by Ken McClure
‘What do you mean by odd?’ Steven continued.
‘Meteoric rise, spectacular fall, something not quite right with either.’
‘Okay, I’ll run with that,’ said Steven gently, sensing that Macmillan had no heart for further talk. ‘We’ll talk after the op.’
He turned at the door to look back at the sleeping man. A lump came to his throat.
When he got back to the flat and had made himself some coffee, he took Macmillan’s advice and separated the material on John Carlisle from the files. It took about fifteen minutes to do this, followed by another hour of reading it, before he found himself agreeing with John Macmillan. There was something very odd about the man. He seemed to have appeared on the political landscape from nowhere. A poor lower second from Cambridge had been followed by several jobs in the City — none of which had lasted longer than a few months — and then he’d popped up as the Conservative candidate for Ryleigh in the Cotswolds, a safe Tory seat. Why was that? Why had he been gifted a safe seat when there must have been tremendous competition for such a prize?
It was much more usual for would-be MPs to cut their teeth fighting no-hope seats in their opponents’ heartlands, proving their resilience and commitment to the cause before being adopted by a constituency which afforded them at least a chance of winning. But not John Carlisle. He materialised from nowhere, a new, unknown candidate in a constituency where they’d elect a cardboard cut-out if it was wearing blue, and won the seat with a majority of over ten thousand.
Steven could see from contemporary press cuttings that Carlisle had been a strikingly good-looking man in a pretty-boy sort of way — all white teeth and floppy hair. He could imagine Tory matrons taking to him well enough but even so… it all seemed far too easy. The man said nothing in the House for the first year but then started to exhibit an interest in the National Health Service and produced over the course of the next eighteen months a string of suggestions as to how it could be modernised and improved — an interest and expertise that again appeared to have come from nowhere. A year later, after a cabinet shuffle, he was made health secretary, and launched an ambitious modernising scheme in the north of England to much acclaim.
Reading through yet more press cuttings from the time, Steven found that few had a bad word to say about the Northern Health Scheme, although one or two local GPs had expressed concern over a perceived lack of freedom to prescribe as they saw fit. Steven followed this up but there was little to support the GPs. Under the scheme, a computer made the final judgement about which drugs the patients were to be given, but it was clear that the computer did not just pick the cheapest option. A sophisticated software program examined the doctors’ recommendations, sought alternatives and examined the merits of all, based on published research, before making the final decision about what to give the patient. If two drugs had equal merit in the literature, it would supply the cheaper one.
The computer was unbiased, which was more than could be said for prescribing physicians who could be influenced by shiny advertising and pharmaceutical company hospitality. When the computer had made its choice, the drug was supplied from a central pharmacy quickly and efficiently, to be either administered in the hospital or collected by the patient. The need for bits of paper floating around the system and people interpreting them had been eliminated at a single stroke, as had the need for queuing at chemists while prescriptions were filled. Doctors in College Hospital and the surrounding GP practices simply punched in details of their patients and their recommended medicines, and the computer did the rest.
Steven found himself admiring the system. Like many good ideas, it had simplicity at its core and, as a bonus, the money saved through streamlining the process was ploughed back into the budget. Unlike the situation in many health authorities, no drugs were off limits in the Newcastle area, even the most expensive anti-cancer ones. If the computer accepted the diagnosis and the doctor’s recommendation, and could find no better alternative, it would supply the drug. Everyone appeared to be thoroughly satisfied with the new scheme, and voices were raised in favour of its being extended across the nation. The only question lingering in Steven’s mind as he got up to make more coffee was why on earth that hadn’t happened.
As he read on, Steven could see that the fate of the Northern Health Scheme was inextricably linked to the fortunes of its designer, John Carlisle. At the height of its success, Carlisle was being mooted as a future Tory leader, and then, without any discernible reason, it all seemed to wither and die. The Northern Health Scheme was wound up — the ‘end of its experimental period’, according to the press releases. Carlisle was switched to another ministry in which he became totally anonymous before being dropped from cabinet altogether, and becoming an equally anonymous backbencher, finally hitting the skids and being exposed in the expenses scandal before taking his own life — the meteoric rise and fall, as John Macmillan had said.
Daylight was fading fast and Steven had nothing to eat in the flat, so he thought he’d eat at a new Thai restaurant he wanted to try. After that, he would call Tally to swap tales of the day, and then spend the rest of the evening going through the files. If he felt up to it, he might wind up by going late-night shopping at an all-night supermarket to stock up with the essentials of life: bacon, eggs, cheese, bread, gin, tonic, beer and lots of frozen ready meals.
SEVEN
It was two a.m. before Steven stopped reading. He put out the light and rested his head on the back of his chair to look up at the clouds drifting across the moon. Although he agreed there was a puzzle in John Carlisle’s sudden change of fortune and in the abrupt ending of an excellent and innovative health scheme, he couldn’t quite understand why John Macmillan was so worried about it. An awful lot of water had passed under the bridge since those far-off times, even if Carlisle’s suicide was more recent.
There was the Paris bomb, of course, and the past involvement of one of the dead in Carlisle’s health scheme — maybe a second if Lady Antonia was in some way implicated — but that didn’t give him a handle on anything to cause alarm.
