Authors: Ken McClure
‘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&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.
‘How was he?’ asked Tally, when Steven got in just after seven.
‘Not good.’
‘Do they know if it’s malignant yet?’
‘No. I had a word with his doctor afterwards who showed me the scans. They’re going to have to remove it but it’s not going to be easy. They’ve told John fifty-fifty.’
Tally’s eyes asked the question.
‘On a good day.’
‘Could you have a conversation with him?’
‘Yes, he was very tired but quite
compos mentis
. He wants me to take over at Sci-Med if the worst should come to the worst. I declined.’
‘How did he take that?’
‘He was … disappointed. He seems convinced that
something
awful is about to happen.’
‘The one-last-mission gambit,’ said Tally.
‘Maybe,’ said Steven, impressed as always by Tally’s
understanding
of the games people play.
‘It must have been hard to turn down a dying man, especially a good friend. What reason did you give?’
‘I couldn’t afford to lose you.’
The reply stopped Tally in her tracks. She swallowed and unconvincingly changed the subject. ‘You’re back late.’
‘I went to the London flat to make sure it was okay and then called in at work on the way home to go through the mail – shouldn’t have bothered. Got my wrist slapped by Lionel Montague for putting personal considerations before work and swanning off to London, as he saw it.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Tally, her eyes widening like saucers. ‘But you’re … No, no, no, this is all wrong. This shouldn’t have happened.’ She started to pace around the room as if wrestling with some inner conflict.
‘Hey, it’s no big deal,’ Steven tried to assure her, feeling alarmed and not quite understanding her reaction.
Tally shook her head. ‘No. It’s not just this. I’ve been kidding myself. This is all wrong. I’ve been hoping against hope that our life together could work but it’s not going to. You’re not like other people, Steven. You really
are
special … and I thank you for trying to change for my benefit but I can’t allow it any longer. You must tell John that you’ll go back to Sci-Med.’
Steven was stunned. ‘But what about us? We made a bargain. I agreed to walk away from it all.’
‘We can’t be the kind of “us” I hoped for. I’m just going to have to accept that; we’ll have to work round it. You are Steven Dunbar, the kindest of the kind, the bravest of the brave, and the fact of the matter is that one day with you is worth a
life-time
with any nine-to-five, arse-kissing, pen-pushing emasculated excuse for a man who’d put the company before the wishes of a dying friend – the sort of man I was trying to turn you into and I’m so, so sorry.’
Steven felt her warm, wet tears on his cheek as he held her close. ‘Maybe we should sleep on this and talk about it in the morning.’
‘No,’ said Tally, pulling away slightly and trying to regain her composure, wiping her cheeks with her palms and smoothing back her hair, which was still tied back the way she wore it to work. ‘I’ve decided.’
With Steven’s pharmaceutical company suitably compensated by Her Majesty’s Government for taking their employee away without notice, he endured an excruciating farewell sherry party in Lionel Montague’s office, smiling his way through jokes about his having found life in the private sector a bit too tough and scuttling back to the safety of public sector life.
‘Tosser,’ whispered Rachel Collins at his elbow.
Steven’s smile simply became broader. He was just so happy to be leaving. He felt as if he had wings on his heels as he ran down the stairs for the last time and drove out of the car park. He and Tally went out to dinner at the French restaurant they’d used when they’d first met, an easy relaxed affair now that neither was playing a part and all their cards were on the table. They’d never felt closer, despite the fact that Steven would set off for London in the morning.
‘Did you hear how Sir John was today?’ Tally asked.
‘No real change. He’s holding his own.’
‘No doubt boosted by the imminent return of his star investigator.’
‘All I’ve agreed to do is take a look at the thing that was worrying him.’
Tally took Steven’s hands in hers. ‘You don’t think he could have faked the whole thing just to get you back, do you?’ she said earnestly.
‘Of course not,’ exclaimed Steven, and then was relieved to see it had been a joke as the smile appeared on Tally’s face at his reaction.
