Wildcard

SIXTEEN

Steven took a cab home. The flat had been empty for some days and it was so cold that the air felt damp. He turned on the heating, then switched on the electric kettle and rubbed his arms while he waited for it to boil. It was just after seven-thirty. He would give Caroline a call before he tried to catch up on some sleep. There was still no answer. Steven tapped the receiver thoughtfully, wondering where she could be. As he sipped his coffee, huddled over the electric fire, curiosity became concern and then finally worry. He tried calling George Byars at the City General but he hadn’t come in yet. He decided to wait and try again. His third call, at 8.45, was successful.

Steven told Byars he’d been having trouble contacting Caroline Anderson. ‘Has she changed duty shifts, by any chance?’ he asked.

The ensuing pause was more eloquent than any answer could have been. It spoke volumes and Steven felt his stomach turn over.

‘I tried getting you at your hotel last night,’ said Byars softly. ‘Caroline’s gone down with it.’

‘Jesus, no,’ murmured Steven.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Byars.

‘Are they sure it’s the virus?’

‘There seems little doubt.’

‘Where is she?’

‘St Jude’s. Sister Lineham insisted on nursing her personally.’

Steven put the phone down without saying any more, feeling as if absolutely everything was going against him and he was fighting a battle against insurmountable odds. At that moment he envied people who believed in God, any god, because they at least had someone to lean on, someone to turn to and ask for help in times of trouble. For his part, he felt the devastation of an utter loneliness verging on despair. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep now. Apart from anything else, he had to consider the possibility that he himself might go down with the virus because he and Caroline had slept together. The thought sent a chill down his spine. However, there was nothing at all he could do about it. It would be a case of wait and see — que sera sera, or, as his grandmother had been fond of saying, ‘What’s coming for you will not go past you.’ He had a second mug of coffee to raise his caffeine levels while he worked out the quickest way of getting to Manchester.

Remembering that the Home Secretary had assured him of ‘every facility’, he called Sci-Med and asked for a laptop computer equipped for mobile-phone-mediated download, as his own was still in Manchester. He also requested a car and driver immediately. This wasn’t exactly in the spirit of the Home Secretary’s offer but at least he’d be in Manchester by the time any shit hit the fan. Twenty minutes later a powerful Jaguar was outside his apartment block, its grey-suited driver waiting beside it.

Steven sat in the back and downloaded the latest information from Sci-Med as they sped up the motorway. Information on nine patients was now available, and all of them had received human-tissue valves. ‘Shit,’ he said out loud.

The driver looked at him in the mirror and asked, ‘Problems?’

‘You spend weeks working out a puzzle, then when you get the right answer it turns out to be impossible,’ complained Steven.

‘Maybe you only think it’s impossible.’

‘I know it’s impossible,’ said Steven.

‘Have you eliminated all the other possibilities?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then whatever remains must be true, however improbable it seems. That’s what Sherlock said,’ said the driver.

‘You’re a Holmes fan?’ asked Steven.

‘He was a real detective,’ said the driver, ‘not like the sort you find on television these days, asking the public to do their job for them. I reckon old Sherlock could have shown these blokes a thing or two if he was around today. Lord Lucan would be in pokey before you could say, “Tea, please, Mrs Hudson.”’

I’m sure he could show me a thing or two, thought Steven as he typed in a request for details of the donors of the tissue. He suspected that he was just going through the motions, but he didn’t know what else to do. He’d probably finish up with just a list of dead people’s names, but at least the paperwork would be complete.

As they entered the outskirts of Manchester, the driver asked him where exactly he wanted to go. Steven told him St Jude’s, then helped with directions.

‘Do you want me to wait?’ asked the driver.

Steven said not.

‘Good,’ said the man. ‘This place is giving me the creeps already.’

Steven appreciated what he meant: the streets around the city centre were eerily quiet. ‘Turn left here.’

The driver drew up in front of St Jude’s, just outside the police barrier, and said, ‘Good luck with whatever you’re doing, and remember what old Sherlock said about what you’re left with being the truth.’

Steven smiled as he thanked him, but a lump had come into his throat when he saw his hired car still sitting where Caroline had parked it. After explaining to the nurses in the duty room who he was and why he was there, he changed into protective gear and entered the patient area. His heart sank: he found himself once again in a bloody nightmare. The only comfort was that the numbers had not gone up but even that was only because of the physical impossibility of cramming any more people in.

