The Lazarus Strain

THIRTEEN

‘A patrol car has just radioed in with some information, sir,’ said Sergeant Mark Morley. ‘They’ve been called to a flat in Sefton Road. Neighbours have been complaining about a smell…’

Frank Giles got to his feet. ‘I take it we’re talking about a particular smell if the officers have called in?’

‘Yes sir, PC Robson’s a twenty year man: he knows the smell of death well enough and in view of your alert about reports of illness…’

‘Do we know who the flat’s registered to?’

‘The lease holder is one, Abu Zahid. The neighbours say three young Asian men live there.’

‘Better organise a biohazard team and I’ll call Dunbar. This could be what he was looking for.’

Forty minutes later Steven, Giles and the biohazard team met up in Sefton Street which had already been sealed off by uniformed officers.

‘Do we know what we’re dealing with here?’ asked the leader of the biohazard team when he’d been introduced by Giles to Steven.

‘Not for sure, but possibly a highly infectious virus,’ said Steven. ‘We’ll need full containment protocol set up before entering the flat and full wash-down facilities for those coming out. The smell from inside says we’ll also need hermetic-seal body bags but we don’t know how many yet.’ Steven turned to Giles and asked, ‘I take it you have a forensic team standing by?’

‘They’re here, just waiting for the nod.’

‘They’ll need respirators.’

‘I’ll tell them. I take it you’re going in with the team?’

‘If they can give me a suit,’ said Steven.

The team leader detailed one of his men to fetch one. The man took a few seconds to appraise Steven’s size before heading off.

‘We’re going to look a right bunch of clowns if it turns out to be a dead rat in the drains,’ said Giles.

‘I could live with that,’ said Steven, considering the alternative. He took the suit that was handed to him and started getting into it. The other waited for him and then they all checked the seals on each other’s suits and hoods before setting off towards the entrance to the flat where two of the team had already set up a secondary entrance out of plastic sheeting. This amounted to a porch which would prevent any organism escaping from within the flat when the door was opened. Once they were all inside the plastic bubble, the sheeting was sealed behind them before the door was forced open and they moved inside.

There were three dead bodies in the flat, all of Middle Eastern appearance and all three found in the one bedroom where they lay on separate single beds. There was no obvious sign of violence and the abundance of tissue boxes and bottles of cough remedies and aspirin suggested illness rather than violence. There were bowls of congealed, blood-flecked sputum lying next to the beds and blood-stained tissues scattered across the floor. After making sure that all three were dead, Steven signalled to the team leader that they should leave things as they were and gestured towards the door. They trooped out in single file and were washed down with disinfectant sprays before removing their hoods.

‘Good call from your men,’ said Steven to Giles. ‘Three dead and they all look like virus victims. We should let forensics do their business before we touch anything. When they’re finished, the biohazard boys can wrap the bodies for removal and clear and disinfect the site. You’ll have to warn the police pathologist about the danger at post-mortem.’

‘I’ll tell Marge,’ said Giles.

When he heard the name, Steven remembered that he’d met her before and that she’d been right — they were all a long way from Walton’s Mountain.

By three in the afternoon, the dead men had all been identified from ID found in the flat. They were Abu Zahid (24), Nasser Qatada (23) and Ahmed Mohammed (23). A preliminary investigation established that they appeared to have no connection with anyone else in the city but all three had relations living in Leicester.

‘How did you get on?’ Giles asked Morley when he came back from leading the team interviewing the neighbours. ‘Let me guess. Quiet, respectable chaps who kept themselves very much to themselves?’

‘Incredible. You could give Paul Daniels a run for his money, sir,’ said Morley.

‘The point is,’ said Giles, ‘Was one of them “Ali”?’

‘Maybe we could try out Shanks with a photograph of the bodies?’ suggested Morley.

‘A good thought; do that, will you?’

‘I didn’t draw a complete blank with the neighbours,’ said Morley. ‘One of them told me that the dead men had a vehicle, an old Land Rover, he said. The kind farmers use. He thinks they kept it in a lock-up round the back in Granary Lane. Uniform are on it right now.’

‘Well done. Warn forensics and tell them to give it a right going over. They’re looking for anything that will connect the vehicle to the Robert Smith murder.’

Steven returned to his hotel and called Macmillan to tell him of the day’s events.

‘God, it’s like a nightmare unfolding before our eyes,’ said Macmillan. ‘Did you find any indication of what they were up to in the flat?’

‘No,’ said Steven. ‘But it wasn’t being used as a lab if that’s what you were getting at.’

‘It was,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘So on the face of it we have three dead men of possibly Middle Eastern origin with Cambodia 5 being the likely cause of death but with no indication as to how they got it?’

‘That’s about it at the moment but stay tuned, as they say,’ said Steven.

‘Wild horses, etc,’ said Macmillan.

Three hours later, as Steven was preparing to drive over to the city mortuary to check on progress of the post-mortem examinations of the men, he got a call from Colonel Rose at the Defence Intelligence Service.

‘They’re on our list,’ said Rose. ‘All three of them.’

‘You have the better of me, Colonel,’ said Steven. ‘What list?’

‘Suspected al-Qaeda associates. The three dead men are all English, born in Leicester, but they got sucked into the Muslim fundamentalist movement by persuasive clerics working the Midlands. All three have recently been ‘on holiday’ to Pakistan but it’s odds on they spent time at what we like to call, “Butlin’s, Kabul” — Mujahadeen training camps in Afghanistan.’

