The Devil's Landscape

Twenty-Seven

‘What possessed you, man?’ asked Macmillan as Steven entered the mobile command centre and was stopped by a gun in his face. ‘This is Dr Steven Dunbar,’ said Macmillan.

‘Hello,’ said the man lowering the gun.

Eight other men were there, two were in black, police Special Firearms Officer gear, the other six were dressed in variations on a camouflage theme and appeared more relaxed.

In answer to Macmillan’s question, Steven told him how he’d come to his conclusions and of the gamble he’d just taken.

‘Then we should all pray your phone doesn’t ring,’ said Macmillan.

Macmillan did the introductions to two police commanders and six SAS soldiers who had travelled as an advance party from their Credenhill base. Steven nodded and said hello.

Macmillan said to one of them, ‘Dr Dunbar was with your lot.’

‘We heard,’ said the soldier, introduced simply as Andy. ‘Mark Leyden said to say hello.’

Steven felt embarrassed at not recognising the name.

‘He says you saved his life.’

‘He’s probably exaggerating,’ said Steven.

Smiles all round told him it was the right thing to say.

‘I think we’re all agreed this isn’t going to be easy,’ said Macmillan. ‘Nobody breaks into a high security prison. We’ve been trying to scale down our thoughts from rocket-launchers and bulldozers.’

‘I had an idea on the way down,’ said Steven.

All eyes turned to him.

‘Moorlock is a high security unit but it was built as a self-contained module inside the ground floor of an old, derelict hospital. It is very secure, but I’ve been in there and I think there may be an Achilles heel.’

‘Give that man a bow and arrow,’ said one of the policemen.

Steven continued, ‘The medical director’s office is attached to the secure unit but it’s not actually inside it and not that far from the prison entrance although that certainly is secure.’

‘How does that help?’

‘The ceiling,’ said Steven. ‘When I was sitting in the director’s office I noticed that the ceiling was very high, very dirty and cracked in places. That suggests it’s the original hospital ceiling in that room.’

‘Got you,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘If we could get access to it from the floor above, we could get down into the office.’

‘Okay, that gets us past the front entrance, but we’ll still be outside the main unit,’ another of the soldiers pointed out.

‘It’s the unit director’s office,’ Steven emphasised, ‘there’s a chance we’ll be able to lay our hands on the codes for the alarms and doors. It’s just possible we might be able to get into the secure unit without a shot being fired.’

‘Brilliant.’

Questions followed thick and fast.

‘Why is this guy’s office outside the unit?’

‘I’m no psychiatrist, but having met him, I think it would be his choice,’ said Steven. ‘Although the room’s attached to the unit, it’s outside it and I think that would be important to him — a sort of psychological barrier between him and them. It certainly wasn’t because it’s a pleasant room, it’s grotty.’

‘Does the secure unit extend back through the entire width of the old building?’

‘I think not,’ said Steven. ‘It extends along most of the front elevation, but looking at the side elevation of the original building, it probably only reaches half way back.’

‘I tried to get plans. No luck,’ said Macmillan.

Macmillan summarised. ‘Entry through the back of the building should be achieved with the objective of gaining access to the first floor. Once there, it would be a case of... moving to where it’s thought the room above the office is situated. How do we know that?’

Steven said, ‘Without plans, I agree that could be a problem. All I can suggest is that I make a rough sketch of the layout as I remember it and we wing it from there.’

‘Sounds good,’ said Andy, ‘we’ll have to drill small holes in the floor anyway to see what’s below, whether there’s a light on, whether it’s the right room, whether there’s anyone in it.’

Steven accepted the pen and paper Macmillan found for him in his briefcase while the others discussed what they would need for the operation and who should do what. He thought carefully through his one and only visit to Moorlock, trying to remember in detail his route through the main gate, the pause at the first security halt, the entrance to the main hospital building, the walk along a short corridor parallel to the front elevation... how long?... twenty metres, thirty metres? The right turn into Groves’ office just outside the modern, combination-guarded entrance to the secure unit.

Steven said, ‘You know, it would help to have a photograph of the hospital building.’

One of the police commanders radioed Steven’s request and a photograph was transmitted back within eight minutes.

‘Just one man on the ground who knows what he’s doing,’ said the commander, noticing the look on Steven’s face, which seemed to question the wisdom of anyone getting too close to Moorlock.

