Lost causes

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.’

Steven found it difficult not to react to what he was hearing. It was the script of a nightmare. He could see that Lisa was still upset but was reluctant to stop questioning her. ‘You said your brother and Dr Tolkien teamed up. Eve too. Was anyone else on side?’

Lisa thought for a moment before saying, ‘I think there was, now you come to mention it. Holland, somebody Holland. I think he had something to do with computers at the hospital. ‘

‘Anyone else?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Mrs Hardesty, I’m sorry for disturbing your Sunday and bringing back such painful memories, but you’ve been most helpful.’

‘It’s nice to know someone’s interested in Jim’s death after all these years. No one was at the time.’

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ said Tally when Steven arrived at her apartment the wrong side of seven thirty.

‘Sorry, I had to go to Newcastle. A quick shower and I’ll be right with you. Where shall we go?’

‘Look, we don’t have to go out,’ said Tally sympathetically. ‘I can rustle up something here and you can relax and get your breath back…’

‘No, we’re going out.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Tally with a smile at Steven’s insistence, ‘but I’ll do the driving. You look as if you could do with a drink.’

They drove to a popular Indian restaurant where they had no trouble getting a table on a Sunday night. The place was about half full, and muted sitar music set the atmosphere as they sat under chandeliers, surrounded by red flock wallpaper.

‘Why did you go to Newcastle?’ asked Tally.

Steven told her about his trip to see James Kincaid’s sister and what she’d been able to tell him.

‘You know, this is shaping up into something really nasty,’ said Tally.

Steven agreed. ‘But at least I can now sort out the good guys from the bad among the dead.’

‘But as to what they were up to…’

‘I’m a way off that yet,’ said Steven. ‘The system was supposed to be foolproof but Kincaid thought they had killed his father by giving him the wrong treatment and Neil Tolkien thought the same about some of his patients.’

‘From what you’ve told me, there didn’t seem to be much margin for error,’ argued Tally. ‘If a doctor prescribed a certain drug, a computer checked that the treatment was appropriate, and only stipulated a cheaper alternative if it had been clinically proved to be as good. Then the automated pharmacy department was instructed to supply it. What could go wrong?’

‘You’d think it would be a safer system than the usual one,’ Steven agreed.

‘Mind you,’ Tally began thoughtfully, ‘I think you once told me that Tolkien was involved with drug addicts…’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘What did Kincaid’s father die of?’

‘I understand he had long-term chest problems because of his occupation and he’d just developed cancer. They operated but he didn’t live for long afterwards.’

Tally topped up Steven’s glass. ‘I suppose we have no way of knowing that the drug addicts were the patients Neil Tolkien was worried about, but if they were… we could be looking at lost causes here.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘An old man, chronically ill and now with cancer… a number of addicts with associated problems like HIV and AIDS… people who were costing the NHS a lot of money with no real prospect of getting better

…’

‘God, I see what you’re getting at,’ said Steven. ‘Although I wish I didn’t… Kincaid was worried about his daughter too. She was brain-damaged and in long-term residential care. She died of pneumonia a couple of months after her father.’

‘Just a thought,’ said Tally.

‘And a brilliantly awful one too,’ said Steven quietly, his mind reeling with the implications. ‘I’m going to see if I can lay my hands on hospital and GP records at the time, if they still exist. See if I can spot a pattern along those lines. The early deaths of lost causes.’

‘It would be absolutely horrible if it were true…’ said Tally, pausing.

‘But?’

‘Sounds terrible to say it, but it would be… historical. This was all nearly twenty years ago and the perpetrators — if that’s what they were — are all dead.’

Steven looked at her, wondering for a moment whether to just agree or to tell her more. His natural inclination was always to keep things to himself, but this time he decided there had to be one person in his life he had to trust absolutely. ‘Maybe they’re not all dead,’ he said. He told her of his suspicions regarding the identity of the Paris bomber. ‘It could have been some kind of coup,’ he finished. ‘He was one of them.’

‘It could equally be they were planning to set up the same thing again and the bomber decided to put a stop to it.’

‘Maybe, maybe not, but my fear is it could be business as usual under new management.’

‘Okay, now I understand why you must find out everything about what happened twenty years ago,’ said Tally. ‘If we’re on the right lines, we know the crime and we know the motive — to save money. What we don’t know is how they did it.’

‘God, I’m tired.’

‘You look it. Let’s go home.’

Tally had to leave before Steven in the morning. ‘Last night was a landmark,’ she said after she kissed him goodbye.

‘How so?’

‘A landmark in our relationship. It was the first time we ever went to bed without making love.’

‘God, I’m sorry. I don’t know…’

Tally put a finger on his lips. ‘Don’t be. It was nice. You held my hand, told me you loved me and went out like a light. I believed you. I slept like a log.’