‘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 the 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.
Charles French, Cambridge-educated, brilliant — a double first — very interested in politics, involved in an unsavoury incident leading to criminal charges but got off thanks to an exceedingly lenient judge, set up Deltasoft, a software company which was involved in the Northern Health Scheme, went on to become a big player in the computer world and a pillar of the community, according to Charlie Malloy. Murdered in Paris.
Antonia Freeman, wife of surgeon, Sir Martin Freeman, operating at the same hospital where the Northern Health Scheme was trialled and at the same time but, perhaps more important, daughter of the judge who let Charles French off on a charge of GBH. Murdered in Paris.
Steven doodled with his pen at the corner of the page while he went over what he’d written. French hadn’t been completely ‘let off’, he reminded himself: he had been fined. No big deal as a punishment perhaps, but enough to give him a criminal record for a particularly nasty offence, something that would almost certainly have come back to haunt him had he tried to pursue a political career of his own. On the other hand, there was nothing to stop him operating as a backroom boy, out of the public eye and away from press interest.
Everything pointed to French’s being the brains behind Carlisle. They were at university together, had both been in the Conservative club, and, later, French’s company had supplied the sophisticated software for the innovative health scheme up in Newcastle.
Steven found that this conclusion raised more questions than it answered. However bright French had been as a student, and subsequently as a software designer, he had not been in any position to arrange a safe seat for Carlisle or smooth his progress through the parliamentary ranks. Others had been involved… person or persons unknown. It wasn’t the Northern Health Scheme that was the link connecting these people; there was something else, something bigger, some group or association that included a high court judge and people in positions of real power. The Northern Health Scheme was something they had been involved in but it wasn’t the be all and end all.