The Five Clues (Don't Doubt the Rainbow 1), page 21
‘But isn’t it illegal to create a dangerous virus?’ wondered Edie. Penrose looked on with interest.
‘Sort of,’ answered Dr Montgomery. ‘It’s a difficult … and contested … area of medical research called “gain-of-function” studies.’ A circle of bemused-looking faces meant Dr Montgomery had to explain further: ‘In these types of research studies, the virus is manipulated to gain – or increase – their function, hence the name … and usually they also become more dangerous. From the papers that Dr Stephenson’s son gave us earlier this morning …’
‘Ethan,’ interrupted Edie.
‘Yes, Ethan,’ agreed Dr Montgomery. ‘He found papers in the attic at home, which I’ve just glanced over this morning. And this is where it gets complicated. In the Vietnam lab, Stephenson seems to have created a more transmissible form of influenza virus – that means easier to transmit from birds to humans or easier for one human to transmit to another – but the virus may also have become more virulent, more lethal, at the same time. That’s unusual, because normally when the transmissibility of a virus increases, its virulence decreases – or the other way around – but it’s not impossible. Anyway, in the trial it appears they called it regular influenza – not enhanced human flu or bird flu – which is illegal and unethical, and they infected a number of Vietnamese participants. Then they tested out their new antiviral drug. It seems that six of the trial subjects died from the infection, and Creation – although they never used their name – quietly paid off the families with large sums of money to keep them quiet and closed down the lab.’
‘That’s what Mum knew,’ said Edie. ‘But she didn’t have all the evidence.’
‘A courageous woman, your mum,’ said Penrose seriously. ‘You should all be proud of her.’
Nobody said anything for a while, then Dad asked: ‘So, how – or why – did Dr Stephenson die?’
‘Well,’ said Dr Montgomery, taking a sip of his drink. ‘We’re not entirely sure, but if he hadn’t been to Vietnam for a year, he must’ve brought some of the virus back to the UK. He could’ve stored it at their labs in Cambridgeshire. We’ll have to check. They continued trials of their antiviral drug, which have proved successful, so maybe he wanted to keep a sample of the virus just in case. But it wouldn’t have been stored in the most secure kind of lab, so if he had an accident, or handled it poorly, he could’ve infected himself. Which I guess is what happened.’
‘And then he gave it to his wife,’ Dad suggested.
‘Indeed. She’s been very unwell but is improving. The fact that there are only three others affected in Italy, and nobody else in England, suggests that the virus has quite quickly lost its ability to go from person to person.’
‘That’s lucky,’ said Edie.
‘Very lucky. Plus, close contacts of those who are ill, like Ethan, may already be partially protected – say if they’ve had the regular flu vaccine.’
‘I’ve had that,’ stated Edie, ‘because of my asthma. And I’d been feeling a bit tired but it’s got better.’
‘Well, there you go,’ said Dr Montgomery. ‘We’ll continue to keep a close eye on you too, Edie.’
After a pause, Dad looked directly at his colleague: ‘Thank you so much, Dr Montgomery – the explanation is really helpful. And … comforting in a way.’
Dad turned to Penrose: ‘Are we ready for the next step now?’
‘We are indeed,’ replied the chief inspector firmly.
‘And we can still do it as we discussed earlier – together?’
Penrose nodded: ‘We certainly can. And after that we’ll go and see Peter Goswell.’
Noticing the nameplate on the door made Edie feel momentarily sick, but a squeeze on her shoulder made her feel safe enough to turn the handle and walk in.
‘Good morning, young lady,’ greeted Dr Martial agitatedly from behind his desk. He was dressed in a smart blue striped shirt, green tie and grey checked jacket. ‘Come, come,’ he beckoned, indicating the seat opposite him. The way his stethoscope was pretentiously draped around his neck annoyed Edie. She took a seat, tension churning in her stomach.
The senior partner at the surgery eventually looked up from his computer screen, unaware of what lay behind the door or the disquiet that the presence of uniformed officers had caused in the waiting room downstairs.
