Once again, Steven read the look on Ethel’s face. It suggested that Smithy had always been irritable.
‘He was very upset over what these people did to the professor,’ said Amy. ‘We all were. Smithy said they should bring back hanging for them and even that would be too good for them.’
‘Apart from that.’
‘I don’t think so… apart from that silly business with the monkey but that was just Smithy…’
Steven felt the hairs on his neck start to rise. ‘What business was that?’ he asked.
‘Oh, it was daft,’ said Amy. ‘Nothing really. Something and nothing you could say. When the soldiers finally found the body of the last monkey who’d escaped — they’d been searching for it for weeks — and brought it back to the institute for burning, Smithy went up to see it. He said it was a different animal… They’d got the wrong monkey.’
‘A different animal,’ repeated Steven, feeling his blood turn to ice.
‘Smithy said he knew his Chloe and it wasn’t her; it was a different monkey,’ said Amy. ‘I think the soldiers thought he was having a laugh, telling them they’d got the wrong monkey after all the trouble they’d been to, but he wasn’t. He was quite serious.’
‘Can’t be too many monkeys out there… in Norfolk,’ said Amy’s sister, suppressing a jaundiced little smile.
‘That’s what the soldiers said,’ said Amy. ‘Silly old fool. But once he got an idea into his head… You see, Smithy prided himself on knowing all the monkeys by name. He said they were as different from each other as human beings once you got to know them. They all look the same to me mind you.’
Steven smiled in order to encourage her. ‘Me too.’
‘Six of them escaped. Five were brought back to the institute. Smithy said that Chloe was the missing one but then, when they brought the last one in, he said it wasn’t her.’
‘Typical Smithy, if you ask me,’ said Ethel. ‘If you said black, he’d say white on principle.’
This attracted a hurt look from Amy and her sister gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze and said, ’You know what I mean, Ames. He’d cross the street to find an argument.’
‘I suppose,’ said Amy. ‘The soldiers pointed out the monkey had been out in the wilds of Norfolk for weeks in the middle of winter and that Smithy’d look a bloomin’ sight different as well if he tried that, but he wouldn’t change his mind. Said it was another monkey. Nothing like Chloe, he said.’
With the words ‘nothing like Chloe’ reverberating inside his head, Steven thanked Amy for agreeing to talk to him and was shown to the door by Ethel who whispered to him as he left, ‘He was an old bugger really.’
Steven gave a conspiratorial nod.
‘Learn much, sir?’ asked the WPC on the door.
‘A little more than I bargained for,’ said Steven cryptically before continuing to his car where he sat for a moment with both hands clasping the top of the steering wheel tightly. If Smith was right and it was the wrong monkey that the soldiers had brought in, it opened up a whole new can of worms. Please God, he was wrong. Please God, it had been the animal’s suffering in the wild that had altered its appearance. He started the engine and nodded to the WPC before driving off.
Back in London, Steven wrote up his report on paediatric surgery at the Victoria Hospital although he was continually distracted by doubts arising from what he’d learned in Norfolk. Why couldn’t every investigation be as straightforward as the Newcastle one with clearly defined questions attracting clearly defined answers and everything ending in unequivocal conclusions? He answered his own petulant question with the unpalatable — but inescapable — rejoinder that there would be no need to employ him if that were the case.
‘So what’s your feeling?’ asked Macmillan when Steven told him next morning about his talk with Amy Smith.
‘The soldiers might well be right about the animal looking significantly different after weeks in the wild…’ said Steven, ‘and Smith was a contrary old sod by all accounts…’
‘That’s the explanation I would prefer to go with,’ said Macmillan. ‘But not you?’
‘I just feel uncertain,’ said Steven. “Uncertain” seemed such a prissy little word to describe what was going on inside his head.
‘Call me unimaginative but I can’t see an alternative explanation,’ said Macmillan, ‘unless global warming is more advanced than we thought and monkeys are to be found swinging from the Norfolk trees these days…’
‘Chloe was the virus control animal in Devon’s experiment,’ said Steven. ‘She was infected with live Cambodia 5 virus: she hadn’t been given the vaccine he was testing.’
‘Another reason perhaps for her change in appearance,’ said Macmillan. ‘Not only was she living rough in winter, she was also very ill. Chances are she’d been born and bred in captivity so she wouldn’t know what to do out there anyway.’
‘That animal was a genuine threat to the health of the nation,’ said Steven.
‘Dramatic… but true I suppose,’ said Macmillan. ‘But it strikes me that any alternative explanation cannot be a simple one. If the monkey the soldiers found really wasn’t Chloe it implies that someone must have deliberately carried out a substitution with intent to deceive and all that goes with that can of worms.’
‘I know,’ nodded Steven. ‘It might also suggest that Robert Smith was murdered to keep his mouth shut about the monkey.’
‘Something that nearly worked,’ said Macmillan. ‘If you hadn’t decided to go talk to his widow we would never have known about his doubts.’
Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘All things considered… it makes more sense than his murder being another animal rights hit. They just couldn’t be that stupid.’
Adopting an air of resignation, Macmillan said, ‘Unfortunately, I have to agree with you… which leaves us with potentially a very big problem.’
‘What happened to the real Chloe; where is she; who has her and what do they intend doing with her?’
‘That just about covers everything,’ said Macmillan. ‘How is Dr Martin coming along with the vaccine?’
‘She’s optimistic, I understand.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Macmillan. It sounded heartfelt.
‘Have you heard how the Elwoods are?’ asked Steven.
Macmillan looked thoughtful. He said, ‘Actually no. Lees was supposed to phone me last week about their condition. Strikes me, the way things are going, no news could be bad news.’ He pressed the intercom button and asked Jean Roberts to get him Nigel Lees at the Department of Health. Sitting back in his chair he crossed his legs and said, ‘So where do we go from here?’
Steven sighed and said, ‘Frank Giles of the Norfolk Police is faced with looking for someone named Ali in the Asian community and I’m left looking for a monkey that’s disappeared into thin air.’
The phone rang and Macmillan asked Lees about the Elwoods. Steven watched his face as he listened to the reply. It was not encouraging.
Macmillan replaced the receiver with deliberate slowness. ‘David Elwood is dead,’ he said. ‘Officially, bronchial complications setting in after treatment for animal bites… can happen in the elderly.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘Cambodia 5.’
‘And his wife?’
‘Not at all well. Could go either way.’
Steven shook his head and said, ‘What a mess. And all to be swept under the official carpet.’
‘Right now, we have other things to worry about,’ said Macmillan. ‘There’s a meeting of the Earlybird committee tomorrow. I’m going to voice your concerns about the virus.’