‘
Sure, if that’s what you want. Right now?’
‘
Is that a problem?’
‘
No,’ replied Malloy.
These police officers will take you over and bring you back when it’s done.’
‘
There’s no need for that,’ said Malloy. ‘I’ve got my car outside.’
‘
We’ll have to do this by the book, I’m afraid,’ said Dewar. ‘Still, it’s not often you get an armed escort to work.’ He opened up the case and showed Malloy and the two police officers the contents. ‘It can go straight into the steriliser,’ he said.
Dewar could tell by the look on Malloy’s face that he’d taken all the key points on board. The police weren’t letting him out of their sight; they were armed and there was no reason for him to open up the package.
Malloy looked Dewar in the eye and said accusingly, ‘I’ve no problem with that, Adam. Still looking for a bogey man at the institute?’
‘
Just procedure, Steve,’ said Dewar but he felt bad.
TWENTY FOUR
Dewar sat alone in his room until he was informed by the police that the vials had been put through the steriliser without incident. The feeling of relief that the news brought him and the knowledge that the actual source of the outbreak had now been destroyed increased his feelings of tiredness until he found it difficult to keep his eyes open. Despite that, he knew the affair was still a long way from over. He’d accounted for the stolen vials but the others were still out there, taken by an unknown man from an unknown location to an unknown location. Staring out of the window didn’t help. It had just started to rain.
He checked the message centre on his laptop. There was still no word from Sci-Med. about Kelly. What were they playing at? He punched in a memo reminding them of the urgency of his request and sent it off down the line with an impatient stab of his finger on the ‘send’ button. The message disappeared from the screen and left him feeling empty. There was nothing to do now but wait. He considered ringing Steven Malloy and trying to make things right between them but decided it was perhaps too soon. He checked his watch and called to the hospital to ask about Ian Grant’s condition. Grant was in Intensive Care but he was stable.
Dewar put down the phone and let out a long sigh. He gazed unseeingly at the wall for a moment, concentrating on the word, ‘stable’ and trying not to think of ‘Intensive Care’. ‘Stable’ had a nicer ring to it.
It was late. Dewar was exhausted. He knew he must rest but he felt guilty about sleeping when there was still so much to be done. He compromised by making one last call of the day. It was to Simon Barron. Nothing had changed. The Iraqis still seemed to be waiting. As usual, the only place they’d been out to was the Bookstop Cafe round the corner. They were now on friendly terms with both the staff there and other regular customers.
‘
Frankly, we’re all bored out of our skulls,’ complained Barron. ‘Maybe we should just join them in the café. It’s hard to motivate people to be vigilant when they’re seeing less action than a museum attendant. Are you really sure these guys are after smallpox?’
‘
Yes,’ replied Dewar, ‘I am.’
Still fully clothed, Dewar lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep.
DAY EIGHT
The phone rang at seven and Dewar wished it hadn’t. He rubbed at the stiffness in his neck as he put the receiver to his ear.
‘
How are you this morning?’ asked Karen.
‘
I’m okay,’ Dewar assured her. ‘You’re up early,’ he added, glancing at the clock.
‘
We’re just about to leave for the vaccination centre. I thought I’d call first and see how you were. I probably won’t get much of a chance later on.’
‘
That’s a fair bet. You can’t have had much sleep. What time did you finish last night?’
‘
It was just after one o’clock when we got the last of the vaccine unloaded. We’re opening the doors at seven thirty. They’re waiting for me outside. I’d better go. I hope you’re going to take it easy today?’
‘
I might just do that. Take care. Talk to you later.’
Dewar was caught in two minds. One half of him was saying that he should get back into bed, the other was saying that as he’d already got up he might as well stay up. He probably wouldn’t sleep much if he went back to bed. The second option won. He turned on the shower and examined the bruising on his forehead in the bathroom mirror while the water temperature settled. The discolouration didn’t seem too bad although the spot where the brick had hit him was very tender to the touch. ‘Bastards,’ he muttered, although he was thinking more about Grant’s condition when he said it. He’d call the hospital as soon as he had showered and dressed.
He felt better after a long soak in the shower which got rid of a lot of the stiffness in him. He put on clean clothes and called the infirmary. Grant had had an uncomfortable night but his condition was still stable. He’d be undergoing a series of tests throughout the morning.
Dewar went downstairs in search of coffee. He found Hector Wright had beaten him to it. Wright was already examining the incoming case figures for the previous night, glasses on the end of his nose, calculator in hand. Dewar helped himself to a mug of strong black coffee from the flask and joined him. ‘How’s it looking?’
‘
I didn’t expect to see you up and about this morning,’ said Wright. ‘You looked like death last night.’
‘
I’m okay. What’s been happening?’
‘
Mercifully, nothing that we wouldn’t have predicted. The numbers of admissions and the numbers of deaths are statistically about right. There’s no sign of any secondary source appearing. The police report a fairly quiet night by all accounts. A few fires in the no-go area but no big problems.’ Wright looked at his watch. ‘Vaccination’s due to start about now.’
Dewar nodded.. ‘Let’s just hope it all goes smoothly. Is there a meeting this morning?’
Wright shook his head. ‘The early start to the vaccination programme means that everyone’s going to be busy with that.
‘
Jab jab is better than jaw jaw.’
‘
If you like,’ smiled Wright.
Just after nine thirty Dewar’s laptop beeped to herald an incoming message. It was the one he had been waiting for. The building company, Holt, who had employed Michael Kelly, had traced a ganger who remembered having Kelly on his squad. It appeared that Kelly had worked on a development of executive housing at the top end of the market on the south west side of the city. The estate, named, The Pines, had been completed and was now fully occupied. It lay half a mile to the east of Redford Barracks between Firhill High School and the Morningside area of the city.