It took him a moment to work out which of the three hooded and visored orange-suited nurses was Kate Lineham, but he recognised her walk when she went over to a disposal bin to dump some blood-soaked swabs. He joined her, turning full-face so that she could see who he was.

She knew immediately why he was there. ‘Over here,’ she said, beckoning him to follow her. ‘We made a little corner for one of our own.’

‘Good,’ said Steven.

She led him to the back of the nave to a corner behind one of the two main supporting stone pillars. Caroline lay on a camp bed along the back wall. Above her were a stained-glass window depicting the resurrection, and a board citing the names of those of the parish who had fallen in two world wars. Caroline’s eyes were closed but she was moving her lips as if they were dry so Steven guessed that she wasn’t sleeping. He knelt down beside her and laid his hand gently on her arm.

She turned her head to him and opened her eyes. Steven smiled at her through his visor. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Just fine,’ she replied, as if giving a joke answer to a joke question. ‘It’s nice to see you.’

Steven patted her arm. ‘I had to go to London,’ he said. ‘You probably didn’t see the note I left in your car.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I thought you’d done a runner.’

‘I came back as soon as I heard. I’ll be here if you need me — I plan to be with you every step of the way. You can beat this, I know you can.’

She smiled wanly and squeezed Steven’s hand limply in lieu of a reply.

‘Get some rest,’ he said, smoothing her hair back from her forehead. ‘I’ll be back later.’

He found Kate Lineham again and asked, ‘What do you think?’

She shrugged apologetically. ‘Impossible to say. The statistics are against her, but if tender loving care can do it she’s got it made.’

Steven nodded, grateful for an honest answer, then made for the exit and a shower. When he got outside his phone rang.

‘Where the hell are you?’ asked John Macmillan.

‘Manchester.’

‘May I ask why?’ said Macmillan with barely suppressed irritation.

‘There’s more of the virus here than anywhere else,’ replied Steven. ‘Apart from that, one of my friends has just gone down with it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Macmillan, the testiness disappearing from his voice. ‘We know now that all eighteen wildcards received human-tissue valves, but getting the information on the donors is proving difficult. Organs and tissue are distributed through a central register in response to computerised requests from hospitals and clinics. The hospitals themselves aren’t usually given personal details of the donors.’

‘The names aren’t going to make much difference, anyway,’ confessed Steven, ‘but I would like details of the register. Maybe someone could e-mail what you’ve got?’

‘Of course. What are your plans in the meantime?’

‘I need to talk to a heart surgeon again. There must be something I’m missing in all this.’

Steven was desperately in need of sleep but he arranged to see Martin Giles again at the City General at two. He kept awake with constant cups of coffee and thought he was doing well until the surgeon greeted him with, ‘God, you look rough.’

Steven made light of it and asked for more details about hear-tvalve replacement and how choices about the options were made.

‘Basically, tissue valves are best,’ said Giles, ‘and human ones if you can get them, though only if they are a good match in terms of tissue type, of course. Ideally, we prefer repairing the patients’ own valves using their own tissue. That way there are no problems with rejection and therefore no need to put them on immunosuppression therapy, which almost always leads to problems. Mechanical valves, made of metal, plastic, carbon fibre or whatever, are okay but the flow through them isn’t nearly as good as through a tissue valve because of restricted opening angles. The patients also usually have to be on anti-clotting agents for the rest of their lives. Age is also a factor. We’d give a tissue valve to a middle-aged patient, but probably fit a mechanical valve to an older one.’

‘Can we just go back a bit there?’ said Steven. ‘You said that tissue valves are the best, human ones if possible.’

‘Yes.’

‘That implies that there’s an alternative to human tissue?’

‘Treated pig valves are also used.’

‘Pig? What about foreign tissue rejection?’ asked Steven.

‘That’s why I said “treated”,’ said Giles. ‘They treat the pig valves with a chemical called gluteraldehyde to make them more acceptable. The valves themselves tend to be a bit weak and it’s often necessary to give them an auxiliary scaffold — “stenting”, they call it. They’re not nearly as good as compatible human valves but they’re used quite a lot, and with a pretty good success rate, all things considered — although there can be problems if, for instance, the patient’s Jewish!’

Steven smiled. ‘I take it tissue valves are screened for potential problems like AIDS, hepatitis, CJD, things like that.’

‘Bet your life they are,’ said Giles fervently. ‘Litigation we can do without.’

