Dust to dust

SIXTEEN

‘He’s currently in isolation at Borders General Hospital near Melrose,’ said John Macmillan in reply to Steven’s question when he’d finished. ‘He’s being kept under heavy sedation for the safety of nursing and medical staff, and he’ll stay there until lab tests are complete.’

‘Quite a story,’ said Steven. ‘What made them excavate at Dryburgh Abbey in the first place?’

‘According to his wife, the Master of Balliol College approached him. The college had come into possession of some old letters which suggested that the bodies of a number of Black Death victims — members of the Scottish army, which had been camped in the Selkirk Forest in the mid thirteen hundreds waiting for their chance to invade — had been recovered at the request of their kinfolk, preserved by some Borders family who specialised in that sort of thing and hidden away in a secret tomb. Apparently this family had been responsible for preserving the heart of the Lord of Galloway, John Balliol… so that his wife could keep it with her in a little box.’ Macmillan made a face. ‘Not exactly your usual sort of memento mori.’

‘Devorgilla,’ said Steven.

‘You know about this?’ exclaimed Macmillan in surprise.

‘You forget, my daughter lives up in that area of the country. The lady is well known in Dumfries and Galloway. Jenny and I were standing on Devorgilla’s Bridge in Dumfries the other day. Why did Balliol College approach Motram?’

‘Motram has an interest in old plagues and their causes — he’s actually a specialist in cell biology and an expert on the mechanics of viral infection. His personal hobbyhorse is a belief that Black Death was caused by a virus and not by bubonic plague as the rest of us were taught. This was his chance to get some proof, if the bodies in the tomb had been preserved well enough.’

‘But they weren’t.’

‘A case of dust to dust, I understand.’

‘What’s our interest?’

Macmillan placed his elbows on his desk and rested his chin on his folded hands. ‘It might well be that this chap Motram suffered some sort of breakdown — maybe in response to the disappointment he felt when he found the bodies inside the tomb were just dust and bone — but on the other hand it just might…’

‘Have had something to do with the dust,’ said Steven, filling in the blank.

‘Exactly. The tabloids have been doing their best to whip up fear and alarm with tales of curses coming down through the centuries; it would be nice to have a more objective view of what happened.’

Steven nodded. ‘I take it the site is sealed off?’

‘And the abbey closed to all visitors. The last thing the UK needs right now is any kind of epidemic coming on top of everything else.’

Steven smiled. ‘No doubt the tabloids would construe that as the wrath of God coming to bear on the lot of us… What about the others on site at the time? I take it Motram wasn’t alone?’

‘There were three others, a couple of chaps from a company called Maxton Geo-Survey who had located the burial chamber and did the actual excavation of the site, and an inspector from Historic Scotland who was overseeing things…’ Macmillan flicked through his notes. ‘Alan Blackstone. No one actually entered the chamber apart from Motram, but the others sustained a variety of injuries when Motram ran amok. The worst affected was Blackstone: Motram smashed the side of his face in with a heavy torch. He’s awaiting maxillo-facial surgery in hospital in Edinburgh. The other two are on the mend. One was knocked unconscious with a blow to the back of the head and other suffered leg injuries when a mechanical shovel was dropped on his knee, but all three seem perfectly sane and free from infection, you’ll be pleased to hear.’

‘Maybe I should talk to them first.’

‘Jean has prepared a file for you with relevant names and addresses.’

‘Who else is involved in the investigation?’

Macmillan smiled. ‘The usual suspects, although the police have backed off with Motram being held in hospital and possibly in line for sectioning under the Mental Health Act and the others being unwilling to press charges in the circumstances.

‘But Public Health, Health and Safety, and major incident groups in the area will all have some input. Porton Down have also expressed an interest and will be having their say.’

It was Steven’s turn to smile at the mention of the UK’s chemical and biological defence establishment. ‘There’s a surprise,’ he murmured.

‘I think we can assume that they’ll want to examine the chamber, swab it down and take samples of the dust. They’ll probably put a mobile lab on site, like some of the others, but you have as much right as they have to be there and to ask questions. Don’t let them push you around.’

‘As if,’ said Steven. He’d come into conflict with Porton Down on a number of occasions in the past. ‘Anyone else I have to worry about?’

Macmillan adopted a pained expression. ‘There’s a degree of religious interest,’ he said. ‘There’s some sort of inter-faith discussion going on over what should happen to the inmates of the chamber and how their remains — the dust — should be disposed of, but that won’t affect you. There’s nothing anyone can do until the closure notice on the site is lifted and that won’t be until Public Health is satisfied that there isn’t a problem. I’ve informed the relevant authorities in the area that Sci-Med is taking an interest.’

‘Best get started then.’

Steven took the file back to his flat and read it through. There was very little to assimilate. John Motram was a 52-year-old lecturer at Newcastle University, and an acknowledged expert on how viruses infected people. He lived with his wife Cassandra in the village of Longthorn, a little north of Newcastle, where she was a partner in the group medical practice that served the surrounding area. He had no known history of mental illness or any other medical problems. In all respects, he seemed a perfectly normal, well-respected man who had, for no apparent reason, flipped his lid after entering a seven-hundred-year-old tomb harbouring victims of Black Death.

Steven appreciated that it was the Black Death connection that had attracted Macmillan’s attention, and reflected on the fact that the mere mention of a disease that had inspired such fear and dread down through the years, having wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the fourteenth century, was enough to precipitate a Sci-Med investigation in the twenty-first.

His first impulse was to dismiss any possible connection between Black Death and Motram’s illness, but he had to acknowledge that in doing so he was assuming the very thing that Motram was arguing against, that Black Death had been caused by bubonic plague. It was certainly true that bubonic plague could not have survived in the dust of decayed bodies for such a long time and had no history of including madness among its extensive and horrifying repertoire of symptoms, but none of that would be relevant if Black Death had been caused by something else entirely. This was not a comforting thought.

Knowing that Porton Down was involved did little to lift his spirits either, especially when he started to wonder how likely it was be that their scientists would share their findings with the wider scientific community if evidence of a previously unknown microbial agent should come to light. He concluded that it wasn’t very likely at all. It would be par for the course if they and the Ministry of Defence were to classify the whole affair under the Official Secrets Act. The sooner he got up there the better.

Steven held a particular loathing for the very notion of biological warfare. The idea of intelligent people teaming up with the microbial world — so long the sworn enemy of mankind — to design ever more dangerous bacteria and viruses seemed to embody the very essence of evil. He knew that the UK’s Porton Down facility would insist that their interest was solely concerned with defence of the realm, but that would be the claim of every military microbial research lab on earth. It made him think of the labs full of smallpox virus that had been discovered all over the old Soviet bloc after the Berlin Wall came down — at a time when the World Health Organisation had been debating whether or not to destroy what they had believed to be the last remaining lab stocks of the virus on earth to create a smallpox-free planet.

Steven turned his attention to transport. He would need a car once he was up in Scotland, so should he fly up to Edinburgh or Glasgow and hire one for the duration of his stay or should he use his own car to drive north? He decided a phone call would help him with the decision and looked through the file Jean Roberts had given him for the number of the relevant Public Health authority in the area.

He spoke to Dr Kenneth Glass, the Public Health director, who told him the good news that his people had been first on site after the incident: they had already been inside the chamber under strict bio-safety conditions and had taken a large number of samples for analysis. The fear that Porton Down and the MOD might get there first and stop anyone else collecting samples was no longer an issue. Steven decided to drive up to Scotland.