Death at the Plague Museum

by Lesley Kelly

  ‘Mr Paterson does exactly the same thing! He always shoots the messenger.’ Realising he was heading off-topic he resumed his theme. ‘But personally, you’re OK?’

  ‘Is this about Mona?’ Marcus looked suspicious. He’d had a crush on her for as long as Bernard had known him. ‘Are you trying to tell me some bad news? She’s got a boyfriend, hasn’t she?’

  The news on the Mona front was much, much worse than Marcus could imagine, but this probably wasn’t the time to tell him. He was saved from making a decision by the arrival of the woman herself. She walked straight past them and headed for the window.

  ‘Have you seen the crowd out there? Does the Guv know?’

  ‘He’s downstairs having coffee with Stuttle, so he’s going to find out pretty soon.’

  ‘Oh well, they can sort it then.’ She turned her attention to Marcus, who had been busily engaged in staring at her. ‘My computer is making a terrible noise. Any chance you could, you know, while you’re here...?’

  ‘Delighted to help.’ He reached into his pocket and, with a flourish, produced a small screwdriver. ‘When did you last dust the hard drive?’

  ‘Ehm, never?’

  ‘Tsk, tsk, Mona. No one ever takes proper care of the hardware.’ He knelt down at the side of her desk, a move which led her to back her chair quite rapidly away. He burrowed underneath it and started dismantling.

  ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the hashtag I mentioned,’ Marcus’s voice was slightly muffled. ‘There’s a lot of people out there who are convinced that the HET are up to something. Consensus is that these civil servant deaths are sinister and you lot are covering something up.’

  ‘What is going on out there?’ Stuttle and Paterson had returned from their plotting session in the canteen. Stuttle wound his way through the office and stood staring out the window.

  ‘It’s a Twittermob, Mr Stuttle,’ said Bernard.

  ‘Twitter? I thought we paid that prick from IT to monitor these things?’

  Marcus popped up from underneath Mona’s desk, screwdriver in hand. He’d been bang on the money about getting the blame. Stuttle looked surprised to see him, but not particularly apologetic for the insult.

  ‘I have been, Mr Stuttle. The hashtag started going really crazy about 2am so I thought I’d better pop in and warn everyone that they might have a bit of difficulty getting into the office this morning.’

  ‘One of the tools out there is carrying a placard with “What Do They Know” on it,’ said Stuttle. ‘Like that bloody hashtag thing you were rabbiting on about.’

  Paterson stood by the window looking out at the scene below. ‘You know how you said that if word got out about McVie’s death and Sopel being missing there would be panic, Cam?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That doesn’t look like panic to me. That looks like a pretty damn well-organised demonstration.’

  Stuttle thought this over for a second. ‘Marcus, you follow all these Internet nutjobs. Who’s responsible for this?’

  ‘Hard to say, Mr Stuttle. There’s a lot of people posting against that particular hashtag. There are a couple of particularly prolific tweeters but none of the ones who were calling for this illegal demonstration were using their own names. Obviously.’

  Bernard raised his hand. ‘I have a question.’

  ‘As always,’ muttered Paterson.

  ‘Why are they doing this? Are they genuinely concerned or is there some other motive? And why North Edinburgh HET and not SHEP’s offices?’

  ‘I can answer the second question,’ said Stuttle. ‘They’d never get near our place with the level of security we have.’

  ‘Yeah, God forbid that the masses should storm the magnificent staircases of the City Chambers.’

  ‘Shut up, John. And as for the why, I don’t think we know that yet.’

  Maitland and Carole appeared, giggling.

  Stuttle looked at his watch. ‘Glad you could finally make it.’

  Carole’s expression changed to a look of fury. Bernard winced. He hated confrontation. Sympathetic as he was to Carole’s feelings, he didn’t think there was a lot of point in having a showdown with her ultimate boss. She appeared to feel differently and walked over until she was inches away from Stuttle. Bernard thought that this was far, far closer than he would care to risk. Getting that close to Stuttle was like putting yourself within mauling distance of a grizzly bear. Legend had it that the front benches in the British Houses of Parliament were two sword-lengths apart. This seemed to Bernard to be an appropriate distance to keep from the Head of SHEP. Two sword-lengths would give you time, if not to draw a weapon, at least to start running.

