Resurrection

FIFTEEN

‘Do I work alone?’ asked Dewar. He had a hollow feeling in his stomach. Wright’s presence had brought back to him all the man had said about smallpox.

‘You’ll have your usual autonomy in terms of independence of action but you’ll be attached to the major-incident team that’s being set up to handle the problem. The team will be based at a command centre in the Scottish Office building in Leith, the so-called port of Edinburgh. Conveniently it’s in the north of the city and just to the east of Muirhouse where the problem is centred. It’s also quite near to where the Western General Hospital is. The team will comprise medical experts, public health people, police and government representatives. More experts will be co-opted as necessary. It’s very much a hands-on team. Politicians will be taking a back seat. I need hardly add that time is against us in all of this.’

Dewar turned to Wright and asked, ‘Are you going to be involved?’

Wright shook his head and looked down at the table in front of him.

‘Why not? You are the leading expert on this disease by all accounts and one of the few people who’ve actually worked with it.’

‘I haven’t been asked,’ replied Wright flatly, but there was no mistaking the resentment in his body language.

The DOH man moved uncomfortably in his seat. ‘No slight was intended to Dr Wright, I assure you, but we have what we feel is an excellent team in place.’

Dewar recognised this as ministry double speak for ‘Wright’s not one of us.’

He disagreed that any team could be described as excellent when the leading expert in the field had been deliberately excluded. He turned to Macmillan and said, ‘You did say more experts could be co-opted as required?’

Macmillan, seeing what was coming, shrugged his cautious agreement.

‘I’d like to request that Dr Wright be invited to join if he’s agreeable. As a Sci-Med associate if that makes things easier for the paperwork.’

‘It’s all right with me,’ said Macmillan.

‘I can think of nicer things to happen to me,’ said Wright. ‘But all right, count me in.’

‘Any other requests?’ asked Macmillan.

‘I’d like to request the attachment of two more people,’ said Dewar.

‘Before you even start?’

‘You said time was against us. I’d like Dr Steven Malloy’s help in establishing the institute connection. He doesn’t have a lab any more, thanks to me, so he’s got time on his hands and he’s an insider. I’d also like to use the same police contact as before, Inspector Ian Grant. We get on.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ said Macmillan. ‘You’re on the first shuttle up to Edinburgh.’

‘I’ll have to join you later,’ said Wright. ‘I’ll have to square things with my wife. It’s our anniversary tomorrow.’

‘How long?’

‘Eighteen years.’

Dewar turned to Macmillan. ‘I take it the press haven’t cottoned on to this yet or we would have heard?’

‘It’s a case of so far so good,’ replied Macmillan. ‘Kelly leading the life he does, not having a GP or any regular family has made it easier to keep his condition under wraps but let’s face it, sooner or later they’re going to smell a rat. The use of the isolation suite at the hospital begs its own questions.’

‘Do we know anything about Kelly’s condition at the moment?’

‘It’s grave,’ replied Macmillan. ‘He was pretty ill by the time he was admitted, not that even modern medicine can do anything about the progress of the disease but one of the major problems is that he’s beyond answering questions about his movements before he caught the disease.’

‘What about his partner? I’ve forgotten her name.’

‘Denise Banyon. She thought he’d fallen ill because of a bad fix as she put it.’

‘She thought his condition was a reaction to drugs?’ exclaimed Dewar.

‘Apparently.’

‘That was a bit of luck but what did they tell her when they put her into isolation too?’ asked Dewar.

‘No information,’ said Macmillan. He looked to the others who shook their heads. ‘But illness isn’t at all uncommon among drug addicts; it goes with the territory, particularly in Edinburgh, AIDS capital of Europe and all that.’

‘Maybe it could be made to work in our favour?’ suggested Dewar. ‘We can probably get away with calling it hepatitis for a while, then there’s the social factor on our side too.’

Eyebrows were raised.

‘Nobody gives a damn what happens to drug addicts anyway,’ Dewar explained. ‘There’s a largely unspoken belief among the general public that they’re getting exactly what they deserve. The paparazzi aren’t liable to be queuing up at the door and the hospital won’t be required to post daily bulletins on the gates.’

‘Be that as it may, this is likely to be a very temporary window,’ said Wright. ‘The disease may have started in the drug taking community but it’s unlikely to stay there. Smallpox has no sense of social order; it’s no respector of persons; it’ll kill anybody and everybody.’

