The Sins of the Fathers

Chapter Eight

River House

Meadvale

Surrey

"Don't mind her...she is switched off," Drew Symonds said casually, as Deacon and Slade were shown into his study and confronted with a woman kneeling in front of his massive desk, apparently praying, her head bowed and mittened hands held together in her lap. She seemed to be tightly leashed to a ring set in the wall just to her left. "My daughter, Henrietta Montague...an abandoned wife...as you probably know...throwing herself on the mercy of her ageing father...praying for forgiveness for her husband's many sins."

"Shouldn't she be in your chapel, then?" Slade asked as Deacon put his box of tricks down on the desk, stepping around Mrs Montague's dark green velvet skirts. "And is there really any need to leash her inside the house?"

"Slade? Am I right? The meddling lawyer?" Symonds growled from his seat behind the oak desk, watching Deacon press buttons. "Mr Deacon, if you scratch my desk, I shall send the United Nations the bill?"

"If you had come to us, Mr Symonds, none of this would be necessary?" Deacon pointed out, making light of their less than warm welcome, and doing his level best to ignore Mrs Montague. "This thing films the whole room...so if you don't want the world to see how you treat your fifty-nine-year-old daughter, you might want to send her out or make her more comfortable?"

"She is at prayer...as she should be...and without a keeper to supervise her, she needs to be secured...if the world objects to that, then so be it?"

"As you wish...it is now switched on...may we sit?"

"I would prefer you didn't...this shouldn't take long?" Symonds said, but Harrison Slade sat down anyway. Pan Deacon grinned and did the same. Symonds sighed and let his eyes rest on his daughter for a moment.

"It might take longer than you think...you have a lot to explain?"

"No, I don't...you already know that the virus was leaked by mistake, and that the second allegation is a lie?" Symonds insisted, not sounding particularly bothered either way. "It is a long time ago but I think the first attempt at Hycanil was made in twenty-twenty-two...quite late on...but there were serious side-effects...risks of organ damage...it was not until mid-twenty-twenty-three that we reached the vaccine more or less as it is today and then we had to test it to the satisfaction of the WHO...and that took us to early twenty-twenty-four, when we saved the world...goodbye, gentleman?"

"Not so fast, Mr Symonds." Deacon said, not making light of anything anymore. "Your son...your President...agreed to cooperate with this investigation...and I am sure that you realise the serious nature of the allegations made against you? Charles Montague is already on record and his testimony supports the allegations...so we are going to need proof...test results, access to your research team, detailed timings...do I need to remind you that over a billion people died, Sir?"

"And at least half of them would have died within a year or two anyway...no, more than half...they were old or sick...or old and sick," Symonds pointed out, his voice strong and robust. He looked like a frail old man, but there was clearly nothing wrong with his mind or his tongue, even if he did not appear to have a conscience. "The other half might have lasted another few years...Covid was a gift from God...it saved us all billions in caring for people whose useful life was at an end?"

"It was still genocide, Mr Symonds." Deacon said quietly. "The pass you were recently given for starting the pandemic..."

"For failing to monitor the processes in a little lab in Wuhan, where someone else started the pandemic," Symonds corrected him, swivelling in his chair.