  ‘We’ve both just risked life and limb fighting our way through an aggressive mob of protestors.’ Her voice was quiet, but extremely firm. ‘And when we got here, what do we find? Certainly not any concern from senior management about our well-being. No, instead we get a telling-off for being late, as if we were naughty school children, rather than two employees who have just run the gauntlet of protestors out there. What are you planning to do to keep your staff safe?’

  ‘I’m on the case, Carole.’ Stuttle aimed for a reassuring tone, one that implied that he was on top of the situation and normal service would be resumed imminently. He didn’t quite carry it off.

  ‘And exactly what are you planning to do, Mr Stuttle? We can’t safely get back out of the building. We’re trapped in here. We don’t know what their plans are; they could be about to start lobbing Molotov cocktails, for all we know. What’s your immediate advice?’

  Stuttle didn’t respond.

  ‘It’s not just the HET, either. What about the other staff in the building? Some of the girls in the admin team are very upset.’

  A vision of Marguerite ramping up the amateur dramatics downstairs went through Bernard’s head. Stuttle probably had more to fear in getting past the admin office than from the protestors.

  The sound of singing started outside.

  ‘Oh, God, there’s more of them.’ Stuttle peered out of the window. ‘Right, I take your point, Carole. No one is to venture out there until we get this sorted. John, can I borrow your office? I need to make a few calls and get that lot shifted.’

  2

  Mona was shrouded in a fog of irritation. Her colleagues were being very annoying.

  She’d phoned Ian, as a courtesy, to warn him not to come into the HET office. He’d responded with a slightly impatient comment about not intending to come over that morning anyway, followed by his opinion that the protest was all a bit of nonsense and the HET should just man up and get on with things. She’d hung up at that point.

  Bernard, who had the ability to irritate her just by breathing, was obviously fretting about the situation. She could see he was busily flicking between the BBC News website and various self-help websites suggesting how to protect yourself against a potentially armed and angry mob, interspersed with anxious trips to the window. Her one consolation was that Stuttle had sent Marcus off somewhere, so that at least she didn’t have to listen to him prattle on.

  But most of her ire was directed at Maitland and Carole. They were making no pretence at work, and seemed to be playing some kind of tennis-type game with balled-up bits of paper. Mona caught Paterson’s eye. He was already annoyed enough at being evicted from his own office, without having to witness his staff’s blatant work avoidance.

  ‘Maitland, do you not have something you could be working on?’

  ‘Bit tricky, Guv, what with us being stuck in the building.’

  ‘Well, find something to do.’

  Carole tutted. ‘We’re both still stressed about getting into work this morning. This is very threatening, been trapped in here. I don’t think we’re calm enough to work.’

  ‘Yes, I thought that,’ said Paterson. ‘I was listening to you both giggling over there and I thought the two of them sound exactly like they’re too stressed to work. Maitland – find something to do, before I find it for you.�
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  Maitland reluctantly slid over to his own computer, while Carole sat and glared at Paterson. Mona hoped she had a really, really good lawyer, because if she did end up remaining at the HET, there was no way Paterson would forget all this.

  There was silence for all of two seconds, before Bernard piped up. ‘I think that’s the police here.’

  There was a roar from the crowd.

  ‘Oh, that’s bad. They’re throwing things at the police.’

  The office abandoned any pretence at work and joined Bernard at the window. By Mona’s estimate there were now between seventy and eighty protestors in and around the park, predominantly male, many of them with their faces covered by scarves. To her mind, this didn’t signify a commitment to peaceful protest.

  ‘Oh no! They’re ripping up the flower beds.’ Bernard looked outraged.

  ‘Not just the flowers – look!’ Maitland pointed at a group of protestors who were doing their level best to throw a park bench at the police.