Steven nodded and accepted the photo. He matched his calculations to the first floor of the building and found his best guess took him along to the third window in from the corner at the east end. That room would not be directly above Groves’ office — his office had no window facing the front — it would have to be the room on the other side of the corridor. He said so to Macmillan.

‘Providing it is a room,’ said Macmillan, ‘It’s an old hospital, the window might well be in what was an open ward.’

‘Good point,’ said Steven. He did another calculation in his head and said, ‘Okay, as we don’t know what’s behind the third window on the first floor, it would be safer to say that the area we are looking for should be around fifteen to twenty metres back from it in a straight line.’

With this clear objective established and general agreement that everyone had what they needed in terms of equipment and personnel — Andy reported back to his unit that no back-up was required — attention turned to details. After a short discussion, Macmillan listed them.

The operation would begin at midnight. Those detailed to enter the building — Steven and the six soldiers — would be dropped off at the end of the lane leading up to Moorlock by the army Land Rover and left to make the final approach on foot. On achieving a successful entrance to Groves’ office, two of the soldiers would deploy to explore the possibility of opening up the front entrance — hopefully armed with codes and combinations obtained either from the office or the security stop just behind the entrance. Steven and the remaining four soldiers would effect entry to the secure unit. Again, it was hoped that this would be achieved with codes found in the office. If not, the explosives expert of the group, Luke, would do his thing and the others would follow up with stun grenades.

If they did manage to enter the secure unit without the use of...

Steven’s old mobile phone rang and caused a heart-stopping interruption. His blood turned to ice as he faced his worst fears — Barrowman wasn’t in Moorlock at all, he was somewhere else entirely. He was about to give instructions for an exchange meeting he couldn’t possibly keep.

Everyone seemed hypnotised, rendered immobile like figures in a renaissance painting.

Steven snatched at the phone. ‘I’m here, Barrowman.’

‘You took your time, Dunbar. And here was me thinking you’d be worried out of your mind.’

‘Where’s Tally? What have you done with her. If you’ve hurt her I’ll...’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dunbar. You’re in no position to do anything... Oh, and if you have a little squad of elves trying to trace the call, tell them not to bother, I’m using a shielded satellite job.’

‘What’s the deal?’ asked Steven with his eyes tight shut and afraid of the coming reply.

‘There is no deal, Dunbar. There never was. I must say I like your lady a lot, I’m enjoying her... and I’m going to keep her, I just thought I’d give you a bit of a whirl on the old mental roundabout.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Tut tut.’

‘You need your data.’

‘No, you do. It’s true I’d rather you lot didn’t have it, but maybe you’ll never break it. I don’t need to. I already know what I know and how to apply it.’

‘Is there no decency left in you, Barrowman? No hint of the person you once were? Is there really no way back?’

‘Boring. Bye.’

Steven was left staring at a silent phone. He felt as if he’d just cut his one and only lifeline to Tally.

Macmillan quickly broke the silence. ‘Let’s concentrate on the positives. He didn’t ring to make a rendezvous you couldn’t keep and Dr Simmons is still alive. What’s more, you could still be right about Moorlock Hall and surprise is still on our side. Until we know different, nothing changes.’

‘Absolutely,’ agreed one of the policemen.

‘We’ll get her back, mate,’ said Andy.

Macmillan’s briefing resumed. ‘We can assume that members of staff, if alive, are being held under lock and key. Any man moving around freely can be regarded as the enemy and shot without question — all the inmates are killers. We know that Barrowman is armed. It’s reasonable to assume that any firearms normally held on the premises are now in the hands of the prisoners. No chances are to be taken. Armed police officers will continue with their cordon round Moorlock and deal with any escape attempt should things go wrong. The same policy will apply. Shoot to kill.’

The relief at finally being on the move after what seemed like an eternity waiting for darkness to fall and the midnight hour to register was almost palpable in the long-base army Land Rover taking them up to the end of the lane. The moon wasn’t full but it gave them some light when clouds weren’t passing across it. Two SAS men equipped with night vision equipment led the way and the others, carrying a variety of equipment, followed along in their footsteps, listening out for murmured warnings of any major obstacle. Steven was excused donkey work — one of the soldiers suggesting this was in deference to his age to the amusement of the others. He affected a half-hearted laugh, so half-hearted that Andy said, ‘Don’t worry, mate, you wouldn’t be with us if we thought you couldn’t cut it.’

