‘Why so?’
Jean shrugged. ‘They really didn’t want to part with them. I had to get Sir John to intervene.’
‘Can’t think why,’ said Steven, looking genuinely puzzled. ‘But thanks as always.’
‘As always, you’re welcome,’ said Jean, tongue in cheek.
The door to John Macmillan’s office opened and he looked out. ‘Thought I heard your voice. Got a moment?’
‘Wild goose chase?’ asked Macmillan when Steven had closed the door.
‘Pretty much,’ agreed Steven. ‘There’s no reason to believe Scott Haldane was murdered. On the other hand there was no real reason for him to commit suicide either. The girl patient, however, says her scalding was an accident so there was no reason for Haldane to go off on a guilt trip… although that’s far from clear too.’
‘Sounds like a foggy night,’ said Macmillan.
‘You could say.’
‘Can I ask why you requested the girl’s medical notes?’
‘Haldane’s wife said that her husband had terrible trouble getting his hands on them and finding anyone to talk to about the case. I suppose I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Why do you ask?’
Steven’s question was designed to highlight the fact that Macmillan did not usually question his investigators’ motives for doing anything.
‘Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not interfering,’ insisted Macmillan with a smile. ‘I just thought you should know that I had considerable difficulty in obtaining them after Jean told me she’d hit the wall with a simple request. It may be nothing but if government departments start getting obstructive when we ask them for things, it usually means… it’s something worth knowing. I just thought I’d tell you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘It’s probably tied up with the green sticker business.’ He told Macmillan about the children’s exposure to TB at the Lake District camp. ‘I suspect they’re a bit sensitive about giving out information. They wouldn’t want the press having a field day over it.’
On impulse, Steven decided to walk back to his apartment and sit by the river for a while to leaf through Trish Lyons’ notes. His concentration was interrupted at intervals by the commentary from passing Thames tourist boats as they ploughed their way up and down the river. ‘The building on your right is…’ Not that much concentration was required. It was clear from the notes that Trish had been a healthy baby who had grown into a healthy child. In fact, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary in the notes until she had gone to Pinetops school camp and had been exposed to a child there who had been diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. She’d been given BCG vaccine as a precaution and ‘green-stickered’ to ensure that her future health and wellbeing was monitored.
Steven was puzzled and disappointed. He couldn’t see what all the fuss had been about or why it should have proved difficult to get access to these notes or why Scott Haldane had needed to discuss anything in them. What was there to discuss?
Well, there must have been something, Steven concluded, but he certainly wasn’t looking at it. That fact alone was enough to stop him drawing a line under the affair. He hated the idea of missing anything — a good investigator turned over all the stones and there must be one stone missing in this case. They might well be sensitive to outside interest but he would ask the green sticker people a few more questions just to see what happened.
Steven decided to focus on statistics. He would ask how many children were affected by the exposure and just for good measure… who they all were. He would also ask for details about the child who had caused the panic in the first place — name, address and current state of health. He called Jean Roberts with his request.
‘And if they should baulk at that and ask if this information is really necessary?’ she asked.
‘The answer’s yes.’
It took two days and another intervention by John Macmillan to get the information Steven had requested and even then, details about the child who had contracted tuberculosis were missing. ‘Sir John will explain,’ said Jean.
‘Her Majesty’s Government is only too well aware of the potential repercussions of revealing that a non-white immigrant child has exposed a number of British children to the scourge of tuberculosis,’ said Macmillan. ‘It has been decided that only a select few should have access to the child’s identity and whereabouts. A top level decision, I’m told.’
‘And we are not among that select few?’
Macmillan paused for a moment before saying, ‘I know it’s in your nature to dig in your heels and demand to know things. This is not a criticism; you’ve usually been right when you’ve smelled a rat but on this occasion I have to ask you formally if it is really necessary for you to know the identity of this child — if it is, I promise I will get it for you but first you have to assure me that it is.’
It was Steven’s turn to pause for thought. ‘No, it isn’t absolutely necessary,’ he admitted, although he added quickly, ‘at the moment.’
Later, Steven sat down in his favourite chair by the window in his apartment where he could see the river traffic pass by through a gap in the buildings opposite. A Sci-Med salary did not run to a riverside address. He had had to settle for one street back but it had everything he needed and afforded him views of the sky and the river. As he slumped back in the chair looking up at passing clouds, he wondered what Scott Haldane had been so upset about — not being given details of the child with TB? He doubted that. It could have no relevance. No, he concluded, he was still missing something here. Maybe he still hadn’t asked the right question.
Yet again, he looked down the list of children who had been green-stickered for follow-up, one hundred and eight from across the UK and all in the twelve-to thirteen-year-old age range. Was it something in the way they had been exposed to the danger that had alarmed Haldane? Maybe a lack of primary checks on immigrant pupils? Possibly something in the way the incident had been handled at Pinetops? Or afterwards? The continuing niggle that he was missing something made Steven decide to drive up to the Lake District in the morning.
SEVEN
After several hours of stop-go travel due to road works and the sheer volume of traffic, Steven finally found some space on the M6 and gunned the Porsche Boxster up to the legal limit. As he’d noticed so many times before, the further north you travelled, the lighter the traffic became. He had bought the Porsche as a replacement for his ageing MGF when it had finally become too expensive to maintain and its British manufacturer looked like joining it in the knackers’ yard. He knew that a Porsche might be considered an indulgence when he had so little time to drive it but he had compromised on his original plan to nuke the piggy bank completely and go for the 911 and settled instead for its little brother, the Boxster. Boys’ toys? Maybe, but there was no Mrs Dunbar to point this out.
Around two in the afternoon, the soporific boredom of the motorway gave way to the winding roads of the Lake District where the Porsche came into its own, sticking to the road like glue through the curves however hard he pushed it, not that he pushed it too hard, just enough to experience the exhilaration that driving a Porsche could bring.
He had deliberately come a bit further north on the motorway than had strictly been necessary just so that he could drive along the north shore of Ullswater and pass through Glenridding where he’d spent his childhood before heading on down to Windermere. His parents were both dead and he had no siblings so there was no reason for him to stop there but it was nice to flirt with old memories and feel nostalgia for an upbringing that had been idyllic. He coaxed the Porsche up through the Kirkstone Pass and paused at the top to take in the view. It never failed to gladden his heart. Wordsworth could keep his daffodils; for him the mountains were the thing. He had come to know other mountains well in his lifetime — especially those of North Wales, which had featured so much in his military training — but the Lake District peaks would always hold a special place in his heart. Feeling good, he let the Porsche dawdle down the pass into Windermere and started out along the shore road to Pinetops.