Dewar felt an adrenaline surge. He grabbed his jacket and ran down stairs, pausing only briefly to tell Hector Wright where he was going.
Dewar entered The Pines from the west and stopped the car to take a look from the slightly higher ground he was on. The estate looked pleasant enough in the way that many such estates did. Large, comfortable villas predominated but as yet, without the benefit of mature gardens to provide any semblance of privacy. They sat in bare earth, open to scrutiny from all angles, separated from their neighbours by stretches of minimal boundary fencing.
Dewar watched as one young mother come out from her back door and tip toed over a temporary path of flat stones to pin out her washing on a rotary drier. A toddler tried unsuccessfully to follow her on her tricycle but came to a halt at the start of the second stone. She tried an even more unsuccessful route across clods of earth before tumbling over on to her side. Her cries, more due to frustration than any injury, carried upwards in the morning air.
Dewar decided it was time to get out and look around. He opened his briefcase and took out the clip board he’d brought with him. It had no real function: he’d brought it as a prop. People carrying clip boards were usually presumed by the rest of society to be doing something legal and above board. They could mooch around in the strangest of places, making little notes, where people without clip boards might attract police attention. Dewar would readily admit that he wasn’t the first to realise the potential of the clipboard. He’d known people in universities and the civil service who’d made a career out of walking around with them, pencil at the ready, questions to be asked, lists to be made, results to be filed and forgotten.
Denise Banyon had not been able to give him any information about where on the building site Kelly had been asked to dig, only that it was quite near to the houses. But on which side? Dewar started walking. There were trees to the south, mainly pine trees which he presumed had suggested the name. To the north was a road with yet more new housing on the far side of it. He couldn’t see the east side properly as yet because The Pines stretched a good quarter of a mile east from where he was at the moment. He decided a good start would be to walk round the perimeter of the whole estate, starting with a sweep round the north side.
He left the pavement and crossed to an area of rough ground lying between The Pines and the road to the north, a strip about twenty-five metres wide but extending for most of the length of the estate with breaks for road entrances. There was just too much ground for one man to cover, was Dewar’s conclusion as he weaved his way to and fro across the strip making his way slowly eastwards. He kept referring to his clip board just in case anyone was watching but what he was really looking for was signs of a recently filled-in hole in the ground with scorch marks around it.
As time went on and he seemed to be making very little progress, he started to question why he was doing this anyway. Finding the hole would only confirm what Denise had told him and he didn’t think she’d had any reason to lie about it. It wasn’t going to bring him any nearer to finding the man who’d asked for Kelly’s assistance and who had the vials. He stopped and glanced at his clip board again as he admitted he was doing this because he didn’t know what else to do in the circumstances.
Dewar became aware that he had come under scrutiny. A man, wearing a Sherlock Holmes style hat and turning over the earth in the early stages of garden creation had stopped to watch him. Dewar carried on with his criss cross search hoping the man would lose interest but he didn’t. He put down his spade and crossed the road.
‘
Trouble?’ he asked in a plummy voice.
‘
Not really,’ smiled Dewar. ‘Cable television. I’m just looking for the best access routes.’
‘
Wouldn’t it have been more sensible to put these things in when the estate was being built?’ demanded the man with a frown.
‘
Not up to me I’m afraid,’ replied Dewar, making his role in the great scheme of things a very minor one.
‘
Well my wife and I won’t be wanting the damned thing. We hardly watch the box as it is.’
‘
Apart from David Attenborough and documentaries,’ whispered Dewar under his breath.
‘
Save for David Attenborough and the occasional documentary.’
Dewar made a little note on his clip board. ‘And the name is sir?’
‘
Pennel-Brown’
‘
With a hyphen?’
‘
Yes.’
Dewar put a hyphen between ‘pompous’ and ‘twerp’ on his clip board. ’Right you are Mr Pennel-Brown, I’ll see our people don’t bother you.’
Pennel-Brown returned to his digging and Dewar continued his survey of the ground. His back was aching by the time he reached the end of the northern stretch and it was time to turn south along the eastern perimeter. He paused to take a look at what lay to the east of the estate although it was still hard to see because of shrubbery which had been allowed to grow wild there. Here and there he caught a glimpse of chain link fencing beyond the shrubbery. It had a strand of barbed wire running along the top.
He was about to start out along the eastern edge of the estate when he saw a chimney through a gap in the greenery. It was a round, red brick chimney, the sort you’d find on an old industrial boiler house. Could this have something to do with what he was looking for? A building behind barbed wire and close to The Pines estate?
Dewar was about to enter the shrubbery when he caught sight of a postman coming round the corner. He saw that the postman had seen him.
‘
Good Morning,’ he said with a friendly smile and a half-raised hand.
The postman stopped in his tracks but didn’t smile back.
Dewar crossed over to him. ‘I wonder if you can tell me what’s over there?’ he asked, nodding in the direction of shrubbery and the chimney.
The postman gave him a suspicious look.
Dewar held up his clip board. ‘I’m a surveyor. My client is interested in buying the house that’s for sale just over there.’ Dewar nodded vaguely in the direction of The Pines. ‘I’m just checking there are no awful secret neighbours before I make my report.’
‘
A house for sale? In The Pines? Already? The buggers have just moved in,’ exclaimed the postman.
‘
The busy ever changing life of an executive, I suppose,’ sighed Dewar.
‘
Bunch of greedy gits more like. Probably sell it for ten grand more than they paid.’
Dewar wasn’t sure of the validity of the economic analysis but he nodded in agreement. ‘You’re probably right. About this place … ?’