by Ken McClure
Steven made a mental note.
‘Quite a few people died in Newcastle too,’ said Bleasdale thoughtfully. ‘People in and around College Hospital.’
‘In the drugs war,’ said Steven in a tone that made Bleasdale acknowledge the doubt in it with a slight shrug before stating the obvious.
‘Well, it were all such a bloody long time ago.’
Steven got up to go. He shook hands with Bleasdale, thanked him again and told him not to get up.
‘Let me know how you get on, lad.’
Steven arrived at Tally’s flat just before nine p.m. ‘How are you?’ he murmured in her ear as they embraced.
‘Knackered.’
‘Pity.’
Tally withdrew slightly. She smiled and said, ‘Not that knackered. Drink?’
They settled down on the couch, sipping gin and tonic, Tally snuggling in to Steven’s shoulder, Steven’s heels resting on a footstool. ‘Well, tell me all about it,’ she said.
‘I’m all at sea,’ Steven confessed. ‘I’m still not sure what I’m supposed to be investigating.’
‘I knew it. It was all a trick to get you back.’
Steven dismissed the notion with a smile. ‘There are a lot of puzzling things but I don’t see how they fit together as yet.’
‘Try me. I was always good at jigsaws.’
Steven told Tally what he’d been doing and about his meeting with Bleasdale.
‘You know, this reminds me of a film I once saw,’ said Tally. ‘The Manchurian Candidate, all about a Communist plot to get their man to the presidency of the USA.’
‘I remember,’ said Steven. ‘Frank Sinatra was in it. I don’t think John Carlisle was brainwashed though, just dumb.’
‘A handsome front man of no discernible substance,’ said Tally. ‘Not that unusual in politics, when you come to think of it.’
‘No,’ conceded Steven. ‘But the people behind Carlisle were so good that no one in the party made a fuss, and as their secret agenda seemed to be modernising and improving the National Health Service out of all sight, why would they? And then something went wrong and it all disappeared in a mess of unexplained deaths.’
‘I thought you said a drugs war broke out?’
‘That was the official story.’
‘You don’t believe it?’
‘There were never any arrests.’
‘I have a suggestion,’ said Tally after some thought.
‘Mmm?’
‘Let’s go to bed.’
EIGHT
‘I didn’t ask about your mother,’ said Steven, suddenly feeling guilty as the thought came to him at breakfast. ‘Did your sister come up at the weekend?’
Tally nodded. ‘Don’t worry. You had a lot on your mind with what was happening to John and other things. We’ve agreed to look at homes. I’m going to see one this evening.’
Steven nodded, not knowing how to respond. He wanted to say it was probably for the best but could see how much Tally was hurting at the idea. ‘I hope it’s the right one.’
Tally got up to start clearing away the dishes. ‘John’s big day,’ she said.
‘The operation’s scheduled for eleven.’
‘Let me know when you hear something, but it’ll have to be a message on my mobile.’
Steven said he would. ‘Just leave those,’ he said as Tally started to wash up. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’ll do them before I go.’
‘There’s a meeting of senior medical staff this afternoon,’ she said, drying her hands. ‘I think it may have something to do with that new vaccines agreement with the pharmaceutical companies we were talking about.’
‘Why should that affect you?’
‘I think we’re going to be asked to suggest priorities,’ said Tally, putting on her jacket and coming over to kiss him goodbye.
‘I suspect the defence of the realm people will have first bite of that particular cherry,’ he said.
‘No harm in letting our views be known. We’re not all pessimists when it comes to bio-attack. Let’s not forget weapons of mass destruction. Are they still looking?’
Steven smiled. ‘Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Steven drove back to London, wondering what his next move should be, but thoughts of John Macmillan and the two possible outcomes of the operation kept interfering with his train of thought. If John died, would he really consider taking over? Come to that, would he get the chance? He might be John Macmillan’s preferred successor, but if Macmillan wasn’t around to have the final say, Government, new or old, might see an opportunity to interfere, and he had put up a few backs over the years. In fact, more than a few if he were honest.
But if John should pull through and take up the reins again, would he go or would he stay? Tally had insisted he return to Sci-Med but rightly or wrongly she’d been feeling guilty at the time, and that could change when she found herself under the stress and strain of ‘not knowing’ — the feeling she’d always feared. There was also his reason for having resigned in the first place — a matter of principle which didn’t seem so clear-cut now that he had experienced life in that bloody awful job at Ultramed.
‘Shit, I don’t know,’ he exclaimed out loud as he entered the outskirts of the capital. There were just too many variables… as was the case with his current investigation. He decided to dump the car at his apartment and head over to the Home Office to wait out the operation with Jean Roberts.
Jean broke into a big smile when he appeared. ‘I’m so glad I’m not here on my own this morning,’ she said. ‘How did you get on up north?’
‘Bleasdale was very helpful. Thanks for setting the meeting up. Turns out Carlisle was a man of straw.’
‘Most men are,’ said Jean. ‘Present company excepted,’ she added quickly.
Steven smiled. He knew Jean had never married and wondered if her comment had been born of past bitterness. He decided not to pursue the matter as he saw the hands of the clock reach eleven o’clock. ‘Good luck, John,’ he said.