It was unfortunate that Macmillan hadn’t been able to be any more specific about his fears. It all seemed to be down to gut feeling, but John Macmillan’s gut feelings were not to be taken lightly. If Macmillan smelt a rat it was time to get out the traps. But even extrapolating to the worst possible scenario and considering for a moment that the Paris deaths had been linked to the health scheme, why would anyone want to kill those people twenty years after the event? Steven yawned. He’d had quite enough for one day. It was time to turn in.
A new day started with bacon sandwiches and coffee, something that made Steven glad he’d gone shopping the night before, even though it was something he didn’t enjoy doing. He saw late-night visits to supermarkets as something akin to visiting restaurants at the end of the universe, but at least his fellow travellers had been few and far between and the check-out was quick.
He’d steeled himself to spending the whole morning reading through more of the files, this time concentrating on the other things that had been happening in the north of England at the time of the health scheme, hoping to find a connection, see some link, discover some synapse that might trigger the same feeling in him as the one that had made Macmillan uneasy.
It was impossible not to feel horror at the story of the surgeon, Martin Freeman, dying in the middle of an operation, leaving his junior the nightmare of completing a very far from routine operation. It was easy to understand why it had attracted the attention of the nation’s press at the time, among their number the journalist James Kincaid.
Freeman’s patient, Greta Marsh, had reportedly gone on to make a good recovery and been able to give a press conference — although heavily bandaged — to assure medical observers of the operation who feared that her sight might have been damaged beyond repair that their fears were groundless. But then all hell had appeared to break loose.
Kincaid had been murdered in cold blood along
with a nurse who was with him at the time; his killers were thought to be members of a powerful drugs gang. The same gang had been blamed for the death of Neil Tolkien, a local GP involved in a drug rehabilitation scheme in the area — Steven smiled wanly at the name, thinking how different the Shire was from the environs of Newcastle in the early nineties. The gang was blamed again for the death of the head of pharmacy of the Northern Health Scheme, Paul Schreiber, along with two male nurses when they had all been caught up in a raid on the hospital pharmacy.
Steven frowned, not least at the causes of death involved. Kincaid and the nurse, Eve Laing, had been shot, but Tolkien had been injected with bleach. One of the male nurses had been stabbed, and Schreiber and the other male nurse had perished in a lab fire. Kincaid’s editor, a man named Fletcher, had been murdered too but he had been shot in London, supposedly to stop any revelation of Kincaid’s story about the drug barons of the north.
‘What drug barons of the north?’ murmured Steven as he failed to find any report of a successful trial and conviction relating to any of the horrors he’d been reading about. Seven murders and not one arrest? If he had been looking for the reason for John Macmillan’s unease, he felt he’d come some way along that road. Why had no one been brought to justice? Surely there would have been a public outcry
… but apparently not. When the dust settled, the Northern Health Scheme had just faded away, and John Carlisle’s career had followed suit, along with what the papers had been calling the drugs war. Life had seemingly returned to normal for the good folks of the Newcastle Health Trust area in record time.
A new Conservative government was returned in ’92, and a new health secretary was appointed. The Northern Health Scheme ‘experiment’ was declared over, and relative calm prevailed for the next five years before the public voted the Tories out and New Labour came to power. Now, after nearly thirteen years, and with an election looming, it looked like time for change again. And this scenario had coincided with the death of two people, maybe three, who had been involved in a health initiative in the early nineties. Coincidence, or was there more to it?
Steven felt he’d been cooped up in the flat for too long, and sitting in the one position had given him a sore back. The sun was shining so it was easy to give in to the urge to go for a walk by the river. There was a lot to think about, and he hoped the fresh air might clear his head. What he needed was some kind of working hypothesis, but for the moment he felt as if he could have been looking for the unifying theory of the universe; there was always going to be a bit that didn’t quite fit. Macmillan had mooted the idea that John Carlisle might be the key, so he concentrated his thoughts on him.
Supposing Carlisle had always been the dishonest character he’d recently been shown to be, and supposing he had been involved in something not quite kosher at the time of the health scheme, was it conceivable that he had been found out and marginalised by his own party who had then mounted some kind of cover-up to avoid a scandal? The incoming Conservative administration back in ’92 could have shifted him sideways — as indeed they had — and kept him quiet with threats of what they were holding over him, but that wouldn’t explain why they had dismantled the new health scheme when it had been working so well.
It didn’t make sense. Politicians didn’t turn their backs on success, and the scheme had clearly been a big asset. Surely the bright thing would have been for the new health secretary to continue with it and roll it out across the whole country to popular acclaim. Instead, they had abandoned it, labelling it as an ‘experiment’ — a failed ‘experiment’ if they were abandoning it. He must be missing something.
Maybe it had had something to do with the health scheme itself, was Steven’s next thought, some scam running in parallel, something to do with drug supply or pricing, perhaps? It only took a moment to conclude that this was an even more preposterous theory. Even if Carlisle had been the most venal of men, he would hardly have been likely to jeopardise a then brilliant career, with everything to play for, including leadership of his party, for a bit of cash on the side. That was a non-starter.
