Ken McClure - Lost causes

Supposing Carlisle had always been the dishonest character he’d recently been shown to be, and supposing he had been involved in something not quite kosher at the time of the health scheme, was it conceivable that he had been found out and marginalised by his own party who had then mounted some kind of cover-up to avoid a scandal? The incoming Conservative administration back in ’92 could have shifted him sideways — as indeed they had — and kept him quiet with threats of what they were holding over him, but that wouldn’t explain why they had dismantled the new health scheme when it had been working so well.

It didn’t make sense. Politicians didn’t turn their backs on success, and the scheme had clearly been a big asset. Surely the bright thing would have been for the new health secretary to continue with it and roll it out across the whole country to popular acclaim. Instead, they had abandoned it, labelling it as an ‘experiment’ — a failed ‘experiment’ if they were abandoning it. He must be missing something.

Maybe it had had something to do with the health scheme itself, was Steven’s next thought, some scam running in parallel, something to do with drug supply or pricing, perhaps? It only took a moment to conclude that this was an even more preposterous theory. Even if Carlisle had been the most venal of men, he would hardly have been likely to jeopardise a then brilliant career, with everything to play for, including leadership of his party, for a bit of cash on the side. That was a non-starter.

As he turned for home, Steven concluded that he needed to know more about John Carlisle. He needed to know what the man had really been like. Right now he was floundering between a prospective leader of his party and possible future prime minister, and a dishonest little nobody caught fiddling his expenses. The man was dead but he had a widow and she lived down in Kent.

That idea was stillborn. Tory wives were notoriously loyal where outsiders were concerned. Standing by their man came more naturally to them than to Tammy Wynette. What he needed was a few words with one of Carlisle’s opponents, a contemporary who, after all this time, might provide an unbiased appraisal. He would ask Jean Roberts to find someone who’d been on the Labour health team back then and, if possible, set up an interview.

Three days later, Steven drove up to Yorkshire for a meeting with Arthur Bleasdale, retired Labour member of parliament for Knowesdale, and the man who had shadowed John Carlisle and his successor until his own retiral just before the ’97 election. He decided to drive up because he wanted to stop off in Leicester on the way back.

‘Good of you to see me, Mr Bleasdale,’ said Steven as he was shown into a large bay-windowed room at the front of a solid stone villa on the outskirts of Knowesdale by Mrs Bleasdale.

‘Don’t get that many visitors these days, lad,’ said Bleasdale, getting up stiffly from his chair to shake hands. ‘Sit yourself down.’

Steven found himself taking an immediate liking to the man, who he guessed was in his early to mid seventies, a victim of arthritis judging by the gnarling of his hands and the stiffness of his movements, but with a full head of white hair and clear blue eyes that didn’t need glasses. His accent and the fact that he looked Steven straight in the eye when addressing him suggested honesty and forthrightness.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’m sure you must have heard about the death of John Carlisle,’ said Steven.

‘Aye, I did.’

‘You must have known him quite well.’

‘You could say. I shadowed him for a couple of years back in the early nineties or thereabouts.’

‘At the time of the Northern Health Scheme?’

‘That’s right.’

‘What did you think of the scheme?’

‘Couldn’t say so at the time, but bloody brilliant, worked like a dream. I was reduced to asking why they hadn’t done it sooner,’ recalled Bleasdale with a staccato laugh. ‘Couldn’t think of anything else to criticise.’

‘Then you were a fan of John Carlisle?’ said Steven, immediately realising his error and adding, ‘Well, not exactly a fan, you were political opponents of course, but an admirer of his abilities?’

‘No, I was never that,’ said Bleasdale, leaving Steven faintly puzzled.

‘But you thought his scheme was brilliant.’

‘’Twas, but it weren’t his,’ said Bleasdale.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It were never John Carlisle who thought that up, lad. I wouldn’t have put money on him doing the four times table. Thick as a plank.’

‘A government minister?’

‘Who avoided interviews like the plague. Any time he appeared in public he was reading a prepared speech. Someone else was pulling the strings, you take my word for it.’

Now he was getting somewhere, Steven thought. ‘Would you happen to know who?’

Bleasdale shook his head. ‘I don’t even think the people in his own party knew the whole truth of what was going on.’

‘Not even his cabinet colleagues?’

Bleasdale broke into laughter. ‘Sounds bloody ridiculous when you put it like that, doesn’t it, but I don’t think so. There was a certain reticence about asking or saying too much about Golden Boy at the time, as if… it might not be good for one’s own… career? I don’t know. But they just seemed to accept they had a cabbage sitting beside them and got on with it.’

‘Why on earth would they put up with a situation like that?’

‘Because whoever was behind Carlisle was so bloody good,’ said Bleasdale. ‘The Northern Health Scheme was brilliant and probably the reason for the Tories getting back in ’92. Apart from that, Carlisle’s good looks were bringing in a shedload of votes for them. The shire ladies got moist at the very sight of him.’

Steven smiled. ‘But then it all went wrong?’

Bleasdale looked thoughtful. ‘Aye, it did. Although for the life of me I can’t think why.’

‘No idea at all?’

‘I remember some kind of drugs war broke out in Newcastle at the time: people died and suddenly it was all over. Carlisle was shifted to some ministry dealing with European trade regulations and the new woman with the health portfolio abandoned the scheme. If I’d stayed on after ’97, I’d have cheerfully pinched the idea and reintroduced it without a second thought,’ said Bleasdale with a chuckle that Steven found infectious. ‘I’d be sitting in bloody Lords right now.’

‘Why did you leave Parliament?’

Bleasdale gave a shrug. ‘Party changed, lad. Blair arrived. New Labour was old Tory as far as I was concerned. I was having none of it.’

Steven nodded. ‘Looks like the country might just be about to agree with you. Thank you for your help, Mr Bleasdale. I’m much obliged.’

‘It’s Arthur, lad. Now, before you go, what’s Sci-Med’s interest in all this?’

Steven asked Bleasdale if he’d read about the Paris flat explosion.

‘Aye, I did.’

‘At least one of the murdered victims had something to do with the Northern Health Scheme, maybe two, and then John Carlisle takes his own life…’

Bleasdale nodded. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have thought he’d have had the nerve. Takes courage to do that, lad. All that stuff about easy way out is bollocks. Doesn’t sound like Carlisle at all.’

Steven made a mental note.

‘Quite a few people died in Newcastle too,’ said Bleasdale thoughtfully. ‘People in and around College Hospital.’

‘In the drugs war,’ said Steven in a tone that made Bleasdale acknowledge the doubt in it with a slight shrug before stating the obvious.

‘Well, it were all such a bloody long time ago.’

Steven got up to go. He shook hands with Bleasdale, thanked him again and told him not to get up.