Death at the Plague Museum Read online

  Mona had chosen it because it was a ten-minute jog from her mother’s and, more importantly, as she wasn’t a student she thought it very unlikely she’d meet anyone she knew in there. Her intention was to have one (soft) drink, try to establish if she’d said anything indiscreet on Monday, then to suggest apologetically to Elaine that it might be for the best if they never saw each other ever again.

  She marched into the beer garden, heading for the wide set of stairs that led up to Pear Tree House.

  ‘Mona.’

  Elaine was sitting on a bench, stubbing out the remains of a cigarette. ‘Filthy habit, I know. Shall we head inside?’

  ‘Yes, OK.’ Mona could feel her heart starting to race. She took a breath. In, find out what she said, deal with it, home listening to her mother moan by 9pm.

  Elaine took the initiative and offered to go to the bar. Mona grasped the opportunity to choose a corner table, and to have a good look round the room to make sure there was no one there that she knew. By the time Elaine returned with Mona’s requested Coke, and a pint of cider for herself, she had reassured herself that they were as good as alone, and she began to relax.

  ‘Do you usually drink cider?’ asked Mona.

  ‘No, but when in Rome . . .’ Elaine waved a hand at the room. ‘Actually, I haven’t been in this pub for years. My show isn’t too popular with a lot of your more liberal-minded students. Too young to know any better, most of them.’

  ‘Yeah, about your writing . . .’

  ‘I really enjoyed our meal together, Mona.’

  Mona could feel Elaine’s ankle brushing against hers, accidentally she assumed.

  ‘It was the first time in years I’d actually had intelligent conversation on a date.’

  Elaine’s calf was now pressed against hers. She considered it unlikely that this was accidental. She should probably move if she was going to keep all this professional, but on the other hand she didn’t want to antagonise her. The soft warmth against her leg was making it quite difficult to concentrate.

  ‘How was it for you, Mona? I do hope you had fun.’

  ‘Ehm.’ For the second time that day, Mona felt as if she were in an interview that she wasn’t really in control of. ‘The thing is, Elaine, I think I may have said some things I shouldn’t about life in the HET.’

  ‘Like what? Do you mean the things you said about the attitude of your manager, Paterson, was it? Or the fact that SHEP starved you of the resources to do an even halfway decent job, while maintaining, what did you call it, “their fuck off massive office suite on the High Street”?’

  Mona cringed.

  ‘Relax!’ She laughed. ‘You weren’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know. Obviously I’d love it if you wanted to go on record about some of these issues, but really, I’d rather have another date with you. What do you think?’

  Mona said nothing. Another date would be a very bad idea, for many reasons. She wasn’t exactly a world authority on dating, but she did know that successful relationships were invariably built on mutual trust and respect. She had very little respect for some of the views Cassandra Doom espoused and was extremely clear on exactly how little she trusted her. But on the other hand, now that she was here, a large part of her very much wanted to reach under the table and run her hands right up under the ridiculously figure-hugging skirt that Elaine was wearing.

  ‘Do you believe all that shit you say when you’re being Cassandra Doom?’

  ‘Every word, darling!’

  Mona moved her legs firmly to her own side of the table.

  ‘You look so disappointed.’ Elaine laughed. ‘Come on, nobody believes everything Cassie says.’

  Mona disagreed. She thought there were some people who hung on Cassandra’s every word and were more than happy to turn her words of hatred into deeds. ‘So, why do it if you don’t believe it?’

  ‘I do believe some of it. I do think that your Health Checks are an invasion of our civil liberties. And I do think that Cameron Stuttle is a self-serving arse. But Cassie’s been good to me. I’ve got a profile that most journalists would kill for.’

  Mona didn’t say anything.

  ‘I do also write sensible investigative journalism as well, if it makes you feel any better. Although nobody reads that. Cassie just seems to be what people need in these difficult times.’

  ‘I should probably go.’ Mona reached for her bag.

  ‘How’s the investigation into Helen Sopel’s disappearance going?’

