Lost causes

NINETEEN

‘You look tired,’ said John Macmillan when Steven sat down.

‘Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?’ Steven’s grin took a deal of effort.

‘Things not going well?’

He explained about the COBRA meeting and the reported threat.

Macmillan’s shoulders slumped forward as he let out a sigh. ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘We knew this had to happen. But now that it’s here on our doorstep the very thought of it is just as horrifying as if it had come out of the blue. Any idea what?’

‘None.’

Macmillan echoed Steven’s earlier thoughts regarding a chemical attack. ‘We can cope with that, but microbes let loose on a largely unprotected population… doesn’t bear thinking about. It could destroy the entire country.’

‘Merryman are being asked to step up vaccine production, but it could well be too late.’

Macmillan nodded. ‘We’re always a bit too late in this country. It’s a way of life… but when it comes to locking stable doors after the horse has bolted we have the most secure doors in the world.’

Steven was a little disturbed at hearing Macmillan sound so cynical. It was unlike him. ‘MI5 are pretty sure the would-be attackers are “home-grown”, to use their word.’

‘So the disaffected of Leicester or Birmingham are seeking to wipe out the country they were born in… ye gods.’ Macmillan looked Steven straight in the eye. ‘Strikes me we’re going to need all the good people we’ve got. I take it you will stay on at Sci-Med until… such times?’

Steven nodded.

‘I suppose in the light of what you’ve just told me this pales into insignificance, but what’s been happening with your investigation?’

‘Everything’s pointing to Carlisle and his pals being involved in mass murder back in the early nineties.’

Macmillan’s eyelids shot up.

‘They were killing off people who were costing society a lot of money.’

‘A population cull?’

‘That’s what it looks like, but I don’t know how they were doing it. Nothing was ever found in any of the bodies subjected to PM examination. Highly dependent people just conveniently died after being treated in the Northern Health Scheme area.’

‘But they must have died of something.’

‘Natural causes.’

‘Which means what?’

Steven narrowed his eyes as he considered the question. He decided not to bring up Jean Roberts’s suggestion of an unknown toxin. ‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘they died of what they were expected to die of. They all had conditions that required treatment by either their GP or College Hospital… and they were all prescribed appropriate medication

…’

‘But they still died of their condition, so maybe…’

‘They weren’t treated at all,’ Steven finished.

Macmillan nodded. ‘They were culling the population by denying treatment to those who were perceived to be a drain on resources. So the question is, how did they manage to withhold treatment without anyone noticing?’

‘That’s where French’s computer expertise must have come in,’ said Steven. ‘He must have come up with a program that would take into account the age and medical records of the patients. If you were on the wrong side of the line — too old, long-term sick, increasingly infirm, a drug addict or suffering from an incurable condition — the computer decided you got nothing.’

‘And that’s where Schreiber’s pharmacy would come into its own. They must have come up with drug packaging that looked like the real thing but held pills or capsules that contained nothing but… sugar or chalk, useless placebos.’

‘It was that simple,’ said Steven with a final shake of the head. He exchanged a wry smile with Macmillan, a pleasing moment for both men, who recognised that they were still a good team and, more important, would continue to be. Nothing had changed as a legacy of Macmillan’s illness.

‘But we’ve no proof,’ said Macmillan.

The men knew each other well enough for Macmillan to interpret Steven’s look as comment about the age of the crime and the fact that the perpetrators were all dead, not to mention the new horror they were now facing. ‘You should still carry on,’ he said. ‘I think we owe it to the people who died. Not least the journalist and the doctor who worked out what the bastards were up to.’

Steven nodded.

‘Besides, it’ll take our minds off what we have to look forward to. God help us all.’

Steven said, ‘Schreiber’s long dead, but French was alive and well right up until the meeting in Paris. If they were planning to reintroduce the scheme, the software must be around, probably in the Deltasoft offices.’

‘A raid?’

‘A raid,’ agreed Steven.

‘You’ll have to clear it with the Home Secretary. French was a powerful man, a stalwart of the community and a big donor to the party.’

‘You don’t think…’ began Steven hesitantly.

‘Perish the thought,’ said Macmillan. ‘She’s the Home Secretary.’

Steven resisted the temptation to point out that John Carlisle had been the health secretary, but Macmillan noticed he was biting his tongue. ‘Charlie Malloy is coming to see me tomorrow. I’ll ask him to have everything ready to go the minute you get approval from on high.’

Steven nodded his thanks. ‘Good to have you back, John.’

‘Thank you.’

Steven had anticipated a difficult interview with the Home Secretary. He wasn’t disappointed. The fact that he had been more than forthright at the COBRA meeting didn’t help.

