‘How true.’
‘The very reason that she invited me to come with her and work here in the UK was to establish the truth... whatever it turned out to be.’
Steven nodded. ‘Okay, I can’t say I like the woman, but I think I have to go along with what you say. That’s not an entirely happy conclusion however...’
‘How so?’
‘If Dorothy had nothing to do with the Paul and Carrie’s deaths, someone else did and, if it was because of their research, you and Dorothy are working on the same thing.’
Jane made a face and found an argument. ‘Not exactly the same, we may be asking the same questions, but, by changing fields to epigenetics, we’re approaching from a different angle and that means we’re a long way off being able to refute or verify Paul and Carrie’s findings.’
‘And in a different country,’ Steven added.
‘Science on the run,’ said Jane, managing a smile. ‘How about you, where do you go from here?’
‘The Romero’s lead you’ve given me is all I’ve got so I’ll have to find a way of checking it out, see if anyone remembers the couple being there that night. I take it Romero’s is close to the department where you all worked?’
Jane said that it was. ‘It’s in Kelman Boulevard, would you like me to help?’
‘In what way?’
‘I was friendly with one of the technicians in the lab at Yale; she got a job in one of the other labs when Dorothy left; we exchange emails now and again. Cindy liked Romero’s — she’s a veggie too and presumably still goes there — I could ask her to try and find out if anyone remembers Paul and Carrie being there that night and who they were with, if anyone.’
What at first sounded like music to Steven’s ears quickly became concern about putting Jane’s friend in danger. He said as much to Jane who considered for a few moments before concluding, ‘I don’t really think so; it’s all a very long time ago and no one ever imagined that any kind of crime was involved...’
Steven was happy to go along with this.
‘What did you tell Dorothy about my last visit?’ he asked.
‘I told her pretty much what you told her, that you were gathering information on the group to get a feeling for the research we were doing. I didn’t lie to her; I told her you had asked about the fire and that you’d asked me as a relative outsider at the time rather than her out of respect for her feelings.’
‘Good.’
‘I didn’t admit to telling you anything about the rift between her and Paul and Carrie or what it was about.’
Steven nodded and said, ‘That’s also good, but I don’t think I should come to the lab any more, it’s going to require too much explanation. If Dorothy asks about today, it wouldn’t be a lie to tell her that we spoke more about the changes that overcame Owen Barrowman and how you told me you were concerned about another of your colleagues.’
Jane was comfortable with this and Steven gave her a series of contact numbers to call when she had any news.
Twenty
John Macmillan was still with the Home Secretary when Steven got to the Home Office so he decided to touch base with Neil Tyler. His call went to voicemail.
‘Neil, I’ve been through the police and fire reports. We should talk. Are you free for lunch today? Give me a call.’
Half an hour later, Tyler returned the call. ‘As luck would have it, I’ve just spent the morning with my legal retainers. Lunch would be a good idea.’
Steven suggested The Moorings, the same riverside pub he’d used for meetings with Barrowman and they agreed to meet at one o’clock. His liking for the place had little to do with the service or the food — which was fine — but simply because it afforded good views of the Thames and its bridges. Somehow, that was important.
‘You were right to draw attention to the fire deaths,’ said Steven.
‘I’m not sure I should be pleased to hear that,’ said Tyler.
Steven explained how he’d become suspicious after viewing the fire department photographs.
‘Why didn’t they pick up on that?’ Tyler murmured.
‘I didn’t at first, but I kept going back to them until it struck me that I was looking at two people who had died without any apparent attempt to fight the flames or escape the building and that didn’t seem right. The difference between me and the authorities was that I set out to look for something wrong and they didn’t.’
‘They saw what they expected to see,’ Tyler agreed, ‘They’d identified the cause of the fire — a gas leak — a tragic accident with no sign of foul play suspected... or looked for to any great degree.’
Steven told him of his earlier meeting with Jane Lincoln and her offer of help in tracing the last movements of Paul and Carrie.
‘That’s a bit of luck, I thought you were about to tell me you were going there, in which case I was about to suggest I come too,’ said Tyler.
‘Does that mean you got the sack from the lawyers this morning?’ asked Steven.
‘Far from it,’ said Tyler. ‘A few days ago, I submitted my report on the work found on Barrowman’s computer on the make-up of psychopathic criminals and they seemed very satisfied — or rather the people behind them are.’
‘No objections to the publication of these results?’
‘None at all.’
‘Dorothy will be pleased, but will they be happy to continue funding now that Barrowman’s out of the picture?’
‘Barrowman may be out of the picture, but they see him as having come up with the goods — a nice piece of work — and now they’re looking forward to seeing what the others in the group come up with.’
‘Happy bunnies all round,’ said Steven, ‘but where does this leave you? Will they still need you to ride shotgun on Dorothy’s group and keep an eye on what they’re up to?’
‘Apparently yes, they’d like me to continue with monthly reports on the group’s progress and to hear my assessment of where it’s going. It might have been Barrowman’s research on psychopaths that drew their attention to the Lindstrom group in the first place but obviously they’re interested in everything else that’s going on.’
‘Interesting,’ said Steven. ‘I get the impression that they don’t know anything about Moorlock Hall and Barrowman’s studies on Lawler?’
‘When you think about it, there was nothing to tell,’ said Tyler. ‘You and I both think he’s hiding something but the fact that Lawler doesn’t rate a mention in his results is not much to build a case on.’
‘True,’ Steven conceded. ‘He told a few people he thought Lawler was special, but never said why. He didn’t confide in Dorothy or his wife apart from telling Lucy he found him mesmerising or words to that effect. What do your employers know about Barrowman?’ he asked.
‘Just what Dorothy told them,’ Tyler replied. ‘They know of course that he had some sort of a breakdown recently, something being put down to long term exposure to the type of people he was associating with and they know he attacked his wife and had been referred by the police for psychiatric assessment.’
‘But they have no suspicion he was sitting on something important?’
‘I don’t think so; they were worried when they thought he might have destroyed his data because of his mental state and were relieved when that turned out not to be the case. They know about Moorlock Hall of course, because it was in the papers, but, like Dorothy, they took the view that one subject more or less was no big deal when there was enough data already to warrant publication.’
‘You look as if you’re trying to solve Fermat’s last theorem,’ said Tyler when Steven had stared unseeingly into space for at least thirty seconds.