The Lazarus Strain

ONE

‘You know, planting beech hedging was quite the daftest thing I ever did,’ said David Elwood, kicking off his Wellingtons at the kitchen door. ‘I seem to spend half my life picking up leaves. It’s autumn every month of the year!’

‘I know dear,’ replied his wife, Mary, who had heard it all before. ‘Why don’t you sit down and read your paper and I’ll make us a nice sandwich for lunch. Cheese or bacon?’

‘Bacon please, dear. Should have planted conifers like any sensible person… But no, that man at the garden centre assured me that the leaves stay on beech hedging… it’ll give you beautiful golden leaves throughout the winter, he said. What he didn’t mention was that I’d be up to my knees in beautiful golden leaves from October to May…’

Mary smiled as David grumbled his way through to the living room. She liked the beech hedging; in fact she liked everything about the cottage they had moved to in Norfolk when David had retired some six years ago. She knew that he liked it too despite his grumbles. The garden kept him busy and that was fine because it prevented him having to face up to the fact that he had little else to do. He might complain — and he did, incessantly — but looking after the garden and doing maintenance work about the place gave him a sense of purpose and, as a retired lecturer in electrical engineering with little or no outside interests or hobbies, this was important. She had reading and knitting to occupy her but come the end of the bowling season in October, David had nothing. ‘Coffee or tea?’ she called out.

‘Tea please,’ came the reply.

‘Mary put six rashers of bacon under the grill and turned it to high before slicing open three rolls — two for David, one for her. She was on a diet but when it came to a choice between grilled bacon and low fat cheese spread on a Sunday, the diet was flexible. She buttered the rolls and switched on the kettle, popping two teabags in the teapot before pausing to look out of the window at the garden while she waited. She shivered as a cloud passed over the autumn sun and a cool breeze wafted in through the open window.

She leaned over to close it when suddenly, the daylight was blocked out by a dark form that moved in front of the window and an incredibly strong, black hairy hand shot in to grasp her arm and she cried out in pain and alarm.

Her scream was stifled by a second arm reaching in, gripping the back of her neck and slamming her head down on the draining board. She was stunned by the impact but not knocked unconscious: she was even aware of the bacon starting to splutter under the grill as she slumped slowly down to the floor. She lost her spectacles on the way down and could only vaguely make out the black figure who, by now, had come in through the window and was beating her with his fists and making loud screeching sounds.

‘David!’ she managed to call out before more blows rained in on her and she suddenly became aware of the teeth of the thing that was attacking her: they were big and yellow and pointed. She curled up into a foetal ball, still trying to call out her husband’s name but her throat had tightened with horror.

Quite suddenly the thing seemed to lose interest in her and turned away. It now seemed fascinated by the spluttering bacon. Cautiously she felt out along the floor and retrieved her spectacles. ‘David!’ she called out as she saw that she had a large monkey in her kitchen. The animal ignored her: it was intent on trying to reach its paw under the grill.

‘What on earth…’ exclaimed David Elwood as he opened the kitchen door to be confronted by his wife lying bleeding on the floor and a monkey screeching in pain as it burned itself on the grill. ‘Get out of it!’ he yelled as the animal started to career around the kitchen, scattering pots and pans, furious at the pain in his burnt paw. David waved his arms ineffectually as he tried to give chase but the animal evaded him with ease and leapt up on to a high shelf to turn and bare its teeth at him.

‘Be careful,’ cried Mary. ‘It’s vicious!’

‘Get out of here, Mary,’ said David quietly, moving cautiously between his wife and the animal. ‘Get out and phone the police…’

Mary dragged herself slowly across the floor and reached up for the door handle just as the animal launched itself and sank its teeth into David’s shoulder. Both fell to the floor, the animal screeching and David yelling out in pain and cursing incoherently as the pair of them rolled over in a tumbling fray of fur, limbs and blood.

Mary didn’t phone the police; instead, she pulled an umbrella from the stand in the hall and returned to the fray to help her husband, pausing only to open the kitchen window wide before starting to the beat the animal across its back with the handle of the umbrella while holding the pointed end. ‘Get out of here!’ she screamed. ‘Get out of our house! Do you hear me? Get out, you disgusting animal! Get out!’

The animal lost interest in David and turned to face up to Mary but then thought better of it when she caught it with a blow across the face which sent it tumbling to the floor. It leapt up on to the draining board and sprang out through the open window, to run, still screeching, on all fours across the lawn disappearing into the shrubbery.

Mary knelt down beside David to assess the damage. He was bleeding profusely from the bites on his shoulder and also from multiple scratches on his face. ‘You are in a mess, love,’ she said, hugging him for a moment. ‘Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.’

‘Did you call the police?’ asked David.

‘No… I was busy,’ replied Mary.

