The Anvil

TWELVE

The sun was shining but MacLean didn’t notice as he walked the city streets, deep in thought. He saw the Cathedral St Pierre appear in front of him and, on impulse, went inside. It was cool and dark with a comforting smell of age and furniture polish, its solid stonework keeping out the sounds of the street. He hadn’t realised how long he had been walking until he sat down in a pew and felt his legs appreciate the rest. The gloom and the sheer size of the place afforded him a welcome anonymity, encouraging him to stay a while and get his thoughts in order. Walking round in circles wasn’t the answer. He needed a plan of action.

The trouble was that the situation was almost too painful to contemplate. Eva and Jean-Paul had given their lives to get him a name but he had been unable to do anything with it. If May Haas really didn’t work for Lehman Steiner then he had little or no chance of ever finding her; he wouldn’t know where to begin. There was, of course, a chance that the Personnel Department at Lehman Steiner had been lying or even unaware that May Haas worked for the company, especially if she had some connection with Von Jonek or the X14 project, but MacLean could not see a way around this.

On an earlier occasion, he remembered that Jean-Paul Rives had suggested that the best way to get to X14 would be to trace Von Jonek through Personnel. Maybe this was still a possibility. At least he knew that the man worked for the company. He wondered what would happen if he asked Personnel directly about him. He needed to think of a safe way of doing that.

From talk in the hotel bar he had learned that a tall, silver-haired gentleman, staying on holiday with his wife on the floor below, was a police chief from Lyons. A police chief would always carry his warrant card, he reasoned and such a man would hardly be the sort to be easily intimidated. MacLean made a point of finding out the man’s room number. When he’d done this, he called Lehman Steiner and announced himself as Professor Phillipe Pascal. He would like to be put in touch with his old colleague, Dr Hans Von Jonek.

‘One moment please.’

For one heady moment MacLean thought that he was about to be put through to Von Jonek but the woman came back on the line to say that she was transferring him.

‘Can I help you?’ asked the new voice.

MacLean repeated his request and was asked to wait again. When the woman spoke again she asked, ‘What name was that?’

‘Von Jonek,’ replied MacLean.

‘No, your name,’ said the woman.

‘Professor Pascal.’

‘One moment please.’

MacLean was becoming nervous. He started to wonder about the company’s capacity to trace a telephone call?

‘I’m afraid Dr Von Jonek is not available at the moment,’ said the voice. ‘If you would care to leave your address and telephone number, he will be informed of your call.’

MacLean gave the name of the hotel and the police chief’s room number, then he moved a chair over to the window and sat down to wait. Fifteen minutes later he watched a blue BMW pull up outside the hotel and two men get out. From the way they looked about them when they stepped out the car MacLean reckoned that they were the people he had been waiting for. He gave them time to reach the police chief’s room before going downstairs and walking along the corridor. He heard the commotion before he saw it.

The tall policeman was almost shouting that he was not named Pascal and that he didn’t know anyone who was. No, he would not be going anywhere with his visitors. He was a policeman, not a professor, and a chief of police at that. He knew his rights and who the hell was asking him all this anyway? He wanted to see ID and he wanted to see it now.

‘Is something the matter?’ asked MacLean innocently as he approached.

One of the men from the company, becoming anxious that he and his colleague were beginning to attract a serious amount of attention, put his hand on the policeman’s chest to back him into the room. The policeman’s wife immediately started screaming and another resident looked out and said she’d call for the local police. MacLean watched the pantomime grow. He now knew exactly what happened when you asked Lehman Steiner about Von Jonek. As the local police arrived, he checked out of the hotel and found another.

Three in the morning is the hour when troubles double and prospects halve. For MacLean, lying awake in the darkness, it was the time when a myriad self-doubts formed themselves into a crack regiment and marched through his head. How could he possibly hope to find Von Jonek if Lehman Steiner sent round heavies at the mere mention of his name? He could hardly break into the company’s offices and start rifling through filing cabinets.

The church clock in the square struck five and brought MacLean perilously close to admitting that he didn’t know what to do. Time was passing and he was no nearer being able to get Cytogerm for Carrie. Five people had died since he had come to Switzerland and all he had really found out was that Von Jonek was a scientist and that he was in charge of a research project with a budget of 18 million dollars. Whether it had anything to do with Cytogerm was still his guess; it had not as yet been confirmed. And of course, the name of a woman, May Haas.

