David Trevellyan 03 -More Harm Than Good (30 page)

       
“But?”

       
“They can’t have been
the same, can they? Or what difference would it have made, me entering them?”

       
“Good point.”

       
“The same thing happened
once more, but they were the only times I ever did anything against the rules,
you must believe me. And it was only to save Stewart. He’s a good man, and all
he’d done was make a couple of honest mistakes.”

       
“I understand. And I believe
you. But there’s one other thing I need to know. When did this happen?”

       
The woman reeled off two
dates, both in mid August.

       
“You’re sure?” Melissa
said.

       
“I’m certain,” she said.
“It’s been heavy on my conscience ever since. I’ll never forget them.”

       
“And which hospital did
the deliveries come from?”

       
“I can’t remember. But
there was only one delivery on each of the days. It should be easy enough to
find out. I can check for you first thing in the morning.”

       
“Thank you. Please do.”

       
Neither
woman spoke for the next couple of minutes, and
I pulled over to the
side of the road without waiting to be asked.

       
“I have told you
truthfully,” the woman said. “I have told you things I have never spoken of
before, to anyone. Please. Will you keep your promise not to let word spread
back to Egypt?”

       
“Are you still seeing
Stewart?” Melissa said.

       
The woman looked away.

       
“I’ll take that as a
yes,” Melissa said. “He’s married, isn’t he?”

       
The woman didn’t speak
any words, but a short, strangled moan told us what we needed to know.

       
“OK,” Melissa said.
“Here’s where we stand. We need to talk to Stewart. We need to talk to him
today. And it’s vitally important that he doesn’t know we’re coming. So, if you
keep your mouth shut, and promise not to warn him, your secret won’t leave
these shores. Understand?”

       
The woman nodded.

       
“Good,” Melissa said.
“Where will we find him?”

       
“In the office,” the
woman said.

       
“Which office?”

       
“It’s in the same block
as mine.
One floor down.
The far end of the corridor.”

       
“Good. We’ll find it.
Now, I need you to give me your mobile phone.”

       
“Why?”

       
“
Amany
,
I like you. I want to be able to help you, and keep this under my hat. But in
my experience, mobile phones are too much of a temptation for people to resist.
So I want you to give me yours. Just for today. I’ll leave it in the office for
you to collect in the morning.”

       
The woman reached into
her bag, pulled out an old Nokia, and handed it to Melissa.

       
“Thank you,” Melissa
said. “Can you find your way home from here? We have an appointment at the
hospital.”

       
The woman nodded.

       
“OK,” Melissa said.
“Thank you, once more, for your help. I know it wasn’t easy, telling us those
things. But remember - there’s to be no communication with Stewart whatsoever.
No phone calls. No texts. No emails. No IMs. No Facebook. No Twitter. Nothing.
Otherwise your whole confession was a waste of time.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

I pulled an illegal U-turn, and watched the woman’s forlorn, stationary
figure grow smaller in the rear view mirror. Then Melissa squeezed through the
gap between the front seats, slid into place beside me, and switched off the
camera before calling
Chaston
and reporting what
Amany
had told us about a second batch of
caesium
.

       
“She was played from
minute one,” she said, when she hung up. “Poor girl. I feel sorry for her.”

       
“It was nice of you not
to tell her,” I said. “Not to tarnish her white knight.”

       
“She knows. She just
hasn’t admitted it to herself, yet. This guy Sole is clearly an operator. I
can’t wait to have a chat with him.”

       
“If he needed
Amany
to falsify the delivery receipt at St Joseph’s, the
email from the dispatching hospital must have been nobbled as well. We need to
know who else was involved at that end.”

       
“I think she might have
given us the answer to that, too.”

       
“How?”

       
“Remember how adamant
she was about the date?
Of both occasions?
August?”

       
“Yes. So?”

       
“What happens in
August?”

       
“Lots of things.”

       
“OK. What doesn’t happen
in August?”

       
I didn’t answer.

       
“Kids don’t go to
school,” she said. “August is in the middle of the school holidays. So I bet
that’s the flaw in the whole triangular
caesium
monitoring system, right there. I bet that when the manager at one hospital is
on holiday, the one from the other covers for him. That brings it down to two
points of failure. And if one is shagging the other...”

       
“I bet you’re right,” I
said. “And that explains the timing, too. They stole the stuff when they had
the opportunity to take it, and stored it - in the place they’d stolen it from
- until they needed it. Why else keep it hanging around for so long?”

I parked in almost exactly the same spot where we’d waited for
Amany
. Melissa flashed some ID at a traffic warden who had
immediately tried to pounce on us. I glared a warning at two kids who were
looking greedily at the Land Rover’s alloys, and we made our way to the St
Joseph’s admin block as quickly as we could without actually running.