David looked up at her sheepishly and smiled. ‘Of course, you were, love,’ he said and gave her hand a squeeze. ‘I think we could both do with a bit of cleaning up. Whoever said nothing ever happens in Norfolk?’

‘You, I think,’ snapped Mary, betraying the edginess she felt. ‘I’ll give them a call now.’

Mary got up but paused to take another look at David’s wounds. ‘This shoulder of yours is going to need proper medical attention and an anti-tetanus shot. I don’t think either of us should drive. I’ll get them to send an ambulance as well.’

Mary got a predictable response from the police. ‘A what?’

‘A monkey of some sort, a big one. It came in through the kitchen window while I was making lunch.’

‘Of course it did, Madam.’

‘Don’t you “of course it did” me,’ snapped Mary. ‘My name is Mary Elwood; I live at Bramley Cottage in Holt and I am not in the habit of making hoax calls to the police, or any other organisation, come to that. My husband and I have been attacked by a monkey. We would like the police in attendance and an ambulance for my husband; he’s been bitten.’

‘Yes, Madam.’

By three in the afternoon, Norfolk Police had had three more calls about the sighting of a monkey and no information about a missing animal.

Inspector Frank Giles looked at the reports and said, ‘This one records a sighting of a monkey in Weybourne at ten past twelve.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But the Elwoods were still under attack in Holt at five past.’

‘I see what you mean, sir.’

‘Even a monkey with a Ferrari couldn’t have made it to Weybourne in five minutes.’

‘No, sir.’

‘So there’s more than one of them. I take it you’ve had no joy with zoos and wildlife parks?’

‘None of them admit to anything missing.’

‘No reports of Michael Jackson moving into the area either, I suppose.’

‘No sir.’

‘That was a joke, Morley.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘No sir… unless… perhaps a circus happened to be passing through the county…’

Giles shook his head. ‘I think you’ll find that circuses don’t actually use animals any more,’ he said. ‘The PC mob got to them. I think they entertain the crowds these days with origami and card tricks.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘But research labs do…’ said Giles as the notion came to him. ‘They use animals and there’s a research institute in the area.’ He got up and walked over to the wall map. ‘Here, between Holt and Cromer on the A148. I can’t remember the name of it though…’

‘The Crick Institute.’

‘That’s it, the Crick Institute. Get on to them and see if they’ve lost any monkeys.’

Giles was still examining the map, head held to one side, when Morley returned to say that there was no reply from the Crick Institute.

‘No research on Sundays, eh? Well, they must have a note of key holders in case of fire etc. Call one of them.’

‘Should I get them to check their animals?’

‘No, ask them to meet us there. We’ll go over ourselves. It’s a nice day for a drive.’

Sergeant Morley slowed the car as he saw a figure running towards them waving his arms. ‘What have we here?’ he murmured.

Giles opened the window on the passenger side and the running man stopped at the side of the car to rest one hand on the sill and the other flat on his chest as he fought to get his breath back.

‘Take it easy now,’ said Giles.

The man, a portly figure in his late fifties with a ruddy complexion and wearing a green quilted jacket and corduroy trousers, pointed behind him and gasped, ‘We’ve been hit. These animal rights loonies have done us over. Bastards!’

‘Us?’ asked Giles.

‘The institute, the Crick; I’m the key holder you contacted, Robert Smith, not that you need a bloody key for the place any more; the doors are wide open. The windows are broken and there’s paint all over the walls. Bastards.’

Giles got out and opened the back door of the car to usher Smith inside before climbing back in himself and radioing for back-up. Morley turned into the drive leading up to the institute and drove slowly up to the front door.

‘Scared they’re still there?’ said Giles.

‘No sir, Mr Smith’s already been up here, just looking for any movement in the bushes, sir.’

‘I didn’t go inside the building, mind you,’ said Smith from the back, leaning forward to rest his elbows on both of the front seats between the two policemen. ‘One look at the outside was enough.’

‘See what you mean,’ said Giles as the institute building came into view.

‘What a mess,’ murmured Morley.

‘What kind of people do this?’ complained Smith.

‘What do you do at the institute, Mr Smith?’ asked Giles.

‘I look after the animals; clean their cages, see that they’re fed and watered; generally cared for and that.’

‘So you would have been in earlier today?’

‘No, Professor Devon said that he would be coming in himself today; he would feed them so I could have the day off. Apparently his wife was going to see their daughter in Manchester this weekend so he decided to work.’

‘That was decent of him,’ said Morley.

‘He’s a real gentleman is Professor Devon, one of the old school if you get my meaning.’

‘So he might actually still be here?’

‘Bloody hell, I didn’t think of that,’ exclaimed Smith. ‘I suppose he could. If these bastards have…’

‘You’d better come in with us, Mr Smith. Just don’t touch anything.’

