Resurrection

SEVENTEEN

DAY THREE

Dewar was wakened at four in the morning. It took him a few moments to register the phone ringing and adjust to his surroundings. He’d forgotten where he was. Finlay’s voice brought him quickly back to reality.

‘Bad news. It looks like the lull is over. We’ve had seven admissions to the unit during the night. I’m pretty certain they’ve all got it.’

‘Shit,’ murmured Dewar. ‘All from Muirhouse?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s something I suppose.’

‘Not unless we get the vaccine very soon. Mary says there’s still no sign of it. She thinks she’s being fobbed off every time she inquires. What are these people playing at?’

‘I’ll try again to find out,’ Dewar assured him.

Dewar went next door to wake Hector Wright and tell him the news. Wright sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He cursed, ‘God damn it, I was hoping we might have got through one more day before this happened. We’re now too far behind on vaccination schedules. Chances are we could completely lose any possibility of control unless the vaccine comes today.’

‘I’ve told Finlay I’ll try and find out what the problem is. Mary Martin feelss she’s being given the run-around.’

Wright got out of bed to get dressed while Dewar returned to his room and called Sci-Med in London. He spoke to the duty officer on the night desk. ‘Any idea why the WHO vaccine hasn’t reached Edinburgh yet?’ he asked.

‘I don’t have details but I know Mr Macmillan spoke to Geneva earlier this evening. He was worried about that himself.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Mr Macmillan didn’t say exactly but he was in a foul mood after he’d finished the call, something about being fobbed off with an office boy.’

Dewar looked at his watch and said, ‘I’ll call him when he comes in at nine.’

‘I’ll leave a note for him,’ said the man.

Dewar found Hector Wright downstairs. He was sitting at a table with his city street map spread out in front of him, tapping his pen nervously on the table while apparently deep in thought.

‘Seven more means things have changed,’ he said. ‘I think we may be forced to admit that it’s smallpox we’re dealing with. If one gets you seven, seven will get you forty-nine.’

‘Actually, one got us eight,’ said Dewar. ‘You’re forgetting about Tommy Hannan.

‘We’re going to have to open up a second centre before the end of the week and come clean with the relatives. I don’t see how we can avoid it.’

‘I’ve got an awful feeling the vaccine isn’t going to be here today,’ Dewar confided. ‘I haven’t spoken to Macmillan yet but something’s wrong, I know it is.’ We can’t tell people anything if we haven’t anything to offer them. They’ll panic. Contacts could spread faster than bad news.’

‘If you’re really serious about the vaccine not coming then we’ll have to go for physical containment,’ said Wright. ‘There’s no other way.’

‘You mean seal the whole area off?’ asked Dewar almost agog at the notion of isolating an entire housing estate with thousands of residents.

Wright nodded slowly. ‘I can’t see any other way of stopping it spreading if we don’t have the vaccine and stop it, we must. If we just admit that it’s smallpox that people have been going down with there will be a pause of about two days while people talk about it and come to terms with the news then they’ll start moving out of the affected area. Trains, planes and automobiles will do the rest. Smallpox will be back to roam the planet just like the old times when it regularly killed two million a year.’

‘Well, you can try putting that to the team,’ said Dewar sounding less than confident of a positive outcome.

‘Will you back me up?’

‘Yes,’ replied Dewar. ‘Not because I think it’s an attractive idea but because I think you’re right, there’s no other way. The big question will be, can the police manage it on their own or are we talking military help here?’

‘We’ll see what Tulloch has to say.’

‘What time’s the meeting this morning?’

‘Finlay said he’d try to get everyone here for nine thirty.’

There was no point in going back to bed. Sleep would be impossible and the dawn wasn’t that far away. Dewar decided he would go over to the isolation unit at the Western General at eight.He wanted to talk to Sharon Hannan. He called a taxi at seven thirty.

George Finlay looked exhausted. He’d been up all night with the new admissions. Grey stubble showed on his chin and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

‘There were too many relatives and close contacts to put up in the unit so the Public Health people sent out decontamination teams to their houses and apartments; they’ve taken them back there and given them strict instructions that they were to remain indoors until further notice.’