As he turned for home, Steven concluded that he needed to know more about John Carlisle. He needed to know what the man had really been like. Right now he was floundering between a prospective leader of his party and possible future prime minister, and a dishonest little nobody caught fiddling his expenses. The man was dead but he had a widow and she lived down in Kent.
That idea was stillborn. Tory wives were notoriously loyal where outsiders were concerned. Standing by their man came more naturally to them than to Tammy Wynette. What he needed was a few words with one of Carlisle’s opponents, a contemporary who, after all this time, might provide an unbiased appraisal. He would ask Jean Roberts to find someone who’d been on the Labour health team back then and, if possible, set up an interview.
Three days later, Steven drove up to Yorkshire for a meeting with Arthur Bleasdale, retired Labour member of parliament for Knowesdale, and the man who had shadowed John Carlisle and his successor until his own retiral just before the ’97 election. He decided to drive up because he wanted to stop off in Leicester on the way back.
‘Good of you to see me, Mr Bleasdale,’ said Steven as he was shown into a large bay-windowed room at the front of a solid stone villa on the outskirts of Knowesdale by Mrs Bleasdale.
‘Don’t get that many visitors these days, lad,’ said Bleasdale, getting up stiffly from his chair to shake hands. ‘Sit yourself down.’
Steven found himself taking an immediate liking to the man, who he guessed was in his early to mid seventies, a victim of arthritis judging by the gnarling of his hands and the stiffness of his movements, but with a full head of white hair and clear blue eyes that didn’t need glasses. His accent and the fact that he looked Steven straight in the eye when addressing him suggested honesty and forthrightness.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m sure you must have heard about the death of John Carlisle,’ said Steven.
‘Aye, I did.’
‘You must have known him quite well.’
‘You could say. I shadowed him for a couple of years back in the early nineties or thereabouts.’
‘At the time of the Northern Health Scheme?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What did you think of the scheme?’
‘Couldn’t say so at the time, but bloody brilliant, worked like a dream. I was reduced to asking why they hadn’t done it sooner,’ recalled Bleasdale with a staccato laugh. ‘Couldn’t think of anything else to criticise.’
‘Then you were a fan of John Carlisle?’ said Steven, immediately realising his error and adding, ‘Well, not exactly a fan, you were political opponents of course, but an admirer of his abilities?’
‘No, I was never that,’ said Bleasdale, leaving Steven faintly puzzled.
‘But you thought his scheme was brilliant.’
‘’Twas, but it weren’t his,’ said Bleasdale.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘It were never John Carlisle who thought that up, lad. I wouldn’t have put money on him doing the four times table. Thick as a plank.’
‘A government minister?’
‘Who avoided interviews like the plague. Any time he appeared in public he was reading a prepared speech. Someone else was pulling the strings, you take my word for it.’
Now he was getting somewhere, Steven thought. ‘Would you happen to know who?’
Bleasdale shook his head. ‘I don’t even think the people in his own party knew the whole truth of what was going on.’
‘Not even his cabinet colleagues?’
Bleasdale broke into laughter. ‘Sounds bloody ridiculous when you put it like that, doesn’t it, but I don’t think so. There was a certain reticence about asking or saying too much about Golden Boy at the time, as if… it might not be good for one’s own… career? I don’t know. But they just seemed to accept they had a cabbage sitting beside them and got on with i
t.’
‘Why on earth would they put up with a situation like that?’
‘Because whoever was behind Carlisle was so bloody good,’ said Bleasdale. ‘The Northern Health Scheme was brilliant and probably the reason for the Tories getting back in ’92. Apart from that, Carlisle’s good looks were bringing in a shedload of votes for them. The shire ladies got moist at the very sight of him.’
Steven smiled. ‘But then it all went wrong?’
Bleasdale looked thoughtful. ‘Aye, it did. Although for the life of me I can’t think why.’
‘No idea at all?’
‘I remember some kind of drugs war broke out in Newcastle at the time: people died and suddenly it was all over. Carlisle was shifted to some ministry dealing with European trade regulations and the new woman with the health portfolio abandoned the scheme. If I’d stayed on after ’97, I’d have cheerfully pinched the idea and reintroduced it without a second thought,’ said Bleasdale with a chuckle that Steven found infectious. ‘I’d be sitting in bloody Lords right now.’
‘Why did you leave Parliament?’
Bleasdale gave a shrug. ‘Party changed, lad. Blair arrived. New Labour was old Tory as far as I was concerned. I was having none of it.’
Steven nodded. ‘Looks like the country might just be about to agree with you. Thank you for your help, Mr Bleasdale. I’m much obliged.’
‘It’s Arthur, lad. Now, before you go, what’s Sci-Med’s interest in all this?’
Steven asked Bleasdale if he’d read about the Paris flat explosion.
‘Aye, I did.’
‘At least one of the murdered victims had something to do with the Northern Health Scheme, maybe two, and then John Carlisle takes his own life…’
Bleasdale nodded. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have had the nerve. Takes courage to do that, lad. All that stuff about easy way out is bollocks. Doesn’t sound like Carlisle at all.’