فصل 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The future

And we all lived happily ever after. At least, that’s what would have happened in the old-fashioned kind of story we all used to read when we were children.

But my story is different.

Penny came out of hospital fully recovered. Gillian came back from New York looking better than she had before the acid attack. Together with Michaelis we all went out for dinner and planned a wonderful double wedding.

Ten days before the wedding I went back to see Dr Starkie. He asked me a lot of questions, gave me a lot of medical tests, and told me to come back in a week.

On the day I went back to see him, I read in ‘The times’ that Lord Cregar had died. I was disgusted by what was written about him. ‘A loyal public servant who worked for his country for many years with no thought for himself.’ That was not the Cregar who had been quite prepared to let Penny and me die on Cladach Duillich in order to save himself.

Dr Starkie was very serious when I saw him.

‘It’s bad news, isn’t it?” I said.

“Yes, it is,” he said directly. ‘It’s cancer.’

It was the news I had expected. ‘How long have I got?’

‘Six months. Maybe a year. It could be longer, but not much.”

‘Is this the same thing that killed Cregar?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘Cregar wanted fast results and Carter didn’t wait for the best quality materials to come from the States. He used some experimental bacteria which were difficult to control biologically. And he didn’t have the right kind of laboratory - Penny Ashton was right there. The new bacteria that escaped when you and Cregar were in the laboratory weren’t safe.’

I suddenly felt frightened. ‘What about Penny?’

‘She’s all right. Her illness was caused by completely different bacteria.’

I felt relieved. ‘Thank you, Dr Starkie. You’ve been very honest with me, and I appreciate it.’

I went back to London and told Penny the bad news. She understood immediately what had happened - it was her job, after all. She still wanted to get married, but I said no. I knew what I wanted to do.

‘There’s a place in the south of Ireland,’ I said to Penny. ‘The mountains are green, the sea is blue when the sun shines, and it’s green when the sun doesn’t shine. It’s by the sea, where the Atlantic waves come in from the west. Come live with me and be my love. I could do with six months of life there, if you are with me.’

We went to Ireland immediately after Gillian and Peter were married, and we wished them every happiness.

We have lived here for nine months. My condition has got gradually worse, and at one time I thought of killing myself, but I knew I had one final job to do, to write the story of the Ashton case.

Penny has loved me and taken care of me. She has brought a doctor and three nurses to help her, but now my time is getting short.

I have told the story honestly. God knows, I am not proud of my own part in it. Penny has read the story; some parts have upset her terribly, some parts have made her laugh, other parts have made her sad. She has typed it all herself.

I want people to be able to read my story, to know what is done by governments in the name of ‘the people’. There are too many Cregars around in government. Ashton’s new work on genetics is still a secret, to be used for whatever purposes some government minister thinks will do him some good. Because of that Penny and I are determined that her father’s story and the news of his discoveries in genetics should not be hidden. We have done what we can to make sure that the story will be published in full.

This story, and my lite, are now coming to an end. It is not a happy story. In the words of an American writer: ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us.’

I hope, for your sake, that he is wrong.