Steven had dressed in the clothes he’d brought with him, close fitting black gear, and balaclava and his shoulder holster promoted to the outside of his clothing. Lightweight Berghaus hill boots gave him security underfoot.

They circled the building at a distance and approached the back fence where they found no great effort had been made to secure it; any security measures had obviously been saved for the prison unit itself. The hospital was just a crumbling shell around it.

‘Piece of cake,’ muttered one of the soldiers as he checked the wire for electrification and found none. He snipped through old wire to give them entrance to the grounds.

They made their way through knee high weeds to the rear elevation of the building where the moon allowed them to examine the wall.

‘Spoilt for choice,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Pick a drainpipe... any drainpipe.’

He was detailed by Andy to climb a pipe that ran in close proximity to a first-floor window with an almost horizontal section leading off under it. It would provide something to stand on. He had a coil of rope over his head and shoulder.

‘Got the tape and diamond?’ Andy asked.

‘Affirmative.’

Steven watched as the man tried to open the window and failed. It wasn’t unexpected, the old, rotten sash and case windows were probably never going to open again. The soldier moved on to scoring the lower pane with a diamond point cutter. He marked out a square, tracing the edge of the frame and then attached strong, sticky tape at strategic points before elbowing the glass smartly until it gave way and parted company with the frame. The soldier loosened the tape carefully from the frame and fed the pane slowly inside the window opening to lower and prop it up against the inside wall before climbing in himself and finding a secure anchor for the rope. A minute or so later he lowered the other end to start pulling up the equipment bags. They were followed by the men themselves. All seven of them were standing inside on the first floor of the hospital building inside eleven minutes. None of the soldiers showed any signs of exertion, Steven felt as if his arms had become six feet long.

They were in a large, narrow room with a row of sinks against the wall they just climbed. The horizontal section of the pipe they’d used to stand on was the waste pipe from the sinks leading to the down pipe. ‘Looks like a laundry,’ Andy suggested.

‘It was probably the sluice room,’ said Steven, ‘waste from the ward would be washed away here. I think we’ll find there’s an open ward out here...’ He made his way over to the door and the others followed.

‘It’s a bloody ballroom,’ said one of the soldiers as moonlight lit up a long open ward where rows of beds on either side would once have stood in days gone by. It was empty.

‘Right,’ said Andy. ‘We should be heading over this way. We need to find the ward on the other side of the building.’

They exited the ward into a short corridor running at right angles to it and shared between the ward they’d just left and the one next to it, the one that they found faced the front of the building.

‘Yo!’ said Andy.

‘And it stretches right up to the east wall,’ said Steven. He pointed to the third window along on the far wall. ‘That’s what we’re looking for.’

Steven approached the window, turned his back and measured out seventeen walking paces. He traced a circle in the air with his finger as he turned around in a full revolution. ‘I think the office is down there,’ he said, pointing at the floor.

One of the soldiers got to work with a small-bore drill, constantly sensing the resistance of the floor until he felt it lessen. He stopped before the drill bit had gone right through the ceiling below and withdrew it to be replaced by what looked to Steven to be a rod with a needle point on the end. The soldier pushed the needle through the remaining plug in the drill hole and then withdrew it to look down through shielded eyes. ‘No light on,’ he said. Steven understood that the soldier hadn’t wanted a small plug to fall from the ceiling into an occupied room. He watched as the drill was allowed to finish its job. A flexible cable camera was inserted in its place.

‘Desk... couple of chairs... books... picture on the wall, boats.’

‘That’s it,’ said Steven. ‘Can you point to where the desk is?’

The soldier indicated and Steven chose an area where he thought it would be clear to drop down.

‘Couldn’t we drop down on to the desk without using ropes?’ Andy asked.

Steven said not. ‘The ceiling’s too high. Even hanging at full stretch, we’d still have a six foot drop on to the surface of the desk.’

‘Broken leg territory,’ said Andy. He set about looking for a rope anchor while two of the others set about cutting a circular hole in the floor. Steven expected noise but, whatever they were using, it made very little and even less when it came to cutting an opening in the ceiling below. ‘Bit of a tight squeeze,’ said one. They had to make the opening between joists.

‘This is where we find out who ate all the pies,’ said Andy who had come up with an old iron bed frame they could press into use as an anchor.

All seven made it down safely although Steven felt his rib cage had been pushed through his spine He resisted a strong desire to hug himself.

There were no windows in the office so shielded torches could be used to search for useful information. This was made more difficult however, by the room having been searched already and its contents scattered everywhere.

