Neither Jenny nor her cousins Mary and Peter understood the connotations of the names, which made them all the more amusing for the grown-ups, whose only fear was that the children would come out with them in public. It hadn’t happened yet.
‘It’s ages since I saw you, Daddy.’ Jenny took Steven’s hand on the way into the house and announced, ‘He’s brought Tarty with him.’
‘So I see,’ said Sue, trying to keep a straight face as she came over to embrace Steven. ‘Richard’s in the study, catching up on paperwork. He’ll be down in a minute. The market’s been picking up a bit.’ Richard was a lawyer in Dumfries, specialising in property work.
‘And how has her behaviour been, Aunty Sue?’
‘Excellent.’
Jenny beamed.
‘And her school work?
‘Excellent too. Her teacher is very pleased, as to our amazement were Peter’s and Mary’s teachers too.’ Sue tousled Peter’s hair. ‘It was parents’ night last Tuesday.’
Steven swallowed and quickly smiled to conceal the momentary frisson of regret. ‘In that case, why don’t I take these three star pupils to the cinema in Dumfries this evening? We could catch the early performance and be home by… ten o’clock?’
The children’s eyes widened with excitement at the prospect of being up late, and enthusiastic appeals were made to Sue, who took her time coming to a decision.
‘After all, it isn’t a school night…’ prompted Steven.
‘Are you sure you’re not too tired after such a long drive?’
‘No, but now the bad news. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave early tomorrow morning, so we won’t be able to go to the swimming pool this time.’
It had become traditional that Steven took the children to Dumfries swimming pool when he came up for the weekend, and then treated them to a pizza and ice-cream lunch. ‘I could make it up to you tonight with popcorn and ice-cream…’
This attracted loud approval.
‘Oh well, I suppose,’ agreed Sue as Richard came into the room asking what all the noise had been about.
‘Good show,’ he said, smiling at Sue when she told him. ‘Let’s go down the pub. It’s been ages.’
Steven set off for Newcastle before eight on Sunday morning, hoping to have a word with Lisa Hardesty, James Kincaid’s sister. According to Jean’s notes, she was married to Kevin Hardesty, and had been expecting her first child at the time of her brother’s death. He was going to call on spec rather than phone ahead to arrange a convenient time. He often found that it worked better: it didn’t give people time to prepare what they were going to say or, perhaps more important, what they weren’t. He punched the Hardestys’ post code into Tarty’s satnav and let it take him there.
THIRTEEN
The Hardestys lived on a neat housing estate on the west side of Newcastle. It comprised a mixture of detached and semi-detached houses of the type found in the suburbs of any British city. The Hardestys lived in one of the three-bedroomed detached types. Steven found himself going into estate-agent mode as he looked at its neat garden and hedges. Desirable property in much sought-after area… double glazing, gas central heating… master bedroom en suite…
A three-year-old Vauxhall Astra was parked on the driveway in front of the garage door, so he thought his chances of finding someone in were looking good. Sure enough, the bell was answered by a fair-haired, smiling woman somewhere in her forties who struck Steven as being a round peg in a round hole. Suburban life clearly suited her.
‘Mrs Hardesty?’
‘Yes, that’s right. How can I help?’
Steven liked the way she said it. There was no suspicion that he might be selling something in her voice.
‘I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad moment, Mrs Hardesty,’ he began, going on to say who he was and showing his ID.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t see what you could possibly want with-’
‘I’d like to talk to you about your brother James.’
‘James died a long time ago.’
‘I know.’
Looking confused, Lisa Hardesty said, ‘Please… come in.’ She led the way through a tidy lounge into a small conservatory where she invited Steven to sit down on one of the cane armchairs.
‘You’re alone?’ he asked.
‘My husband and son are off to the football. They’re big Newcastle supporters. Now, what’s this all about?’
‘I’m interested in just how James came to die.’
‘He was shot, for God’s sake,’ exclaimed Lisa. ‘You must know that. He was murdered along with Eve, his girlfriend. She was a lovely girl.’
Steven nodded. ‘I’m sorry. I should have said I’m more interested in why he was murdered.’
‘After all this time,’ Lisa said sadly. ‘According to the police, he got caught up in a drugs war. Drugs war my backside.’
‘That was the official story,’ said Steven quietly, excited at what he was hearing and hoping for more.
‘Jim was in big trouble. He came to me for help. But it wasn’t from any “drugs barons”, as the papers called them. It was from the people at the hospital, the Londoners. He got on the wrong side of them.’
‘The Londoners,’ Steven repeated.
‘They’d set up a new health scheme, centred on College Hospital.’
‘And your brother got on the wrong side of them…’
‘I know it sounds stupid, but Jim was in fear of his life.’
‘You said he came to you for help. Did you help him?’
A look of regret come into Lisa’s eyes; maybe even guilt, Steven thought. ‘No,’ she said. ‘My husband didn’t want us to get involved. Jim asked if Eve could stay with us for safety’s sake, and I had to turn him down. I never saw either of them alive again.’ Lisa looked round for a box of tissues and dabbed at her eyes.
‘Do you have any idea who these people were?’
Lisa shook her head.
‘You said he got on the wrong side of them. What did that mean? What did he do?’
Lisa blew her nose. ‘I only know Jim got friendly with a local GP called Neil Tolkien. They both thought something nasty was going on at the hospital. Jim thought our father died because of them and their newfangled health scheme. He was worried about his daughter too.’
‘Your brother had a daughter?’
Lisa nodded. ‘Kerry. She was brain-damaged after an operation when she was a baby, and lived in a care home. Her mother, Jim’s estranged wife, didn’t bother with her much — she’d built a new life — but Jim always thought she had the capacity to get better if she got the right treatment, bless him. Used to sit with her for hours when he was up here, but of course he couldn’t be here all the time.’
‘Is Kerry still…?’
‘No, she died a couple of months after her dad. Pneumonia, they said. Maybe it was for the best, poor love. She didn’t have much of a life.’
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression that everyone liked the new health scheme when it was introduced.’
‘You’re right, they did. There was no waiting around. Your doctor ordered up your treatment on the computer and it arrived within the hour.’
‘But Jim saw something else?’
‘I don’t think he trusted the people at the hospital. He and Eve thought they covered up the outcome of an operation that went badly wrong.’
‘The one where the surgeon died?’
Lisa nodded. ‘There was a lot of press attention over that, and Jim thought they wheeled out an actress with bandages over her face at a press conference to assure everyone that all was well and get rid of the reporters.’
‘Did he manage to prove that?’
‘I’m not sure. It never made the papers, maybe because he got sidetracked by something else. Then Dad got cancer — he’d been a miner and his chest was never right after that — and had to have an operation. Jim didn’t think he’d been given the right medicine afterwards. Maybe it was just anger and grief on Jim’s part, but on the other hand Dr Tolkien had doubts about what was happening to his patients as well. I think that’s why they teamed up. Eve had reservations too — she was a nurse — and they all ended up paying the price.’