‘That HMG didn’t actually know that to be the case,’ completed Crowe.
‘Exactly,’ said Mowbray.
‘The last thing we need right now is for a scandal to break out over a twelve year old accident. Do you think you can deal with any problems that might arise?’
‘I think so,’ said Mowbray.
Crowe gave a cursory nod and said, ‘Good.’ He rubbed his arms. ‘God, it’s getting cold.’
As he opened the door of his car, Mowbray turned to Crowe and said, ‘We’ll talk again soon.’
FIVE
Dr Steven Dunbar, senior medical investigator with the Sci-Med Inspectorate, settled back into his seat on the British Airways shuttle flight and noted as he fastened his seat belt that the flight was almost full. He recognised a couple of faces passing by as belonging to those of Westminster politicians, one of whom he’d seen on television the night before being interviewed about the potential costs of another Gulf War. As with most conversations involving politicians, no straight answer had been forthcoming.
Steven had been called back from Scotland where he had been spending — or had hoped to spend — a long weekend with his young daughter, Jenny, who lived there with his sister — in-law and her husband and their own two children. Jenny had lived with them since Steven’s wife Lisa had died some four years before.
The summons had come in the form of a text message to his mobile phone from the duty officer at Sci-Med; it said simply that John Macmillan — the head of Sci-Med — required him back in London at his earliest convenience. Steven had managed to get himself on board the first plane to London from Glasgow Airport on Monday morning after having driven the sixty miles or so from the village of Glenvane in Dumfriesshire where Jenny lived.
‘Good weekend?’ enquired the passenger smelling strongly of aftershave who eased into the seat beside him. He was a fat, loose-jowled man with a ruddy complexion. He wore a striped business suit that was too small for him, as was the collar of the Bengal striped shirt that trapped his fleshy neck, causing it to bulge over. A heart attack waiting to happen, thought Steven.
‘Fine thanks,’ he replied, a bit surprised at the question coming from a complete stranger but assuming that this might well be normal for the Monday morning shuttle with many Scots who worked in London returning after spending the weekend at home. ‘You?’
‘Daughter got married,’ said the man. ‘Cost me a bloody fortune. Don’t like the bugger much but there’s not a lot you can do these days, is there? Kids are a law unto themselves. Do as they damn well please, whatever you say.’
‘Times change,’ said Steven.
‘Damn right they do. If I’d spoken to my father the way she speaks to me…’
It was a familiar theme that Steven had no wish to hear enlarged upon. He gave a sympathetic nod and pointedly turned to reading his newspaper. He was allowed to read in peace until a communal groan broke out an hour later when the captain announced that they were now in a circular holding pattern while waiting for permission to land at Heathrow.
‘The all-elusive “slot”,’ sighed the man in the seat beside him. ‘Heathrow’s version of the holy grail; If I had a fiver for every time I’ve circled Watford or West Drayton I’d be a bloody millionaire by now.’
They landed only ten minutes behind schedule and Steven took the Heathrow Express into Paddington and then a taxi to his flat where he stopped off to shower and change. He had gone to Scotland wearing casual gear — leather blouson and chinos — so he thought he would get into ‘uniform’ before seeing Macmillan. John Macmillan didn’t make a big issue of such things but he had let it be known that he subscribed to the sloppy dress = sloppy mind school of thought.
Now wearing a dark blue suit and Parachute Regiment tie, Steven glanced out of the window to check on the weather while lightly brushing the shoulders of his jacket. His flat on the third floor of an apartment block wasn’t quite on the waterside — he couldn’t afford that — but he could see the passing traffic on the Thames through a gap in the buildings opposite. Checking his watch, he went downstairs and walked the couple of blocks necessary to reach a main thoroughfare before hailing a taxi and asking to be taken to the Home Office.
Steven exchanged a few words with Rose Roberts, John Macmillan’s secretary, while he waited in the outer office for Macmillan to see him. As usual their conversation took the form of Rose asking after his daughter and he inquiring about her singing — Rose was a member of the South London Bach Choir. When the pleasantries finally petered out, Rose got on with her work and Steven took to idly looking out of the window at the world. It was something he’d done many times in the past while waiting to be briefed on a new assignment and he was aware that the feeling in his stomach was still the same — a mixture of anxiety and excitement. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation. In fact, it was a feeling he had courted for most of his life if truth be told.
He had first experienced it in his youth when climbing in the mountains of the Lake District — he had been brought up in the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater. Youthful exuberance and a lack of forethought had on occasion taken him into situations it might have been wiser to avoid but he and his friends had learned much about themselves and each other on these occasions and Steven had been smitten with the buzz that danger brought with it. He had re-acquainted himself with it on many occasions when serving with the military and had noticed that it could become as addictive as a drug — something to which many fighter pilots and racing drivers would testify. There was something about being on the edge of disaster that heightened human senses to otherwise unattainable levels. As one fellow soldier had once put it, you don’t know what being alive is until you’re very nearly not.
But there were downsides to chasing the buzz. Not only was there the prospect of an early death but even if that was avoided, it could lead to an inability to ever fit in again to the nine-till-five existence of ‘normal’ life. This, in turn, could lead to marriage difficulties and even conflict with the law as Steven had seen happen to a number of ex-SAS colleagues.
Steven had qualified as a doctor but had never practised medicine, deciding that he had no real vocation for it and not wishing to become a second rate practitioner if his heart wasn’t in it. Like many children of middle class parents, he’d done medicine at university in order to please them and perhaps ambitious schoolteachers as well — former pupil medical graduates always looked good on the school record. Unlike many before him, however, he had faced up to the problem before drifting too far into a career he wasn’t suited to. He completed medical school and served out his obligatory registration year as a hospital houseman before joining the army where, after basic training, he had served with the Parachute Regiment before being seconded to Special Forces.
As a tall, strong, naturally athletic man, military life had suited him down to the ground and he had enjoyed the challenge and camaraderie of it all. His service had taken him all over the globe and placed him in situations where his every faculty had been tested to the limit, something that most men would never experience throughout their entire lives. Although they might not realise it, these men would live and die without ever really knowing themselves. They might imagine that they were heroes; they might even end up singing ‘My Way’ down the pub and believing it, but, without ever having been tested, it simply wouldn’t be true.