Wildcard

TWENTY-ONE

Steven followed the directions he’d been given and three hours later he found himself high on a Welsh hillside, collar up, shoulders hunched against a bitter wind, looking at the charred remains of the field station. The bad feeling he’d been harbouring was made worse by the sight of the twisted metal frame of the Land-Rover. Unlike Karen Doig and Ian Patterson, who saw its presence as a puzzle, he feared it was stating the obvious: that Peter Doig and Amy Patterson had never left. They — or more correctly their bodies — were still here.

The police had found no human remains, but he suspected that that was exactly what they had been set up to find. Finding nothing suspicious, they would have no further interest in the building, which would be left as a ruin but still be owned by Lehman, who would leave it untouched in perpetuity. Steven examined the stone-flagged floor, which had largely been cleared of debris during the initial search, but ash and carbon dust had filled all the cracks so that it was impossible to tell if any of the flagstones had been disturbed before the fire. He looked around outside and found a metal bar he could use as a lever. He started in the centre of the first of the ground-floor rooms, but by the time he’d raised four of the heavy stones he’d decided that this was no job for one man on his own. He called in the local police for assistance.

Two hours went by before one of the officers doing the digging called out that he’d found something. He held up a human femur like a fish he’d just caught. The talking stopped and for a moment the only sound was that of the wind blowing through the ruins. ‘There’s more,’ said the officer almost apologetically.

Steven took little pleasure in having his worst fears realised. As he’d suspected, the burned-out building had been obscuring the site of an earlier cremation.

‘Almost the perfect murder,’ said the inspector in charge of the operation, who was clearly embarrassed that the police had overlooked this possible reason why the Land-Rover was still there.

‘No,’ said Steven, without taking his eyes off the bones being removed gingerly from the trench and laid on a tarpaulin beside the rim. ‘It was natural causes.’

‘What? How can you possibly say that?’

‘These are the remains of two scientists who were sent here to work. I think they fell ill with the same virus that’s been affecting Manchester — don’t ask me how. They were given expert nursing care, but they died. Their employers sought to cover up their deaths by cremating them and burying their remains beneath the floor, before setting fire to the building itself.’

‘Bloody hell, you’ve got that all worked out,’ said the inspector. ‘Dare I ask what the reason was?’

‘Tomorrow,’ replied Steven sadly. ‘Ask me that tomorrow.’

He drove back to Caernarfon with a heavy heart: he would have to break the news to Karen Doig and Ian Patterson. He had arranged to meet them at a hotel near the castle, but didn’t want to tell them in a public place, so he called Charles Runcie at Caernarfon General and asked if he could provide more suitable surroundings.

‘My office?’ suggested Runcie.

‘Perfect,’ agreed Steven. ‘I’d like you to be there too, if that’s all right?’

‘Whatever you think,’ replied Runcie.

Telling the pair was as awful as Steven had imagined. The look that came into Karen’s eyes when he told her that Peter was dead was something that would remain with him for a long time. After that she collapsed into tears and Runcie did his best to comfort her. Ian Patterson seemed to take the news about his wife more stoically. He sat very still in his chair, looking wordlessly at the floor, but then Steven saw tears start to fall, and he felt a lump come to his own throat.

Even in her pain, Karen was thinking. ‘How can you be sure,’ she asked, ‘if there was only… bones and ash?’

‘I know,’ agreed Steven. ‘It will take DNA profiling to be absolutely certain, but all the circumstances point to it being Peter and Amy.’

‘I don’t understand any of this. How could they possibly get the virus? And why would anyone want to keep it a secret and cover it up?’

‘I think Lehman Genomics can tell us that,’ replied Steven softly. ‘In fact, I think they can tell us how everyone got the virus.’

‘That bastard, Paul Grossart!’ exploded Karen. ‘He knew all along what had happened to them! And he let us go on thinking…’

‘In the long run he’ll answer for it,’ said Steven. ‘I promise.’

Karen and Ian were persuaded to stay overnight in Caernarfon and drive back to Scotland the following day. Their original instinct had been to leave for home immediately, but Runcie persuaded them that neither was in a fit state to undertake a long drive; they should wait until morning. Besides, the police would probably need a word with them before they left.