‘Good, otherwise he’d have another thing worrying him and she’d have a scalpel in her hand.’
Next morning Steven drove straight to the flat in London and parked the Honda in the basement garage, taking his gear up in the lift. Only two journeys were required; he’d left as much as possible in Leicester in an effort to minimise the change. The heating gurgled and protested for a bit but finally sorted out its problems and settled down to a steady hum before he left for the Home Office. He had changed into a dark suit and tie, Macmillan’s stipulated dress code; he wouldn’t be there but somehow it seemed only right.
‘How nice to see you,’ exclaimed Jean Roberts when Steven appeared in her office. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I heard the rumours about your coming back; I’m so glad they were true.’
Steven and Jean had known each other a long time, and it was good to be exchanging pleasantries again. Jean asked to be brought up to date on Jenny and her life in Scotland, and Steven got the latest details about the Bach Choir, of which Jean was an enthusiastic member. When they reached a natural hiatus, Jean asked, ‘Will you be using Sir John’s office?’
Steven shook his head. ‘No I’ll use the small one for the time being. Let’s not give up on him yet. Apart from anything else, I’ve only agreed to take a look at the thing that’s been concerning him most. I take it you have some notes for me?’
‘Quite a lot, actually.’ Jean pulled out several files from her desk drawer. ‘In the absence of any specific requests from Sir John, I had to go for blanket cover.’
‘Wow,’ said Steven, surveying the pile. ‘Where do I begin?’
Jean smiled. ‘How much do you know?’
‘Let’s see. Almost twenty years ago, a journalist went up to Newcastle to cover a story and never came back. He, his editor and several others died. Officially the story he was covering was about an operation that went wrong in a hospital where a new health scheme was being introduced at the time – the very successful brainchild of the then health secretary, John Carlisle. The scheme was abandoned for some unknown reason, Carlisle dropped off the radar and ended up taking his own life last week. Someone else connected with the scheme was recently blown to bits in Paris. How am I doing?’
‘I think you’ve grasped the main points very well.’
‘But most of this was nearly twenty years ago,’ said Steven. ‘What triggered John’s interest?’
Jean appeared thoughtful. ‘Looking back, I think it was a lunch he had with Detective Chief Superintendent Malloy. He came back from that wanting details about the operation you mentioned. Apparently the surgeon’s wife was one of those who died in Paris too, and the name had rung a bell with Sir John. It just seemed to go on from there.’
‘Thanks, Jean. Maybe I’ll go see him again before I make a start on this.’
‘Give him my best.’
John Macmillan was resting with his eyes closed when Steven arrived at the hospital, causing him to pause at the door. He was wondering whether or not to just leave when Macmillan seemed to sense someone was there and opened his eyes. ‘Steven.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like I have a brain tumour.’
‘Stupid question. Have they scheduled the operation?
‘Next week.’
Steven sat down beside him. ‘It’s going to take more than a clump of cells to fell the John Macmillan I know.’
Macmillan smiled serenely, as if he knew better. ‘Have you seen Jean?’
‘I’ve just come from the Home Office. She gave me what she thought were the relevant files – all of them.’
Macmillan managed a chuckle. ‘Sorry there are so many.’
‘So where should I start?’
‘Carlisle’s death. There was always something odd about the man. I think he could be the key to whatever’s going on.’
‘A dead man?’
Macmillan closed his eyes and gave a slight nod as if acknowledging the problem.
‘What do you mean by odd?’ Steven continued.
‘Meteoric rise, spectacular fall, something not quite right with either.’
‘Okay, I’ll run with that,’ said Steven gently, sensing that Macmillan had no heart for further talk. ‘We’ll talk after the op.’
He turned at the door to look back at the sleeping man. A lump came to his throat.