‘Then let’s do our best to see that it doesn’t get the chance, gentlemen,’ said Macmillan. With that, the meeting ended.

Dewar lingered for a few minutes outside on the pavement with Hector Wright. ‘What d’you think of the chances of containing it as an isolated case?’ asked Dewar.

‘Nil,’ replied Wright without hesitation. ‘In these circumstances, not a snowball’s chance in hell.’

Dewar drove back slowly to his apartment through drizzly rain. Milk floats were already on the move. There wouldn’t be time to crawl back into bed with Karen and seek a last loving cuddle before the night ended. He wouldn’t be able to accuse her of stealing all the covers in his absence and she wouldn’t get a chance to complain about his cold feet. To his, almost poignant, regret, a new day had already begun.

He had packed his bag and checked the contents of his pockets for the second time before Karen stirred and realised he was up and dressed.

She sat up in bed, looking alarmed. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Smallpox has broken out in Edinburgh. Just one case at the moment. I’m going back.’

‘God, that’s awful, but why you?’

‘They want me to establish the link between the patient and that damned institute.’

‘You mean it’s not obvious? It’s not one of the staff?’

‘It’s some unemployed junkie who lives on the other side of the city from the institute would you believe.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I wish.’ Dewar shook his head and told her about Kelly

‘What a nightmare,’ said Karen.

‘It’s all too easy to draw pictures, isn’t it?’ agreed Dewar.

‘Oh my God, you will be careful, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Dewar assured her. ‘I’ve been vaccinated.’

‘They can’t vaccinate you against a knife in the ribs, or HIV or Hep “C”. Addicts are bad news.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Dewar sat down on the edge of the bed and cuddled Karen tightly, suddenly very conscious of the softness of her hair. ‘I’ll call you later.’

DAY ONE

Dewar had to admit he was impressed with the co-ordination centre at the Scottish Office. It had been designed as a command centre for times of national emergency without being specific over what kind was envisaged. Sited in the basement of the building, not only were conference rooms and communications facilities the best he’d come across, living quarters had been prepared on the floor above for those members of the team who wanted to use them. He was going to be one of them; he put Hector Wright down for a room as well.

He expressed his admiration to the government official who had been showing him around and who was in charge of seeing the team had everything they needed.

‘They’re pulling out all the stops on this one,’ confided the official. ‘They see this affair as a huge potential embarrassment. They want it cleared up as quickly as possible. Between you and me that’s why I suspect they’re not putting politicians in charge.’

Dewar smiled but he could see another reason why politicians were not going to be running the show. They’d be more keen on distancing themselves from it. If and when the public realised that smallpox had returned to stalk the community, the embarrassing question of where it had come from would be raised and the press would not be slow in pointing out that for once, this could not be dismissed as, ‘just one of these things’. Mother Nature would not be conveniently shouldering the blame as she had so often in the past. If smallpox didn’t officially exist any more, it had to have escaped from some laboratory. There would be no way of passing the buck. Britain would be held responsible for reintroducing the disease to the world.

Dewar was told that there would be a meeting of the team at two-thirty in the afternoon. The medics and public health people were currently out doing their thing, and as it was still only ten fifteen, Dewar got settled into his room and called Steven Malloy.

‘I’ve just been talking to a man named, Macmillan,’ said Malloy.

‘Then you know what this is all about. I need your help. How about it?’

‘In the circumstances I can hardly say no,’ said Malloy. ‘But it sounds positively bizarre.’

‘Macmillan told you about Kelly?’

‘An unemployed smack-head living in Muirhouse. It’s crazy.’

‘Crazy, it might be but I just can’t believe it’s any kind of coincidence. There just has to be a connection with what’s been going on at the institute and your lab in particular. Hammadi and Le Grice are both dead so what’s your best guess?

‘There’s still no evidence that anyone at all tried to resurrect smallpox here so how could anyone catch it if it doesn’t exist?’

‘But it does exist,’ said Dewar. ‘A man’s dying from it so, for the moment, let’s work on the assumption that it did come from the institute.’

‘Assuming for the sake of argument that it did,’ said Malloy. ‘I think the first thing we have to work out is how this guy from Muirhouse got his hands on it.’

‘Agreed.’

Malloy came up with the same sort of suggestions that Dewar had made earlier in London about Kelly’s possible employment in some kind of casual way at the institute, cleaner, porter, messenger.

‘It’s going to be difficult to check without being able to ask him personally,’ said Dewar.