Steven had turned his phone off while he spoke to Karen and Ian. As soon as he switched it back on, Sci-Med rang to tell him that Mair Jones was due in on a flight from Palma to Manchester Airport at ten-thirty that evening. Did he want to speak to her? After the day he’d had, Steven thought that was probably the last thing he wanted to do. Her importance in the affair had diminished since the appearance of Karen Doig and Ian Patterson on the scene but, because so many people had gone to so much trouble, he said that he would be at the airport. He took the opportunity to check that Sci-Med had passed on his request about the heart valve to Porton.

‘The analysis is already under way. They’d actually decided to do some sequencing on the valve before you asked so you’ll get the result sooner than expected. They say they’ll run a homology search on it as soon as they have enough sequence data to feed into the computer.’

‘That’s exactly what I was going to ask them to do,’ said Steven.

The flight from Majorca was only a few minutes late. Mair Jones, a small woman with sharp eyes and jet-black dyed hair, was escorted to the interview room, while the police took care of retrieving her baggage.

‘Well, I’ve certainly had my fifteen minutes of fame,’ she said in a strong Welsh accent. ‘Who are you when you’re at home?’

Steven told her, and showed his ID. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Pissed off,’ she replied, missing the point of the question. ‘Wouldn’t you be if two British policemen turned up at your hotel in the early hours and suggested you accompany them home without giving any reason?’

‘You’ve no idea what this is about?’ asked Steven, disbelief showing in his voice.

‘I suppose it’s something to do with poor Maureen and the job we did?’

Steven nodded and said, ‘Yesterday, we had no idea how Maureen Williams contracted the virus, but then I spoke to her husband and he told me about the nursing assignment and your involvement. Maureen was in no position to tell us what we needed to know. That left you.’

‘Poor Mo,’ said Mair. ‘I suppose I panicked and ran off to the sunshine in case I was going to get it too.’

‘You could have taken it with you,’ Steven pointed out.

Mair Jones held up her hands and said, ‘All right, I know, I know, but I just had to get away. What happens now?’

‘I need to ask you some questions.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Who your patients were, what happened to them, and who paid you to look after them in the first place.’

‘We were paid in cash up front,’ said Mair, confirming what Williams had said. ‘Our patients were a man and a woman in their early thirties, Peter and Amy — we weren’t told their surnames, just that they had been diagnosed as having an extremely rare but very contagious viral infection. They were already pretty ill by the time we arrived at Capel Curig.’

‘What happened to them?’

Mair sighed and looked down at her feet. ‘They died,’ she said softly. ‘Mo and I did our best, but all to no avail, I’m afraid.’

‘Then what?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘What happened to them?’

‘Their bodies, you mean?’ exclaimed Mair, as if it were an improper question. ‘I really don’t know. Our job was over, so we were driven back to Bangor, and that was the end of it as far as we were concerned.’

Steven said, ‘Peter’s wife and Amy’s husband turned up this morning, so I was able to piece together quite a lot of what has been going on. They’d come to Wales to look for them.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Mair. ‘We had no idea. I suppose we assumed that they were married to each other. One of the Americans told us they were scientists who had infected themselves through their research work. We weren’t allowed to ask questions.’

‘Peter had a baby daughter,’ said Steven.

‘Poor love,’ murmured Mair. ‘We just never thought — not that there was much we could have done, mind you.’ After a few moments of silent contemplation, she asked, ‘Are you arresting me?’

Steven shook his head and said, ‘No. Private nursing’s not a crime, even though you and your friend may have been mixed up in something criminal.’

‘Does that mean I can go?’

‘Subject to surveillance by the Public Health people,’ said Steven.

‘I don’t have to give the money back?’

‘No, you earned it.’

Mair smiled ruefully. ‘Considering what’s happened to Mo,’ she said, ‘I think maybe I did.’