‘Sounds sensible,’ said Dewar. ‘But will it work?’

‘There will be problems,’ conceded Finlay. ‘Social Services are going to contact them today to provide help and support during a period equal to the incubation time of the disease.’

‘Do they know what the disease is?’ asked Dewar.

Finlay shook his head and said, ‘I thought up a suitably complicated medical term for the condition which, so far, people have been accepting. They’re assuming it’s some awful new disease.’

‘You need sleep,’ said Dewar.

‘I’ll get my head down for a few hours after the meeting,’ said Finlay. ‘What are you doing here anyway at this time?’

Dewar told him about wanting to speak to Sharon Hannan. ‘How’s her husband doing?’

‘On a downhill slide,’ said Finlay. ‘Kelly will die soon and Hannan won’t be that far behind by the look of him.’

Sharon was eating cornflakes when Dewar knocked on her door and entered.

She smiled, pleased to see a familiar face, albeit one that had only recently become familiar. ‘How’s Tommy?’ she asked. ‘You won’t bullshit me like the nurses.’

‘He’s pretty ill,’ admitted Dewar. ‘But at least he’s in the right place. The doctors and nurses will do all they can for him.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘Maybe later. Could I ask you some questions, Sharon? It won’t take long and it might help a lot.’

‘What sort of questions?’ Sharon replied, looking suspicious.

‘First let me say, my only interest is in stopping this awful thing happening to anyone else. I’m not concerned with guilt or blame or criminal charges. I really don’t give a damn if any laws have been broken. I just have to get at the truth. I have to understand what happened. Okay?’

Sharon nodded.

‘I promise you that anything you tell me will go no further than this room. ‘Have you ever heard of a place called, the Institute of Molecular Sciences?’

Sharon shook her head. ‘No, never.’

‘It’s part of the university.’

Another shake of the head.

Tommy never mentioned it? Or anything about being at the university with Michael Kelly?’

‘Never.’

‘I know they’re no angels. Have either of them broken into any place in the last month?’

Sharon’s eyes grew sharp.

‘I meant what I said,’ Dewar reminded her. This is between you and me, nobody else.’

‘A newsagent’s shop. They did it about three weeks ago. Do you want to know where?’

‘No,’ replied Dewar quickly. ‘Tommy told you about this?’

‘He had lots of fags in the flat. He was getting rid of them down the pub. I asked him about it. He told me.’

‘Anything else?’

Sharon hesitated. Dewar suspected there was more to come. He waited patiently, not wishing to pressurise her.

‘Before he got the sack from his job, Mike Kelly helped some guy recover drugs from a stash he had hidden away somewhere. He stole some from the guy when his back was turned. He gave Tommy some.’

‘Kelly stole drugs from a dealer?’

‘I don’t know if the guy was a dealer; I suppose he was but that’s what Tommy told me anyway.’

Dewar thought for a moment. Maybe that was why Denise Banyon had jumped down his throat when he’d asked where Kelly had got his drugs. Stealing from a dealer could be a fatal mistake. ‘Anything else I should know about, Sharon?’

‘Nothing big. The pair of them have been doing odd straight jobs like and not telling the social security but everybody does round here.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘The usual. House removals, bit of rubbish clearance, Tommy painted a fence for a woman along Trinity way, that sort of thing.’

Dewar nodded and said, ‘I want you to think carefully again about the university. Are you absolutely certain that it never came up in conversation at any time between Tommy and Michael Kelly.’

‘I’m positive,’ replied Sharon. I’m sure I would’ve remembered.’

Dewar smiled and called a halt to the proceedings. ‘Okay, Sharon. If you do remember anything else, tell one of the nurses to contact me and I’ll come and see you,’ said Dewar. ‘In the meantime, enjoy your breakfast.’

Dewar returned to the Scottish Office and called London. It was ten past nine. He drummed his fingertips on the desk while he waited for Macmillan to come on line.

