‘Do you have any idea at all what she wanted so badly to talk about at the meeting?’
‘I’m afraid not. As I said, we didn’t really have a chance to speak and I didn’t even go on the trip to the Strahov monastery with the others where we might have had an opportunity to talk.’
Steven nodded, then changed the subject. ‘Your research group, doctor; do they all work on polio?’
North clearly didn’t see what Steven was getting at. ‘I suppose…’ he said uncertainly. ‘Various aspects.’
Steven appeared apologetic. ‘I suppose I was wondering why a research group in London was working on polio when it really isn’t a problem any more in the western world — I’m assuming that you get traditional funding from the UK research councils?’
‘Ah, I see,’ said North with a smile. ‘Well, yes, we have funding from the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust and one of our students is supported by a pharmaceutical company, so I suppose you could call that "traditional". But we don’t actually spend all our time on polio virus although there is a connection. Our main interest is in the persistence of certain viruses in the body. You know — if you get a cold sore on your lip when you’re a child the sore will clear up but the herpes simplex virus which caused it will always be with you, lying low if you like, waiting for the time when the conditions are right and then you’ll get a cold sore again, whether by exposure to UV light or perhaps through stress or worry; anything that causes a dip in your defences.’
Steven nodded.
‘Varicella, the virus that gives you chickenpox, is another. You get chickenpox as a child and you recover but the virus remains inside you until one day in later life you wake up with shingles — same virus, different condition.'
‘Ah, I see,’ said Steven. ‘Interesting.’
‘There’s also a condition called post-polio syndrome which really intrigues us. It’s a problem that survivors from paralytic polio develop in later life — sometimes as much as thirty years after the event. It’s very debilitating but has a tendency to be pushed under the carpet by the medical profession because they’re embarrassed by not knowing what’s going on. We’re not embarrassed; we’re intrigued. We’d love to know what’s going on and not just with those patients. You see, not everyone who gets infected with polio virus itself develops the paralytic disease. Only one in two hundred does. We’d like to know why that is and what the virus actually does in those people who apparently remain well.’
‘Fascinating.’
'And of course,’ added North with a smile, ‘the more you know about your enemy the better. If we understood viruses better it should be possible to design better vaccines. They’re still really our only line of defence against viral disease.’
Steven nodded, feeling grateful for the refresher course. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘Would you like to meet the team?’
‘I’d love to.’
Steven was shown round the lab by North who introduced his group individually and invited them to tell Steven briefly what they were doing — something they did with varying degrees of eloquence. Liam Kelly proved to be the clearest, showing an infectious enthusiasm for his subject, while others were more reticent.
They stopped beside a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early thirties, wearing a T-shirt proclaiming allegiance to an American football team. ‘This is my senior post-doc, Dr Dan Hausman,’ said North. ‘Dan is being supported by Reeman Losch, an American pharmaceutical company. He’s working on post-polio syndrome…’
Steven smiled and nodded to Hausman before following North along to the next bench. ‘Jenny Davis is uncovering the secrets of the Herpes simplex virus.’
‘I wish,’ said an attractive blond girl, pausing, automatic pipette in hand, to smile at Steven. ‘It’s like playing hide and seek in thick fog.’
‘Well, I wish you luck,’ said Steven. ‘In fact, I wish you all the very best of luck,’ he said, looking up the length of the lab. Turning back to North, he added, ‘Thanks for your help… and the tour. I feel like I know a whole lot more than I did earlier.’
‘I hope everything goes well at the funeral tomorrow,’ said North. ‘Simone was a special person.’
FIVE
Steven felt glad that he’d come to Simone’s funeral. He’d been assuming that he would be an anonymous face among hundreds of mourners but that wasn’t the case: there were fewer than fifty people there. Although this puzzled him at first it made sense when he thought it through. Simone didn’t have a social life; she did not have a wide circle of friends. She had spent her entire working life abroad among the sick and dying of other countries. Those who had known and loved her in these far-off places were in no position to come to Paris to mourn her death. Apart from family members who comprised less than a dozen, Steven reckoned, the mourners were mainly colleagues and administrators from Médecins Sans Frontières with perhaps a few representatives from other aid agencies.
Simone’s father, a stooped, elderly man with a head of fine, pure white hair that seemed to respond to the merest suggestion of movement in the air, spoke of a wonderful, loving daughter who had always had a good heart. Her boss spoke of an inspiration to others and the very embodiment of all that was good in the medical profession. Steven felt that the third person to speak, a friend from medical school days, hit the nail on the head when she said that Simone — much as she loved her — had always made her feel inadequate. Everyone agreed that planet earth was a poorer place for having lost Simone Ricard.
Because the funeral was being held in Paris and not Marseilles where Simone’s parents still lived, the reception afterwards was held in a small hotel on Boulevard St-Marcel. Steven introduced himself to Simone’s father, not expecting him to have heard of him, so he was surprised when Jacques Ricard exclaimed, ‘The English soldier? Simone spoke of you. I think you may be the only soldier my daughter ever approved of.’
Steven felt pleased — absurdly pleased; even vulnerable, like a ten-year-old hearing universal praise for the first time. He shook Ricard’s hand and nodded, indicating sympathy and thanks together, then turned to the MSF man who had spoken at the funeral, hoping that he might point him in the direction of people who had served with Simone in Afghanistan or had been at the Prague meeting. He was directed towards Dr Aline Lagarde, who he learned had been working with Simone on the anti-polio drive in the Afghan border region, and went over to introduce himself. She was a dark-haired woman in her thirties wearing an elegant black trouser suit over a lilac blouse which seemed to complement the striking colour of her eyes.
‘Ah yes, Dr Dunbar. Simone spoke of you many times.’
After opening exchanges about the awfulness of what had happened Steven encouraged Aline to tell him about the work that she and Simone had been engaged in. He had always been a good listener and this had served him well in past investigations. Experience had taught him that you could learn a lot about people by keeping your mouth shut and your ears open. In this case, he had to decide whether or not to mention the letter he’d had from Simone and it did not take him long to conclude that Aline Lagarde was an intelligent, caring woman who he felt could be trusted to be discreet. He told her about the letter and asked if she had any idea what Simone had meant by saying something was very wrong.
‘The letter was sent from Prague?’ Aline queried.
Steven felt she’d asked the question in order to give herself time to think through her reply. ‘Yes.’
‘Simone had… concerns.’
‘Shared by you?’
‘You could say that,’ Aline seemed nervous. She considered for a long moment before going on, ‘Simone was unhappy about our region being one of the big stumbling blocks in the bid to eradicate polio. We had more cases than anywhere else in the past year. I think she was afraid that people might see it as our fault.’