’I’ll have a look at what records the institute keeps.’

Dewar told him about the meeting at two thirty. They arranged to meet for lunch first in a pub in Rose Street at Malloy’s suggestion.

Dewar called Grant at police headquarters. Macmillan had already been in touch with him too.

‘I heard last night the shit had hit the fan,’ said Grant. ‘I was half expecting you to call. The division has been put on full alert — ostensibly for possible trouble in the Muirhouse area. For the moment we’re operating a need-to-know policy. Officers selected for duty are being screened discreetly for vaccination history. Only those with recorded smallpox protection are being deployed in the area.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Riding shotgun on the public health people as they go about their business.’

‘Tell me about the area. Bad?’

‘The pits. Officially we wouldn’t admit it but we’ve settled for the status quo. As long the smack-heads stay put we don’t interfere too much.. Some parts of that estate make Bosnia look like Disneyland. If you folks are thinking of appealing to the druggie denizens’ better nature, don’t. It isn’t an option; they don’t have one. They’re either stoned out their heads or doing whatever’s necessary to get the stuff to get themselves stoned out their heads. Nothing else matters. Take my word for it. Don’t ever get yourself in a position where you have to rely on a junkie, don’t believe them and don’t ever trust them. Leave it to the bleeding hearts; they never seem to learn. Bloody place is crawling with initiatives for this and initiatives for that, Euro money, schemes, projects, co-operatives, support groups. Waste of bloody time as far as I’m concerned. Situation’s getting worse every day.’

‘You’re not big on remedial initiatives then?’ said Dewar, tongue in cheek.

‘Only if they involve Napalm,’ replied Grant.

‘Thanks for the cameo,’ said Dewar.

‘Why couldn’t it have been a responsible church elder from Marchmont who got this fucking thing?’ asked Grant from the heart.

‘I think getting the answer to that might be down to me,’ replied Dewar.

‘Some guys get all the good jobs.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea how this man Kelly could have a connection with the Institute of Molecular Science, have you?’ asked Dewar.

‘The only way Kelly and his mates could get near a university involves a back window and a crow bar,’ replied Grant.

‘That’s a thought,’ said Dewar. ‘I hadn’t considered burglary. That’s a possibility.’

‘I was joking.’

‘I know but it is a possibility. Kelly is a drug addict and he’s unemployed. He has to get money for drugs from somewhere so presumably stealing’s an option?’

‘Option numero uno,’ said Grant sourly. ‘Do you know how much crime is drug related these days?’

‘My point exactly,’ said Dewar. ‘So maybe Kelly broke into the institute at some point and contaminated himself in the process?’

‘But I thought you told me they didn’t have live virus there?’, protested Grant. ‘Apart from that, what would Kelly have been after? Why cross to the other side of town to break into a place that probably contained nothing he could sell? The only things that go missing from that sort of place are bicycles! They’re pinched from outside. And last but not least, we’ve had no report of any break-in at the institute anyway.’

Dewar had to admit that Grant had made a pretty good job of shooting him down in flames. ‘Just a thought,’ he said.

Dewar met Malloy in the Auld Hundred pub in Rose Street at 12 noon. It was still quiet at that time before the offices started to break for lunch.

‘I hope you’re going to tell me you’ve thought of the connection,’ said Dewar as he shook Malloy’s hand.

‘Unfortunately no,’ replied Malloy. ‘There’s no record of Kelly being employed at any time on the portering, cleaning or maintenance staffs. That still leaves window cleaning as a possibility; we contract that out but I really think this idea of contaminating himself accidentally in the institute labs is a non starter.’

‘Why?’

‘Firstly because it implies that there was something there to contaminate himself with and secondly that it was accessible to a casual intruder. If the people from Porton Down failed to find it and they were highly skilled people actively looking for it what chance has a casual intruder? I’m convinced the guy got it somewhere else.’

‘For me, coincidences don’t stretch that far,’ said Dewar. ‘There’s an institute connection somewhere along the line but I take your point. Unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to get the chance to question Kelly; he’s too far gone. We’ll have to talk to his friends and associates. See if something strikes a chord.’

‘Sounds fun,’ said Malloy dryly.

‘The Public Health people should be able to tell us something about that at the meeting this afternoon.’