  She froze. ‘I . . .I didn’t tell you about that.’

  ‘You didn’t.’ Elaine grinned. ‘But your reaction to my question just confirmed my suspicions. The answer should have been, “Who is Helen Sopel?”’

  Mona wondered if she should resign, then remembered she couldn’t. Stuttle and Paterson were going to make her life a misery.

  ‘You didn’t tell me, Mona, but you did mention you were looking for a civil servant. I just put a few calls in to civil servant friends to see who hadn’t turned up for work recently. Sounds like a cracking story. Two suicides and a Missing Person.’

  ‘She’s a Health Defaulter. You can’t mention any of this in the paper.’

  ‘Ha! We might not be able to print chapter and verse, but Cassie’s lawyers are very adept at advising what we can and can’t allude to. I could run home right now, and dash off 200 words of pure innuendo about trouble at the top of the Scottish Virus tree, and the lawyers would have it OK’d in time for my column tomorrow. But don’t look so worried.’ Elaine’s legs were pressed against hers once more. ‘I want to see you again, Mona. I want you to trust me. I’m not going to breathe a word of your little investigation. Not unless you tell me that I can.’

  ‘Hello – I thought it was you.’

  Mona jumped. There were two girls standing by the table. One of them had short spiky hair, which seemed to have been decorated with a bluey-silvery dye, and a nose stud. The other, with long brown hair falling in spirals, looked slightly familiar. Then she said, ‘I’m Kate, Maitland’s girlfriend?’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Shit, shit, shit.

  Kate looked over at Elaine, obviously expecting an introduction.

  ‘This is, ehm, Elaine.’

  ‘Elaine McGillvary?’ Kate’s friend stepped forward. Mona took in the nose ring, then the blue hair. If she’d drawn a picture of the very opposite of a Cassandra Doom fan, Kate’s friend was pretty much exactly what she would look like. And she appeared to know exactly who Elaine was, which meant that before the night was out, Maitland would know about the company she had been keeping.

  ‘Guilty as charged.’ She raised her glass to them.

  ‘I hate your column.’ Kate’s friend stood with her hands on her hips. ‘You do nothing but spout hate for everyone and everything. You should be ashamed of yourself.’ She pulled at Kate’s arm. ‘C’mon. Let’s find somewhere else to drink.’

  Kate looked confused but let herself be led away. ‘Bye, then.’

  As she walked off, Mona could hear her asking her friend what all the fuss had been about.

  ‘Oh God.’ She rested her head on her hands.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, it happens to me all the time.’

  ‘I am worried! That was the girlfriend of one of my colleagues. What if she tells him who I was with?’

  ‘Well, I dare say you will lie and say that you had no idea who I was until Kate’s friend made a scene.’

  ‘But your column tomorrow . . .’

  ‘Mona, I can assure you, I am not about to mention anything that we discussed.’ She reached across the table and stroked Mona’s cheek. ‘Relax.’

  She brought her other hand up, gently pulled Mona toward her and kissed her.

  She tasted of apples.

  THURSDAY

  BENEATH

  THE

  MASK

  1

  Bernard strode purposefully into the office, having stopped en route to purchase the smallest, sturdiest screwdriver that the
24-hour Asda had on offer. For the second day running he had made it to work by 7.30am, and he was confident that today at least he would have the place to himself. He’d do what he had to do, then treat himself to a well-deserved large egg and spinach roll to celebrate. He dropped his bag by his desk, pulled off his coat, and was raking in the pocket for his new purchase when he heard a cough. He spun round to see Mona watching him with the slightly amused grin that she often wore when eyeballing him.

  ‘Morning, early bird.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Bernard was trying not to look irritated at her presence in what should have been a completely deserted space, and was, he suspected, failing miserably.

  ‘I work here. And I have a lot to do, seeing as we seem to be no nearer to finding Helen Sopel than we were on Monday. Not surprising, given that we’ve had to deal with a bomb hoax and our evidence seems to suddenly have grown legs and scarpered, but nonetheless I’d like to get the whole thing wrapped up and move on to something a bit less controversial.’