  ‘I’m glad we didn’t venture out there,’ said Bernard. ‘At least the police have got riot gear on.’

  ‘You’d still get your arse kicked, even if you were in riot gear,’ said Maitland.

  ‘Don’t be mean,’ said Mona.

  ‘It’s a fact!’ Maitland grinned. ‘You’d be fine though, Mona, what with you being a bit on the butch side.’

  One of these days she would snap and throttle him. ‘I’m not butch, I’m just tougher than you are, loser.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He upped the grin to a full-blown smirk. ‘Must be the lesbian thing.’

  She frowned. Was he just being his usual annoying self, or did he actually know? ‘The what?’

  ‘The you being a lesbian thing. We know about it.’

  Mona’s head whipped in the direction of Paterson, who was looking so uncomfortable he could have been seated on hot coals. She knew exactly who to blame for this. ‘This is bloody Ian Jacobsen, isn’t it? Outing me!’

  ‘Well, actually . . .’ began Bernard.

  ‘Mona,’ said Paterson, loudly. ‘The important thing is that it is out there now. Everyone knows . . .’

  ‘I didn’t until just now,’ said Carole.

  ‘So, now it’s out there we can all just get on with life.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, doubtfully. In truth, it wasn’t the end of the world that everyone knew. It saved her having some awkward conversations. ‘But I’m still going to kill Ian.’

  The door to their office flew open, and Marguerite rushed in and straight into Paterson’s office. ‘Mr Paterson . . .’

  ‘He’s not in there!’

  ‘Oh, Mr Stuttle . . .’ She reappeared again, looking even more flustered.

  ‘I’m here, Marguerite.’ Paterson stepped forward. ‘What’s the panic?’

  ‘We just took a phone call downstairs. Someone said there’s a bomb on the premises! He says we’ve got fifteen minutes to get out.’

  3

  ‘This is total bullshit.’ Maitland peered round the side of a fire engine. ‘There’s no way that there’s actually a bomb in there.’

  ‘I know,’ said Paterson. ‘But Stuttle wasn’t going to take the risk of you lot being blown sky-high. Me, I’d have taken my chances.’

  It had been a busy hour. Bernard thought that he might have scored himself some brownie points with Stuttle, as he had been the only member of the team – including Paterson – who had been able to immediately lay his hand on the building’s evacuation policy. (It was nestled in a plastic pocket, three documents along from his contract.) Stuttle had snatched it out of his hand and set about putting it into action.

  With an efficiency that Bernard could only admire, Paterson had managed to get all the staff out of the back door of the building and evacuated to a safe distance without anyone being trampled, while Stuttle had yelled loudly and authoritatively to one of the riot police at the front of the building until they’d got sufficient reinforcements to drive the protestors back to a safe distance. Bernard might not have the fondest feelings toward his line management structure, but he had to admit they came into their own in a crisis.

  Stuttle appeared in Bernard’s line of sight, deep in conversation with a police officer Bernard didn’t recognise but whose epaulette silverware declared her to be Someone Very Important Indeed.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ Marguerite’s distinctive tone interrupted his thoughts. ‘That was worse than the whole bomb thing.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Talking to Stuttle and that woman.’

  Paterson smiled. ‘I’ll tell him that, shall I? Marguerite would rather get blown up than talk to you and Assistant Chief Constable Callachan?’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Mr Paterson.’ She waved an admonitory finger at him. ‘Enough of your joking. My nerves are shot.’

  ‘So, what did you tell them?’

  She sighed. ‘Well, they wanted to know all about the phone call. I said it was a man.’

  ‘And what else?’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘I couldn’t really remember. I got such a fright when he said there was a bomb that I wasn’t really paying attention.’

  ‘Was he Scottish?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, confidently. Her face clouded over. ‘At least, I think so.’

  ‘Young, old?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Excellent work, Marguerite. They’ll be able to narrow down the search to fifty per cent of the population.’

  ‘Coffees, as requested.’ Mona had returned from her quest, bearing four cups. ‘Sorry, Marge, I didn’t know you were back.’