‘Christ!’ exclaimed one of the men. He said it in such a way that everyone spun round sensing something approaching panic. ‘There’s a bloke in the corner,’ said the soldier.

Torches lit up the figure of a man sitting propped up in the far corner. He was dead and his ears and nose were missing.

‘It’s Groves,’ said Steven. ‘I recognise the suit...’

The search continued in silence, but all were considering what they were up against, Steven more than most.

‘How about that?’ said Andy, pointing at the wall to the right of the door.

Steven looked at a card with seven four number sequences printed on it. ‘One for each day of the week,’ he said.

‘We can get in the easy way,’ said Andy to sighs of relief all round.

‘Maybe,’ Steven cautioned, ‘we don’t know what day of the week the inmates took over the asylum.’

‘Does that matter?’

‘They might not have bothered changing the entry code after that and we don’t know what day of the week they stopped doing it,’ said Steven. ‘We might punch in the wrong code. We’ll probably get away with one wrong entry, but two or more and we’ll probably trigger an automatic lock-down with alarms going off.’

‘Right, we give it two tries but won’t risk a third,’ said Andy. ‘We’ll blow the door and follow up with stun grenades. Are there any coded doors inside the unit?’

‘There are, but somehow I don’t think they’ll be operational. If you’d been locked up for years I think an open-door policy might be very popular.’

‘Good point. Beats me why they haven’t all hit the road anyway.’

‘The two guys in charge are clever,’ said Steven. ‘If they let the others scatter to the four winds without a plan, they’ll be picked up within a few days and the cat would be out of the bag about Moorlock. As it is, they have what they believe is a safe and secure hideout for the time being where they can plan their next move.’

‘Only... they’re wrong,’ said Andy. ‘Time, guys.’

The soldiers picked up their weapons and readied themselves without comment. The man Andy had detailed to carry out a quick reconnoitre — specifically to see if anyone was in the gatehouse — stood ready by the door. Torches were extinguished, Andy opened it a fraction and listened before nodding and letting him out. He was back within four minutes. ‘Empty, boss.’

Andy nodded to the two men detailed to investigate the opening of the front entrance and they slipped out. After a few more moments he turned to Steven and the four remaining soldiers. ‘Show time.’

The five men left the office silently. Andy switched his torch back on and highlighted the electronic main entrance keypad on the wall while the others crouched down, one holding stun grenades the others pointing weapons at the entrance. Steven entered a four-number sequence he’d taken from the card. He hadn’t chosen it at random, but had deliberately picked Thursday’s number because he remembered it had been a Thursday when Barrowman had escaped in the car belonging to the MI5 agent he’d murdered. If he’d driven straight to Moorlock and initiated the coup, the code might not have been changed after that. Wrong. A red LED flashed and nothing happened.

Very aware that he was about to make his second and last attempt before explosives came into play, Steven entered the code for Friday. The LED stayed dark and, after an agonising pause, mechanical levers obeyed electronic instructions and the door opened.

Andy held his hand up as it became apparent that the well-lit corridor stretching out before them was empty. He and Steven exchanged glances that spoke of good fortune. They could hear voices, but they were coming from the far end. Laughter was present in the sound, another good sign. Andy signalled to the soldiers that they move along both sides, listening at doors. He and Steven led off.

Steven was first to hold up his hand. The others came to a halt while he listened more intently. He turned and silently mouthed the words, ‘A woman.’ Putting his left hand on the door handle and holding the Glock pistol in his right he waited for a soldier with an automatic weapon to sidle into place beside him. The door wasn’t locked. It swung open to reveal a single occupant, a weeping middle-aged woman whose clothes were ripped and her hair a tangled mess. She turned her tear-stained cheeks towards the two armed men, her eyes wide as if expecting some new horror to unfold.

Steven replaced his weapon and approached the woman. ‘Who are you?’ he asked gently.

The woman appeared surprised at the question, her eyes examining Steven’s face as if totally confused.

‘You’re safe now,’ Steven assured her. ‘Who are you?’

‘Lillian Leadbetter.’

‘MP?’

The woman nodded.

Steven questioned the woman as quickly and as kindly as he could. He asked if Lawler and Barrowman were in charge.

‘They killed Dr Groves in front of my eyes. Animals... sheer bloody animals... I hope they rot in hell.’

‘Is there another woman here?’

‘A doctor, yes, the woman Barrowman brought here. She’s been forced to treat Lawler.’

