Lost Causes Read Free Page A

courage to rebel before the die had been irrevocably cast.
    Now, largely because he needed to find something that paid a salary, he’d taken a job as a security consultant with a pharmaceutical company with research labs located on a science park shared with Leicester University. The security was more concerned with intellectual matters than with the guarding of gates. It was vital that the company’s projects be kept safe from the prying eyes of competitors, so the screening of research and support staff as they came and went was an important factor. Thorough background checks had to be carried out on incoming staff, and privacy agreements in line with contractual obligations had to be signed and adhered to by those who were bound for pastures new. All very vital and all very boring.
    Steven did his best to shut out such thoughts. After all, the job had enabled him to set up a new life with Tally and would in time allow him to see more of his daughter Jenny and play a bigger role in her life. Steven had been married before, to a nurse he’d met in Glasgow during the course of an early Sci-Med assignment, but Lisa had later succumbed to a brain tumour, dying when Jenny was little more than a baby. After her death – perhaps the blackest and most unhappy time of his life – Lisa’s sister Sue and her husband had taken Jenny to live with them in the village of Glenvane in Dumfriesshire, and she had been there ever since, brought up with her two cousins, Peter and Mary. Steven had visited as often as he could, every second weekend when possible.
    Sue and her solicitor husband Richard had always assured Steven that they regarded Jenny as one of their own, and that she could stay as long as she was happy with them. They’d even let it be known that giving her up would be traumatic for all of them after so many years – Jenny was settled and happy at the local primary school – but Steven still harboured dreams of family life although he recognised that Jenny herself would have to have the final say. He suspected, however, that his dream might well become unattainable before any such decision had to be made, as Tally had no plans to give up her own career. The demands of the medical ladder would almost certainly involve a geographical move when she began to think about applying for a consultant’s post, and perhaps more than once: not ideal for Jenny.
    Steven was aware of Tally giving him sideways looks at the breakfast table. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
    ‘Are you beginning to have regrets?’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘You know damned well.’
    ‘Not for a second,’ said Steven softly. ‘I made my decision. It was the right one. I love you.’
    Tally remained unconvinced. ‘I know you. I can sense when you’re restless, unsettled, a bit unhappy …’
    ‘I’m not unhappy. I’m living with the woman I love. I’ve got a good job. The sun’s shining. How could I possibly be unhappy?’
    Tally smiled, deciding to believe him but aware that it might be because she wanted to. ‘You’d better get a move on.’
    ‘Yep, you never know who may be planning to steal the aspirin …’ Steven got up from the table.
    Tally looked down at her coffee cup. There it was again, the little aside that hinted at a lack of self-respect in the job he was doing. That could be serious: it could eat away at him unless she could persuade him to see things differently. His job was responsible and important, but how to make him see that was another matter. Most people had little or no trouble convincing themselves – and others – that their job was meaningful and worthwhile even if it was only a case of coming up with a fancy title for what they actually did, but Steven was different. He really had lived in a different world. He had lived life on an edge where harsh reality had to be faced and bullshit and imagery had no place. He had served with Special Forces all over the world, operating in appalling conditions in jungles and