Lyons’ notes. His concentration was interrupted at intervals by the commentary from passing Thames tourist boats as they ploughed their way up and down the river. ‘The building on your right is…’ Not that much concentration was required. It was clear from the notes that Trish had been a healthy baby who had grown into a healthy child. In fact, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary in the notes until she had gone to Pinetops school camp and had been exposed to a child there who had been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. She’d been given BCG vaccine as a precaution and ‘green-stickered’ to ensure that her future health and wellbeing was monitored.
Steven was puzzled and disappointed. He couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about or why it should have proved difficult to get access to these notes or why Scott Haldane had needed to discuss anything in them. What was there to discuss?
Well, there must have been something, Steven concluded, but he certainly wasn’t looking at it. That fact alone was enough to stop him drawing a line under the affair. He hated the idea of missing anything — a good investigator turned over all the stones and there must be one stone missing in this case. They might well be sensitive to outside interest but he would ask the green sticker people a few more questions just to see what happened.
Steven decided to focus on statistics. He would ask how many children were affected by the exposure and just for good measure… who they all were. He would also ask for details about the child who had caused the panic in the first place — name, address and current state of health. He called Jean Roberts with his request.
‘And if they should baulk at that and ask if this information is really necessary?’ she asked.
‘The answer’s yes.’
It took two days and another intervention by John Macmillan to get the information Steven had requested and even then, details about the child who had contracted tuberculosis were missing. ‘Sir John will explain,’ said Jean.
‘Her Majesty’s Government is only too well aware of the potential repercussions of revealing that a non-white immigrant child has exposed a number of British children to the scourge of tuberculosis,’ said Macmillan. ‘It has been decided that only a select few should have access to the child’s identity and whereabouts. A top level decision, I’m told.’
‘And we are not among that select few?’
Macmillan paused for a moment before saying, ‘I know it’s in your nature to dig in your heels and demand to know things. This is not a criticism; you’ve usually been right when you’ve smelled a rat but on this occasion I have to ask you formally if it is really necessary for you to know the identity of this child — if it is, I promise I will get it for you but first you have to assure me that it is.’
It was Steven’s turn to pause for thought. ‘No, it isn’t absolutely necessary,’ he admitted, although he added quickly, ‘at the moment.’
Later, Steven sat down in his favourite chair by the window in his apartment where he could see the river traffic pass by through a gap in the buildings opposite. A Sci-Med salary did not run to a riverside address. He had had to settle for one street back but it had everything he needed and afforded him views of the sky and the river. As he slumped back in the chair looking up at passing clouds, he wondered what Scott Haldane had been so upset about — not being given details of the child with TB? He doubted that. It could have no relevance. No, he concluded, he was still missing something here. Maybe he still hadn’t asked the right question.
Yet again, he looked down the list of children who had been green-stickered for follow-up, one hundred and eight from across the UK and all in the twelve-to thirteen-year-old age range. Was it something in the way they had been exposed to the danger that had alarmed Haldane? Maybe a lack of primary checks on immigrant pupils? Possibly something in the way the incident had been handled at Pinetops? Or afterwards? The continuing niggle that he was missing something made Steven decide to drive up to the Lake District in the morning.
SEVEN
After several hours of stop-go travel due to road works and the sheer volume of traffic, Steven finally found some space on the M6 and gunned the Porsche Boxster up to the legal limit. As he’d noticed so many times before, the further north you travelled, the lighter the traffic became. He had bought the Porsche as a replacement for his ageing MGF when it had finally become too expensive to maintain and its British manufacturer looked like joining it in the knackers’ yard. He knew that a Porsche might be considered an indulgence when he had so little time to drive it but he had compromised on his original plan to nuke the piggy bank completely and go for the 911 and settled instead for its little brother, the Boxster. Boys’ toys? Maybe, but there was no Mrs Dunbar to point this out.
Around two in the afternoon, the soporific boredom of the motorway gave way to the winding roads of the Lake District where the Porsche came into its own, sticking to the road like glue through the curves however hard he pushed it, not that he pushed it too hard, just enough to experience the exhilaration that driving a Porsche could bring.
He had deliberately come a bit further north on the motorway than had strictly been necessary just so that he could drive along the north shore of Ullswater and pass through Glenridding where he’d spent his childhood before heading on down to Windermere. His parents were both dead and he had no siblings so there was no reason for him to stop there but it was nice to flirt with old memories and feel nostalgia for an upbringing that had been idyllic. He coaxed the Porsche up through the Kirkstone Pass and paused at the top to take in the view. It never failed to gladden his heart. Wordsworth could keep his daffodils; for him the mountains were the thing. He had come to know other mountains well in his lifetime — especially those of North Wales, which had featured so much in his military training — but the Lake District peaks would always hold a special place in his heart. Feeling good, he let the Porsche dawdle down the pass into Windermere and started out along the shore road to Pinetops.
The first thing that struck Steven when he drove into the car park at Pinetops was that there seemed to be no children about. He had expected to see lots of them, wearing brightly coloured outdoor gear, chattering, laughing as they wheeled dinghy transporters and carried canoes to and from the water’s edge.
‘Change-over week,’ explained David Williams, the Welsh chief instructor. ‘We usually have a five-day gap between groups to allow us to clean and maintain things. You wouldn’t believe the havoc children can wreak when they’re not even trying.’
Steven could see from the window that several canoes were undergoing patching repairs with fibreglass: he’d noticed the strong smell of solvent in the air when he’d got out of the car. He asked Williams some general questions about the camp to get a feel for the place, establishing along the way the number of instructors employed and the type of activities available for the children.
‘It’s all about team work and personal responsibility,’ enthused Williams. ‘When you’re out on the hills and something goes wrong, you have to pull together; you share your knowledge, discuss your options and agree on a course of action. You come back safely because you worked as a team; you didn’t all run off in different directions doing your own thing.’
Steven knew the philosophy well enough and nodded in the right places. Society needed team players, which was all well and good as long as it didn’t lead to the ostracising and exclusion of gifted individuals who preferred to work alone. You didn’t often find genius working in a team.
‘So, how can I help you exactly?’ asked Williams, returning Steven’s ID and deciding that the pleasantries were over.
‘I understand a group of children were exposed to tuberculosis here a few months ago.’
‘So I’m led to believe,’ said Williams. ‘Nothing to do with the camp, you understand. Some kid brought it in but the relevant medical authorities moved quickly and the children were given protection.’
‘BCG vaccine,’ said Steven.
‘If you say so,’ said Williams. ‘Not exactly my field.’
‘There’s one thing I’m not clear about,’ said Steven. ‘How was the child with TB discovered? Did he or she become ill while they were here?’
‘Well, no one reported sick to the camp clinic if that’s what you mean,’ said Williams, ‘or I would have heard about it. We have a full-time nurse on the staff and we can call on a local GP if needed. All incidents are logged.’
‘Then how?’