Steven decided to stay overnight in Manchester, because he suspected that he would be heading north in the morning to tackle Lehman Genomics and fit the last remaining piece into the puzzle. The Snowball project was the key to the whole outbreak, and the introduction of a new virus into the public domain had been part of it. There was just one more piece of information he needed before going to Lehman, and that was the report from Porton. He had a bet with himself that it was going to explain how so many human heart valves could have been contaminated with the same virus. He would hold off going north until he knew but, whatever the details, Lehman was going to be hounded out of business for what it had done, and Paul Grossart, as head of the company, was going to go to prison for a long time. With a bit of luck, the evidence would sustain a murder charge.

Steven was shaving when his mobile rang. His heart leaped: it might be the Porton result.

Instead, Charles Runcie asked, ‘You haven’t heard from Karen Doig at all, have you?’

‘No. What’s happened?’

‘Ian Patterson has just phoned me. Apparently, she disappeared from their hotel some time during the night and she’s taken his car.’

Steven closed his eyes and groaned, ‘Hell’s teeth, that’s all we need.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s my bet she’s gone north,’ said Steven. ‘She wants to get to Paul Grossart before the police do.’

‘Good God, I never thought of that.’

‘No reason why you should, Doctor.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll catch a plane up there and hope I get to Grossart first. I don’t suppose Patterson had any idea when she left?’

‘Don’t think so. He just said she wasn’t there when he went down for breakfast and his car was gone.’

Steven called Sci-Med and told them what was going on.

‘Do you want us to contact the Edinburgh police?’

‘No,’ said Steven after a moment’s thought. He didn’t want Grossart spooked by the police turning up on his doorstep. ‘Is Macmillan there?’

Steven heard the duty man briefing Macmillan before he took up the phone.

‘Nothing in from Porton yet?’ asked Steven when Macmillan came on the line.

‘Not yet. I gather you have a problem?’

Steven told him about Karen Doig’s disappearance.

‘You think this is significant?’ asked Macmillan.

‘She’s an angry lady and she holds Grossart responsible for the death of her husband.’

‘So she might be thinking of doing something silly?’

‘Hard to say,’ said Steven. ‘The fact is that she came to Wales and did pretty well in finding the field station and establishing the connection with Maureen Williams. That alone says that she’s a pretty determined and capable woman.’

‘Damn, this could be messy,’ said Macmillan. ‘Are you sure you don’t want us to warn the local police?’

‘No. I’m going to try getting up there before her. I want to see Grossart and hear what he has to say before the police get to him.’

‘You’ll be lucky.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Steven.

‘It’s Christmas Eve.’

‘Shit. I’d lost track. I’d better go. Could you e-mail me the file on Lehman and Paul Grossart? I’ll download it en route.’

‘Will do. Good luck.’

Steven had to use his ID and all the extra clout the Home Secretary had promised him in order to secure a seat on the plane up to Edinburgh. He was sipping orange juice when, twenty minutes into the journey, he was called to the flight deck. The captain handed him a handset and said, ‘It’s for you. A1 priority.’

‘Dunbar,’ said Steven.

‘It’s Clive Phelps here at Porton Down. We’ve done some DNA sequencing on the heart valve and it’s really amazing. All the immunological tests suggested that it was human and a perfect match for the patient, but it turns out the damned tissue isn’t human at all. The DNA says it came from a pig.’

‘Thank you,’ said Steven, silently congratulating himself on having won his bet. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’

‘Good news?’ asked the captain.

‘My cup overflows,’ replied Steven with a smile. He returned to his seat, confident that the last piece of the puzzle was now in place. It was no secret that biotech companies had been experimenting with pigs with a view to using them for human transplant purposes. The big prize in this line of research was to breed a strain with a genetically altered immune system so that human beings would not reject the acquired organs. It looked as if Lehman had succeeded where others had failed. But at what a cost. Talk about the road to hell being paved with good intentions.

Steven thought he’d better check at the Lehman laboratories first. Although it was Christmas Eve there was a chance that a guilty conscience might be keeping Grossart at his desk, so he had a taxi take him to the Science Park on the south side of the city. There was only one car in the car park, a six-year-old Ford Escort with chequered tape on the back bumper, and it belonged to the security guard.