‘So,’ he began, ‘how can I help you? Asthma? Do you need more inhalers?’
‘No, Dr Martial,’ Edie replied blankly. ‘My asthma’s been okay …’
‘What is it then?’ he interrupted. ‘Problems with boys?’ Martial tried to joke feebly.
‘No, Dr Martial,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing to do with boys.’ Edie felt nauseated: her heart thumped and her face flushed like a beetroot. But she was going to see this through.
‘What is it then, dear? Busy surgery – we haven’t got all day!’
The young detective took a deep breath: ‘You had no right speaking to the school … to the head teacher … about me like that … especially when you had other motives.’
In a blink, the doctor’s facial expression transformed from the demeanour of a friendly family GP dishing out prescriptions and advice, to the severe look of a man not to be messed with. ‘I don’t know exactly what you’re suggesting, young lady,’ he said aggressively, leaning forwards in his chair. ‘But don’t you dare lecture me about my professional responsibilities,’ he continued, each word emphasised.
‘It’s just that I wanted to tell—’
‘Now,’ he interrupted, turning his attention back to the computer screen. ‘If you haven’t got any medical issue to discuss, I don’t wish to keep my other patients waiting.’
Edie paused, gathering her strength and taking her iPhone from her pocket: ‘There was one other thing. Do you know someone called Peter Goswell?’
Martial looked over at her, pursed his lips angrily and stood up: ‘I don’t know what you’re up to, Edie, or what you’re talking about, but it’s time for you to get out of my surgery. And I’ll take this up further with your father.’
Edie allowed the moment to hang in the air. A calmness came over her – a deep realisation that his words could do her no harm. ‘I’m sure you will speak to Dad,’ she retorted. ‘But I thought you’d be interested in this first.’
Edie placed her old iPhone on the desk and pressed ‘Play’ to initiate playback of the recording the police had allowed her to copy from Goswell’s stolen phone.
Oh, hello Peter. Martial here. I was hoping to speak to you about that conversation we had in the pub … with your lumbering assassin … I’ve given it some further thought. About how we can get the girl out of the picture … and my plan is …
‘What the hell is this?’ Dr Martial’s voice was steady but full of fury. ‘Give me that. Where did you get it?’ Martial began to make for the iPhone, which Edie grabbed, but he stopped as the door burst open and Dad stormed into the room. Martial froze, confounded, as Dad took a few paces across the floor and squared up to him, just a metre between them.
‘Careful what you say,’ was the best Martial could come up with.
Dad bore down on him, the veins bulging in his temples. ‘There’s no need for me to be careful at all. You,’ he stated, prodding a finger directly at Martial’s chest, ‘you disgust me!’ Dad grabbed the lapels of Martial’s jacket and shoved him hard against the desk. Her father’s eyes looked enraged, in a way Edie had never seen before – a visceral, innate fury. Through bared teeth, he seethed: ‘If you come near my family again, I’ll rip out your eyeballs with my own hands and feed—’
‘How dare you—’ But Martial didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, as Dad drew his right arm back and thumped his work colleague directly on the nose.
The speed of the movement surprised Dad and also Martial, who stood confused and frozen, blood beginning to stream from his nose.
‘Ooh,’ he said quietly, as Edie stared in disbelief from her seat. This wasn’t what had been planned earlier.
‘That was for my daughter,’ Dad made clear. ‘And this is for my wife.’ In a beat, and with all the brute force he could muster, Dad punched Martial again, square on the cheekbone just to the left of his nose. This time the impact made Martial stagger backwards onto the desk, then crumple to the floor.
Police officers rushed into the room, and whilst PC Brearley attended to Edie, Wiltshire and Wilkins restrained Dad from further violence. Penrose walked over to Dr Martial, face bloodied and swollen as he picked himself up from the floor.
‘Steven J. Martial, I’m arresting you as an accessory to the murder of Alexandra Franklin, for corporate manslaughter and for conspiracy to fraud. You have the right to remain silent …’
CHAPTER 16
THE PARKLAND WALK
It took a lot to persuade Chief Inspector Penrose. He had to get Edie’s plan (or ‘crackpot plan’ as he’d initially called it) agreed with his boss, the superintendent, as well as with the Metropolitan police commander even higher up the chain of command. Nevertheless, Penrose remained anxious, and Dad even more so.
