Dewar wasn’t so sure. ‘I’ve never known one start off with middle-of-the-night dramatics,’ he said. ‘Something must be awfully wrong if they got Macmillan out of bed at this time in the morning. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sound so rattled.’ He dressed hurriedly and kissed Karen good-bye while checking his pockets for keys and wallet.
He raced through quiet streets, anxiously turning over the conversation with Macmillan in his mind and searching for reasons. A barge was approaching the bridge as he crossed the Thames; its lights seemed friendly in the darkness and the dull monotonous thump of its engine contrasted with the rasp of his own as he accelerated away at the lights change. He was at the Home Office in under fifteen minutes.
There were four other men in Macmillan’s office when he entered, Frobisher, Macmillan’s deputy, looking grave, two he didn’t recognise but who were introduced as being from the Department of Health and the Public Health Service respectively, and a third man he did recognise. It was Hector Wright from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the man who’d briefed him on
smallpox at the outset. It was Wright’s presence that alarmed Dewar most. His first thought was that there had been some mistake in the report from Porton on the contents of Steven Malloy’s lab; they must have come up with something really alarming.
‘
We’ve had some very bad news,’ said Macmillan.
‘
About the contents of the tubes?’ asked Dewar.
Macmillan looked puzzled then he understood Dewar’s train of thought. ‘If only! Worse than that, a lot worse than that,’ he said. ‘There’s a case of smallpox in Edinburgh.’
Dewar felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach then he started to feel stupid and finally angry. In spite of all the protests he’d heard about no one being irresponsible enough to attempt reconstruction of live smallpox virus, it now appeared that one of them had actually done it. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’ he asked.
‘
There’s no doubt,’ continued Macmillan. ‘A twenty-six year old man, he’s been in the city’s Western General for over a week; they didn’t know what was wrong with him at first but they do now. They’ve done all the tests and they’re positive; he’s been moved to the hospital’s isolation suite.
Dewar tried to think who at the institute might fit the patient’s description but his mind was doing cartwheels. He couldn’t concentrate. ‘Which one of them’s gone down with it?’ he asked.
‘
It gets worse,’ said Macmillan. The patient is not one of the institute staff. As far as we can ascertain, he has no connection with the institute at all.’
Dewar couldn’t believe his ears. ‘But there must be a connection,’ he protested.
‘
You’d think so,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘Common sense demands it but if it’s there, we can’t find it.’
‘
Our people have drawn a complete blank,’ said the Public Health official.
‘
So who is this man?’
Macmillan read from the sheet of paper in front of him. ‘Michael Patrick Kelly, aged 26, currently unemployed, last job, site labourer for J.M. Holt and Sons, known to the police, one conviction for theft, two more for drugs related offences. Divorced four years ago, current partner, Denise Banyon, also known to the police, drugs offences. They live in the Muirhouse district of the city, an area of high unemployment and drug problems.
‘
But there just has to be a connection with the institute,’ insisted Dewar, although he had to admit that it wasn’t blindingly obvious.
‘
Can you see it?’
‘
Not at first glance,’ conceded Dewar. ‘Maybe he has friends at the institute?’
The doubting glances became infectious. ‘All right, I agree, doesn’t seem likely. Maybe he carried out some work there? What does this firm, Holt and Sons do?’
‘
The people on the ground up there looked at that,’ said the man from the DOH. They’re house builders. That’s all they do. They’ve never done any kind of contract work for the university.’
‘
Well you said he’s unemployed at the moment. Maybe he’s been working as a window cleaner?’ suggested Dewar, clutching at straws.
‘
They’re looking into that sort of thing at the moment,’ said Macmillan. ‘Getting information from the circle of people he moves in isn’t proving easy.’
‘
I can imagine,’ said Dewar.
‘
You don’t know the half of it. This is going to be a Public Health nightmare. Can you imagine what isolating the contacts is going to be like when most of them are anti-social drug addicts?’
‘
It’s got to be done,’ said Wright, speaking for the first time.
‘
Easier said than done,’ said the DOH man.
‘
You’ve got to get these contacts off the street,’ said Wright. ‘You’ve got to isolate them and then vaccinate everyone else for miles around.’
‘
I think we have to leave the logistics of the operation up to the people on the spot,’ said the DOH man.
‘
Christ, I hope they know what they’re doing,’ said Wright, whose intensity was making everyone else in the room feel uncomfortable. This included Dewar but he felt uncomfortable for a different reason. He understood that Wright knew what he was talking about. If he was afraid of the consequences of screwing up the Public Health operation, there was every good reason for everyone else to feel the same way, if only they knew it.
‘
Have these people ever been involved in something like this before?’ asked Wright.
‘
They were involved in the
E.coli
outbreak last year.’
‘
There’s no comparison!’ exploded Wright. ‘Most people could sprinkle E.coli on their cornflakes and neither be up nor down. It’s only the old and infirm it’s a major problem for. It’s not in the same league as smallpox when it comes to killing people.’
‘
I don’t think there’s any need to over-dramatise the situation, Dr Wright,’ said the man from the ministry.
‘
Over dra … ‘ exploded Wright. ‘Sonny, we are talking about the most deadly disease the world has ever known
‘
We’ve put in a request for vaccine,’ said Macmillan, attempting to defuse the situation.
‘
You mean they don’t have any up there?’ asked Dewar.
‘
Or anywhere else apparently,’ replied Macmillan. ‘Large stocks haven’t been kept routinely for some years.’
Wright shook his head and cursed under his breath. ‘The WHO hold the only substantial stocks of it. It’ll have to come from Geneva. More time wasted. Shit!’
‘
Do we know what strain of smallpox it is?’ asked Dewar.
