicians all the time, so I assumed it was someone from that kind of world.’

  ‘But she didn’t tell you who it was?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I did ask, but she totally clammed up.’

  ‘Well, thank you for sharing that with us. We’ll look into it and be back in touch.’ He stood up. ‘We’d better let you get back to work.’

  To Bernard’s surprise, she didn’t move. Given her reluctance to speak to them, he thought she’d be back to her desk like a bullet from a gun.

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘OK.’ He lowered himself back down.

  ‘Helen phoned me the next day, apologising for being so grumpy. Of course, I told her to forget it, what are old friends for and all that. Then she said she needed a favour. She said she wanted to give me a box of things to look after. She said it was her insurance policy, and if she ever got into trouble she’d phone me and tell me what to do with it.’

  ‘But she’s not been in touch?’

  ‘No, but she was obviously worried that something was going to happen to her. And I think,’ she started to cry, ‘maybe something has.’

  She buried her head in her hands, and wept. Bernard put a comforting arm round her shoulders, and she leaned her head against him. Over the top of it, he could see Maitland shimmying from side to side in a victory dance. Maitland smiled at him and punched the air.

  For the first time in his life, Bernard found himself sharing an emotion with an Internet troll. He could kill Maitland.

  5

  There was a young police officer standing guard at the entrance to Jasper Connington’s block of flats.

  ‘Stop here!’ Ian tapped the dashboard. ‘I’ll see what the plod’s got to say about things, while you find somewhere to dump the motor.’

  Mona waited until the second the car door was shut then drove off at speed, hoping that Ian would take the hint. She was nobody’s chauffeur, nobody’s dogsbody, just there to park the car and get the bacon rolls in. She was starting to pine for her investigations with Bernard. When she worked with him she got to boss him around, and he was grateful for the direction. This supposed ‘joint’ investigation by CID and the HET didn’t feel like a partnership. It felt more like CID investigating and the HET providing transport, office space, and the occasional cup of coffee.