Free The Gulf Conspiracy by Ken McClure

unsmiling, looked over his glasses at him and said, ‘There’s a school of thought that says if you go up against Goliath with a slingshot in the real world, you’ll end up with it inserted in your nether regions – sideways.’
    ‘ Point taken,’ said Steven. ‘We have to be as bad as each other. Only the philosophy behind it varies.’
    Once again Macmillan fixed Steven with a stony stare. ‘Sometimes I admire your idealism, Steven,’ he said. ‘At others . . .’ He let Steven fill in the blank and he responded with, ‘Sorry.’
    ‘ At first the Leicester police didn’t see anything suspicious in Sebring’s death. They were inclined to treat it as suicide rather than an accident because of his medical history but his wife insisted that her husband had not been suicidal, although she did admit that he had appeared to be very troubled of late. She believed it had been an accident.’
    ‘ So who was right?’
    ‘ Neither,’ said Macmillan. ‘The police pathologist rained on everyone’s parade. Apparently he’s a young chap and new to the job, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, you might say.’
    Steven had difficulty in ascribing this description to any pathologist he personally had ever come across. Morose, cynical, alcoholic or even downright weird, yes, but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?
    ‘ He established that Sebring did die of drowning,’ continued Macmillan, ‘but he then showed that the water in Sebring’s lungs was not canal water but Leicester tap water.’
    ‘ So he was murdered?’
    Macmillan nodded. ‘Drowned, probably in a domestic bathtub, and then dumped in the canal to make it look like an accident or suicide.’
    ‘ Motive?’ asked Steven.
    ‘ The police have drawn a blank. He seems to have been a popular lecturer with the students and a respected colleague among his peers. Everyone liked him.’
    ‘ Except the man who held his head under the bath water until he drowned,’ said Steven.
    ‘ Quite so,’ said Macmillan, managing to convey that he wouldn’t have put it so bluntly himself.
    ‘ Did his wife say what had been troubling him?’ asked Steven.
    ‘ Good question,’ said Macmillan. ‘She said a man came to see him a few weeks ago, an ex-soldier who’d served in the Gulf War. She thinks his name was Maclean, although she couldn’t swear to it but she is pretty certain he was Scots because of his accent. Apparently he knew Sebring when he worked at Porton Down.’
    ‘ What was a soldier doing at Porton Down?’ asked Steven.
    ‘ Something for you to find out,’ said Macmillan. ‘She said that Maclean seemed angry about what he called Gulf War sickness and seemed to be under the impression that her husband knew some secret - something that could help him in his campaign. Sebring wouldn’t tell her anything when he’d gone. She didn’t press him because she knew that his work at Porton was classified but she’s sure his change in behaviour stemmed from that day.’
    ‘ So we have a dead scientist, an ex-soldier and maybe something that happened at the time of the Gulf War,’ said Steven. ‘That was quite a while ago.’
    ‘ It’s beginning to look as though we might be about to fight it all over again,’ said Macmillan.
    ‘ Pity they didn’t finish the job last time,’ said Steven.
    ‘ As I remember, people were throwing up their hands in horror at the very idea of marching into Baghdad,’ said Macmillan. ‘Television pundits delighted in pointing out at every opportunity that the allied mandate was to free Kuwait, nothing more.’
    ‘ I remember well enough,’ agreed Steven. ‘So what would you like me to do about Sebring?’
    ‘ Have a root around, will you? The police have more or less admitted that they have nothing to go on although they are trying to find the mysterious Scotsman, Maclean. If Sebring’s death really had anything to do with his time at Porton and what he was working on there, the police are going to hit the wall. We might be able