The Gulf Conspiracy by Ken McClure Page A

‘Is this national-swab-your-nose-week or something?’ He was looking at the three dozen or so plastic swab tubes lying on the desk in front of him. ‘This is the fifth lot this morning.’
    ‘ Blame the TV news,’ said the nurse. ‘They did a scare story on MRSA last night so the powers that be thought it would be a good idea to swab the whole hospital just in case the press come to call. Image is everything.’
    ‘ Better cancel my summer holiday then,’ said the technician. ‘In fact, I’ll be lucky to make it home for Christmas at this rate.’
    The nurse smiled and turned away leaving Steven to ask if he could have a word with Angus Maclean.
    ‘ Can I ask who’s calling?’ said the technician.
    ‘ Dr Dunbar.’
    The technician pressed one of the numbered buttons on the intercom beside him and said, ‘A visitor for you, Gus. It’s a Dr Dunbar.’
    ‘ Never heard of him,’ came the gruff voice from the speaker.
    The technician looked embarrassed.
    ‘ He doesn’t know me,’ said Steven and the technician relayed this information.
    ‘ Send him through,’ said the voice.
    The technician released the electronic lock on the doors leading to the main labs and said to Steven. ‘Room nine; it’s on your right.’
    Steven entered and immediately noticed the smell he associated with medical labs the world over, a mixture of organic solvents and disinfectant with undercurrents of noxious substances he’d rather not think about. He knocked on the frosted glass door to Maclean’s lab and was invited to enter with a solitary, ‘Yup.’
    Maclean, a short, slightly-built man with an unfashionable crew cut and round shoulders that suggested possible chest problems was seated with his back to the door, peering down the binocular eyepiece of a microscope. ‘Be with you in a moment,’ he said.
    Steven reassured him there was no hurry and took in his surroundings while he waited. A Bunsen burner was alight on the small bench to the left of where Maclean was seated, a platinum inoculating loop propped up on its base. Beside it lay a plastic Petri dish filled with a medium that Steven remembered from times past as blood agar and next to that, a box of microscope slides and a pack of coverslips. It was clear that the bacterial colonies growing on the blood agar were the subject of Maclean’s scrutiny.
    Maclean finished his examination and removed the glass slide from the microscope stage to drop it into a beaker of disinfectant before jotting down his findings on the report form beside him. He turned and said, ‘What can I do for you?’
    Steven showed him his ID and said, ‘I’m making inquiries connected with the death of Dr George Sebring; I understand you knew him?’
    ‘’ I thought the police did that sort of thing,’ said Maclean. ‘I’ve already told them all I know. I’ve no idea who killed the bugger.’
    Steven nodded, deliberately making an effort to remain calm in the face of Maclean’s aggression. He said, ‘I’m not so much concerned with the criminal aspects of the case as the scientific ones, particularly where they might provide motive.’
    ‘ What does that mean?’ said Maclean, affecting a scowl and dropping his head slightly to look over the top of his glasses.
    ‘ I think we both know that Sebring once worked at the Porton Down Defence Establishment,’ said Steven. ‘I’m trying to establish if his time there might have had something to do with his death.’
    ‘ Well, there’s irony for you,’ said Maclean with a smile that lacked any vestige of humour. ‘You’re wondering whether his work had anything to do with his death and I’m bloody sure it had everything to do with that of my wife and daughter.’
    ‘ How so?’
    ‘ I don’t know how so,’ replied Maclean. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to find out for Christ knows how many years. Bloody place. Defence establishment, my arse.’
    ‘ How come you know so much about it?’
    ‘ I was trained there when I