‘There’s nobody here, mate. It’s Christmas Eve.’

‘I thought Mr Grossart might be in,’ said Steven.

‘That bloke needs the rest more than anyone, if you ask me,’ replied the guard. ‘He’s been looking like a basket case for weeks now.’

‘Thanks,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll try to catch him at home.’

Steven gave the taxi driver Grossart’s home address and asked, ‘Is it near here?’

‘Ravelston Gardens? Other side of the bloody city,’ grumbled the driver, who’d maintained a sullen silence since the airport.

‘Then we’d best get moving,’ said Steven.

As they turned into Ravelston Gardens some thirty minutes later, Steven saw a green Toyota Land Cruiser some thirty metres ahead and told the driver to stop. ‘Okay, this’ll do,’ he said. ‘How much?’

‘Thirty quid on the meter,’ replied the driver, turning to offer a smile that was meant to encourage the tip.

‘Here’s forty,’ said Steven. ‘Buy yourself a personality for Christmas.’ He got out, leaving the driver unsure of whether to feel pleased or insulted.

There were probably thousands of green Land Cruisers in the country, and probably several in a well-heeled area like this, but something told Steven that this was Ian Patterson’s and that Karen Doig had beaten him to it. When he got nearer and saw in the window the wildlife stickers he remembered from the car park at Caernarfon General, he was sure. This was a complication he could have done without.

From across the street he took a quick look at the house, hoping to glimpse someone through one of the front windows. He wanted to get a feel for what was going on, but one window was net-curtained and the other had a large Christmas tree in it. His main problem was that he wasn’t sure about Karen Doig’s mental state and why she had come to Grossart’s house. If she was there to take an awful revenge, he didn’t want to spook her into action by startling her.

He walked slowly past, noting that there was a garage entrance at one side, shielded from the house by a tall hedge. It should be possible to get round to the back without being seen, and he decided that that was probably the safest option. He checked that there was no one coming up behind him, then crossed the road and started walking back. Another quick glance over his shoulder and, with the coast still clear, he slipped into the garage entrance and up past the hedge, pausing for a moment before moving in a crouching run along the side of the house to the rear corner.

He lay down and snaked his way round the corner, fearing that there might be someone in the back garden, but there wasn’t. In the back wall there was a window that he could easily pass under without showing himself, and then there was the back door, which he hoped would afford him access to the inside. He lay still for a few moments under the window, listening for sounds from within, but all was quiet, worryingly quiet: the sound of angry voices would have been reassuring.

The back door was a modern double-glazed one, so Steven would be able to see inside, but only at an angle unless he left the shelter of the wall and exposed himself to all the back windows. He watched, listened and waited for a full minute before deciding that the odds against someone standing silently where he couldn’t see them were suitably remote. He reached up and applied gentle pressure to the door handle. To his relief, the door was unlocked and opened smoothly. He slipped inside and closed it behind him. At once he became aware of a strong smell of petrol.

The feeling that there was something dreadfully wrong pushed Steven’s pulse rate higher as he moved towards the door to the hall. Grossart was a family man and this was Christmas Eve. The silence was all wrong… and that smell… A floorboard creaked as he stepped on it and he froze. He was about to continue when the silence was broken by Karen Doig’s voice saying, ‘So you’ve finally come round, have you?’

Steven thought for a moment that she was talking to him, but then realised that the sound had come from the front room to his left. He moved cautiously to the door. It was ajar, and he saw a man he presumed to be Paul Grossart lying on the floor in front of the Christmas tree. His hands were tied behind him and there was dried blood on his forehead. From what Karen had said, Steven deduced that Grossart was just regaining consciousness after a blow to his head. His clothes looked soaked, presumably with petrol from a red plastic container lying at his feet.

‘I wanted you to be conscious,’ continued Karen. ‘I wanted you to understand why I’m doing this. Was my Peter conscious when you burned him?’

‘No, no,’ gasped Grossart. ‘He died of the virus — they both did. You have my word. Everything possible was done for them, right to the end.’