‘Don’t change the plan unless you have to,’ repeated MacLean to himself in the darkness. The question was, did he have to? How could he find Von Jonek if he didn’t know how to go about it? The answer was simple when it finally came to him: he needed help; he needed expert advice about cracking Lehman Steiner. He needed someone to tell him how to go about getting the information he required. There were two people in his past with that kind of expertise, Doyle and Leavey. He would have to find them.

MacLean checked post restante at the main Post Office and found a letter from Tansy waiting for him. She had finally snapped under the strain of being nice to Nigel and Marjorie and had moved out into a rented flat on her own. She was worried about Carrie because the surgeons were beginning to make noises about starting surgery and she did not know if she could stall them much longer. Could he possibly phone her? Now that she was living on her own, it would be quite safe. The number was written at the foot of the letter in black marker pen as if it had been added just before posting.

MacLean called Tansy in the early afternoon and had to swallow at the sound of her voice. He told her that he was coming home on the first available flight.

‘You’ve got it?’ said an excited Tansy.

MacLean confessed that he hadn’t and screwed his eyes tightly shut because of the disappointment he knew he was inflicting. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than I thought,’ he said.

‘I see,’ said Tansy. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be stalling the surgeons after all?’

MacLean heard the flat note that had crept into her voice and dug the fingernails of his left hand into his palm in a subconscious attempt to inflict pain on himself rather than her. ‘I haven’t given up,’ he said. ‘It’s just a change of plan.’

MacLean’s flight was fifteen minutes late in getting in to London Heathrow; not a lot but just enough to ensure that he missed the British Airways shuttle connection to Edinburgh. He caught a British Midland flight an hour later and consoled himself with gin as they climbed out of the murk and mist shrouding London to find blue skies and sunshine.

Another hour and the aircraft crossed the eastern fringes of the Scottish capital to bank steeply above the Firth of Forth and start its final approach. His seat on the left side of the aircraft allowed him to see the two mighty bridges that spanned the estuary immediately below him, the old, Victorian rail bridge with its dull red maze of intricate ironwork and the road bridge with its simple suspension design. He had seen this view many times but, even now, with his troubled mind, it gave him pleasure.

He called Tansy from the airport and was relieved to hear that she sounded better. He had been afraid that his failure to get Cytogerm for Carrie might have pushed her into deep depression but it seemed that she had come to terms with the news. She gave him her new address and he said that he would be there in twenty minutes, just as soon as he found a cab.

Tansy flung her arms round MacLean’s neck as soon as she opened the door and they held each other for a long time before either could speak. When they did break apart Tansy said, ‘Thank God you’re all right. I was so worried about you. I should have told you that on the phone but when you said you hadn’t got the damned stuff all I could think about was Carrie and the consequences.’

MacLean held her tight again and said, ‘It’s all right, I understand. I feel the same way and I meant it when I said it’s not over yet.’

Tansy looked at him questioningly.

‘It’s going to be more difficult than I imagined,’ said MacLean. ‘I’ve come back to get help. I can’t do it on my own.’

‘Then you know where to get Cytogerm?’ asked Tansy.

MacLean told her what he had learned in Geneva, stressing the positive aspects first. Lehman Steiner were spending 18 million dollars a year on a research project headed by Hans Von Jonek, the man who had demanded the Cytogerm files from him under the pretext of being an archivist. It was odds on that Cytogerm must feature in this research. Jean-Paul Rives had discovered where Von Jonek was carrying out this research but had died before he could tell him.

‘Died?’ asked Tansy, as if she was afraid of hearing the answer.

MacLean almost balked at going on with the story but felt he had no option but to tell Tansy the full horror of what had happened. He saw her visibly pale.

‘All these people,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘I know,’ said MacLean softly. ‘But there’s no going back.’

‘But your friends were innocent people and now they’re dead,’ protested Tansy with tears in her eyes.

‘They didn’t just die Tansy,’ said MacLean. ‘They were murdered. They were murdered by Lehman Steiner, just as Jutte and all the rest were. That’s the measure of what we are up against. Eva and Jean-Paul died trying to help Carrie. We must go on, we owe it to them.’

Tansy wiped her eyes and took several deep breaths before she could speak. ‘Just what is it you intend to do?’ she asked in a low monotone.

‘I’m going to find Doyle and Leavey,’ said MacLean.

‘The men on the oil rig?’

‘Like I say, I can’t fight Lehman Steiner alone.’

‘Do you think they’ll help?’

‘When I tell them why, yes.’

‘I hope so,’ said Tansy, looking up at him. ‘I can’t bear the thought of you being in such danger. She broke into tears and MacLean held her close to him.