When he got back to the flat and had made himself some coffee, he took Macmillan’s advice and separated the material on John Carlisle from the files. It took about fifteen minutes to do this, followed by another hour of reading it, before he found himself agreeing with John Macmillan. There was
something
very odd about the man. He seemed to have appeared on the political landscape from nowhere. A poor lower second from Cambridge had been followed by several jobs in the City – none of which had lasted longer than a few months – and then he’d popped up as the Conservative candidate for Ryleigh in the Cotswolds, a safe Tory seat. Why was that? Why had he been gifted a safe seat when there must have been tremendous competition for such a prize?
It was much more usual for would-be MPs to cut their teeth fighting no-hope seats in their opponents’ heartlands, proving their resilience and commitment to the cause before being adopted by a constituency which afforded them at least a chance of winning. But not John Carlisle. He materialised from nowhere, a new, unknown candidate in a constituency where they’d elect a cardboard cut-out if it was wearing blue, and won the seat with a majority of over ten thousand.
Steven could see from contemporary press cuttings that Carlisle had been a strikingly good-looking man in a pretty-boy sort of way – all white teeth and floppy hair. He could imagine Tory matrons taking to him well enough but even so … it all seemed far too easy. The man said nothing in the House for the first year but then started to exhibit an interest in the National Health Service and produced over the course of the next eighteen months a string of suggestions as to how it could be modernised and improved – an interest and expertise that again appeared to have come from nowhere. A year later, after a cabinet shuffle, he was made health secretary, and launched an ambitious modernising scheme in the north of England to much acclaim.
Reading through yet more press cuttings from the time, Steven found that few had a bad word to say about the Northern Health Scheme, although one or two local GPs had expressed concern over a perceived lack of freedom to prescribe as they saw fit. Steven followed this up but there was little to support the GPs. Under the scheme, a computer made the final
judgement
about which drugs the patients were to be given, but it was clear that the computer did not just pick the cheapest option. A sophisticated software program examined the doctors’ recommendations, sought alternatives and examined the merits of all, based on published research, before making the final
decision
about what to give the patient. If two drugs had equal merit in the literature, it would supply the cheaper one.
The computer was unbiased, which was more than could be said for prescribing physicians who could be influenced by shiny advertising and pharmaceutical company hospitality. When the computer had made its choice, the drug was supplied from a central pharmacy quickly and efficiently, to be either
administered
in the hospital or collected by the patient. The need for bits of paper floating around the system and people interpreting them had been eliminated at a single stroke, as had the need for queuing at chemists while prescriptions were filled. Doctors in College Hospital and the surrounding GP practices simply punched in details of their patients and their recommended medicines, and the computer did the rest.
Steven found himself admiring the system. Like many good ideas, it had simplicity at its core and, as a bonus, the money saved through streamlining the process was ploughed back into the budget. Unlike the situation in many health authorities, no drugs were off limits in the Newcastle area, even the most
expensive
anti-cancer ones. If the computer accepted the diagnosis and the doctor’s recommendation, and could find no better alternative, it would supply the drug. Everyone appeared to be thoroughly satisfied with the new scheme, and voices were raised in favour of its being extended across the nation. The only question lingering in Steven’s mind as he got up to make more coffee was why on earth that hadn’t happened.
As he read on, Steven could see that the fate of the Northern Health Scheme was inextricably linked to the fortunes of its designer, John Carlisle. At the height of its success, Carlisle was being mooted as a future Tory leader, and then, without any discernible reason, it all seemed to wither and die. The Northern Health Scheme was wound up – the ‘end of its experimental period’, according to the press releases. Carlisle was switched to another ministry in which he became totally anonymous before being dropped from cabinet altogether, and becoming an equally anonymous backbencher, finally hitting the skids and being exposed in the expenses scandal before taking his own life – the meteoric rise and fall, as John Macmillan had said.
Daylight was fading fast and Steven had nothing to eat in the flat, so he thought he’d eat at a new Thai restaurant he wanted to try. After that, he would call Tally to swap tales of the day, and then spend the rest of the evening going through the files. If he felt up to it, he might wind up by going
late-night
shopping at an all-night supermarket to stock up with the essentials of life: bacon, eggs, cheese, bread, gin, tonic, beer and lots of frozen ready meals.