‘Well, Inspector, if you don’t need me any more…’ said Steven, preparing to leave.
‘Why do they do it?’ mused the inspector, a short, portly man, who exuded the air of a park-bench philosopher. He was standing by the bed, reading the label on the empty pill bottle.
Steven shook his head.
‘England daein shite in the World Cup wouldn’t have helped,’ said his sour-faced sergeant. Then looking at Steven, he added, ‘Nae offence like.’
Steven considered staying overnight at the hotel in Blair Atholl but suspected that the only topic of conversation in the bar would be Hendry’s death, something that would quickly become public knowledge if Blair Atholl were like any other village. Instead he drove south to Pitlochry and booked into a small hotel where he felt he could be anonymous. After a few gin and tonics he opted for early bed and spent a restless night, plagued by bad dreams of a man being tied to a chair while whisky and pills were forced down him. He was glad when morning came and he could drive down to Glasgow Airport to catch a flight back to London.
When he picked up his e-mail at the flat, Steven learned that Macmillan wanted to see him at two that afternoon ‘should he find it convenient’. He smiled at Macmillan’s turn of phrase — he’d never known the man to be anything other than polite. He phoned Rose Roberts to say he’d be there.
It was such a nice day in London that Steven decided to walk to the Home Office. The pavements were crowded but he was in no hurry and it was good to feel part of summer in the capital for a little while. Scaffolders whistled at pretty girls who self-consciously ignored them while tourists photographed and videoed just about everything in sight. Policemen were in shirt-sleeves and ice cream cones melted in the hands of children.
Steven found John Macmillan looking thoughtful. He waited until Rose had placed a tray with two coffees and a plate of biscuits on his desk before saying, ‘I spoke to the Defence Secretary last night.’
‘And he told you to pull the investigation,’ said Steven. ‘He said it wasn’t in the national interest?’
Macmillan took a moment before saying, ‘I’d ask you what makes you so cynical about our political masters if I didn’t know already,’ said Macmillan. He was referring to a previous Sci-Med investigation in which Steven had been asked to take a look at problems connected with the planting of a genetically modified maize crop. He had succeeded in opening up a can of worms which had brought him into conflict with a dark side of government that he hadn’t even realised existed and it had nearly cost him his life. He survived but the affair had jaundiced his view of the establishment. His previous conviction that he worked for the ‘good guys’ had been seriously questioned.
‘No such request was made,’ said Macmillan. ‘Nor would it have been complied with if it had. Sci-Med is and always has been independent — something maintained at no little cost to myself over the years, I must remind you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Steven and meant it. He knew very well how often Macmillan had gone to war within government to keep Sci-Med free of the influence of other bodies. It was also widely believed to be the reason why he was still plain ‘Mr’ instead of ‘Sir John’.
‘The minister was responding to my earlier request for information,’ said Macmillan. ‘During his time at Porton Down, George Sebring was assigned to a research group who were working on a vaccine against AIDS. Sebring was an expert on the antigenicity of viral proteins, whatever that means.’
‘Antigens stimulate the production of antibodies in the body,’ said Steven. ‘If you can separate out a few key proteins from a virus you can stimulate the production of antibodies against them which in turn will attack the whole virus.’
‘Thank you,’ said Macmillan.
Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘But Sebring had a nervous breakdown.’
‘What’s your point?’ asked Macmillan, seeing that nothing more was forthcoming.
‘Working on a vaccine against AIDS is going to get you a round of applause in any company,’ said Steven. ‘Possibly even a Blue Peter badge and a front-row seat in heaven. Why on earth should he have a nervous breakdown while he was engaged on something so noble? Why should he suddenly decide he had to up sticks and work elsewhere?’
‘Well, who’s to say,’ said Macmillan, looking down at his desk as if forced to agree but unwilling to acknowledge the fact. ‘There may have been other factors going on in his life at the time, things we don’t know about.’
‘And we can’t ask him now because somebody murdered him to keep his mouth shut,’ said Steven.
‘I don’t believe the Defence Secretary was lying,’ said Macmillan.
‘I’m not suggesting that he was,’ said Steven. ‘But he may have been ‘advised’ wrongly. We both know that cabinet ministers are at the mercy of career civil servants when it comes to getting information. There’s a lot they don’t know and a lot perhaps — when it suits them — they don’t even want to know.’
Macmillan appeared to concede the point. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘I don’t suppose the minister said who the other members of Sebring’s group at Porton were?’ asked Steven.
‘Only that it was led by a chap named Dr Donald Crowe,’ replied Macmillan. When he saw a slight smile appear on Steven’s face he added, ‘Did I say something amusing?’
Steven said, ‘Crowe turned up at Sebring’s funeral. Sebring’s wife told me he was there to make sure that Sebring hadn’t left anything about his work at Porton lying around.’ He added, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want any information about a vaccine left lying around…’
‘I think you’ve made your point,’ said Macmillan.
Steven took a sip of his coffee before asking, ‘Did you ask the minister about the 1st Field Laboratory Unit?’
‘It doesn’t exist,’ said Macmillan.
Steven replaced his cup in the saucer. ‘Really?’ he said.
‘But he concedes that it did,’ continued Macmillan. ‘Apparently it was conceived as long ago as the First World War but was then disbanded until the time of the Gulf War when they re-commissioned it. It comprised a team of forty men who were used in teams of five to monitor the potential use of chemical and biological weapons. They were known officially as “The Secret Team”. Each member was sworn to secrecy under the terms of the Official Secrets Act and it wasn’t and isn’t government policy to acknowledge their existence.’
‘I don’t suppose the minister explained why the government of the day ignored every report the unit ever made?’ asked Steven.
‘Indirectly, I think he did,’ said Macmillan. ‘A great deal of pressure was forthcoming from our American allies at the time. Because of that it was decided that Saddam’s use of CB weapons should be… underplayed, I think was the minister’s word.’
‘Because the Americans had supplied them to him?’
‘Regrettably and embarrassingly, yes.’
‘That fits with what I’ve heard,’ said Steven. ‘Angus Maclean, the Scotsman who called on Sebring before his death, maintains he was a member of the unit although, of course, the MOD denies it.’
‘Well, it was a secret organisation,’ said Macmillan. ‘By rights he could be prosecuted under the act for even revealing that fact.’
‘I think that’s why he keeps telling people,’ said Steven. ‘He wants to be prosecuted so he could say what he has to say in open court. He’s convinced that his wife and daughter are dead because of something that Porton did, something that Sebring was involved in, something that Sebring may even have confessed to Martin Hendry.’
‘I see you’re determined to get your teeth into this,’ said Macmillan.