Steven thanked him again for his help and drove back to his hotel. He lay down on his bed and slowly felt his limbs appear to double in weight as the prospect of sleep finally became a reality. His mind, however, was still troubled by conflicting arguments. Logic insisted that the replacement heart valves must be the cause of the outbreak, because they were the only common factor among the wildcard patients, but eighteen replacement valves could not possibly have come from one infected human heart. As he spiralled down into a deep sleep, the last image he had was of the driver saying, ‘Maybe you only think it’s impossible.’

Only four hours later he was jolted awake when a chambermaid in the corridor dropped what sounded like a metal tray laden with the crockery from a royal banquet. He lay staring at the ceiling for a while before acknowledging that he was not going to be able to get back to sleep. He got up and showered, then ordered an omelette and a salad from room service. He turned on his laptop and downloaded his e-mail while he waited.

Skipping an apology for not yet having details of the donors’ names, he read through the general details of how transplant organs and tissue were made available and how they were requested and allocated through a central register. It occurred to him that the register itself was a common link. All the replacement valves must have passed through it in terms of paperwork if not in substance. He asked Sci-Med to contact the operators of the register and request that they check their records for any factors common to the wildcard patients.

An hour and a half later he got his reply. There was another apology for still not having details of the donors but this one came with an explanation. The co-ordinating officer at the central register who was dealing with the request had been taken ill and sent home. Unfortunately, he had taken with him the computer disk with details of the donor files on it. People were trying to contact him urgently. With regard to Steven’s request that the wildcards be screened for common factors, one common factor had already appeared. The wildcard patients had all been found heart valves by the same co-ordinator, Greg Allan, and he, by a curious coincidence, was the man who had just gone sick.

‘Well, well, well,’ murmured Steven. ‘Strikes me, I’d better take Mr Allan some grapes.’

He called Sci-Med and asked for Greg Allan’s address as a matter of urgency. He was called back four minutes later by the duty officer, who said, ‘I’ve got it but it won’t do you much good. He doesn’t seem to be there at the moment.’

‘I thought he went home sick?’

‘That’s what his colleagues thought, and they all say he looked ill when he left. But when they tried to contact him about the disk they discovered he wasn’t at home and his wife hadn’t seen him since he left for work this morning.’

‘Give me the address anyway,’ said Steven and wrote it down; it was in Leeds. For once, luck was on his side. He was closer to Leeds here in Manchester than he would have been had he stayed in London. He could be at Allan’s place in an hour; the question was, would Allan be there when he arrived? He told the duty officer of his plans and asked that Sci-Med contact the local police and ask them to put an immediate trace on Allan’s car. ‘Give them my mobile number and ask them to contact me the moment they find him.’

‘Do you want him arrested?’

‘No, just found. He knows something we don’t about these heart valves, and I want him to tell me personally.’

Steven turned into Braidmoor Crescent in Leeds just after seven-thirty. There was a light in the window of Allan’s bungalow, and he knocked on the door. A worried-looking woman in her mid-thirties answered. She put her hands to her mouth when she saw a stranger, and said, ‘It’s about Greg, isn’t it? You’ve found him. What’s happened? Where is he?’

He said apologetically that he couldn’t answer her questions and that he was just another of the people who wanted to find her husband. He showed her his ID and asked if he could come in for a few minutes.

Her demeanour changed from alarm to worried bemusement as she showed Steven into the living room. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she asked. ‘Where is Greg? First his colleagues tell me he’s ill and he’s supposed to be here, then they decide they need to speak to him urgently, then the police start asking about him and now you. Just what is all this about?’

Steven told her who he was and what his job entailed.

‘But what has the virus outbreak got to do with Greg? He’s an administrator: he deals with transplant requests, matching potential donors to recipients.’

‘How long has he been doing that, Mrs Allan?’

‘Six years, give or take. You still haven’t answered my question.’

‘Only because I can’t,’ confessed Steven. ‘I don’t know the answer yet, but your husband was the co-ordinator for eighteen heart-valve-replacement operations in which the recipients went on to develop the new virus.’

Mrs Allan’s eyes opened wide and her face froze. ‘But… that’s outrageous,’ she stammered. ‘How can that possibly be?’

‘I was rather hoping your husband might be able to help with that one,’ said Steven. ‘But he’s not here.’