The chair of the Crisis Management Team was a consultant in Infectious Diseases from the Western General Hospital named George Finlay. He was a man in his late forties, grey haired and thinning on top, wearing a suit that seemed too large for him, particularly at the shoulders. This gave him a slightly lop sided appearance when he leaned on the table with one hand which he was prone to do while speaking. He introduced the head of Public Health Services for the city, Dr Mary Martin, a woman about ten years younger than Finlay, slim, well-dressed and with the ‘big’ hair of a much younger woman. She in turn, introduced two junior colleagues before handing back to Finlay to introduce Malcolm Rankin, the senior Scottish Office official, assigned to the team to smooth the administrative way.

Rankin’s suit fitted perfectly, as did his shirt and tie and everything else about him. He was a man who clearly believed that image was important, thought Dewar as he listened to him assure everyone present that he would be available to help in whatever way he could at any time. He introduced two, equally charming colleagues who would be dealing with communications and public relations issues. A silver haired man wearing the uniform of a police superintendent introduced himself as Cameron Tulloch. Finally Finlay welcomed Dewar and Malloy to the team, telling the others that their particular interest would be in identifying the cause of the outbreak.

‘I’ll just bring everyone up to date and then we can say what we have to say,’ said Finlay. ‘Kelly’s condition has deteriorated markedly over the past twenty four hours. His whole body is pustulated and I think we can expect him to die within the next few days. Denise Banyon, his partner is as yet, showing no signs of the disease.’

‘It’s early days,’ said Mary Martin.

‘In the normal run of things,’ agreed Finlay. ‘But when Kelly was brought in to hospital his rash was already becoming pustular. This suggested that he’d had the disease for well over a week but Banyon who had been with him throughout, insists that he developed the disease quite suddenly and that he’d only been ill for a short time when he was admitted.’

‘That’s possible,’ said a voice behind Dewar’s shoulder. It was Hector Wright. He was still wearing his overcoat and carrying a travel bag. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

Dewar did the introduction and Wright took his seat.

‘I’m familiar with your work through your papers, Dr Wright,’ said Finlay. ‘We’re fortunate to have your expertise at our disposal.’

Dewar thought the welcome for Wright formal and polite. It lacked genuine warmth but wasn’t outside the normal coolness expected between academics and medical practitioners.’

You have the better of me,’ said Finlay. ‘You say there’s a way this man could have developed the disease this quickly? Much faster than any of the textbooks suggest?’

‘If by any chance he received a massive dose of the virus at the outset, he could have skipped the flu-like stage and pustulated within twenty-four hours,’ said Wright.

‘And just how would he have done that?’ asked Finlay.

‘Direct contact with a pure culture of the virus.’

‘A pure culture of smallpox virus,’ repeated Finlay with a question mark in every syllable.

Dewar looked at Malloy, mutely suggesting that the ball had just landed in his court. Malloy moved his shoulders uneasily but didn’t say anything.

Finlay noticed the look that had passed between the two of them and asked of Dewar, ‘Would that be an avenue you and your colleagues might be considering, Doctor?’

‘One of several,’ replied Dewar, unwilling to volunteer more.

Finlay looked as if he might pursue the matter but then decided against it. He said, ‘Perhaps before we go any further this would be a good time to define our roles and objectives as team members?’ he said.

‘Good idea,’ said Tulloch.

‘Dr Martin and her Public Health team are in charge of finding and isolating contacts of Kelly and Banyon. Superintendent Tulloch’s men are currently being deployed to see that she can carry out this task without hindrance. A secondary team comprising health workers from surrounding areas and again supervised by Dr Martin and aided by police where necessary, will carry out a comprehensive vaccination programme in an attempt to contain the disease. The isolation and medical treatment of victims of the disease will be my responsibility and that of my people at the Western’s high-risk containment unit. Dr Dewar and his colleagues will try to find out just how this situation arose, that is to say, they’ll be tracing the source of the outbreak and eliminating it. Mr Rankin and his colleagues will oil the wheels and act as a buffer between ourselves and outside interests.

I think it’s important that we don’t step on each others’ toes; we should communicate with each other as much as possible. I say this because I suspect there are certain factors connected with this outbreak that I know nothing about and no one has seen fit to tell me as yet. I can only guess that the reappearance of a virus I and my colleagues believed to be extinct may have something to do with some scientific accident or other although I was given to believe that no live smallpox existed outside certain secure establishments, none of which were in this country.’