Macmillan looked down at his desk before saying, ‘I understand it’s been typed as
Variola major.
‘
The worst kind,’ said Wright. Fifty percent mortality.’
‘
So we’ll have to isolate all Kelly’s contacts and establish the link between Kelly and the institute,’ said Dewar ‘Anything else would be an unbelievable coincidence.’
‘
I’m glad you see it that way,’ said Macmillan. ‘Because that’s what you’re
going back up there to establish.’
FIFTEEN
‘
Do I work alone?’ asked Dewar. He had a hollow feeling in his stomach. Wright’s presence had brought back to him all the man had said about smallpox.
‘
You’ll have your usual autonomy in terms of independence of action but you’ll be attached to the major-incident team that’s being set up to handle the problem. The team will be based at a command centre in the Scottish Office building in Leith, the so-called port of Edinburgh. Conveniently it’s in the north of the city and just to the east of Muirhouse where the problem is centred. It’s also quite near to where the Western General Hospital is. The team will comprise medical experts, public health people, police and government representatives. More experts will be co-opted as necessary. It’s very much a hands-on team. Politicians will be taking a back seat. I need hardly add that time is against us in all of this.’
Dewar turned to Wright and asked, ‘Are you going to be involved?’
Wright shook his head and looked down at the table in front of him.
‘
Why not? You are the leading expert on this disease by all accounts and one of the few people who’ve actually worked with it.’
‘
I haven’t been asked,’ replied Wright flatly, but there was no mistaking the resentment in his body language.
The DOH man moved uncomfortably in his seat. ‘No slight was intended to Dr Wright, I assure you, but we have what we feel is an excellent team in place.’
Dewar recognised this as ministry double speak for ‘Wright’s not one of us.’
He disagreed that any team could be described as excellent when the leading expert in the field had been deliberately excluded. He turned to Macmillan and said, ‘You did say more experts could be co-opted as required?’
Macmillan, seeing what was coming, shrugged his cautious agreement.
‘
I’d like to request that Dr Wright be invited to join if he’s agreeable. As a Sci-Med associate if that makes things easier for the paperwork.’
‘
It’s all right with me,’ said Macmillan.
‘
I can think of nicer things to happen to me,’ said Wright. ‘But all right, count me in.’
‘
Any other requests?’ asked Macmillan.
‘
I’d like to request the attachment of two more people,’ said Dewar.
‘
Before you even start?’
‘
You said time was against us. I’d like Dr Steven Malloy’s help in establishing the institute connection. He doesn’t have a lab any more, thanks to me, so he’s got time on his hands and he’s an insider. I’d also like to use the same police contact as before, Inspector Ian Grant. We get on.’
‘
I’ll see to it,’ said Macmillan. ‘You’re on the first shuttle up to Edinburgh.’
‘
I’ll have to join you later,’ said Wright. ‘I’ll have to square things with my wife. It’s our anniversary tomorrow.’
‘
How long?’
‘
Eighteen years.’
Dewar turned to Macmillan. ‘I take it the press haven’t cottoned on to this yet or we would have heard?’
‘
It’s a case of so far so good,’ replied Macmillan. ‘Kelly leading the life he does, not having a GP or any regular family has made it easier to keep his condition under wraps but let’s face it, sooner or later they’re going to smell a rat. The use of the isolation suite at the hospital begs its own questions.’
‘
Do we know anything about Kelly’s condition at the moment?’
‘
It’s grave,’ replied Macmillan. ‘He was pretty ill by the time he was admitted, not that even modern medicine can do anything about the progress of the disease but one of the major problems is that he’s beyond answering questions about his movements before he caught the disease.’
‘
What about his partner? I’ve forgotten her name.’
‘
Denise Banyon. She thought he’d fallen ill because of a bad fix as she put it.’
‘
She thought his condition was a reaction to drugs?’ exclaimed Dewar.
‘
Apparently.’
‘
That was a bit of luck but what did they tell her when they put her into isolation too?’ asked Dewar.
‘
No information,’ said Macmillan. He looked to the others who shook their heads. ‘But illness isn’t at all uncommon among drug addicts; it goes with the territory, particularly in Edinburgh, AIDS capital of Europe and all that.’
‘
Maybe it could be made to work in our favour?’ suggested Dewar. ‘We can probably get away with calling it hepatitis for a while, then there’s the social factor on our side too.’
Eyebrows were raised.
‘
Nobody gives a damn what happens to drug addicts anyway,’ Dewar explained. ‘There’s a largely unspoken belief among the general public that they’re getting exactly what they deserve. The
paparazzi
aren’t liable to be queuing up at the door and the hospital won’t be required to post daily bulletins on the gates.’
‘
Be that as it may, this is likely to be a very temporary window,’ said Wright. ‘The disease may have started in the drug taking community but it’s unlikely to stay there. Smallpox has no sense of social order; it’s no respector of persons; it’ll kill anybody and everybody.’
‘
Then let’s do our best to see that it doesn’t get the chance, gentlemen,’ said Macmillan. With that, the meeting ended.
Dewar lingered for a few minutes outside on the pavement with Hector Wright. ‘What d’you think of the chances of containing it as an isolated case?’ asked Dewar.
‘
Nil,’ replied Wright without hesitation. ‘In these circumstances, not a snowball’s chance in hell.’
Dewar drove back slowly to his apartment through drizzly rain. Milk floats were already on the move. There wouldn’t be time to crawl back into bed with Karen and seek a last loving cuddle before the night ended. He wouldn’t be able to accuse her of stealing all the covers in his absence and she wouldn’t get a chance to complain about his cold feet. To his, almost poignant, regret, a new day had already begun.
He had packed his bag and checked the contents of his pockets for the second time before Karen stirred and realised he was up and dressed.