  Marguerite tutted and walked off.

  ‘I really didn’t know she was here,’ said Mona.

  ‘It wasn’t you,’ said Maitland. ‘She’s got the hump because the Guv complained about her bomb hoax message-taking skills.’

  ‘Where’s Carole?’ asked Paterson.

  ‘She decided she was too stressed by events to come back. Sorry, Guv.’ Mona passed him his coffee.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Probably for the best. Well, there’s no point you lot hanging around either. Maitland and Bernard – you go back to the Museum and try and doorstop the Director.’

  ‘Oh, Bernard, you’re in luck.’ Maitland made kissing noises.

  ‘Why is he doing that?’ asked Paterson.

  ‘Because I love museums so much.’ He glared up at Maitland. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Anything I can be getting on with, Guv?’ asked Mona.

  ‘Plenty. First you can track down Ian Jacobsen, and ask him if he’s got a meeting room he can borrow, so that the three of us can do some preparation.’

  ‘What for, Guv?’

  ‘An interview that is going to require more tact and discretion than anything you’ve ever done before.’ He stopped for a slurp of his coffee. ‘Stuttle’s got us an interview at four this afternoon with Carlotta and Jonathon Carmichael.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘As I said, tact and diplomacy are going to be essential.’

  Mona looked at Bernard, and he smiled sympathetically. Tact and diplomacy. Not Mr Paterson’s skill set.

  4

  ‘So, this time are you going to actually grow a pair and ask the big-nosed bird out?’

  ‘Her nose wasn’t that big, and no, I’m not planning to ask her out.’

  ‘Why not? The woman is so dull that not only does she have membership of a museum, she actually works in one. You’re a perfect match.’

  ‘People who work in museums aren’t dull, they’re just not ignorant like you. Anyway, she might not be there.’ He wondered if, somewhere beneath Maitland’s appalling phrasing, he was right. Was he in with a chance? Should he be making some kind of ‘move’? He wasn’t sure his nerves were up to any more excitement today, and he was absolutely certain that he wasn’t going to make any advances to Lucy with Maitland standing by, so he decided to focus on the investigation.

  ‘What are we going to say to this woman anyw
ay?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, I think, given that she’s friends with one of the people attending the meeting, she knows more about this than she’s saying. And why didn’t she acknowledge in the diary who was meeting here?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘And add all that to the fact that she stood us up, I think she’s dodgy.’

  ‘Well, we’re here, so try to keep that feeling under wraps.’

  Bernard was pleased to see that the Museum door was wide open this time. He hurried through and stopped at the reception desk, which had a very elderly woman sat behind it.

  ‘We’re here to see Corinna McFarlane.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Director?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Could you ring her?’

  The woman gazed at them. Bernard thought for a second she was going to query that, but very slowly and, it appeared, painfully, she got up from her seat. ‘I’ll find Lucy. You two sign in.’

  Maitland waited until her back was turned and elbowed him in the ribs. ‘It’s your bird.’

  ‘Do not say anything to her, Maitland.’

  ‘I’m promising nothing.’ He smirked.

  ‘Oh, it’s you two.’ Lucy came bustling in. ‘Hello again. I’m sorry Mrs Cartwright couldn’t help you.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I don’t think she quite heard what you were asking. Can I ask you to . . .’ She gestured at the Green Card box on the wall.

  ‘Of course.’ In turn they presented their cards and waited until the machine beeped.

  ‘I’ll take you upstairs. I’m sure Corinna will be delighted you’ve caught her.’

  The look on Corinna McFarlane’s face when they appeared in her office doorway conveyed many emotions, none of which corresponded with delight. She quickly recovered herself. ‘Thank you, Lucy.’ She stood up to shake their hands. ‘Sorry about the confusion over our previous meeting.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Bernard. ‘We do have a few questions, though.’

  There was a brief pause. ‘Lucy, you’d better get back downstairs. I don’t like to leave our entire front desk security to Mrs Cartwright.’