‘Amen to that,’ said Jean.
Steven found himself imagining the smell of burning bone in the theatre as the surgeon’s trephine removed a segment of John Macmillan’s skull to allow access to the brain. He tried to dismiss the image and asked, ‘Jean, how did John know that the Charles French murdered in the Paris explosion was the one involved in the Northern Health Scheme?’
Jean looked thoughtful. ‘The name, I suppose.’
‘You think he remembered that a man named Charles French was part of the Northern Health Scheme all these years ago?’
‘No, I don’t think it happened that way… Let me see, DCS Malloy told him about Charles French renting the Paris flat and being one of the victims… Antonia Freeman was also identified, and Sir John remembered who she was… then John Carlisle took his own life and I was asked to come up with information on the health scheme. He would have seen the name in the stuff I gave him about that.’
‘Right,’ said Steven. ‘That makes sense. What do we know about French?’
‘Largely what DCSMalloy told Sir John. He was a Cambridge graduate, chief executive of Deltasoft Computing and a pillar of the community.’
‘Carlisle was at Cambridge,’ said Steven, thinking out loud.
‘You think they might have known each other when they were students?’
‘Worth finding out.’
‘Right. Actually, I’ve just remembered something else. It wasn’t just Charles French’s name John would have seen in the old info, it was the company name as well. French was running Deltasoft at the time of the health scheme.’
‘You’re absolutely right. I should have picked up on that. Well done, Jean. So his contribution presumably would have been in the provision of software to run the operation.’
‘Seems logical.’
‘Quite a contribution when computers weren’t what they are today… Maybe our man of substance behind the man of straw.’
‘What would
you like me to do first?’ Jean asked.
‘See if Charles French and John Carlisle were at Cambridge at the same time. We’ll take it from there.’
‘Will do,’ said Jean. She looked up at the clock. ‘Too soon to phone?’ she asked.
‘I think so. Brain surgery takes time.’
Steven phoned at one thirty and was told that Macmillan was still in theatre. He suggested that Jean go to lunch and waited until she returned before checking again. The operation was over: the surgeons were optimistic that they had managed to remove all the tumour, which had proved to be benign, but only time would tell the extent of collateral damage caused by its excision. For the moment, he was stable and sleeping peacefully.
‘So far so good,’ said Jean, but both were considering what ‘collateral damage’ might mean, without actually mentioning the subject.
Steven went out to get a sandwich and some fresh air while Jean started to make enquiries about Carlisle and French’s university days. She had an answer when he returned.
‘They were at Cambridge at the same time, but at different colleges.’
‘Same course?’
‘No. Carlisle left with a lower second in history; French took a double first in maths and physics.’
‘So they might not have known each other,’ mused Steven.
‘I’m working on that. My source says she’ll call me back in a couple of hours.’
‘Okay. I think I’ll go over to the hospital and see if I can have a word with John’s wife.’
‘She could probably do with a bit of moral support.’
Steven didn’t stay long at the hospital because there was nothing to be done except wait, and that was best left to family. Once he had assured John’s wife that the thoughts of the people at Sci-Med were with her, and had enthused about the fact that the tumour was benign and the surgeons had got all of it out, he left and went back to the flat in Marlborough Court.
Jean phoned as he was making coffee. ‘They did know each other,’ she said. ‘Both were members of the Conservative club throughout their time at Cambridge.’
‘Well done, you. Now we’re getting somewhere.’
‘There’s more. French had a falling out with other members of the club at the start of his final year and left to set up a breakaway faction, taking quite a few of the others with him. My source also seems to think there was some trouble involving the police at a later stage and French appeared in court, but she doesn’t have details. Would you like me to run with it?’
Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘No, I think I’ll ask Charlie Malloy about that. I wanted to talk to him anyway about the others who died in Paris. Jean, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I would like to have a word with John Carlisle’s wife after all. Do you think you could set that up?’
‘Will do.’
Steven called DCS Malloy.
‘I heard you were back,’ said Malloy. ‘Unfortunate circumstances, though. How is he?’
Steven brought Malloy up to speed on John Macmillan’s condition.
‘Good bloke, your governor.’
‘He is,’ agreed Steven. ‘Charlie, that bloke Charles French who died in Paris, did he have a record?’
‘A record? Well, he was a victim, not a suspect. I’m not even sure if we ran a check once we’d identified him. We probably had no reason to once we’d established he was the millionaire boss of a computing company and a pillar of his local community.’
‘I think he might have got into some trouble when he was a student in Cambridge.’
‘That wasn’t yesterday,’ said Malloy.
‘No, it was a very long time ago,’ agreed Steven. ‘And maybe you could run record checks on the others killed in the blast too?’
‘If you think it necessary…’
‘I’d be obliged, Charlie. I’m clutching at straws here, I admit, but this is John’s thing and if he thought it worth pursuing…’
‘Fair enough. I’ll be in touch.’