Smith hesitated at the door and said, ‘I’m not sure that we should go in… I mean, they work with some dangerous stuff in there, suits and masks and all that…’

‘He has a point, sir,’ said Morley.

Giles nodded. ‘Better get a biohazards team over here. What about the other key holders?’

Morley looked at his notebook. ‘Mr Smith was top of the list…’

‘That’s because I just live at the foot of the drive,’ explained Smith. ‘It’s usually the fire alarm going off for no good reason. Anything else and I call the professor or one of the scientists, Dr Cleary or Dr O’Brien or one of the others.’

‘I’ve got a Doctor Cleary on the list,’ said Morley.

‘Try him.’

Morley phoned Cleary while Giles turned to Smith and asked, ‘Is it possible to get to Professor Devon’s office without going through any of the labs?’

‘Absolutely, it’s just off the main corridor, along to the left.’

‘Maybe we could risk that then,’ said Giles. ‘Just in case he’s still in the building.’

‘Cleary will be here in fifteen minutes, sir,’ said Morley.

The three men got out of the car and paused to read the graffiti on the walls before kicking away some of the broken glass from the steps.

‘Walt Disney’s got a lot to answer for,’ said Giles, turning his head sideways to read some of the writing around the entrance. ‘Some of these buggers seem to think that the animal kingdom lives in peace and harmony singing happy jungle ditties.’

‘Instead of ripping each other to pieces you mean,’ said Morley.

‘Survival of the fittest, the fastest, the strongest and no quarter given.’

‘Nature red in tooth and claw,’ said Morley.

Giles gave a surprised sideways glance at his sergeant. ‘Didn’t know you were a Kipling man.’

‘Some things stick from school, sir.’

‘They do,’ agreed Giles. ‘With me it was Christina Rosetti. “Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone”… every time I walk across the park on a winter’s day… Well, shall we make a start? We can at least check out the Professor’s office while we wait for Cleary and make sure he’s not lying there injured. We’ll also get some idea of what sort of mayhem these fuck-wits have caused this time?’

‘If you think it’s safe, sir’ said Morley.

Giles surveyed the open door and broken windows and said, ‘What was in there is already out here…’

They found the entrance hall strewn with broken glass, much of which had come from a glass-fronted notice board that had hung in the hall listing staff members and their room details. The walls were daubed in red paint. ‘Murdering bastards’ seemed to be a recurring theme as they moved along although ‘Animals have rights too’ was also popular.

‘Professor Devon’s room is just along here,’ said Smith leading the way.

Giles knocked on the door but predictably there was no response. He turned the handle and looked inside. The room was empty and appeared to be undamaged although untidy with masses of files and papers arranged in piles on the desk and floor.

‘Looks like the Prof had already left when these bastards appeared on the scene,’ said Smith.

‘I hope so for his sake,’ said Giles. ‘It wouldn’t have been much fun watching your lab being smashed up before your eyes.’

‘This’ll break his heart,’ said Smith.

The sound of wheels on gravel heralded the arrival of two police patrol cars, followed a few moments later by a Fire Brigade biohazard team. Giles filled them in on the situation and suggested that everyone wait for Cleary who could apprise them of any likely danger. They didn’t have long to wait. Giles was explaining the situation to Smith when a green Land Rover Discovery swung in through the gates and a tall, fair-haired man in his thirties got out.

‘I’m Nick Cleary. What a bloody mess!’

‘Well, they haven’t been too shy about stating their views, I’ll give you that,’ said Giles as he watched Cleary turn his head this way and that to read the daubing on the walls. ‘Mr Smith thought there might be an element of danger about going inside although we have checked out Professor Devon’s room just in case he was still here.’

Cleary looked surprised so Giles added, ‘The professor told Mr Smith he was coming in to work this morning.’

‘Ah,’ said Cleary. ‘Not too surprising I suppose. He seems to work all the hours there are these days.’

‘About the danger…’ began Giles.

‘We do work with pathogenic microbes,’ said Cleary. ‘Several. The viruses are kept in a locked deep freeze in bio-lab 3. The lab itself is locked and the doors are air-tight. Pathogenic bacteria are kept in freeze-dried vials in a safe in the same lab.’

‘Windows?’

‘No windows in the bio-lab. It’s an inside room with a filtered air supply under negative pressure,’ replied Cleary.

‘Then we should check out the integrity of that room first,’ said Giles. ‘Perhaps you could brief the bio-hazard team on its location in the building?’

‘I’ll go in with them if you like,’ said Cleary.

‘You should talk to the Fire Chief.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘Before you do, what bugs are we talking about here, sir?’ asked Giles.

‘Maybe we can leave off worrying about that until we see if there’s a problem?’ said Cleary.

