Lost causes

FIVE

‘You seem down,’ said Steven, watching Tally play more with her food than eat it. It had gone eight o’clock on Tuesday evening and Steven had prepared dinner, although ‘prepared’ was perhaps an exaggeration: he’d opened two M amp;S ready meals and heated them up. Steven didn’t cook, never had. Food had never played a big part in his life and he couldn’t quite understand all the fuss about it, particularly the hours devoted to it on television.

‘Things on my mind.’

‘Am I allowed to ask what?’

Tally gave a slight shake of the head as if reluctant to go further, but then she reconsidered. ‘It’s my mother,’ she said. ‘She’s finding it difficult to cope. Independence in the community with support or whatever they call it is just not working out.’

Steven made a face.

‘A home would kill her. She’s always said so.’

‘Most people do,’ said Steven, aware that his words could be construed as callous but still feeling it needed pointing out. ‘It really doesn’t have to be that bad.’

‘How many of these places have you seen?’ snapped Tally.

‘Not many.’

Tally’s stare demanded more.

‘None.’

‘She’s my mother, Steven. The woman who brought me into the world, comforted me when I was down, encouraged me when I was unsure, cheered for me when I won things, found excuses for when I didn’t. She made me what I am. I wouldn’t be comforting other people’s kids on a daily basis if she hadn’t done that for me. Don’t you understand?’

‘Yup, I had one just like her,’ said Steven.

Tally digested the comment for a moment, acknowledging the truth of what Steven was saying but unwilling to give ground. She rested her head in her hands, considering other ways to get her point across. ‘I just cannot bear the thought of putting my mother into one of these places where she’ll end up watching daytime fucking television until she dies. No one deserves that.’

‘Which brings us to the alternatives.’

Tally leaned forward and let her fingers slip through her hair to the back of her head. ‘And there aren’t any… Right?’

‘My work situation is not good enough for you to give up your job to look after your mother,’ said Steven.

‘I know, I know… but thanks for the thought. Look, I don’t want to discuss it any more tonight. My sister Jackie’s coming up from Dorset at the weekend. We’ll talk about it then.’

‘I think you once mentioned having two sisters,’ said Steven. ‘But you never got round to telling me their names.’

Tally smiled. ‘I suppose there’s still quite a lot we don’t know about each other.

‘Then we shouldn’t get bored.’

‘If you say so,’ said Tally, relaxing a little. ‘You’ll like Jackie. She’s fun.’

‘Anything else on your mind?’

‘Yes, the constant struggle to get medication approved for our cancer kids. I know health budgets are not bottomless pits but come on, children are our future. We should be doing our best for them, not making endless assessments as to the likely outcome of therapy before loosening the purse strings. There are too many people pursuing too many agendas.’

‘Maybe an election will clear the air and make things easier.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

‘No, I just thought I’d try to cheer you up.’

‘You’re impossible.’

‘It’s a gift.’

‘Another one?’

‘You’re right. I do seem to have more than my fair share. Still, what can one do?’

Tally made to throw a cushion at him, but was interrupted by the phone ringing. She read the caller display and paused before picking up. ‘It’s John Macmillan,’ she said.

‘I’m out,’ said Steven.

Tally answered while Steven started clearing away the dinner things. ‘I’m sorry, Lady Macmillan, he’s just stepped out for a moment,’ she said as Steven left the room on his way to the kitchen. ‘Can I help?’

Steven returned from his chores to hear Tally saying, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course I will. He’ll be back shortly. I’ll get him to call you… Yes… Goodbye.’

Steven’s eyes asked the question.

‘John Macmillan’s in hospital. He collapsed. It’s a brain tumour, and it’s not looking good. He’s asked to see you.’

Steven sank down into a chair and rubbed his forehead lightly with his fingertips.

‘You have to go.’

Steven was finding it difficult to think straight. He and John Macmillan had had a difference of opinion but that didn’t alter the fact that Macmillan was probably the most decent, honourable man he’d ever met. They thought the same way about practically everything. They had often argued but it was usually just a case of Macmillan using the wisdom of his years to temper Steven’s impatience to get on with things. He had walked away from the Sci-Med job but there had been nothing personal in it and John knew that. It had been he who had saved Steven from the boredom of a meaningless nine-to-five life in some humdrum job when he left the services; it had been he who had rescued him from the… life he now lived.

Steven tried to block out that last thought and closed his eyes tightly.

‘You okay?’ Tally asked.

Steven nodded. ‘I’ll phone John’s wife.’

He drove to London in the morning, having been assured that there was no point in his driving down the night before. The doctors had told Lady Macmillan that John had had a good day and was sleeping peacefully. He was awake when Steven was shown into his room in the King Edward VII Hospital, and managed a small smile.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘I’ve felt better.’

‘They tell me you’ll be out of here in no time.’

‘I think not,’ croaked Macmillan.

‘It’s malignant?’

‘They don’t know yet. Either way it has to go. We’re talking fifty-fifty surgery.’

Steven nodded and swallowed. ‘I’ll make sure no fat lady is found singing round here for the foreseeable future.’

Macmillan put his hand on Steven’s wrist and gave it a slight squeeze. ‘At the risk of sounding like a recruiting poster, your country needs you,’ he said.

‘Not me,’ said Steven. ‘It’s Sci-Med it needs and that’s all your doing.’

‘That’s why I wanted to see you.’

Steven shook his head. ‘No good, John. Unlike you, I’d reached my limit. I’d had enough. It was time to stop getting into fights I couldn’t win. I needed… something else.’

‘Have you found it?’

