‘Good of you to see me, Mrs French, and at such short notice. Your tireless charity work is well documented.’
‘One does what one can,’ said Maxine with a self-deprecating smile. ‘But I am intrigued, doctor. What exactly does the Sci-Med Inspectorate do?’
Steven told her briefly.
‘Science and medicine progresses at such a rate these days; I’m sure you must be kept very busy,’ she said. ‘But how exactly can I help?’
Steven was aware of his pulse rate increasing as he prepared to take his gamble. ‘Your husband wasn’t just a brilliant scientist, Mrs French… he also served his country in another capacity…’
‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Maxine with an expression that would have served a lottery winner. ‘Charles was such a patriot. No one ever loved his country more than my husband. That’s why he was in Paris, wasn’t it? He was on secret business on behalf of the nation?’
Steven couldn’t believe his luck. His gambit had worked so well he feared that Maxine was about to break into the national anthem. ‘Yes indeed, Mrs French, Charles was working for the government.’
‘I knew it… I knew it. It all makes sense now.’
‘The thing is… Charles was holding some material that must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. His untimely death means that we aren’t quite sure… where it is. I suppose I was hoping that you might be able to help.’
Maxine walked over to where a painting of an English landscape hung over a rectangular marble fireplace set into the wall and housing living flames over a bed of cobbles. She swung the painting back like a door to reveal a safe, causing Steven to reflect on people’s lack of originality, and to reckon that it would have taken a burglar all of thirty seconds to find and maybe another thirty seconds of threats before Maxine revealed the combination. Not very secure at all.
Maxine, however, was to prove him wrong. For a moment he thought the safe was empty when she opened it, but she removed something small and signalled that Steven should follow her outside to the terrace. He saw that she had a plastic card in her hand as she led the way to a small alcove among the plant pots. There she swung open a small trellis that was apparently on hinges and inserted the card in a hidden slot in the wall. It was swallowed like a bank card and a small screen appeared as a dummy brick facing slid back.
‘Don’t touch it!’ warned Maxine as Steven leaned forward to take a look. Steven recoiled at the panic in her voice. ‘It’s a biometric panel,’ she said, putting her own fingertips on it and holding them there for a few seconds. The panel slid back to reveal the contents of a small safe set into one of the apartment’s concrete support pillars. Maxine retrieved a number of disks in plastic cases and handed them over to Steven. ‘I think these are what you’re looking for.’
‘Thank you, Mrs French,’ said Steven, trying to appear calm. He couldn’t resist asking, ‘What would have happened if I’d touched the screen?’
‘It would have blown your face off, doctor.’
Steven silently reconsidered his earlier critical thoughts about the security arrangements. Even if someone had tortured Maxine to reveal the whereabouts of the disks she could simply have handed over the card, shown her attacker where the safe was and stood well clear.
He left the penthouse, thinking that he must have used up a year’s luck all in one morning. He’d got exactly what he wanted without the need for police raids on Deltasoft or French’s home. No damage would be done to public confidence through speculative press stories and Maxine could even return to her tireless charity work, secure in the knowledge that her husband’s secret work on behalf of the nation would go on. Not.
‘You look like the cat who got the cream,’ Jean Roberts told him when he appeared in her office.
‘A better than average morning, Jean. Could you get these over to the lab as quickly as possible?’
‘Will do. I think the DOH people upstairs are just about finished.’
‘I’ll go and see them.’
Steven found the people from the Department of Health packing up and ready to move out. Sophie Thornton came over to speak to him.
‘All done. We’ve arranged the suspect files alphabetically,’ she said, indicating a bench by the window. ‘Nothing new to report, just more of the same: people dying when perhaps they shouldn’t have but with no sinister causes according to the PM reports.’
Steven thanked her and the rest of her team, and stood with them as they waited for the lift on the landing outside to say last farewells — a trait he recognised he had inherited from his mother, who had always made sure that no one left the Dunbar household without at least three versions of goodbye and usually a final wave from the window. Then he returned to the room and rested his hands on top of one of the folder piles.
Sophie’s saying that they were in alphabetical order encouraged him to look for James Kincaid’s father’s notes. He found them without difficulty — a coal-miner who had retired with breathing difficulties due to his long years underground. A man who had finally contracted lung cancer and had died within three weeks of having an operation at College Hospital. Kincaid had been right to be suspicious. If death had been that imminent, surgeons at the hospital wouldn’t have considered operating. The fact that they had, suggested a belief that, with the right therapy, life expectancy should have been a great deal longer than three weeks. Instead, French and his pals… or should he be calling them the Schiller Group after what the Home Secretary had said?… had decided that he was nothing more than a drain on resources. Expendable. Those to the right live, those to the left die.
TWENTY-ONE
Steven got his answer to the Schiller question in the morning when Jean Roberts announced, ‘I’ve remembered why the name Schiller seemed familiar: it’s what Charles French called his breakaway group at university when he left the Conservative club. The Schiller Group.’
‘You’re a star,’ said Steven.
‘I’m beginning to like working for you. Sir John never called me things like that.’
‘He’ll be back soon enough.’
With nothing back from the lab, Steven went for a walk while he thought about French and his student pals. Why had French chosen the name Schiller Group? Had it been coincidence or had it been devilment? Had he known about the real Schiller Group and been trying for some kind of recognition or inclusion, or had it just been chance? Either way it had been something that had attracted the attention of Lady Antonia Freeman’s father, the judge who had uncharacteristically treated French with such leniency when he came before him on serious assault charges. That certainly suggested that French had gained membership of the big boys’ club over it.
Later that evening, when Steven phoned Tally, he discovered that she had managed to get the following day off. ‘We should do something,’ he repeated.
‘Any suggestions?’
‘How well do you know North Wales?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Good, then I’ll show you.’
‘Isn’t that an awfully long way?’
‘I’ve got a…’
‘Porsche,’ supplied Tally. ‘Oh, God… what am I letting myself in for?’
‘I’ll make an early start and pick you up at ten.’
The sun shone next day, making the drive along the North Wales coast a joy. Even Tally — no lover of cars or speed — seemed seduced by the wind in her hair and the throaty sound of the Boxster’s engine. ‘How come you know North Wales?’ she asked above the noise as they slowed at the turn-off to Conwy.
‘I trained here,’ said Steven. ‘Up and down these… mountains.’ He deleted the expletive. ‘I fell in love with it. It’s a beautiful place