The planned visit to Goswell’s home in Cambridgeshire had proved unnecessary. Penrose explained that local police had gone to Goswell’s house, as instructed, to bring him into custody. Expecting difficulty, they’d been surprised to find him sitting calmly on a sofa in his summer house, staring aimlessly out the window. Goswell briefly admitted to everything, without any prodding, but was apparently going on and on about some kind of epiphany. He kept repeating how much he loved his wife and children, and would become a better person for them. According to his distraught family, Goswell hadn’t moved from the sofa all night and, following his admission of guilt to the police, wouldn’t speak further about anything to do with the drug company – babbling instead about ‘making amends’.
So, with Goswell out of the equation, they’d all returned to Edie’s house after dealing with Dr Martial. Half an hour later, Edie received a text on her iPhone, which the police had retrieved and brought back from Goswell’s home. She was in her bedroom when the text arrived, grabbing some badly needed private time whilst the others carried on discussing the case in the lounge. The text was from an unknown number but the message was simple and clear, as was the presumed identity of the sender.
I know what’s happened, that the game is up, but I need to meet you before I disappear. I want to tell you something important – about your mum. We have to meet in person, you have to be alone. NO POLICE. If I suspect anything I won’t make contact. I will text you the destination nearer the time.
Edie was tempted not to disclose the text. She needed to know – more than that, she had to know – what it was that Zero wanted to say. Yet, she felt that sharing the text with her dad and the police might stop that from happening. Edie therefore took a little time to conjure a plan before divulging the information.
Initially, Penrose dismissed Edie’s idea as too dangerous, assessing the text as merely a ruse to lure Edie in and finish her off. Over the remainder of the weekend, Penrose spent hours trying to find an alternative way to catch the killer – the dangerous loose end who was still at large. Penrose contemplated a national manhunt involving the security services, although Zero would be adept at disappearing from plain sight. Keeping Edie in a protected safe house was an option, although this would only work for a limited period. Other possibilities included offering a reward to the public for information. But Edie was going to remain in danger whatever decision was made, and none of the ideas that Penrose and his team dreamt up was foolproof.
Penrose slowly came around to Edie’s suggestion; however, he was well aware of the impossible position it put Edie’s dad in. After all, what kind of father places his own daughter at such risk – using her as bait – especially after all Edie had already been through? Significant risk, thought PC Brearley, as she listened to all the scenarios.
Eventually, Edie broke the impasse: ‘I have to do it,’ she announced assertively.
‘What?’ exclaimed Dad, turning away from Penrose. After all the debating, both men were clearly taken aback.
‘I said, I have to do it,’ Edie repeated. ‘I have to know. But I’ll allow the special police team to be tracking me, despite what Zero said in his text.’
‘But you don’t know what you’re saying!’ her father warned.
‘Yes, I do, Daddy,’ Edie replied calmly. ‘I need to do this,’ she stressed. ‘For Mum, but also for me.’ Edie leant over the table: ‘It’ll be okay, Dad. I’ve been all right so far, haven’t I? Trust me.’
Dad looked at the two officers who, though quiet, seemed further impressed by this young girl’s extraordinary resilience.
‘Dr Franklin,’ Penrose finally intervened. ‘I give you my word, my personal promise, that I will do everything in my power to ensure your daughter’s safety. But we have to catch this killer or he’ll just carry on … destroying more people’s lives. I think he’s lying in his text message and he won’t stop, especially as Edie saw him in the woods. It’s a strange professionalism … he’ll feel compelled to finish the job. And that’s his weakness. That’s how we’ll get him.’