‘Your word!’ sneered Karen. ‘What do you imagine your word’s worth, you bastard? You made me believe my husband had run off with another woman and all the time you knew… you knew, you little shit!’

‘No, no, please no, you don’t understand. It just all got out of hand… I never meant any of this to happen.’

‘I’ll bet you didn’t, now that you’re ten seconds away from hell.’

Steven heard the metallic rasp of a cigarette lighter being lit. He burst into the room, shouting, ‘No, Karen! Don’t do it!’

Karen was startled and dropped the lighter, but she picked it up again before Steven had a chance to get to her. ‘Get back,’ she warned.

‘You’re not thinking straight, Karen,’ said Steven. ‘You’ve lost Peter and you’re sick with grief, but you’ve still got your daughter and she needs you. You mustn’t do this. Let the law deal with him.’

‘I want him to burn like he burned my Peter,’ said Karen through gritted teeth. ‘I want his children to be without their father on Christmas Day, just like Kelly will be.’

‘It won’t make you feel better,’ said Steven. ‘Revenge is never sweet. It’ll taste like poison and you’ll end up regretting it for the rest of your life.’

She looked at him for the first time and he saw doubt creep into her eyes.

‘Give me the lighter,’ he said softly.

‘Get back,’ she said again, with new determination.

‘Look,’ stammered Grossart from the floor. ‘I never meant any of this to happen. God knows I didn’t.’

Steven saw Karen’s thumb move to the lighter wheel. ‘At least hear him out, Karen,’ he said. The thumb relaxed.

‘We succeeded in breeding a strain of pigs with a genetically altered immune system which made them perfect donors for human transplants,’ said Grossart.

‘The Snowball project?’ said Steven.

‘Yes. All the lab tests suggested that we were on to a winner, so we took a shortcut through all the red tape. We reached an agreement with one of the co-ordinators at the transplant register.’

‘You mean you bribed him to slip your heart valves through as matching human ones,’ said Steven contemptuously.

‘If you like,’ said Grossart. ‘Christ, we’d done every test we could think of on them. They seemed perfectly safe.’

‘But they weren’t,’ said Steven.

‘No,’ agreed Grossart. ‘One of our American virologists found a viral DNA sequence in the genome of our pigs and it was damn nearly identical to Ebola. It wasn’t doing the pigs any harm, but there was a chance that it might suddenly become active inside a human being. We pulled the plug on the whole thing, but it was too late for the patients who’d already been given the valves.’

‘And Peter and Amy?’ asked Karen.

‘They both worked on the project. A routine blood test showed that they were developing antibodies to the new virus, suggesting that they had been infected by it. We decided to send them away for a bit, to see if anything came of it — the trip to the field station in Wales. Unfortunately, they both went down with the virus. As soon as they reported feeling unwell, two of our American people, who had been standing by, went into action to make sure that they got proper nursing care and everything they needed… but they both died. I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry!’ exclaimed Karen. ‘You didn’t even let me say goodbye to him.’

Grossart shook his head. ‘It would have been too dangerous,’ he said. ‘One of the nurses was infected, too.’

‘And she’s very ill,’ said Steven.

Grossart shook his head again and said, ‘When things started to go wrong it was as if the whole affair took on a life of its own. There seemed to be nothing we could do to make things better.’

Steven disagreed strongly but he bit his tongue in case he provoked Karen into throwing the lighter.

‘I’m desperately sorry about Peter. He was a good bloke — everyone liked him,’ continued Grossart.

The kind words seemed to bring Karen to an emotional threshold. Her anger evaporated in an instant, to be replaced by overwhelming sorrow and grief. She dropped the lighter, covered her face with her hands and started to sob. Steven took her in his arms. When she had recovered sufficiently, he said, ‘Go on home, Karen. Kelly needs you. Start rebuilding your life.’

She nodded silently and left without looking again at Grossart.

Steven freed Grossart’s hands but he continued to sit on the floor for a few moments, rubbing his wrists. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he said. ‘There really was nothing we could do once the genie got out the bottle. We never meant to harm anyone — in fact, quite the reverse: we’re in the business of saving lives, not taking them. It was just one of those… unfortunate things.’