  He turned his back on her and walked to his desk, cursing the fact that everyone suddenly seemed to have developed a taste for early starts. ‘You sound a bit on the grumpy side, Mona. Maybe you need to go and get a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Way ahead of you.’ She waved a takeaway cup at him. ‘And the grumpiness is all natural, not the result of caffeine deprivation.’

  He was unwilling to have his mission thwarted. Another half-hour and Mr Paterson would come storming in, and he’d stand no chance of a moment’s peace. He positioned himself in a way that prevented Mona seeing what he was up to, and got out the screwdriver. He slowly slid the metal tip in between the plastic seams.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  Bernard jumped and narrowly missed impaling himself on his Hyper-Tough Soft Grip Flat 3.5mm.

  ‘Jeepers, Mona. Why are you sneaking up on me?’

  ‘Because you were being weird! I wondered what you were doing.’ She paused. ‘Actually, what are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, right. You’re in here at the crack of dawn, and obviously well peed off to see me here.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not the evidence thief, are you?’

  ‘Of course not!’ He sighed, giving in to the inevitable. Opening his hand he showed her the screwdriver. ‘I found a bug in my flat.’ He returned to his levering. ‘I want to see if there’s one here as well.’

  ‘Don’t!’ Mona grabbed his hand.

  ‘What? Why?’

  She gestured toward the door, and he followed her. Once in the corridor she stopped and looked round.

  ‘If you take the bug out, whoever planted it there will know that you’ve found it.’ Her voice was low.

  ‘True.’ Taking his cue from her, he whispered back. ‘But why is that a problem?’

  ‘Because this gives us an opportunity to try to find out who put it there.’

  Bernard thought he probably knew the answer to that.

  ‘And, if we put some misinformation out there, I’d be really interested to see where it ended up. This could be the source of our Twitter leaks.’

  ‘OK.’ He had to admit that was a good idea. ‘Why are we discussing this out here?’

  ‘Because if there are bugs in the phone, there’s also a possibility that there are other bugs in the office. Don’t mention this to a soul, Bernard, until we can work out what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe we should tell Mr Paterson if we find something?’

  ‘No, not a word to the Guv until we know what’s going on.’

  ‘But . . .’ Bernard wasn’t a natural rule breaker, and he was pretty sure that if you found a listening device in your workplace phone you were duty-bound to report it. But Marcus, despite his current idiocy, was a good friend, and if he was behind the bugging then he didn’t want to get him into trouble. Maybe he should talk to Bryce again. Maybe he should talk to Marcus . . .

  ‘Earth to Bernard!’

  ‘Sorry, OK, OK. I’ll keep mum, and I won’t do anything that will alert him that we’ve found his bug.’

  ‘His bug?’ Mona hissed. ‘Whose? Bernard, do you know something?’

  ‘Morning, troops.’ Paterson swept past them. ‘Why are you skulking in the corridor?’

  Mona leaned in close to him. ‘I want to know everything.’

  Paterson reappeared. ‘Are you two not coming in today?’

  ‘Yeah, Guv, we’re coming.’ She shot Bernard a look then followed their boss in. He cursed himself for his stupidity. No one should ever trust him with a secret. Although, maybe telling Mona about Marcus wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She could usually be relied upon to come up with a solution to any given difficulty. While he saw a problem from so many different angles he ended up unable to make a decision, Mona was usually good at getting right to the heart of it and suggesting a plan of action. He might actually tell her. Although maybe he shouldn’t involve anyone else in this. There was a lot to think about.

  ‘You’re in early, Guv.’

  ‘Yup.’ He headed into his office, and they could hear the sound of the kettle being put on. ‘The Facilities Manager wanted to meet me at 8am to point out my many failings in response to yesterday’s events.’