No media. No press. That’s how they kept it over the following days. Staff at the surgery were told a fake story about illegal prescribing to explain Dr Martial’s arrest, and were advised not to discuss the matter with anybody. Goswell’s family were being questioned by the police and were similarly ordered not to discuss anything. In this way, the tight communications strategy kept the whole story – including one girl’s heroism – out of the newspapers. That would all come later. For now, apart from the head teacher at Highgate Hill School, only Lizzie and her surprisingly obliging parents were given the full picture.
Monday and Tuesday at school passed unspectacularly. No further texts. On Wednesday, Edie thought she saw a man lurking on the edge of the playing fields during hockey class, but it turned out to be the school groundsman dealing with a foxes’ den. By Thursday, Edie was wondering whether anything was actually going to happen. Extra art after school meant Edie finished an hour later than normal, and as she and Lizzie walked through the school gates, the darkness was settling in and it started to rain. The girls had stopped bothering to try and spot their protectors, which they never could, and in Highgate village they dropped into Costa Coffee.
‘Did I see you have a good look at Harry Coranger in the dining room today?’ Lizzie teased as they sat down with their mochaccinos.
Edie blushed and said nothing, reinforcing Lizzie’s hunch: ‘You were checking out Harry Coranger!’ Lizzie affirmed. ‘I bet you wish you had more classes with him.’
Rumbled, there was no point in resisting. ‘Everyone says he’s cute, so I was just checking,’ Edie explained. ‘I like his hair … and his smile.’
‘Maybe a bit too cool for your taste?!’ Lizzie grinned.
‘Maybe,’ Edie acknowledged playfully. ‘Maybe not!’
For twenty minutes, the girls talked about stuff at school, friendship groups, TV, until the rain had temporarily abated and they left Costa and strode down the hill. It was a slightly longer way round to the Parkland Walk but that was the route they’d been told to stick to by Penrose, who in turn was being advised by the police firearms unit, SCO19 – an elite group of officers reserved for the most dangerous criminals and incidents.
At Channing School they took a sharp left down Cholmeley Park, crossed the busy Archway Road, then zigzagged right and left onto Holmesdale Road where, after about a hundred metres, a metal gate led to a steep incline and steps up to the Parkland Walk. At the top, Edie and Lizzie turned right onto the raised, green public walkway. An oasis of tranquillity in the daytime, the path now felt ominous as the light faded. Edie checked her phone: nothing.
Half an hour until full darkness, Edie estimated as they walked briskly along, but vision was manageable for now. In the middle distance a runner was coming their way and, as the figure approached, Edie’s heart began to race. Lizzie was similarly transfixed by the rapidly approaching tall male figure, sporting a tracksuit and running beanie. Was he a member of the special police unit? From ten metres away, Edie could see no facial scars and, as he passed, the man smiled kindly and said hello.
‘I don’t feel good about this today,’ sighed a nervous but relieved Lizzie.
‘It’s gonna be fine,’ Edie answered as the rain started again and the light dipped further.
Deep inside, Edie knew she’d changed over the past weeks, and was only just beginning to understand how. After a year of numbing grief, Edie felt more mature, more confident and undoubtedly wiser too, as the detective work had forced her to stretch herself in ways she’d never imagined. Understanding the true nature of her mother’s death had obviously been key, but openly revealing her investigations – sharing and unburdening what she’d learned – was allowing the grieving process to finally begin to settle.
Yet Edie still felt fragile at times, like a pane of glass with a crack. She was certain that catching the killer was the right thing to do – was her destiny – but that child-like feeling of invincibility was now counterbalanced by a new vulnerability.
‘I get off here, remember,’ Lizzie said, pointing to the steps that led down to Stanhope Road.
‘I know,’ Edie responded. ‘Thanks for coming with me again.’ She quickly hugged Lizzie, then waited briefly on the Parkland Walk bridge over her best friend’s road. Underneath, Edie saw Lizzie exit the steps and walk quickly up the hill to her home at number 57.
Alone, Edie carried on in the knowledge that only a few hundred metres remained before she too would come off the now-deserted walkway onto busy Crouch Hill. As the wind picked up, a flash of lightning lit up the sky, and the loudness of the thunderclap a few seconds later took Edie by surprise. It now seemed very dark.