       
There were two desks in
Stewart Sole’s cramped corner office. The messier one was occupied, but as soon
as its owner opened his mouth it was clear he wasn’t the guy we were looking
for. Instead of being Scottish, he had a heavy French accent.

       
“I am very sorry, but
Mr
Sole has left for the afternoon,” he said. “Is there
anything I can do to help you?”

       
I glanced at Melissa,
and saw the expression on her face growing harder.

       
“No thank you,” I said.
“It was just a social call. We’re old friends, and happened to be in the area.
You can’t remember what time Stewart left, can you? That might give us an idea
which watering hole to look for him in.”

       
“Oh, no, I didn’t mean
Mr
Sole has finished with his work for today,” he said. “He
was called to a meeting, and didn’t expect to come back. I’m sorry if my words
were misleading.”

       
“Not at all,” I said.
“What time did he leave, approximately?”

       
“Immediately after
lunch. He came in, sat down, and straight away his telephone was ringing. He
left the second he hung up. Not later than five after one.”

       
I looked at Melissa again.
Her expression was softening.
Amany
was with us at
1.05. She hadn’t gone back on her word.

       
“Thanks again,” I said.
“I really appreciate you helping us out like this, after we dropped in
unannounced. He didn’t mention where his meeting was going to be, by any
chance?”

       
“No,” he said. “He just
jumped up and was through the door, as if being pulled on a rope by the person
from the phone.”

       
“So he could have been
going to another part of the hospital?”

       
“I do not think that is
likely, because he paused only to put on his coat. I do not think this would
have been necessary if his plan was not to leave the building.”

       
“No, I guess not. Well,
thank you anyway. Have a good afternoon. We’ll maybe see you another time.”

Melissa took the car keys as we made our way back out of the
hospital, and took a moment to adjust the driver’s seat before pulling away.

       
“This is a problem,” she
said. “The trail goes cold without Sole. What do you think? Is it just a
coincidence that he suddenly goes walkabout the afternoon we come calling?”

       
“I don’t know,” I said.
“We don’t know how often he does things like this.”

       
“True. He might walk
back in tomorrow, pleased as
Punch
. Or he might never
be seen again.”

       
“And he’s obviously
involved with some pretty dodgy people, so whatever’s happening may not have
anything to do with us, anyway.”

       
“Let’s come back, first
thing in the morning, and see if we can pick him up on his way in.”

       
“Sounds like a plan.”

       
“In the meantime, let’s
drop this tractor off back at my office. Then we could maybe grab a late bite
of lunch.”

       
“Count me in.”

Melissa suggested we should eat at the Mint hotel, since it was
almost next door to Thames House. Neither of us spoke much as we wound our back
through the city traffic, and she dropped me outside while she went to sign the
car back into the pool. I found a table in an alcove under a set of stairs, and
was still getting to grips with the menu when she slid into the seat next to
mine.

       
“David, are you really
hungry?” she said.

       
“I could eat,” I said.
“But if I didn’t, I wouldn’t starve. Why?”

       
“It’s just, I’m uneasy
about doing nothing. I don’t want to wait till the morning to go after Sole. It
feels like too much of a risk. So, I was thinking, how would you feel about
heading over to his house and seeing if we can pick him up there?”

       
“Now?”

       
“We could be there when
he gets back from this mysterious meeting he was summoned to.”

       
“How will we find out
where he lives?”

       
Melissa pulled a folded
piece of paper from the inside pocket of her jacket, set it on the table, and
pushed it towards me.

       
“I took a minute when I
was back at the office,” she said.

       
I picked up the note and
unfolded it. An address in south London was written in smooth, flowing
handwriting.

       
“
Morden
?”
I said. “That’s not too far. OK. Let’s give it a try.”

       
“Thanks,” she said. “It
might not lead to anything - he might not even come home tonight - but trying
will make me feel a lot better.”

       
“It would be interesting
to see what his place is like, too. It could give us an idea of how discrete this
guy is, since his hands are apparently in the till.”

       
“It should.”

       
“How are we going to get
there? Tube?”

       
“I have a confession. I
didn’t turn the Land Rover back in, after all. It’s parked outside. I was
hoping you’d say, yes.”

The drive to Sole’s house took forty-four minutes, allowing for a set
of road works on the Balham High Road, a stop at
Pret
a Manger to pick up sandwiches, and another at a petrol station to refill the
Land Rover’s tank.

       
“This guy must have
excellent self control,” Melissa said, as she guided the Land Rover expertly
into a narrow space diagonally opposite a modest semi, a quarter of a mile from
Morden
station. “Unless he’s got a couple of Rolls
Royces
in a lock-up round the corner.”

       
“Either that, or
someone’s controlling him with something other than money,” I said.

       
“Could be either. We
need to find out which. Let’s see if he’s in first, shall we?”