B.’
‘Do you know what the factors are?’
The man nodded. ‘There’s a long list of medical conditions and other factors which will put you on the B list. I’ve printed them out for you. Not sure what it all means, but age is a factor. Maybe they need higher doses?’
Or none at all, thought Steven. ‘Maybe.’
‘There’s also a disk containing a list of the hospitals and practices where the software is going to be introduced in the autumn.’
Steven couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Did you say going to be introduced?’
‘Yes, September 2010 onwards, fifteen areas across England and Wales.’
So they were going to reintroduce the scheme, thought Steven. Macmillan’s gut instinct had been right from the beginning. The thought gave him a hollow feeling. So what had the explosion in Paris been all about? He had to rethink his theory that the killings had been some kind of Schiller Group coup. It didn’t look so feasible now. If the assassin had been one of the Schiller Group and lost his nerve over the reintroduction of the scheme, he would hardly have been likely to summon up the courage to murder six of his colleagues to stop it happening. There had to be more to it.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said to the computer man, who was getting up to leave. His mind was still elsewhere.
Steven left the office and went over to see John Macmillan. Macmillan’s wife showed him in and told him John was on the telephone. ‘He just won’t do as he’s told,’ she complained. ‘The doctors say he must rest, but… well, you know him.’
Steven nodded sympathetically as the sound of Macmillan’s raised voice reached them. ‘Ye gods, you must have some idea by now,’ he was saying.
Steven deduced that Macmillan was complaining about the lack of progress being made by the security services. His last words before putting down the phone were, ‘But every life in the country depends on it, man. Someone must know something. Get it out of them. We’ll worry about their human rights later.’
‘Well, you sound back on form,’ said Steven, entering the room. ‘I take it there’s been no progress?’
Macmillan accompanied a shake of the head with an exasperated sigh. ‘An attack like this needs infrastructure and planning; that means people — lots of them. It’s not like a hit with explosives where a small cell can keep everything in-house. So why have our people drawn a complete blank? Not a whisper.’
‘I agree; it is odd, particularly as they know they’re home-grown.’
‘Exactly. They must have people planted in all the relevant communities and yet they come up with nothing. Why?’
Steven took a deep breath. ‘Best-case scenario, it’s a false alarm. Worst-case scenario, they’re wrong about them being home-grown. The hit’s going to come from abroad.’
Macmillan took a moment to digest this before saying, ‘I sometimes wonder where mankind would be if we’d never felt the need for religion. It’s my guess we would have colonised the planets by now.’
‘Pie in the sky has a lot to answer for.’
‘I think it’s the different fillings in the pie that are the problem,’ said Macmillan. ‘How are things?’
‘Done and dusted,’ said Steven. ‘The disks confirm it was an attempt to cull the population back in the early nineties. A rough estimate says they ended the lives of about four hundred people between those being treated at College Hospital and in the surrounding practices.’
‘I think I prefer “murdered”,’ said Macmillan.
‘James Kincaid and his friends almost succeeded in exposing them but died in the attempt. The Schiller mob had to lie low for a while, and then, of course, the Tories lost the election and Labour came to power and stayed there for thirteen years. Now with another change of government they obviously felt it safe to have another go. They were planning to set the whole thing up again in a number of hospitals across the country, beginning in September.’
‘But fate took a hand and blew them all to kingdom come,’ mused Macmillan. ‘Any more thoughts on that?’
‘I just wish it had been fate,’ said Steven. ‘It’s a loose end…’
‘And I know how much you hate those,’ said Macmillan. ‘But maybe, in our current circumstances, we shouldn’t look a gift horse too closely in the mouth.’
‘You’re right,’ agreed Steven. ‘In fact, I think they should make your gut instinct a national treasure. You were right in just about everything.’
TWENTY-TWO
Edinburgh, Friday 21 May 2010
The man came into the room at the back of the Edinburgh bungalow, carrying a box designed to transport bottles which he’d just removed from a large American-style fridge in the kitchen. He laid it down gently on the table in the middle of the room and removed a series of metal flasks. The two younger Asian men in the room couldn’t take their eyes off them as they were lined up.
‘The time has come,’ said the older man. ‘You both know exactly what to do. We have been over it many times in the past few weeks. You know where your targets are, and you know what to say to the caretakers or anyone else who asks what you’re doing. You know what to do with these.’ He indicated the flasks. ‘You put on masks and gloves before opening them, and nothing must be spilled. Take great care not to contaminate yourselves with even the slightest drop. When you’ve finished your task, you drive south to the house in Northumberland to meet up with the others, and you’ll be given details of your flights. You will not be returning to your families but they will know you are with the army of the righteous and you will live on in their hearts. Are you ready, my brothers?’
‘I am,’ answered Anwar Khan.
Muhammad Patel nodded, his throat too dry to say anything.
‘You are both blessed. Your names will live for ever and your families will stand tall. The American imperialists and their British lapdogs will learn that their greed for oil will not stop us reclaiming what is rightfully ours. The tide of filth that covers this country will be swept away by the pure waters of Islam. Do your duty. Allah is great. Praise be to Allah.’
The two men echoed the sentiment and opened their tool bags to pack the flasks inside, taking care to wedge them upright and cushion them with plastic bubble wrap.
The older man embraced each youth in turn and saw them to the door. He watched as they got into the white van with the Scottish Water logo on the side and drove off. Then, as he turned to go back inside, a woman’s voice said, ‘Oh, dear. Not having problems with your water supply, are you, Mr Malik?’
He turned to see his next-door neighbour, Gillian McKay, looking anxiously over the small hedge. ‘No, no, Mrs McKay. My nephew works with the water company. He was in the area, just dropped in to say hello.’
‘Oh, good. Maybe you could ask him next time you see him about the amount of chlorine they put in the water. Sometimes I’d swear my tea tastes like the swimming baths.’
‘I’ll certainly do that, Mrs McKay. But you can’t be too careful with water, you know.’
Khan and Patel didn’t speak during the journey to the north of the city where they stopped outside a fifteen- storey block of flats, one of four towers standing in close proximity to each other like giant skittles in a concrete alley. Khan parked close to the entrance and reached behind him to grasp a clipboard. ‘Ready?’
‘Let’s go.’
The two men entered the graffiti-adorned ground floor of Inchmarin Court and paused for a moment as the lift doors opened to let a young woman with two small children get out and cross their path. Khan pretended to check his clipboard. Patel swallowed and smiled at the woman, who ignored him as she turned to berate the smallest of her children, lagging behind.
Khan pushed the call bell for the caretaker and waited with his ear close to the grille.
‘Who is it?’
