The Secret

‘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.