Steven relished the intellectual freedom this conclusion gave him. He could now widen his thinking to include the others who’d died in Paris and see what it all added up to. He shuffled his way through the bits of paper he’d been accumulating and found what Charlie Malloy had told Macmillan about the Paris dead. Apart from Antonia Freeman and Charles French, they comprised three big names from the world of business and a senior civil servant. He didn’t have names to hand but Charlie had also mentioned large donations to the Conservative Party. He had enough to go on to form a working hypothesis. What these people had in common was right-wing politics, perhaps even extreme right-wing politics.
The obvious common ground for them would be the Conservative Party but the way the John Carlisle story was shaping up suggested not. Everything pointed to their working outside the mainstream of the party. Twenty years ago they had used John Carlisle as a front for their association, presumably to promote their aims, which were what exactly? A toughie, thought Steven. All he had to go on was the success they’d made of the Northern Health Scheme. He smiled as he found himself looking at an extreme right-wing faction that had greatly improved the National Health Service in the north of England at a time when everyone believed the Tories were very much for getting rid of it. Maybe they all lived in Sherwood Forest as well, he thought, as he threw down his pen.
There were, of course, the deaths in the north at the time to consider, the victims of the ‘drugs war’, which now looked even more fanciful. There had been another reason for all these deaths, and the fact that no prosecutions had been brought… Steven felt a chill run up his spine as he wondered just how much power these people were capable of wielding. His desire to find out what had made John Macmillan so uneasy had now been granted in spades. He didn’t understand what had really been behind the Northern Health Scheme but, whatever it was, it was a fair bet it had had nothing to do with care and concern.
Steven saw he was following in the footsteps of James Kincaid, the journalist who’d been murdered along with his nurse girlfriend. It wasn’t the drug barons he’d fallen foul of: it was ‘them’. He must have come too close to what had been going on and paid the price with his life, as had his editor.
Steven wondered if this had been true for all who’d died back then. But there was a possibility they hadn’t all been on the same side — the old hostage-situation dilemma where outside rescuers had no way of telling the good guys from the bad when they stormed the building. Steven’s train of thought slowed and finally hit the buffers when he was forced to recognise that the people who’d been behind the operation twenty years ago — Carlisle, French and the others in the Paris flat — were in no position to reprise whatever it was they’d been up to. They were all dead.
An act of vengeance? Had someone carried a grudge for all these years and taken retribution on a cold winter’s day in Paris, or had it been down to something else? Could the Paris killings have been the result of internecine strife? If so, had the group or organisation or whatever it was been wiped out or had it just been reborn?
Steven revisited Antonia Freeman’s father’s leniency towards Charles French. It made sense now. Antonia’s father had been by all accounts as far right as it was possible to get. He must have recognised a kindred spirit in French, possibly even recruited him and his right-wing breakaway group to a bigger, more organised body, one that did have the wherewithal to get John Carlisle into a position of influence and power.
Steven suddenly saw how he could eliminate the possibility of an act of vengeance in Paris. Charlie Malloy had highlighted the secret nature of the meeting. The individuals concerned had gone to great lengths to leave no trail of their movements or indeed inform anyone where they were going — not even close family. But the person who had set the bomb must have known in advance where the meeting was being held, and prepared accordingly. The bomber had been one of those who’d been invited to the meeting. He or she had been one of ‘them’. The chances were it had not been revenge; it had been a coup.
‘Shit,’ said Steven under his breath as he saw the magnitude of his task grow. He didn’t know who ‘they’ were; he didn’t know how big the organisation was and he didn’t know what they were planning. He decided his only option was to learn from the past. He might be dealing with a case of history repeating itself if there was to be some kind of revival of the Northern Health Scheme, so he’d have to try to find out what Carlisle and his colleagues had been up to back in the early nineties. ‘A stroll down memory lane,’ he murmured as he called it a night.
Markham House looked impressive, Steven thought, as he got out of the car to use the phone at the side of the gates. He only managed a brief look, however, before turning away from a bitter wind which was whipping sleet into his face. ‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he complained, as no one up at the house seemed keen to answer the buzzer. He pressed twice more before an upper-class female voice said, ‘Yes, who is it?’
‘Steven Dunbar, Sci-Med Inspectorate.’
‘You’d better come in.’
‘Yes, I’d better,’ murmured Steven, shrugging his shoulders in discomfort as rain-water found a way inside his collar to trickle down his back. The iron gates swung open and Steven drove up to the house.
TEN
Melissa Carlisle’s expression could best be described as neutral, Steven thought, as she held the door open and gestured that he should come in. The fact that she kept her right hand on it suggested that she had no intention of shaking hands, so he stepped smartly inside and waited.
‘This way.’
He followed her into the drawing room and sat down on the chair that she indicated to him by way of a languid hand motion.
‘I don’t have much time. I’m leaving the country tomorrow.’
‘Holiday?’ Steven asked.
‘South Africa. A period of recovery.’
‘Ah yes, your sad loss.’
‘I’ve never heard of the Sci-Med Inspectorate, but I assume it’s John you’ve come here to discuss; the woman who telephoned me made it clear I didn’t have much choice in the matter. We get more like a police state every day. What is it this time? Ye gods, my poor husband isn’t cold in his grave. What exactly does the great voting public want now? His eyes?’
‘As I understand it, your husband committed suicide after making a fraudulent expenses claim over a property he didn’t actually own, and being found out,’ said Steven.
‘A complete misunderstanding.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ exclaimed Melissa, assuming an expression of wide-eyed disbelief.
‘As you don’t have much time, Mrs Carlisle, I though we should cut to the chase,’ said Steven, who had decided before coming that his only chance of success might be to go on the offensive. ‘I’m not interested in expenses claims. I’m not the press, and I am not under any obligation to report our conversation to anyone. What I need to know is just how a man of limited intellect, by all accounts, reached cabinet rank, received universal acclaim for the design of a revolutionary health scheme he didn’t actually design, and then plunged into obscurity before topping himself over a seedy little expenses fiddle.’
There was a long silence, during which Melissa stared at Steven unflinchingly. Just as he thought his gamble wasn’t going to pay off, she broke eye contact and said, ‘His suicide surprised me too. I didn’t think he’d have the balls.’