In the morning MacLean phoned the Oil Company that he had once worked for and asked to be put through to Offshore Personnel. He asked to speak to a member of staff he knew vaguely and, after an exchange of pleasantries, he enquired about Doyle and Leavey. Leavey still worked on the Celtic Star rig but Doyle was no longer on the company register. MacLean asked about work schedules and learned that Leavey would be flying into Aberdeen on Thursday, two days away. This was a stroke of luck it could have been two weeks away. He write down the ETA of the helicopter at the company’s helipad in Aberdeen, accepting the ‘weather permitting’ proviso as a matter of course.

On Wednesday, Tansy and MacLean went to visit Carrie at the hospital. MacLean did so with some trepidation but his fears about how Carrie would react to him proved groundless and in the end it turned out to be the best day he had for a long time. Carrie’s eyes sparkled when she saw him and she immediately took his hand in proprietorial fashion as the three of them walked round the grounds together. It felt like their old Saturday morning expeditions. True, Tansy was with them but she was happy to take a back seat in the proceedings, enjoying every moment and rejoicing in the fact that all three of them were together again.

Carrie’s chatter was, of course, missing but her enthusiasm and love of life was all around them. When they got to the cherry trees MacLean turned to look at Tansy. He nodded as if to re-affirm the promise he had made to her there and she smiled to camouflage her tears.

Their walk in the grounds was a prelude to their planned meeting with Dr Coulson, Carrie’s consultant. MacLean knew that this was going to be difficult because he felt sure that Coulson was going to announce the scheduling of a first operation on Carrie’s face and put them in the difficult position of raising objections. The onus would fall mainly on Tansy as the child’s mother while he, as Carrie’s ‘uncle’ could say very little.

‘Dr Coulson will see you now,’ announced the young nurse and the three of them trooped into Coulson’s office. Coulson, as usual, gave the impression of being a man in a hurry, anxiously moving papers around his desk while Tansy and MacLean sat down on plastic chairs in front of him. It seemed that speaking to relatives was a necessary evil for Coulson, to be got over as quickly as possible. MacLean noted the golf clubs in the corner.

‘We have pencilled Carrie in for surgery next Wednesday Mrs Nielsen,’ said Coulson, expecting routine approval.

‘I’d rather you waited a bit, Doctor,’ said Tansy.

Coulson looked surprised and paused with his pen in mid air. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘Carrie is just beginning to get back to being her old self. I’d like her to have a week or two to build up her strength?’

Coulson adopted a patronising smile and said, ‘I really think that I am the best judge of your daughter’s readiness to undergo surgery Mrs Nielsen.’

‘I don’t question your professional competence Doctor,’ said Tansy. ‘But I’m Carrie’s mother I know my daughter. I’d like you to wait.’

MacLean, who was sitting in enforced silence, was filled with admiration for the way that Tansy was handling the situation.

‘Mrs Nielsen, the sooner we get started the better Carrie’s chances will be,’ said Coulson.

‘Of what?’ asked Tansy.

Coulson was becoming annoyed. He spread his hands and blurted out, ‘Of regaining some semblance of a face… ‘ He left out ‘you stupid woman’ but it was implied.

‘Some semblance of a face,’ repeated Tansy quietly.

MacLean closed his eyes and dropped his head on to his chest. Coulson had been pushed into saying it. With one slip of the tongue he had destroyed hope in his patient’s mother and now he tried to justify his stupidity by saying, ‘Well, the damage to the child’s face is extensive.’ He did not look Tansy in the eye.

MacLean hoped to defuse the situation by asking exactly what Coulson intended to do.

Coulson launched into what MacLean could only think of as a ‘popular surgery for the masses’ routine. He spoke down to them, using words he thought his audience might understand, pausing frequently to ask if he had made himself clear. MacLean found himself becoming alarmed, not at the man’s manner — pompous oafs were ten a penny in any profession — but at what he was saying. Coulson was outlining surgical procedures that had been out of date for years, techniques that had been pioneered on burned pilots in the Second World War. Pomposity was one thing, incompetence was quite another. MacLean found that he could not hold his tongue any longer.

‘Wasn’t that technique superseded by the Gelman Schwarz operation some time ago?’ he interrupted.

Coulson stopped talking as if he had run into a brick wall at speed. ‘I didn’t realise… ‘ he began uncertainly.

MacLean backed off to let Coulson out of the corner. It was very tempting to keep him in it and slowly nail him to the wall but he cautioned himself that that would be counter-productive. The objective was to delay commencement of surgery, he reminded himself. ‘I read a lot,’ he explained. ‘I thought I should find out a little about Carrie’s prospects.’

