In which just because something has ended doesn't mean it's finished …

Reasonable Cause to Suspect

By EllieV

Epilogue

From his office, Carson Beckett could hear Rodney McKay's complaints about being not being examined before John Sheppard. McKay had a torn fingernail and a paper cut, which admittedly Beckett thought, hurt like the plague but Colonel Sheppard on the other hand had been bitten by a bug. Not an Iratus bug, thank the good lord, but some sort of bug nevertheless. His hand was swelling up and he was not in a good mood. He was taking it out on McKay-a McKay who had come so far in only a few months.

There was a small silence and then Beckett heard Sheppard say, "Oh crap, not you lot."

"Yes sir," came Adrian Barker's cheerful voice. "Where there's bugs, there's bug doctors. Lovely looking bite there. Mind if I take a look?"

"Yes," said Sheppard flatly.

"Let the man look at your hand, Sheppard," came McKay's voice. "You're not the only one injured here."

As the inevitable bickering started, Beckett tuned it out and went back to the report he was writing on the last time the dynamic duo had been injured-a week ago. There was a knock at the door and he turned to find Barker leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey doc," he said. He was holding an envelope. "I got a letter from Danny and he included a couple of clippings. Thought you might be interested. I saw you talking to this bloke at the guvnor's funeral."

"Who?" asked Beckett.

"Dr Grodin's brother," said Barker.

He grimaced, much to Beckett's surprise, and returned to the infirmary where Sheppard had finally consented to blood tests and scrapings for the entomologists to swoon over. Beckett listened in amusement and opened the envelope. It had been seven months since the funeral so he was interested to learn what Breen had sent his friend.

The first was little more than an announcement from the Police Gazette of the promotion of Commander Cameron Stretton, Metropolitan Police, to Deputy Assistant Commissioner. It was dated a month ago. It also mentioned that he would be taking a volunteer advisory role to a British government security review committee. It didn't say what he'd be doing as DAC or what the security review committee was. It mentioned he was married with four daughters and his wife, Alixandra Stretton QC, was a prominent human rights barrister.

The second article was from a newspaper and reported on the arrest of Nicholas Grodin, a Senior Civil Service economist. Beckett's jaw dropped as he read the rest of the article. Beckett sat back and considered from what criminal charges a man could salvage his reputation even if he wasn't guilty: most could survive fraud; many could survive drugs; some could survive murder. No one could survive this. No one survived smoke and whispers and sidelong glances.

He picked up the Police Gazette page and thoughtfully read it again, his eyes drifting back to the Grodin article's opening paragraph.

A senior civil servant from North London was arrested today on child pornography charges. Nicholas Grodin of St Johns Wood was charged at Scotland Yard on 25 counts of accessing child pornography Internet sites from his place of work. Grodin was employed at Villawood, a British government economy thinktank. An assessment at Villawood under the auspices of a new security review committee found indications that Dr Grodin had registered at a number of child pornography websites via his office computer. The assessors had alerted police.

He sat back in his chair and thought about the lengths people would go to protect their families. He picked up the Police Gazette, gazed at the photo of DAC Cameron Stretton, and he smiled. A crash from the infirmary indicated that things weren't going well for the bug doctors. As he went out to lend a hand, Beckett started to whistle.

Definitely The End