Steven’s eyes were dark with anger. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t believe you. There was a whole lot you could have done in order to save lives, but that would have meant being punished for your greed and dishonesty, so you kept quiet. Lots of people died needlessly because we didn’t know where the wildcards were coming from. You could have told us but you didn’t.’

Grossart looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.

‘You knew what was happening out there. You knew people were going to die, and you let it happen. That knowledge makes it malice aforethought. You and your greedy bastard colleagues are going to be charged with murder.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Grossart as he got to his feet.

‘Clean yourself up while I call the police,’ said Steven. ‘Where are your wife and family?’

‘They’re at June’s mother’s. I had to tell her what had been going on.’

‘And she didn’t understand, either,’ said Steven sourly. ‘Get cleaned up.’

As Steven went over to the phone, Grossart got unsteadily to his feet. As he did, he lost his balance and fell backwards into the Christmas tree. He clutched at the branches but succeeded only in tearing at the wiring for the lights and pulling the tree over. Steven turned when he heard the crash and started towards Grossart to help him up. The cable Grossart was holding parted with the strain, and a spark from the shorting electrics caused the petrol vapour surrounding Grossart to explode into flame.

Steven staggered backwards and shielded his eyes as the wall of heat hit him. When he could bear to look again he found he was looking at Paul Grossart’s funeral pyre. He called the Fire Brigade and tried dousing the flames as best he could with an extinguisher he found in the kitchen. He managed to localise the fire to the bay-window area, but then the extinguisher ran out and he changed to using basins of water from the kitchen after disconnecting the electricity.

Although Grossart’s death was an accident, there would be awkward questions about how his clothes had come to be soaked in petrol, and the answers might well put Karen Doig in prison. Steven decided not to let that happen. Leaving the smouldering pyre to take its course for a moment, he went out to the garden shed and there found, as he hoped, several bits of garden machinery powered by petrol engines. He selected a heavy-duty chainsaw, brought it back into the house and laid it on the kitchen table, along with the red petrol can. He would leave the authorities to draw their own conclusions.

Steven called Macmillan to fill him in on what had happened.

‘You did well,’ said Macmillan gravely. ‘Pity about Grossart — I’d have preferred crucifixion for him. But there will be the others.’

‘Will there?’ asked Steven. The question was loaded with silent reference to past cover-ups by politicians in the so-called public interest.

‘I promise,’ said Macmillan. ‘There will be no backing-off. Sci-Med will go for broke over this. You have my word.’

‘Even if Uncle Sam doesn’t like it?’

‘Even if,’ Macmillan assured him.

‘Good.’

‘And Steven?’

‘Yes?’

‘Merry Christmas.’

As he rang off, Steven wondered where he was going to spend Christmas. He couldn’t be with Jenny, because it would be another ten days or so before he could be absolutely sure he hadn’t picked up the virus, so he might as well stay in Edinburgh.

Finding a place to stay on Christmas Eve was not easy. It took him an hour and a half before he found a hotel which agreed to give him a room on condition that he would not want dinner that night or the following one. Steven settled for a place to lay his head, and went out for some take-away food. He returned to his room with a bottle of gin and some tonic, just in case the hotel bar had been taken over by a private party. He also picked up a handful of daily newspapers in the lobby to catch up on what had been happening in the world.

On page two of The Times, an article headed ‘Disgraced MP Puts Record Straight’ reported that William Victor Spicer, currently awaiting trial for the manslaughter of a man who had been blackmailing him, had admitted that he had deliberately misrepresented the contribution made by Dr Caroline Anderson, the Public Health chief at the time, to the handling of the Manchester outbreak. He now recognised that Dr Anderson’s management of the crisis had been beyond reproach and that she had, in fact, sacrificed her own life in fighting the infection on behalf of the inhabitants of the city. He wished to apologise to her friends and family for the distress he had caused.

Steven smiled for the first time in many days. He rested his head on the back of the chair and looked up at the featureless ceiling. ‘Bless you, Caroline,’ he murmured. ‘Merry Christmas, love.’