‘Sorry about that. I’ve just been talking to Geneva on another line,’ said Macmillan. This was followed by a pause that made Dewar expect the worst. He wasn’t disappointed.

‘The vaccine’s not coming,’ said Macmillan.

Dewar felt as if time had suddenly stopped. He tried convincing himself he had misheard what Macmillan had said but it had been plain enough. ‘You’re can’t be serious,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid I am,’ confessed Macmillan quietly. ‘The WHO acted on your earlier report that the Iraqis were making serious attempts to get their hands on live smallpox virus. At a joint meeting with a UN advisory body, they acceded to an Israeli request for stocks of vaccine to be administered as a precaution. It’s all been used.’

‘Jesus Christ, where does that leave us?’

‘They’ve been frantically trying to locate other stocks; that’s why they’ve been playing hard to get.’

‘How’d they get on?’ asked Dewar sourly.

‘They’ve come up with some but it’s in the United States. It’s going to take three, maybe four days to reach you.’

‘We don’t have that; there were seven new cases last night. We can expect many times that today.’

‘I’m sorry. Everyone’s doing their best. WHO have instructed the National Institute at Bilthoven in the Netherlands to recommence vaccine production. They hold the vaccinia seed virus. They’ll be up and running within two weeks.’

Dewar’s impulse was to say something rude but he stopped himself. It wouldn’t have done any good and his silence proved just as eloquent.

‘I know, Adam, it’s a bloody mess but we’ll just have to get on with it. Any luck with the source of the outbreak?’

‘None at all.’

‘Keep trying.’

People had arrived for the meeting when Dewar went downstairs. Mary Martin congratulated him on his success at The Bell. ‘We didn’t have any luck there at all.’

‘I just bumped into the right person,’ said Dewar. He still felt numb at the news from London.

Wright read the worried look on his face and came over. ‘Something wrong?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘There won’t be any vaccine for three, maybe four more days, maybe even longer the way our luck’s going,’ Dewar whispered.

‘Christ Almighty. What the fuck are they playing at?’ hissed Wright.

Dewar told him about the stocks being used. Wright rubbed his forehead as if completely bemused by the fickleness of fate.

‘I think we’re all here,’ announced Finlay, bringing the meeting to order. ‘I think everyone knows we now have nine cases in total and can expect more today; the fear is, many more. We’ll be admitting new cases to one of the unused wards at the Western and a second is being prepared. As Dr Wright pointed out earlier, they’re not ideal but needs must when the devil drives. The works department have done their best to partition them and install extra sinks and drainage and we’ve managed to find enough vaccinated nurses to staff them.

‘What about medical equipment?’ asked Cameron Tulloch.

‘Truth is, we don’t need much in the way of equipment for this disease. There’s very little we can do except keep the patients as comfortable as possible and hope for the best.’

‘What about the contacts? Are they staying there too?’

‘There are too many. Contacts will be traced as quickly as Mary and her people can find them and confined to their homes with Social Services support. I think we have to be realistic in recognising that not all of them are going to comply but if the majority do, that’s probably as much as we can hope for.’

‘As of this morning, the vaccine still hasn’t arrived,’ announced Mary Martin, her voice filled with exasperation. ‘I can’t get any sense out of London. We’re trying to fight the spread of this disease with our hands tied behind our backs.’

‘The WHO vaccine isn’t coming, Mary,’ said Dewar quietly and evenly.

The comment brought an instant silence to the room. People looked at each other and then to Dewar for an explanation.

‘The WHO have used up their stocks,’ he said. ‘They’ve been trying to find an alternative source for us; that’s what the hold-up’s been. They’ve found one in the States but it won’t be here for another three days at least. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the plain awful truth of the matter.’

Wright took advantage of the fact that most people were stunned by what Dewar had announced. He said, ‘That being the case, we now have only one chance of containing the disease and that is to physically isolate it. We must act now to close off Muirhouse from the rest of the city.’

‘I agree,’ said Dewar emphatically. ‘We can’t let smallpox go on the rampage in a largely unvaccinated community.’