‘I love Tally.’

‘That isn’t what I asked.’

‘Change takes time.’

‘You were the best. You are the best. I need you to head Sci-Med if I don’t make it, otherwise it was all for nothing.’

‘That’s nonsense and you know it.’

Macmillan chose to stare directly at Steven without reply.

‘And unfair.’

‘All that’s required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing…’

‘You have Scott Jamieson, Adam Dewar. They’re both experienced men. They could do the job perfectly well. You know they could.’

‘I don’t want perfectly well. I need the best for Sci-Med.’

‘I’d lose Tally.’

This proved effective as a stopper. Macmillan seemed to lose animation and sank back on his pillow. A veil of tiredness swam over his eyes. ‘There’s a reason I need the best,’ he said. ‘Will you hear me out?’

‘Of course.’

‘Almost twenty years ago something happened which no one ever got to the bottom of. Something tells me it may be about to happen again.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know,’ repeated Steven flatly.

‘A journalist named Kincaid went up north to cover a story about a new surgical technique. He never came back. His attention was diverted to another story while he was up there, something that resulted in him and his editor and a number of other people being killed. It was the time of something called the Northern Health Scheme.’

Steven looked blank.

‘It was the brainchild of a Conservative politician named John Carlisle, health secretary at the time and a man thought to be destined for greater things, the same John Carlisle who took his own life a few days ago after a scandal over his expenses.’

Steven made a face.

‘Another founder member of the Northern Health Scheme, Charles French, was blown to bits in an explosion in Paris a couple of weeks ago along with the wife of a surgeon who was working at the same hospital at the same time.’

Steven frowned. ‘But if all that was twenty years ago…’

‘Eighteen, but we’ve had three Labour governments since then.’

Steven couldn’t follow Macmillan’s line of thought and was finding it all a bit much to take in. There was plenty he wanted to ask but he could see that Macmillan was very tired so he prepared to leave.

‘Give it some thought, Steven, that’s all I ask…’ murmured Macmillan without opening his eyes.

‘I will, John. Get some rest.’

Steven decided to check his flat in Marlborough Court before driving home. He had chosen not to sell it before his move to Leicester but to hold on to it for as long as possible, giving property prices a chance to recover. Tally had agreed it made economic sense.

It was cold inside, familiar but seeming strangely foreign as he checked the rooms. He turned the mains water on and let the taps run and splutter for a bit to clear the airlocks before parking himself in his favourite chair by the window.

The flat was one street back from the river but he had a view of it through a gap in the buildings across the way. He had watched a lot of river traffic pass by from this seat while he’d wrestled with the puzzles that Sci-Med had thrown his way. He’d also looked up at a lot of stars while letting gin and tonic take the edge off his day. But that was all in the past. He’d moved on.

As he entered the outskirts of Leicester, a time check on the radio suggested that Tally would not be home for another couple of hours, so he decided to call in at work before going home to see if there was anything that needed his attention, and to catch up on any urgent messages, not that he could recall ever having had one of those in his new job. He had rung in earlier to say he wouldn’t be in but hadn’t said why.

Rachel Collins met him coming out of the lift. She was on the point of leaving for the day. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Fine, thanks.’

‘We thought you might be ill.’

‘No, a friend is.’

‘Oh, good. Oh, God, I mean not good about your friend but, you know… The chief exec was looking for you earlier.’

‘Thanks, Rachel.’

Steven planked himself behind his desk and started going through his mail, all of it routine and largely comprising extra reference checks he’d made on new employees who’d started in the past couple of months. None of the checks had thrown up problems. He hadn’t really imagined they would. There was an internal letter from the chief exec’s office listing the names of people from the accounts and statistics department who had been charged with preparation of the company’s bid for the government vaccine initiative now that it had become a reality. Steven was reading the names when his door opened and the chief executive, Lionel Montague, walked in as if modelling a black cashmere overcoat and contrasting red scarf. All that was missing was a 360-degree twirl. ‘I was about to leave the car park when I saw your light was on. I tried to get you earlier.’

‘I had to go to London.’

A frown crossed Montague’s face. ‘In connection with what, might I ask?’

Steven could sense the man was spoiling for an argument but didn’t fully understand why. He hadn’t had much to do with him since his arrival, although he had noted on occasion that Montague’s name seemed to inspire either respect or fear in other staff members, and he wasn’t sure which. Once again he had the familiar feeling of being an outsider in a world he didn’t fully understand. ‘In connection with the fact that my friend and former employer is dying. He asked to see me.’

‘You know, I really shouldn’t have to point out to senior staff like yourself that their first duty is to this company. Personal matters come second. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Depressingly.’

Montague bridled at Steven’s choice of word but chose not to push things further.

‘How can I help you?’ asked Steven, already regretting the use of it. The art of biting his tongue had yet to be fully mastered.

‘What d’you mean?’

‘You said you were looking for me earlier.’

‘Oh, yes. I wanted to talk to you about security screening of the accountants we are tasking with the preparation of our bid.’

‘I’ve just read who they will be,’ said Steven, holding up the internal note.

‘It’s absolutely imperative that nothing leaks out. I can’t stress that enough.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And it will be your job to see that it doesn’t.’

‘Right.’

‘Just so we understand each other.’

‘We do,’ said Steven calmly.

‘And consider what I said earlier about conflicts of professional and personal interests.’

‘I will.’

Montague exited, leaving Steven staring at the closed door. He was experiencing inner conflict over the choice of a word to describe Montague. A toughie, but just another challenge to be faced in the wonderful world of commerce. He turned to his computer and started going through his email.