‘Jean, who had heard the phone call, gave Macmillan details while Steven tried to think things through. He was struggling to accept the attack on Lucy had been some kind of horrible coincidence, but if Lucy had told the police it wasn’t Barrowman... what was he left with?’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Macmillan.
‘I knew life was a bitch, I just didn’t realise how big a one.’
‘I’m older, I knew.’
Steven asked, ‘What news?’
‘A convoluted tale,’ said Macmillan. ‘Many years ago, our intelligence services set up a Post Office box number system, which could be used in times of emergency to send material securely through the post.’
‘So far so good,’ said Steven.
‘It worked a bit like a Russian doll, one number led to another which led to another and so on.’
Steven frowned.
‘The package sent from Edinburgh was addressed to a box number in London. The box number would not mean anything to the receiving office and would be put aside as improperly addressed mail. Someone — presumably senior and who had signed the official secrets act — would see it and forward it to another PO box number where the same thing would happen. This would go on as many as four times until it reached a final destination where it would be collected by someone giving a password.’
‘So where was this final destination?’ Steven asked.
‘We don’t know.’
‘You are joking,’ exclaimed Steven, feeling as if some celestial being was having a laugh at his expense.
‘I’m afraid not. The Home Secretary was as angry as I was. She called in the heads of Royal Mail security and MI5 while I was there and demanded to know what the hell was going on. In a nutshell... they didn’t know either. She sent them away with a flea in their ear and ordered them to find out. Two hours later MI5 came back with an answer, thanks to someone with a historical interest in the service. The system was devised during the Second World War when there was a fear that we might be invaded. It was assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the mail service would still operate and so a plan using box numbers was devised, which would allow the resistance to use it without suspicion.
Although it was never used to any great extent, the box number system was never fully disabled. Trusted people who’d signed the act and been sworn to secrecy would still know what to do when one of these box numbers appeared in their sorting office. When they left or retired, a new trusted individual would be appointed and so it has gone on.’
Steven shook his head. ‘Are you saying that when someone is appointed to some senior role in a sorting office they are asked to sign the Official Secrets act, sworn to secrecy about an archaic box system and told never to divulge details to anyone?’
‘Apparently.’
‘Talk about a love of historic ritual,’ said Steven.
‘Have you seen the opening of parliament?’ said Jean.
‘But the bottom line must be that we can now find out where Barrowman’s package ended up?’ said Steven.
‘In theory,’ said Macmillan. ‘In practice, it’s going to involve questioning people who have been sworn to secrecy and who believe they’re doing their duty by denying all knowledge of what we want to know.’
‘Oh God,’ sighed Steven, feeling the will to live drain from him.
‘They’ll probably think they’re being tested,’ added Jean less than helpfully.
Macmillan said, ‘The Home Secretary has asked Special Branch to deal with it.’
‘Special Branch?’ exclaimed Steven, unable to hide his surprise.
‘MI5 thought they should do it and I objected, maintaining it should be left to Sci-Med as it was a medical science investigation. They didn’t want to admit that they were involved in the same thing so they maintained it was part of a murder inquiry — one of their own for good measure. In the end, the Home Secretary decided that Special Branch should carry out the PO box number business and inform both Five and Sci-Med so that we can both be present when the final box is opened.’
‘Could be a rather grand opening of an empty box,’ said Jean, voicing what they were all thinking.
‘It’s true we might be too late for the Scottish packet, but he may be using the box for other things and he might even be picking up stuff himself,’ said Macmillan.
‘I don’t think we should give up entirely on the Edinburgh packet not being in the box,’ said Steven.
‘Really? I thought the Scottish chap said that Barrowman was keen to have it back.’ said Macmillan.
‘He did, but it’s possible Barrowman just wanted it put in the post as soon as possible,’ said Steven. ‘Knowing what we know now about the box system, he may have been moving it to what he thought would be a safer place in case someone started snooping around in Scotland.’
‘Someone like you,’ said Macmillan.
‘Exactly, I missed it by a day, but once it was in the post it would be on its way to a post box in a secret place where it could lie for ever if necessary, away from prying eyes and, if he didn’t get the credit for his work, no one else ever would. He was hardly going to need it while he was on the run for murder.’
‘Good thinking,’ said Macmillan.
‘I’ll see your “good” and raise it to brilliant,’ added Jean.
‘Well, folks,’ said Steven getting to his feet. ‘It’s been a long day, time to go home.’
‘Did you learn anything from the American reports?’ Macmillan asked as he headed for the door.
‘Yep, it was murder.’
Twenty-One
‘How are you today?’ asked John Macmillan.
Steven recognised there was more to the question than a polite enquiry.
‘Sorry, I was a bit abrupt last night,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t face going over all the events of the day. The attack on Lucy was the final straw.’
‘Understandable, no one saw that coming.’
‘Thanks.’
Steven went through everything that had happened on the previous day, how his suspicions had been aroused by the photographs from the US fire department, moving on to his meeting with Jane Lincoln and her offer of help in establishing who might have been with Paul Leighton and Carrie Simpson immediately before the fire on that awful night and ending with his conversation with Neil Tyler.
‘It was Neil who brought up the possibility that his employers might have been implicated in the American deaths,’ he added, ‘Now the fear is that they are monitoring what Dorothy’s new group comes up with before... putting a stop to it.’
Macmillan leaned back in the chair and interlaced his fingers across his stomach before saying, ‘Assuming that what you and Tyler are suggesting is true, it would seem to suggest that Professor Lindstrom’s backers are not scientists and, by association, neither are those behind the American murders. You’re a medic, Tyler’s a scientist; you both could see that the professor’s plan to replicate the work of her dead colleagues would take a long time; that’s something the anonymous backers clearly didn’t take into account.’
‘That is a very good point,’ Steven agreed. ‘and happily, it may also take US intelligence out of the frame.’ He answered Macmillan’s inquiring glance by pointing out how much it would be costing to fund Dorothy’s research. ‘They’d be one of the few candidates capable of financing it anonymously, but, of course, they would have the scientific nous to realise how long something like that would take and would keep watch from the side lines rather than rush in.’
‘Well, I think we can call that progress,’ said Macmillan, ‘Mind you, I’m keen to call anything progress these days.’
‘We can safely adopt the politicians’ gambit,’ said Steven.
‘Which is?’