‘Treat him?’

‘He was attacked by two of the others and badly injured. They were drinking. Barrowman was furious, he shot them both.’

‘Where is she treating him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Everything’s going to be all right but we need you to keep quiet. Okay?’

The woman nodded.

‘We can hear voices, where are they all?’

‘End of the corridor, to the right. They drink and play cards...’

Steven whispered what he’d learned. Andy said, ‘You look for your lady, we’ll spoil the party.’

They made their way to the end of the corridor where the soldiers turned right and Steven went left, listening at each of the four doors he found there. He thought he heard movement behind the third door and readied his weapon before opening it quietly. Tally turned to look at him, turning away from the unconscious man she had been tending to and whom he presumed was Lawler. Her face was pale and withdrawn. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for days and wouldn’t have known what day of the week it was. She stared at him as if wondering if she was seeing things.

‘Hello,’ he said softly.

‘I knew some day my prince would come...’

‘Always the smart one-liner,’ said Steven, his face breaking into the first genuine smile for days. He holstered his weapon and moved towards her, but, as he did so, the deafening sound of prolonged gunfire broke out. Lawler was shocked out of sedation and took in the situation quickly. He pulled Tally across the bed on top of him, holding her neck in the crook of his arm as Steven levelled his pistol at him.

‘Drop it.’

Steven hesitated, his mind furiously assessing the situation. Lawler was weak and he was unarmed...

‘Drop it or I’ll bite her throat out.’

Steven looked at Lawler’s snarling mouth and saw it was all too close to Tally’s neck. He dropped his shoulders in resignation and made to drop the gun on the floor, but, at the last moment, he spun the Glock in his hand and shot at Lawler’s feet in one clean movement. Lawler screamed in pain as a bullet smashed through his metatarsals and Tally took advantage of his distraction to break free and fall down flat on the floor. Steven’s second shot killed Lawler... and, if it didn’t, his third certainly did. Steven helped Tally to her feet and wrapped his arms around her.

After a few moments of just holding each other Steven said, ‘I think it’s all over, but I have to check.’ He let Tally go and took out the Glock again before slowly opening the door and risking a quick look out to find a man pointing a gun at him. It was Andy, taking the same precautions over someone who was opening a door. ‘All right?’ he asked.

‘All over,’ came the reply. ‘You?’

Steven brought Tally out to receive an impromptu round of applause from the soldiers who had joined Andy. Tally looked beyond them and asked, ‘Does anyone need my help in there?’

The soldiers looked at each other before Andy said, ‘That’s a very kind thought, doctor, but no... no one.’

They were joined by armed police officers who had been let in by the soldiers who had uncovered the code for the front entrance and opened it.

After brief discussions, reports were called in by the senior men to the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and other involved parties interested in hearing that a dangerous and hugely embarrassing situation had been resolved.

Despite Steven’s protestations Tally insisted on comforting Lillian Leadbetter while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. She however, declined medical attention for herself. Steven called John Macmillan to give him the information he would require for a clean-up operation to be launched. Of necessity, he had to limit details to the number of dead and leave it at that apart from highlighting the particular horror of Groves’ death and the murder of all staff save for Staff Nurse Clements who was with the inmates when the soldiers intervened. He had died with them.

‘The police have been detailed to take you and Dr Simmons home while I see to things.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are the soldiers from 22 SAS still there?’

Steven looked round and saw only policemen. ‘No, they’ve gone.’

‘It was ever thus,’ said Macmillan.

Steven and Tally were taken back to London at high speed in a comfortable five series BMW using blues but with no need for twos. Tally slept with her head on Steven’s shoulder for the whole journey while Steven’s eyes remained wide open, transfixed by thoughts of the past few days.

‘We’re home,’ he murmured as the car slowed and turned into Marlborough Court.

‘Are we... are we really?’ Tally whispered sleepily.

Steven thanked the driver with a nod and the man responded in kind.

Tally seemed to recover some energy when the door closed behind them. ‘I think we could both do with a drink,’ she said. When she didn’t get a reply, she turned to find Steven looking at her. He wasn’t smiling. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

‘When are you going to stop?’

‘Stop what?’ she asked.

‘Playing the brave little lady who takes everything in her stride, it doesn’t wash with me...’

A number of expressions tried to appear on Tally’s face before they all failed and she lost all vestige of control. ‘Oh, Steven...’ Tears flowed freely down her face as an emotional dam burst inside her. ‘Oh Steven... hold me, hold me, hold me.’