Coulson’s confidence was restored. Like so many ‘experts’ he relied a great deal on the ignorance of others. It was important to keep a comfortable distance between himself and the layman. Any signs of relevant knowledge in the masses was a worry. ‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘Actually medical opinion is divided on the matter.’

Oh really? thought MacLean without saying so. It must be divided into those who don’t want their patients to end up looking like plastic Pinocchios and those who haven’t bothered to read a textbook in the last twenty years! ‘Medical Opinion’ was such a convenient cop-out for so many. It tolerated fools so well. MacLean had come to an easy decision; there was no way Coulson was going to lay a finger on Carrie.

Tansy did not know what was going on but she was grateful that MacLean was now involving himself in the conversation. She could see that there was an undercurrent of anger bubbling inside him and that a change had come over Coulson. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it but for some reason he had become vulnerable.

Coulson finished his talk and glanced at his watch. He said to Tansy, ‘I hope you can now see why we should start surgery on Carrie as soon as possible Mrs Nielsen.’

With a quick glance at MacLean to signal her uncertainty Tansy opened her mouth to reply but MacLean took over. He said to Coulson, ‘Doctor, the reason we would like you to delay surgery for a little while is that Mrs Nielsen is considering sending Carrie to the Mannerheim Clinic in Zurich. No reflection on you of course, but Dieter Klein’s work on facial reconstruction is world famous and we would like to do the best we can for Carrie. I’m sure you’re familiar with Dr Klein’s work?’

‘Of course, ‘ stammered Coulson. ‘You should have said so at the beginning. When will you know?’

‘We expect to hear from Dr Klein within the next two weeks,’ lied MacLean.

‘Then we will put everything on hold for the moment,’ said Coulson.

‘Thank you Doctor.’

When they were out of earshot Tansy said to MacLean, ‘Coulson seemed impressed with the name.’

‘It was enough to stall him for the time being,’ said MacLean. ‘And keep his paws off Carrie.’

Tansy looked at him strangely and wondered about the choice of word but she didn’t say anything.

MacLean in turn did not tell her that Coulson wasn’t so much impressed with the name as embarrassed. The man was so far behind the times that he had obviously never heard of Dieter Klein. He probably hadn’t read a medical journal in years.

The helicopter bringing the men back from the Celtic Star rig was not due in to Aberdeen until four thirty in the afternoon so MacLean took a mid-morning train from Waverley Station which would still afford him plenty of time to get to the heliport. The wind had been rising steadily from daybreak and now it had started to rain as the train rattled out on to the Forth Bridge on its journey north.

Once out of the shelter of the land MacLean could sense the full force of the wind as it drove the rain against the carriage windows and obscured any view to the west. The carriage was practically empty so he crossed the aisle to the other side and got the view eastwards to the oil loading terminal at Hound Point. He looked up and smiled as he saw an aircraft coming in on its approach to the airport. Sometimes it was nice to see things from both angles. He returned to his seat and began to worry about the weather being too bad for the chopper to lift men off the rig.

By the time the train reached Aberdeen however, the sky had lightened and the wind had dropped a little, although it still tended to gust uncomfortably, making life difficult for the ladies of the granite city to cope with umbrellas as they struggled down Union Street with heads bowed. He put off some time drinking coffee in a small cafe which smelled of wet clothing and then some more by walking idly round a department store before eventually hailing a taxi and asking to be taken out to the heliport.

The sound of the helicopter’s blades was loud but uneven as the wind stole it away in recurrent gusts. MacLean shielded his eyes from the stinging rain and watched the big yellow Chinook bounce gently on to the tarmac to be met by ground crew looking like field mice in their large ear protectors. After what seemed an age the men began to disembark, all looking much alike in their yellow survival suits and carrying kit bags. Leavey was one of the last men to emerge; he was carrying the green holdall he had used when MacLean worked with him on the rigs.

MacLean waited for a moment to see if he was with anyone in particular but he didn’t seem to be. He crossed the tarmac at an angle to intercept him before he reached the terminal building.

‘It’s been a while, Nick,’ he said.

Leavey turned and took a moment to recognise the figure, huddled against the wind. ‘Good God, Sean MacLean!’ he exclaimed. He transferred his holdall to his left hand and reached out to shake hands with MacLean. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I fancied a pint,’ said MacLean.

‘You and me both,’ smiled Leavey.

Someone up ahead shouted to Leavey and Leavey waved him on saying that he would catch up. He looked at MacLean and said, ‘So is it a reunion with the lads you’re after or something quieter? His expression seemed to suggest that he already knew the answer.