  ‘Your failings, Mr Paterson?’ said Bernard. ‘The HET are only tenants of the Cathcart Building. If anyone is at fault I personally think the Facilities Manager is. I’ve been working here nine months and we’ve never had a single evacuation drill. As far as I’m aware the admin team have never been given any training on how to deal with bomb calls or other hoaxes, and we’ve obviously become a bit more high profile over the past week or so, so really SHEP should have given some consideration to security concerns . . .’

  Paterson emerged from his office. ‘Stop there, Bernard.’

  Once again his views seemed to have upset his boss. ‘Sorry.’

  To his surprise, Paterson waved his regrets away. ‘You’ve absolutely nothing to apologise for. I just came out to tell you it’s your lucky day.’

  ‘Really?’ Given that so far he’d nearly stabbed himself with a sharp implement, had almost ratted out his friend to Mona and was now so hungry he could hear his stomach impersonating a lion, he couldn’t say he’d seen any evidence that today was shaping up to be particularly auspicious.

  ‘Yes, congratulations.’ Paterson took his arm and shepherded him in the direction of the door. ‘You just won a visit to the Facilities Manager.’

  Lady Luck returned to her usual place in his life and resumed filing her nails. ‘I didn’t, did I?’

  ‘You certainly did. When we meet him, I want you to spout all that guff again, as firmly and authoritatively as you can.’

  And he still hadn’t had any breakfast. ‘Oh dear.’

  Barry Gifford, Facilities Manager for a number of NHS properties in Edinburgh, did not look like a man to be trifled with. He was short but sturdy, with dark brown hair and moustache, and was wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt with a tie.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Barry, I’m John and this is Bernard from the HET team.’

  He gave Paterson’s hand a cursory shake and nodded in Bernard’s direction. ‘Well, I have to say I’m not happy about this situation. Not happy at all.’

  ‘Neither are we, Barry, I can assure you. Now, our main concern is what you are going to do to rectify it?’

  Barry’s moustached quivered up and down with outrage. ‘What am I going to do? Me?’

  ‘Well, you are the Facilities Manager . . .’

  Bernard suspected Paterson was enjoying this.

  ‘ . . . while my Health Enforcement Team are only tenants of the Cathcart Building.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘And as tenants, we have certain expectations about the way things are done. I’m a little bit concerned that we haven’t to the best of my knowledge had an evacuation drill . . .’

  ‘Now, wait a minute . . .’

  ‘I have to think about the safety of my s
taff. Has your admin team ever had any training on how to deal with threatening communications such as calls about bombs on the premises?’

  Paterson was really getting into his stride. Bernard wasn’t sure whether he should feel proud of inspiring his boss, or worried that he’d created a monster, some kind of Facilities Manager-baiting behemoth.

  ‘I mean, I don’t have to tell you that we’ve become pretty high profile over the past week or so, so really you should have been reviewing your policies in light of these security concerns . . .’

  ‘You’re damn right you don’t have to tell me that!’ Barry Gifford’s patience had run out. ‘I never wanted you people here in the first place. I said to management, once you’ve got police moving in, you need a police level of security in place.’

  ‘We’re not actually Police Scotland,’ said Bernard.

  ‘You might as well be! You’re staffed by ex-coppers, you attract student protests and hoax calls. We never had that before you lot moved in.’

  ‘Barry, I . . .’

  Bernard didn’t get to hear Paterson’s response to Barry’s assessment of the situation, because the door to the meeting room flew open. Marguerite was standing there, a sheet of paper quivering in her hand. ‘It was a young woman, I mean, really young sounding.’

  ‘What woman? What’s this all about?’ asked Barry.

  ‘She didn’t have any kind of accent that I could hear—’

  ‘Marguerite!’ Paterson managed to get her to stop. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The phone call, Mr Paterson. We’ve had another one. They’re saying there’s a bomb.’

  ‘There’s not really going to be a bomb in there, is there, Guv? I mean, we had all this rigmarole yesterday, and it turned out to be nothing.’

  Bernard trailed after his colleagues as they evacuated the building under the no-nonsense direction of Barry Gifford. He couldn’t help but notice that people weren’t hurrying quite as fast as they had been yesterday.