Steven did. ‘I’ll never let you out of my sight again...’

Even Tally in her current state couldn’t stop a slight splutter at Steven’s ridiculous promise. ‘Oh God,’ she stammered. ‘I never guessed human beings could be like that... vicious loathsome animals. No, they were worse than animals: they tortured and killed for fun.’

‘Pure evil is something that most people never come across,’ said Steven.

‘But it fascinated Barrowman,’ said Tally.

‘A victim of his search for truth.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘They’re all dead.’

‘Somehow... I find that a great comfort.’

‘I suspect Mrs Leadbetter may find similar solace.’

‘Poor woman, I’m sure she thought she was doing the right thing.’

Steven gave Tally a look that left her in no doubt about his disagreement.

‘Oh, Steven, you and politicians.’

‘Let’s not go there.’

‘Okay, do I get that drink now?’

When the hour of the day and the day of the week began to recover some relevance, Tally insisted that she’d be fine if Steven left her to go to the Home Office for a debriefing session. He telephoned Jean to say that the following morning would be good and asked her to make sure that Lukas would be there.

Steven talked everyone through the re-taking of Moorlock Hall and Macmillan said, ‘Are we to assume that Barrowman’s secret died with him?’

‘We know what the secret was,’ Steven replied. ‘He found the switching mechanism for controlling genes in a number of regions on the human genome. He found it in regions of the DNA previously described as junk, but there’s more. Maybe Lukas should take over.’

Lukas nodded and said, ‘Barrowman not only described switching mechanisms in stretches of DNA we’ve been calling junk, but he came across a bank of genes which determine in broad general terms whether a person is what we might call a normal decent human being when its controlling switch is turned one way, but when it’s reversed, we get a psychopath who is as far from being decent as you can get. I think the details of how you can turn this switch on and off are on a protected disk we found among Barrowman’s stuff, but I haven’t been able to break into it.’

Steven took over again. ‘I’m pretty sure that Barrowman believed he was on the brink of being able to manipulate the switch in psychopathic killers and turn them into normal people, but somewhere along the line, he screwed up and flicked it the wrong way in himself. He turned into a complete monster.

‘Do you think he was working on turning it back in himself?’ Jean Roberts asked. ‘I was thinking about the chemicals he ordered.’

‘It would be nice to think so,’ said Macmillan.

‘Having read his notes, I think it far more likely he was intent on creating more monsters,’ said Lukas.

‘Which brings us to our intelligence services,’ said Steven. ‘Does anyone know if they have succeeded in breaking the code to get into Barrowman’s last disk?’

‘I’ve not had confirmation of that,’ said the Home Secretary.

‘Well, if we see the Queen’s own regiment of psychopathic killers trooping the colour next year we’ll know that’s a yes...’ said Steven.

The Home secretary made a face but didn’t take Steven to task. As he left the room, she said to Macmillan. ‘He did a magnificent job.’

‘We can agree on that, Home Secretary.’

‘The way he planned the assault on Moorlock Hall and the danger he put himself in to rescue Dr Simmons was quite extraordinary.’

‘I suspect he doesn’t know he’s just a collection of proteins and chemicals, Home Secretary...’

Before leaving for home, Steven called Neil Tyler to tell him all that had transpired.

‘I think you’ve just told me I’m out of a job.’

‘Sorry about that.’

‘No problem, it was Barrowman’s work I was interested in, but I’d like to be kept in the loop if any progress is made with understanding his switch mechanism.’

‘If I hear it, you’ll hear it’

‘Thanks, Steven. Bye the way, did you contact the Americans with your thoughts on the Yale fire?’

‘Not yet,’ Steven confessed.

‘If it helps your decision, the New Haven Connecticut police found the body of Father Liam Crossan hanging under a bridge last night. You might say justice has been done.’

‘Wow.’

‘There are some tills you just don’t put your fingers in.’

‘How did it go?’ Tally asked.

‘It’s over and that’s all I care about right now. We should go away, take a holiday, sunshine, blue skies...’

Steven stopped when he saw Tally shake her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I want to go and spend some time with Mum, tell her all the things I should tell her before it’s too late. You should go and see your daughter before she’s completely grown up. You can meet Jason...’

‘Mm, right.’

Tally hid a smile. ‘Steven?’

‘Yes?’

‘You did give that gun back, didn’t you?’