‘But sealing off the area would be an enormous undertaking,’ protested Rankin, the Scottish Office man.

‘Do you know how many people live there? How many streets in and out there are?’ asked Mary Martin. ‘People living there already feel a sense of injustice. There would be a revolt.’

‘It’s either that or a full scale smallpox epidemic,’ said Wright. ‘And believe me, everything you’ve said is preferable to that. If it means calling in the army then do it. If it means putting down riots with guns, do it, but we must contain the outbreak.’

‘I don’t think it need come to that,’ said Cameron Tulloch. ‘If things are handled properly.’

‘What the hell did the WHO do with the vaccine?’ asked a stunned and angry Finlay.

‘They sent it to the Middle East. There was a scare,’ said Dewar, without volunteering any more information.

‘There must be another way of dealing with this,’ said Finlay.

‘There isn’t,’ said Wright.

‘But what would we tell the people concerned?’ said Finlay.

‘The truth,’ said Dewar, who’d been thinking about that very question. ‘We use the media to come clean and tell the citizens there’s been an outbreak of smallpox and that we’re trying to contain it. We ask for their help and co-operation.’

‘I agree with that,’ said Tulloch. ‘It would be lunacy to even contemplate sealing off the area without giving people a reason. They would start making up their own reasons and the rumours would be worse than the reality.

‘We’d be kidding ourselves on if we imagined that no one was going to try to leave but with a bit of luck we might persuade the majority to stay put,’ said Dewar.

‘You probably don’t have the manpower to supervise such an operation, Superintendent?’ said Finlay.

Tulloch bristled ‘I’ve been highly trained in civil unrest situations,’ he said. ‘I think my men and I will manage.

’In that case it might be a good idea to start off with a minimal police presence to get a feeling for the mood,’ said Wright.

Dewar nodded his agreement. ‘The police are accepted as part of the community, whether they’re liked or not, but when they appear in large numbers with helmets and shields it’s a different matter. They could be invaders from a different planet.’

‘I also think we should call in the military if there should be any sign of general unrest,’ said Wright. ‘We don’t want a slowly escalating series running battles on the streets with police. We just want to contain the population within the confines of the area until they’re vaccinated.’

‘That may be your priority,’ said Tulloch. ‘It’s our responsibility as a police force to maintain law and order within the area whatever the circumstances. I’ve no intention of sitting back and watching the yobs take over. We owe it to the law abiding citizens.’

‘There’s always been tremendous resentment in the past when the army have been used in civilian situations,’ said Mary Martin. ‘Surely, if it became necessary, police could be drafted in from other areas so they can control the situation through sheer weight of numbers rather than involve the army?’

Tulloch shrugged in a negative way. ‘I don’t think it will come to that,’ he said. ‘I’m confident my men and I can maintain law and order.’

‘The truth is, we just don’t know what’s going to happen, either with the disease or with public reaction,’ said Dewar. ‘I suggest a compromise should it come to it. We agree to call the military in sooner rather than later but we use them solely to secure the perimeter allowing the superintendent and his men to carry out normal police duties within the estate.’

‘Oh God,’ said Finlay, sounding weary. ‘This is all beginning to sound nightmarish.’

Wright and Dewar were the only two at the table who were convinced of what was right in their own minds. The others were still trying to think of alternatives to sealing off the estate. There was silence for a full minute.

Wright broke it. ‘Doing nothing is not an option,’ he said. ‘Neither is waiting and seeing. We’re already running out of time.’

‘I’d feel happier about physical containment if we had vaccine to offer the people affected,’ said Finlay.

‘But we don’t and we can’t afford to wait until it arrives,’ said Dewar flatly. ‘As I see it, the majority of people living in Muirhouse will be ordinary, decent citizens. who’ll be stunned by the announcement. They’ll accept the situation, at least for the first day or two, by which time the vaccine will be here. It’s the junkies and yobs we have to worry about. They’ll probably put up resistance from the word go. They’ll see it as a licence to cause mayhem under the banner of fighting for individual civil liberty or some such high-sounding ideal.’

