The Secret (Dr Steven Dunbar 10) Read Online Free Page B

career path of the medic to middle class affluence and status. She would use her skills and dedication to help those who needed her in Africa and Asia throughout a career which had come to an abrupt and unfair end for whatever reason.
    She had been working for some years for MSF, prepared to go wherever they chose to send her, but she was also a very charming and persuasive woman who had been used by the organisation to seek funding and practical help from big business –mainly the pharmaceutical industry – on many occasions, something she’d proved good at, with company executives often complaining with good humour that she could pick their pockets without their realising what had happened.
    Steven had first met her when he had been seeking information about an outbreak of Ebola in one of the African countries where she had recently been working. He had been trying to identify the source of a possible case being held in a UK isolation unit. They had liked each other from the outset and their friendship had been cemented when Simone spoke of the difficulties of performing surgery in the bush and Steven was able to help her with tips and suggestions gained from his own wide experience of field medicine. Carrying out emergency surgery on the wounded in the deserts of the Middle East and in the depths of the South American jungle had given him a lot to pass on.
    Simone could never understand why Steven had joined the army in the first place – You train to save life and then you train to take it? It’s crazy – just as he didn’t understand why she had devoted her entire life to what he saw as taking on an impossible task with the odds continually stacked against her and everyone like her. He was a very practical individual who didn’t believe in getting into fights he couldn’t win while she was very much an ' It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness' sort of person. Although he’d never said so, Steven had always suspected that religion might be behind Simone’s outlook, as was so often the case with those involved in the apparently selfless doing of good, but this idea was torpedoed when on one occasion Simone had volunteered that she didn’t believe in God. It had taken him so much by surprise that he could only mumble ‘Me neither'.
    They had met at irregular intervals, usually when Simone was in London with her ‘begging bowl’, as she put it, although it sounded better with a French accent. They would get together for dinner and discuss the state of the world, Steven’s views reflecting his ever-growing cynicism while an apparently eternal optimism that always made him laugh shone from Simone. He smiled at the memory as he picked up another handful of pebbles to throw into the sea. He had once said to her that he could understand why everyone liked her but failed to see what she saw in him. She’d laughed and put her hand on his arm to reply, ‘You have a good heart, Steven. Don’t try so hard to hide it.’

     
    TWO
    ‘All right?’ asked Sue, who was working in the kitchen when Steven entered by the back door.
    ‘Yes thanks,’ Steven replied. ‘Sorry about running off.’
    ‘Don’t be. It’s when the death of a friend doesn’t affect you that you should start to worry.’
    Steven smiled. ‘How come you always know the right thing to say?’
    ‘You obviously weren’t at the last meeting of the PTA when I suggested that the collective IQs of the local council wouldn’t break three figures.’
    ‘Did you really?’ exclaimed Steven, his voice betraying more admiration than shock.
    ‘'Fraid so. Maybe you should go talk to Jenny for a bit. She’s on the games console with the other two.’
    T he children were arguing about whose turn it was next when Steven entered the playroom. Jenny rushed over to him and gave his waist a big hug. ‘Auntie Sue said you’d had some bad news about one of your friends, Daddy.’
    ‘I’m afraid so, nutkin.’
    ‘Are they dead?’ asked