‘I’d like to talk,’ said MacLean.

Leavey nodded and said, ‘I’ll just get organised and signed off. How about “The Anchor” in five minutes?’

MacLean walked the two hundred metres or so to the ‘Anchor’ bar and found that it was just opening for the evening. The wooden half-doors shook as unseen hands behind them undid reluctant bolts and swung them back to secure them with hooks on either side. The barman, a bald, thickset man with a ruddy complexion made even more ruddy with the effort of bending down to unlock the doors, looked up at MacLean and said, ‘Just off the rig?’

‘Not this time,’ said MacLean and followed him inside. The bar was cold and the ashtrays had not been emptied from lunchtime. There was a smell of stale smoke and a suggestion of salty dampness about the place.

‘What’ll it be?’

MacLean ordered a whisky for himself and one for Leavey and looked at the pictures behind the bar while he waited for his friend to arrive. One was of a lifeboat ploughing through stormy seas. Another two were of helicopters and there was one of the ill-fated Piper Alpha platform being consumed by fire.

Leavey arrived and smiled at the whisky waiting for him on the bar. ‘First for a fortnight,’ he said. ‘Remember that feeling?’

‘Well enough,’ smiled MacLean. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

‘Good to see you too,’ said Leavey He drained his glass and ordered up two more. This time they left the bar counter and sat down. ‘This is not a social visit; is it?’ said Leavey.

MacLean agreed with a smile. ‘No, I need help,’ he said. ‘I had hoped to find Mick Doyle here as well but they told me he didn’t work for the company any more.’

‘Mick doesn’t work for anyone any more,’ said Leavey. ‘He’s dead.’

MacLean was shocked. ‘What happened?’ he asked sadly.

‘Accident on the rig, washed overboard in a force nine, no chance.’

‘Poor Mick.’

‘One of the best,’ said Leavey. He raised his glass and toasted, ‘Absent friends.’

MacLean raised his own glass silently.

‘What’s your problem?’ asked Leavey.

‘You must be dog tired,’ said MacLean. ‘Maybe you would rather wait until tomorrow?’

Leavey examined MacLean’s face and said, ‘So time is not a factor then?’

‘Actually it is,’ said MacLean.

‘Then tell me now.’

MacLean told Leavey about Carrie and how the attack had been intended for him. He told him that there was a chance that he could repair the disfigurement if he could get his hands on Cytogerm but that was proving difficult.

Leavey sipped his drink and began to recap on what MacLean had told him. ‘If I understand you right, you have to steal this Cytogerm from this drug company but you don’t know where they keep it. You do know the name of the guy who’s in charge of it so you want to break in to the company’s offices to find out where he works. Your only alternative is to find this woman, May… ‘

‘Haas.’

‘May Haas, but you have no lead to her either. On top of that the opposition doesn’t think twice about killing people. How am I doing?’

‘About sums it up,’ agreed MacLean.

Leavey examined the bottom of his glass in silence then said; ‘There is another way.’

‘Tell me.’

‘You mentioned a regular meeting of the company’s directors at a hotel in Geneva?’

‘The Stagelplatz,’ said MacLean.

‘These men must know the whereabouts of X14. We could grab hold of one and ask him.’

MacLean had to admit that the idea was simple and straightforward and that he hadn’t thought of it himself. They didn’t even have to use the Stagelplatz meeting place because the names and addresses of the directors were no secret. They could get to most of them without too much trouble he reckoned. Then he saw the drawback and told Leavey. ‘I can’t believe that all the directors are involved in this affair,’ he said.

‘You mean we might approach the wrong one?’

‘Precisely, and once we’d done that the cat would be out of the bag. We couldn’t keep an innocent man quiet.’

Leavey nodded as he took MacLean’s meaning. ‘So it’s back to breaking and entering in Geneva.’

‘I think so.’

‘This kid of yours, she’s really bad? I mean, there’s no other way of fixing her up?’

MacLean shook his head and said, ‘There’s skin grafting but she will be severely disfigured for the rest of her life. Cytogerm surgery is her only chance of being restored to normality.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Five.’

‘Shit,’ said Leavey. He suddenly drained his glass in one go and said, ‘All right, count me in. I’ll have a double.’

‘Thanks Mick,’ said MacLean. ‘You can have as many doubles as you like.’ He got to his feet to go to the bar but Leavey stopped him saying, ‘Not just yet, I have to go out for about fifteen minutes. Wait till I get back.’ Without saying any more, he got up and left.’