‘In my experience, fighting for individual civil liberty usually involves smashing Dixon’s window and walking off with a television set,’ said Tulloch sourly.

‘The shops will have to be closed, the schools too,’ said Wright. ‘Local businesses shut down, public transport suspended.’

Finlay, already suffering from the effects of lack of sleep, supported his head in his hands as the administrative nightmare unfolded. ‘What d’you think, Mr Rankin?’ he asked.

‘It’ll take a couple of days to set up but if that’s what the team wants sir, I’ll make arrangements.’ replied Rankin without a trace of personal opinion.

‘I don’t think Social Services will be able to cope,’ said Mary Martin. ‘And my people are going to be run off their feet.’

‘We can put out an appeal for volunteer help from the rest of the country,’ said Wright. ‘There should be enough vaccine floating around the various health authorities to offer them protection.

People lapsed into silence again for a short time before Dewar said, ‘I think we need a decision.’

All eyes fell on George Finlay who looked haunted. ‘Well, if there’s no other way,’ he said. ‘So be it. I’ll draft an announcement and the Scottish Office people can make the necessary arrangements.’

Wright closed his eyes and gave silent thanks. Everyone else bustled into action. Dewar phoned Inspector Grant and told him what had been decided.

‘Did I hear you right? You’re going to seal off Muirhouse?’ said an astonished Grant.

‘It’s our only chance of containing it,’ said Dewar.

‘And Cameron Tulloch agreed to this?’

‘He said it would be difficult but he could do it. Chances are, the military will be called in to maintain the perimeter if the going gets tough.’

‘I hope it’s 2 para and the Foreign Legion,’ said Grant. ‘They might have a chance.’

Dewar ignored Grant’s pessimism. He had expected nothing better. It wasn’t in Grant’s nature to see the bright side of anything, not that there was much of a bright side to isolating a whole community. ‘Right now I need a computer check on a Thomas Hannan,’ he said.

‘Tommy Hannan? Known associate of Michael Patrick Kelly. What d’you want to know?’

‘His past form. I take it you know him?’

‘I’ve done him a couple of times, breaking and entering, the usual stuff, videos, hi fis, cameras. Sells them down the pub to feed his habit. Him and the rest.’

‘Nothing more ambitious?’

‘Still working on a university break-in eh? Hannan’s not your man. Kelly pulls the strings in that pair. How did you meet up with Hannan anyway? ’

‘I was looking for contacts of Michael Kelly. Somebody put me on to Hannan. The bottom line is that Hannan was admitted to the Western General with smallpox.’

‘So both of them have gone down then,’ sighed Grant. ‘Did one give it to the other?’

‘That would be the obvious explanation,’ said Dewar. ‘But I’m not sure it’s the right one. It all depends on when Hannan last saw Kelly. If the incubation period is wrong for that sort of transfer it would mean that Kelly and Hannan were infected independently but around the same time.’

‘While on a job together, you mean?’

‘That’s the line I was working on,’ said Dewar.

‘They’re just a couple of prats,’ said Grant. ‘I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with the university break-in idea. They wouldn’t know where to begin fencing anything more complicated than a telly or a video recorder.’

‘Trouble is, it’s the only tree I’ve got,’ confessed Dewar. ‘But thanks for the local knowledge.’

‘Any time. When are you pulling the plug on Muirhouse?’

‘Day after tomorrow.’

DAY FIVE

Twenty-four new cases were admitted by the end of the morning. The total reached forty by four in the afternoon and forty seven by the end of the office day when it was decided not to go ahead with the containment plan until the following morning. The Scottish Office officials who had been working feverishly for the past two days, had failed to achieve some of their objectives in correlating press and media announcements with police movement and social service response. It was important that things should happen in an orderly sequence otherwise the whole operation would be compromised and could turn into a shambles. It had simply turned out to be more difficult than they had anticipated; they had been forced to ask for more time.

In the circumstances, the police were more than happy with this, pointing out that it would be much easier to put everything in place in the early hours of the morning than in the evening. The operation was rescheduled to commence at four the following morning.