Giles nodded his understanding. ‘But if you find security of either of the microbial stores has been breached…’

‘The public will have a right to know. You’re quite right. But if that’s the case I suspect the matter will be taken out of both our hands.’

‘A comfort,’ said Giles. ‘There’s another problem: we had reports earlier today about monkeys being on the loose in this part of the country…’

‘Jesus,’ said Cleary. ‘They let the monkeys out?’

‘Liberated them is how they would see it. Perhaps you could advise us of the risk involved?’

‘I don’t use primates myself; that was Tim Devon’s province and the room was always kept locked. But I don’t think he had any animal experiments running. Chances are they are perfectly healthy monkeys although that’s not to say they can’t be dangerous. You can get a very nasty bite.’

‘Someone already did,’ said Giles. ‘But you don’t think there would be any other hazard involved?’

‘I can’t be absolutely sure; you’d really have to ask Tim that. Have you managed to contact him yet?’

‘Not yet. Sergeant Morley is still trying.’

Cleary went off to talk to the Fire chief and Giles found Morley. ‘Any luck?’ he asked.

‘Still no answer,’ said Morley.

‘Shit,’ muttered Giles. ‘I’m beginning to think we should hit the panic button on this one.’

‘Why?’

‘To guard our arses. I’m beginning to see “Police Delay Puts Public at Risk.” headlines.

‘You think the monkeys were infected with something?’

‘The trouble is we don’t know for sure and Devon seems to be the only one who can tell us.’

‘I’ll keep trying.’

‘I’m going to give him until they’ve examined the microbial stocks. Even if the stores are intact, if we still haven’t made contact with Devon I’m going to blow the whistle.’

Giles and Morley returned to the car to wait.

‘What happens if they do find the virus store has been breached?’ asked Morley. They were watching the bio-hazard team make last minute adjustments to each other’s suits before trooping in single file into the institute. Giles noted that Cleary was with them.

‘Depends on what bugs they’ve been storing there,’ said Giles, ‘and what their characteristics are. Some viruses are highly infectious, others not. Some are stable in air, others are not. Some diseases are contracted by breathing in the virus, others you have to ingest them. All these things have to be taken in to consideration. At least that’s what they said on the course… Personally, I’m a run-for-the-hills man.’

‘Surely a place like this wouldn’t be working with anything really bad. I mean, smallpox or plague or anthrax, anything like that?’

‘There’s not much point in designing vaccines against harmless things,’ countered Giles.

‘But surely if they were working with dangerous bugs they’d have better security, wouldn’t they? Fences… guards on the gates.’

‘Let’s not take that for granted.’

‘So this could turn into a real nightmare?’

‘Let’s just say our best chance of avoiding such a nightmare lies in the microbe stores being intact and everything in them being present and correct.’

‘Looks like we’re just about to find out,’ said Morley as the first of the bio-hazard team appeared in the doorway. Both men got out of the car.

He saw cause for optimism when one of the team waved away the men responsible for operating the mobile shower and decontamination facility. ‘It’s looking good.’

It was obvious that the bio-hazard team were relaxed when they removed their helmets; they were laughing and joking with each other.

Giles approached Nick Cleary who grinned and said, ‘They didn’t get through the door to BL3. Everything was secure. Mind you they’ve made an appalling mess of the rest of the place. It’s going to take months to get back to normal. Any word from Prof Devon yet?’

‘Still nothing. Did you check the animals?’

‘No, I thought we’d better come straight back and tell you folks about the microbe situation.’

Giles nodded. ‘Maybe we could take a look at the animal house now? See what’s missing.’

Still wearing his bio-hazard suit but without the helmet and visor Cleary led the way along the corridor and down some stairs into the experimental animal facility. As they came to the first door Cleary said, ‘This is the mouse house.’ He looked in through the glass window set in the door and cursed under his breath.

Giles looked in to see chaos. Several stacked columns of mouse boxes had been pushed over on to their sides, spilling their occupants out on to the floor. Mice were clambering over everything, investigating everything and nothing, their fur matted with wet sawdust and blood from cuts sustained from the glass water feeding bottles that had been smashed on the floor. ‘Will this cause big set-backs?’ he asked.

‘All the experiments running will be ruined,’ replied Cleary. ‘We can’t possibly tell which mouse came from which box.’

They moved on to the next room. ‘Same mess here,’ said Cleary. ‘Guinea pigs all out of their cages.’

Giles counted some thirty guinea pigs on a floor littered with animal feed and sawdust: many of their wire cages had been deformed by being smashed against the wall and jumped on, judging by a number that had been flattened. ‘But they didn’t release anything into the wild,’ he said.

‘Doesn’t look like it,’ agreed Cleary.

Giles exchanged a glance with Morley that conveyed relief.