Mrs Allan started to come out of her shocked state, and he tried to guess what was going through her mind. She glanced briefly out of the window to where a new Ford Focus sat on the drive, and he guessed that it was hers. He had no idea what kind of wrongdoing, if any, Greg Allan was caught up in, but in his experience chicanery usually involved money. He wondered if there had recently been a change in the Allans’ circumstances.

‘What kind of car does your husband drive, Mrs Allan?’ he asked innocently.

‘A BMW. Why?’

Steven watched the thought process start again in Mrs Allan’s eyes. ‘Just in case he should drive into the street as I’m leaving,’ he said pleasantly. ‘New? Old?’

‘New,’ said she flatly. ‘A silver 5-series.’

‘Nice car,’ said Steven. He sensed that she was on the brink of saying something, but his mobile rang and the moment was gone. He said, ‘Excuse me,’ and took the call. It was the local police.

‘You requested a trace on Gregory Allan.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Steven, cupping his hand tightly over the earpiece in an effort to contain the sound.

‘I think you’d better get over here, to the woods at the east end of Gaylen Park,’ said the policeman. ‘The car’s here and I think we’ve found him.’

Steven felt uncomfortable. The implication was that Allan was dead, and Steven was sitting less than six feet from the man’s wife. He did his utmost to keep his face expressionless and said, ‘Understood. I’m on my way.’

‘News of Greg?’ asked Mrs Allan.

‘Not yet,’ lied Steven. ‘But I have to go.’ He managed to avoid eye contact with her while he said goodbye: he felt that the news should not come from him.

Fifteen minutes later, Steven found several police vehicles parked beside Allan’s silver BMW at the edge of the woods bordering a small park. There wasn’t much activity among the officers, who were standing in a group, talking. He made himself known, and the inspector in charge said, ‘We’ve been waiting for you to get here. We haven’t touched anything.’

Steven guessed that Sci-Med had used full Home Office clout in making the request to the local police. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘What have you got?’

The inspector led him through the trees and into a small clearing illuminated with police arc lights. ‘I take it that’s your man?’ he said, pointing upwards. Steven saw a man hanging from the bare branches of a beech tree. ‘Obviously decided to decorate a tree with himself this Christmas,’ said the policeman.

Steven did not respond. Allan’s face was purple and his distended tongue lolled out of his mouth, making him look like a hideous gargoyle on a medieval church. The fact that he’d hanged himself with a modern tow-rope, bright red with yellow bands at intervals, somehow detracted from the tragedy and lent substance to the policeman’s awful allusion.

‘Poor bastard,’ said Steven.

‘Can we bring him down now?’

Steven nodded. ‘Sure.’ He watched, grim-faced, as Allan was cut down and lowered to the ground, where the police forensic team were waiting to begin their work. They could have been about to begin a shift at a car-making plant: they were casual, at ease, relaxed; just another body, just another day. The police surgeon pronounced Allan officially dead and the inspector asked if Steven could confirm that the dead man was Gregory Allan.

‘’Fraid not,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve never met him.’

‘Are we allowed to ask what he’s done?’ asked the inspector, squatting down with Steven beside the body.

‘You can ask,’ said Steven, almost mesmerised by Allan’s face and wondering what had brought him to such a sad and sorry end, ‘but right now I’ve no bloody idea. I wish to God I had.’

The contents of Allan’s pockets were emptied out on to a ground sheet and one officer said, ‘There’s a note, sir.’ The paper was obviously wet and the man held it by a corner as he passed it over.

The inspector put on gloves, took it gingerly and opened it with care. ‘It’s to his wife,’ he said. ‘It says, “I’m sorry” — obviously a man of few words. It’s wet because he pissed over it when his sphincter went.’

‘Any sign of a computer disk in his pockets?’ asked Steven. Shaking heads said not. ‘How about in the car?’

The inspector said, ‘Take another look, will you, Edwards.’

Edwards, a tall red-haired constable wearing a white plastic ‘noddy’ suit two sizes too small for him, went over to the BMW and began searching it thoroughly. He returned as Allan’s body was being zipped into its transport bag for transfer to the city mortuary. ‘Down the side of the passenger seat,’ he said. He handed the disk to the inspector who passed it on to Steven.

‘Do you want me to sign for it?’ asked Steven.

‘Not with the friends you’ve got,’ replied the inspector. ‘Maybe you’d like it gift-wrapped?’

‘This’ll be just fine,’ said Steven, slipping the disk into his pocket. ‘Thanks for your help.’