There was a short silence in the room before Dewar, understanding Finlay’s resentment, said, ‘The escape of an unlicensed source of virus is a possibility, Doctor, but we don’t know yet if that’s the case. I assure you, I’m holding nothing back. That’s as much as we know at the moment.’

‘Very well,’ said Finlay. ‘We’ll leave it at that for now. Are there any questions so far?’

Dewar said, ‘As it sounds like interviewing Kelly is not going to be possible, I’d like to talk to Denise Banyon on the grounds that I’ve got to start looking for the source somewhere.’

‘We’ve already talked to her at length,’ said Mary Martin. ‘Frankly, she was uncooperative. No help at all.’

‘Uncooperative?’

‘She has an inherent dislike of authority and doesn’t hesitate to show it but she genuinely didn’t seem to know anything about Kelly’s movements. The life they lead is like that. He’d apparently be out with his friends all day, leaving her behind. She’d no idea what they were up to and didn’t really care as long as he had enough money for her drugs at the end of it.’

‘Did she come up with the names of any of these friends he spent his days with?’

A few but they’re vague, Eddie, Jimmy, that sort of thing.’

‘Addresses?’

‘I think the term “no fixed abode” was the bottom line for many. Pubs and snooker clubs are a better bet.’

‘How are you managing to keep her in isolation, by the way?’ Dewar asked Finlay. ‘She’s a drug addict herself, isn’t she?.’

Finlay nodded. ‘She’s on Methadone; a prescribed substitute for heroin. I think with Kelly out of the running she saw a regular supply of this and free board and lodgings as her best option for the moment.’

‘I think I’d still like to speak to her,’ said Dewar.

‘All right with me,’ said Mary Martin. ‘I wish you luck.’

‘You can come back with me to the hospital if you like,’ said Finlay. ‘Any more questions?’

Hector Wright asked, ‘How many people can your high-risk unit cope with?’

‘Eight, maybe ten at a push.’

‘Then what?’

‘We’re rather hoping it doesn’t come to that,’ said Finlay. Mary Martin nodded her agreement.

‘I think you should give it some thought,’ said Wright.’

His comment made people feel uncomfortable. Finlay had been promoting a positive outlook. Wright had introduced a negative note.

‘The irony is they’ve just closed our infectious disease hospital here in Edinburgh,’ said Finlay. ‘The powers that be decided we didn’t need it any more. Suddenly we’re a bit pushed for that kind of accommodation. If necessary we could open up a couple of wards that have been shut down to save money in the Western but they wouldn’t exactly be tailor-made for the job.’

Totally unsuitable, I would have thought,’ said Wright, speaking his mind but making no friends in the process. ‘If you’re talking about old style Nightingale wards. Barns with beds in them.’

‘No one envisaged smallpox returning,’ was Finlay’s barbed reply.

‘How about nursing staff trained in barrier nursing and ID techniques?’

‘We have a few. Mainly those who moved down to the Western when the City Hospital closed. But they stopped the fever training register many years ago.’

‘Medical staff experienced in infectious diseases?’ asked Wright.

‘The City always dealt with that sort of thing. Two of their consultants took early retirement when it closed down. A third went abroad. My people here have had training, of course.’

Wright didn’t say anything but his silence irked Finlay. ‘Good God man, how many doctors these days have ever come across smallpox?’ he snapped. ‘We’ll all just have to do our best and get on with it.’

Wright nodded, as if taking the point. He said, ‘I’m just trying to make sure that no one’s underestimating what we’re up against. I think we should be looking ahead and planning accordingly. If we wait for things to happen first it’ll be too late.’

‘Too late?’

‘Deaths in the city could run into five figures.’

It was suddenly clear that people at the table thought Wright had flipped. Whereas before they had been listening in silence with serious expressions, they now broke into smiles and shakes of the head.

‘Come, come Doctor, don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic,’ said Finlay. ‘I appreciate you’re an expert on the disease but we’ve had a few smallpox outbreaks in the past in this country in the last sixty years and they’ve passed without anything like the numbers you’re suggesting.’

‘That’s because the vast majority of the population at the time had been vaccinated against the disease almost as soon as they were born. Things are different now. Mass vaccination stopped in the seventies, well over a quarter of a century ago. The people of this city are as vulnerable to smallpox as any community in the middle ages.’

The laughter stopped.

‘How is your vaccination programme coming along, Doctor Martin?’ Finlay asked.

‘We’ve not been able to start it,’ replied Mary Martin. ‘We haven’t received any

vaccine yet.’