‘He was meticulous about secure passwords. He once gave me a lecture on how difficult it was to come up with random numbers and one of his favourite sayings was “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.’
‘Any thoughts about other baskets?’ Steven asked.
‘He used cloud storage as well as servers. He said I should keep my photographs on one.’
‘Which one?’
‘Microsoft Sky Drive... sorry, Steven... I’m feeling awfully tired...’
‘God, I’m so thoughtless, forgive me.’
Lucy reassured him with a pat on his hand, but she was asleep by the time he reached the door.
Steven returned to the Home Office to find John Macmillan in a foul mood.
‘No wonder they didn’t want to tell me what hospital Barrowman was in,’ he stormed. ‘He isn’t in one.’
‘What?’
‘The alarm was raised when the ambulance didn’t arrive. It was found two hours later with Barrowman’s police escort and the two ambulance attendants unconscious inside. None of them knows what happened.’
‘They don’t know?’ exclaimed Steven.
‘The driver remembers reporting he was being followed by what he thought was a private ambulance and shortly afterwards a police vehicle appeared — he thought in response. It flagged him down and he opened his window to talk. That’s the last thing he remembers.’
‘Sounds like gas was involved.’
‘Someone wanted Dr Barrowman more than we did.’
‘Someone with technical expertise when it comes to kidnapping,’ said Steven, ‘not to mention inside information about his whereabouts which is even more worrying. Is this why they’re keeping quiet?’
Macmillan nodded. ‘No one can figure out what’s going on and they certainly don’t want anyone linking it with the Moorlock Hall story in the papers.’
‘Why would they?’ said Jean? ‘I mean very few people know about Barrowman’s connection with Moorlock.’
‘I suspect Mrs Lillian Leadbetter does,’ said Steven. ‘Groves would have mentioned his involvement, I’m sure.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I’m not sure there’s anything in it for her,’ said Macmillan, ‘but it would be a godsend for the tabloids. Scientist involved in experimentation on prisoners held in secret prison loses mind and tries to murder wife and unborn child before escaping police custody and going on run.’
‘Not good.’
Thirteen
Steven walked by the embankment. He needed to clear his head; there were just too many variables floating around to prevent him seeing a clear course of action. He didn’t think they’d find any useful information on Barrowman’s computers and in his notes because of the man’s paranoia. Lukas Neubauer and his colleagues at Lundborg might be able to crack passwords protecting data files if they found them but the odds must be against it. Lucy might remember something useful, some casual comment made in conversation before her husband became distant and hostile, but then again, she might not.
The only realistic source of information about Barrowman’s discovery was Barrowman himself and unfortunately, someone else had concluded that too — and beaten them to it. There were two prime suspects for this, the intelligence services who had tried to prevent the research being done in the first place and secondly, those who had come up with the finance for Dorothy Lindstrom’s research.
Steven decided that the first practical thing they all had to do, despite being pessimistic about the outcome, was to find out just how much information was on Barrowman’s computers and in his notes. It was a fair bet that Dorothy Lindstrom was hard at work doing just that as he stood there, leaning on the wall, watching the rising tide. He had to concede that she had every right to do this as the future of her research group probably depended on coming up with some meaningful progress so that funding might be continued. She would probably be joined in her search by Tyler, the consultant retained by the funding body as soon as they heard what had happened, but Steven feared that this was something they might do even if they had had some involvement in the kidnapping and were currently interrogating Barrowman in some deep, dark cellar. That was the trouble with not knowing, Steven concluded, your imagination always made things worse.
Steven decided he would not request immediate access to the material found in Barrowman’s lab. Dorothy and the money men’s reps could do that while he did what they couldn’t — get hold of what the police had taken from Barrowman’s flat. He would ask Lukas Neubauer to go through it with a fine-tooth comb.
Steven was in the process of wondering whether he should give Lukas a call or go over to see him in person when Jean Roberts called.
‘I’ve spoken to the principal at Capital. He and Professor Lindstrom have a meeting arranged for two thirty this afternoon to discuss the situation. You could join them if that’s convenient?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Steven, who was well used to important people imagining their diaries were full until convinced otherwise.
‘There’s a bonus,’ said Jean. ‘The scientific consultant employed by the lawyers acting for the backers of the Lindstrom group will be attending too. Lots of birds with one stone?’
‘What can I say?’ Steven joked. ‘A bottle of finest Prosecco will be yours.’
Capital was one of the new universities that had appeared in the UK in the past ten years having previously been a south London polytechnic. Attracting a high-profile scientist like Dorothy Lindstrom had been a major coup for them and her presence over the past year had put Capital on the academic map, ramping up its reputation in accordance with an unwritten rule that said that one outstanding scientist on the staff made you good, two made you a centre of excellence. The gamble of underwriting everything that Dorothy’s start-up grant from the pharmaceutical company did not cover until government funding appeared had nearly misfired badly when her request had been turned down, but then the situation had been rescued by the anonymous injection of cash. Now it seemed that the roller coaster was about to plunge again following Barrowman’s disappearance from the scene. So much was going to depend on being able to convince the anonymous backers that the research had not been entirely lost — or at the very least could be continued by the Lindstrom group.
Steven drove up to the collection of flat-roofed, white-painted buildings that comprised Capital University and found the image of a two-star hotel on the Spanish Costas coming to mind. The solar imagery made him think that if the worst came to the worst, their time in the sun was about to end as suddenly as it had begun. Attracting press attention would once more be dependent on handing out honorary degrees to pop stars and people who ran around in circles. ‘Sic transit Gloria mundae,’ he murmured as he mounted the steps of the administration building, passing under another Latin inscription that he translated from vague schoolboy memory as having something to do with striving for the best.
‘The principal is expecting you,’ said the woman behind the desk when Steven presented his credentials. ‘This way please.’
Steven was shown into a spacious room, requiring a long walk from the door across a deep pile carpet sporting the university’s crest to where three people sat watching his progress — one behind a large antique desk whom he took to be the principal, Dorothy Lindstrom and another man on chairs in front. The man behind the desk rose and held out his hand. ‘Charles Byford,’ he said with a perfunctory smile and a look that suggested he had detected a vaguely unpleasant smell in the air. ‘I’m principal here. I believe you’ve met Professor Lindstrom?’
‘On the occasion when we were both declined government funding on the same day,’ said Steven with a smile that was not returned.