‘If your reputation for success didn’t precede you, Dr Dunbar, I would be tempted to turn down your request and dismiss what you’ve just suggested as being too ridiculous for words. Are you seriously telling me that the government of the day was party to such an outrage?’

‘No, Home Secretary, I’m not. I think the health department back then was infiltrated by others — I’m sorry I can’t be more specific — but John Carlisle, the then secretary of state, was certainly part of the conspiracy, knowingly or otherwise.’

The Home Secretary diverted her gaze for a moment before saying quietly, ‘I think it was “otherwise”.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Carlisle called me before he died. His wife and I were friends when we were younger.’

Steven was aware of the pulse in his neck as a long silence ensued.

‘I thought he was just trying to save his own miserable skin — and he was — but he came out with some ridiculous story about having his career ruined by other people when he was health secretary back in the early nineties. Claimed he was stabbed in the back by people he referred to as the Schiller mob, who were pursuing their own agenda.’

‘But he didn’t know what they were up to?’

‘If he did, he didn’t say — and that would have been the time to say it. If ever there was a time to show the strength of your hand… But I thought he was making the whole thing up, so I didn’t probe. Mind you…’

Steven’s eyes opened wide, encouraging the minister to say more.

‘I have heard rumours from time to time about… some faction calling themselves the Schiller Group. But you know what Westminster’s like. Rumours abound.’

‘The Northern Health Scheme wasn’t just the project of a few,’ said Steven. ‘It had powerful backing, not least from those who got John Carlisle elected in the first place and oversaw his rise through the ranks.’

‘Well, it was all a very long time ago — not that that excuses any of it in any way if what you say is true — but I just wonder if this is the right time to be destroying confidence in the government?’

‘Is there ever a right time?’

‘Point taken,’ conceded the Home Secretary with the merest hint of a smile. ‘I will sanction your raid, but I must ask that you be discreet. Our country is by all accounts about to face one of the biggest crises in its history. The population must have trust in their leaders if we’re to get through this.’

‘Understood, Home Secretary.’

Steven returned to the Sci-Med offices and sat thinking for a moment, his hand resting on the telephone. It had been his intention to call Charlie Malloy and give him the go-ahead for a police raid on Deltasoft, but the Home Secretary’s request for discretion was playing on his mind. She was right: this was not the time to unearth a huge scandal involving a past government minister.

A raid on Deltasoft would not in itself do so, but it would certainly attract the attention of the national press who would then see it as their business to find out what it was all about. He took his hand off the telephone while he asked himself a few questions. Would French have kept such sensitive software in the company offices and labs where others might stumble across it? Deltasoft had grown into a major player, successful and well respected. It was unthinkable that the entire staff would be complicit in some right-wing conspiracy.

French had been a very clever man; he would have worked out that keeping details of his illicit activities in a building full of computer experts in their own right might not be such a good idea. Maybe he kept it under lock and key, or whatever the computerised version of that was these days, but it might be even safer to keep it somewhere else. At home, perhaps?

Steven knew nothing about French’s widow other than that she, like the other relatives of the dead, had not known anything about the Paris meeting. This suggested that she had not been part of the conspiracy. She could, of course, have been lying, but according to the police report she had been utterly shocked when informed about her husband’s death, not only by the death but by the location — she had kept asking what he had been doing there, seemingly fearing that he might have been having an affair. She still could have been acting, thought Steven, but if not, it gave him an idea.

‘All set to go?’ asked Jean when he emerged.

‘Change of plan. I need all you have on Charles French’s wife, and I need the address of the family home.’

‘Right,’ said Jean, taken a little by surprise. Steven had told her of the Home Secretary’s approval for a raid before he’d changed his mind. ‘I have her on the database.’

She brought up the relevant information on her monitor. ‘Here we are. Maxine French, aged forty-seven, parents both GPs in Surrey, a Cambridge graduate like her husband, only in French and Italian, worked as a translator in the early years of their marriage but gave that up to become a lady of leisure when Deltasoft took off.’

‘Did she have anything to do with Deltasoft at any point?’

‘Not that I can see,’ said Jean, checking her screen. ‘She appears to have filled her time with charity work, served on several committees, chair of two of them, a pillar of the community just like her husband. She had a particular interest in underprivileged children. They both had.’

Steven held back a comment about the great and good and their charities. ‘Address?’

‘Clifford Mansions in Kensington. They have the penthouse.’

‘Set up a meeting, will you?’ Almost as an afterthought, Steven asked, ‘Does the name Schiller Group mean anything to you?’

Jean narrowed her eyes. ‘You know, I think it does. I’m sure I came across something recently to do with that but for the life of me I can’t remember what.’

‘Let me know if it comes back to you.’