The phone rang almost as soon as he put it down. It was Jean asking him if he could meet Melissa Carlisle at her home, Markham House in Kent, at eleven the following morning. ‘She’s going abroad the day after and doesn’t know when she’ll be back,’ Jean explained.
‘Absolutely fine.’
At seven p.m., just as he was beginning to think that it would be the following day before he heard back from CS Malloy, Steven got a call.
‘You were right. French picked up form back in 1975. Apparently he was heavily into politics at university, but fell out with the Conservatives and went on to set up a rival group that went from strength to strength under his leadership. It was their practice to invite various right-wing speakers to their meetings, something that annoyed their fellow students no end. When French and his pals asked along a South African politician not noted for his liberal views on race, the lefties set up a protest rally and succeeded in stopping the meeting. French lost the plot and went after one of the protesters. He laid into him like a man possessed, according to witnesses. The chap ended up losing an eye and French was charged with causing grievous bodily harm.’
‘Not the best start in life for either of them,’ said Steven.
‘French got off with a fine,’ said Malloy.
‘What?’
‘The judge was minded to see what happened as the passions of youth getting a bit out of hand. He saw no good reason to destroy the future career of a brilliant student.’
‘Who was the judge?’ Steven wrote down the name. ‘Anything on the others in Paris?’
‘Pure as the driven snow, unless you count giving large sums of money to the Conservative Party as criminal.’
‘I’m much obliged to you, Charlie.’
Ending the call, Steven looked at the judge’s name on the pad in front of him, the phrase passions of youth running through his head. ‘Seems a bit lenient for the loss of an eye, m’lud,’ he murmured as he turned on his laptop and set up a Google search for his lordship. This revealed that the good judge had not enjoyed a reputation for leniency during his career. On the contrary, he had been renowned for the harshness of his sentencing. One observer had noted that the frustration of not having hanging and flogging among his options had left him with a grudge that he took out on everyone unfortunate enough to be tried before him and found guilty.
‘Then why go easy on French?’ muttered Steven, giving birth to the cynical thought that perhaps his lordship was a Cambridge man himself
… No, that wasn’t the case, Steven learned as he looked through his personal details. The judge had died back in 1988, leaving behind him a wife, Matilda, and a daughter, Antonia, who was married to a surgeon, Sir Martin Freeman. There were no grandchildren.
Steven stared at the screen. The judge who’d let Charles French off with a fine had been Antonia Freeman’s father?
NINE
Steven called Tally to talk over the day’s events.
‘I got your text,’ said Tally. ‘It’s good news about the tumour, and that they managed to get all of it.’
Steven agreed. ‘Now it’s a case of waiting to see how much trauma was caused to the surrounding brain tissue.’
‘I take it they’re not hazarding a guess?’
‘You know surgeons.’
‘Mmm.’
He told her what he’d come up with during the day.
‘Sounds like you’re making progress.’
‘Placing Carlisle and French at Cambridge at the same time was a plus,’ he agreed, ‘as was establishing their common interest in right-of-centre politics. Antonia Freeman’s father popping up as the judge who let French off on a GBH charge was a bit of a showstopper, though. I didn’t see that coming.’
‘So, what was going on there, d’you think?’
‘Difficult to say. I’m inclined to think there must have been some good reason for it… something I’ve yet to establish. Something else I’ve yet to establish,’ Steven added.
‘And then French and th
e judge’s daughter end up being blown to bits in Paris together some twenty years later,’ said Tally. ‘Just where do you go with that?’
‘First, I want a word with Carlisle’s wife. I’m going to see her tomorrow.’
‘His widow,’ Tally corrected. ‘What do you think she can tell you?’
‘If French was really the brains behind her husband. Suppositions are like thin ice; it would be nice to have something solid under my feet.’
‘Good luck,’ said Tally, her tone reflecting the doubt she felt.
‘I know it’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try. How did your meeting go?’
‘It was just a case of filling in the details of what the new scheme would mean, and asking for our views. The government’s in the process of putting the manufacturing contract out to tender. After that, they’ll commission a whole range of vaccines — a sort of central supply — the idea being that once it’s up and running we shouldn’t have last-minute rushes like the one with swine flu, and the public will be less exposed to the risk of epidemics.’
‘Was I right about the MOD having first call on what vaccines should be produced?’
‘Yes, and surprise surprise, it’s a secret. ‘
‘I guess they made the difficult decisions, took the tough choices
…’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘Well, as long as they don’t start arguing over details and get it up and running soon,’ said Steven.
‘We can agree on that.’
‘And on that happy note…’
‘Do you think you’ll manage to get up at the weekend?’
‘I certainly plan to, unless fate gets in the way.’
‘Don’t fall for the grieving widow tomorrow.’
Steven returned to thinking about his investigation. He was accumulating pieces of a puzzle but assembly was being hindered by having no notion of the picture on the box. He needed a sense of order. He got out a notepad and started to write down what he knew.
John Carlisle, Cambridge-educated but no great intellect — interested in politics — good-looking front man for brighter folk — made it to cabinet rank with a little help from his friends, and given credit for designing the Northern Health Scheme but probably didn’t. Faded into obscurity, and took his own life after being exposed as an expenses cheat.