‘So now we have a definite al-Qaeda connection.’

‘’Fraid so,’ said Rose. ‘Albeit a low level one as far as these three were concerned. They’re puppets. It’s who’s pulling the strings we have to worry about.’

‘And what kind of show they’re planning to put on,’ murmured Steven. ‘Thanks Colonel.’

‘Well, John Boy, weren’t we lucky it was only flu that you and Sci-Med were worried about?’ said Marjorie Ryman sarcastically as Steven, gowned and masked, entered the post-mortem room. Frank Giles was already there.

‘Just doing my job, Elizabeth,’ said Steven although he was stung by the comment. Ryman was another of the people he had had to be circumspect with at the outset.

Ryman continued to work without saying anything for fully a minute although the sound of instruments she tossed into the metal tray beside her acted as punctuation marks in a silence that spoke eloquently of her displeasure. Eventually, she looked up at Steven and said, ‘This man’s airways were so full of bloody mucous that he actually drowned in it. That’s how he died…’

The stare continued and Steven was prompted to say, ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘Thank you, Doctor?’ exclaimed Ryman. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What would you like me to say?’ said Steven evenly.

‘I would like you to tell me why his airways are so full of bloody mucous, Doctor,’ said Ryman.

‘Influenza,’ said Steven. ‘I wasn’t lying. It really is flu.’

‘But not as we know it, Captain?’ suggested Ryman acidly.

‘It’s a strain called Cambodia 5,’ said Steven. ‘It’s a genetically engineered variant of an avian flu virus found in Cambodia last year and is very similar to the pandemic strain of 1918. Professor Devon of the Crick Institute was asked by government to design a vaccine against it because the World Health Organisation thinks that such a strain will evolve naturally in the very near future.’

‘Well, thank you for that, Doctor,’ said Ryman. She turned to Giles. ‘Now I can tell you, Inspector, that this man almost certainly died of Cambodia 5 virus infection although lab tests — which I suspect will not be performed in the circumstances — would be needed to confirm that conclusion.’

‘And the other two as well?’ asked Giles.

‘No,’ said Ryman. ‘They were murdered.’

Giles and Steven looked at each other, stunned and equally taken aback. ‘Murdered?’

‘Both were suffering from the same disease as the man who drowned in his own mucosal secretions and probably would have died anyway judging by the state of their lungs and airways, but this obviously wasn’t quick enough for the person who decided to help them on their way. They were both asphyxiated.’

‘Shit,’ murmured Giles.

‘I guess they became surplus to requirements,’ said Steven.

‘Whose requirements?’ asked Ryman.

‘We don’t know that yet,’ said Steven. It drew a doubting look from Ryman but she carried on with her work.

Steven and Giles left the mortuary together. It was already dark and frost was making the pavements sparkle under the street lights. ‘Anything back from forensics?’ Steven asked.

Giles shook his head. ‘They’re still working on the Land Rover although they did find three empty petrol cans in the back. It’s almost certainly the vehicle used in the murder of Robert Smith.’

‘So the three dead men were the murderers?’ said Steven. ‘It was three men your witness saw, wasn’t it?’

‘Yep, three, the woman was absolutely certain about that.’

‘Which now leaves us looking for at least a fourth,’ said Steven.

‘What was all this John Boy — Elizabeth stuff about?’ asked Giles.

‘Just an ongoing joke about real life versus Waltons’ Mountain,’ said Steven. ‘Dr Ryman has noted significant differences.’

‘She’s not alone,’ said Giles. ‘So how come these guys got infected with Cambodia 5?’

‘That’s something I’d like to know too,’ said Steven. ‘They must have come into contact with the missing monkey or with biological material obtained from it.’

‘Now there’s an unhappy thought,’ murmured Giles. His phone rang: it was Mark Morley. After a brief conversation he snapped it shut and said to Steven, ‘Shanks didn’t recognise any of the three men as being Ali.’

‘So Ali could be their killer,’ said Steven.

‘Strikes me that Ali is running the show,’ said Giles. His phone rang again. ‘Yes sir,… I think you can… Well, the neighbours saw what was going on anyway… yes sir, as you say, best to quash any wild rumours in the bud… no sir, no harm at all in suggesting that… Good bye, sir.

‘That was the Chief Super. He’s about to brief the Press about the three dead men. Wanted to know what I thought about letting it be known that they were prime suspects in the murder of Robert Smith. Thinks it would be good for public relations.’

‘Not to mention his career,’ said Steven.

‘Way of the world, Steven,’ said Giles. ‘Way of the world.’

The story was carried by the morning papers and came out exactly the way the police wanted it to: the murderers of Robert Smith had been traced to and found dead in a flat in Sefton Street. The police had got their men. The public had been spared the expense of a trial. There were no loose ends. End of story. Steven was reading it over breakfast when Giles rang.

‘I thought I’d give you an update on forensics,’ he said. ‘The lab has identified hair found in the back of the Land Rover as belonging to a monkey.’

‘Well done,’ murmured Steven. ‘Now we know how they were infected.’

‘Maybe Shanks was telling the truth about Ali going back to the institute after the initial raid, only he wasn’t on his own; he had these guys with him.’

‘And they stole the infected monkey directly from the institute using the Land Rover,’ said Steven. ‘That would make more sense. That monkey was never out in the wild at all. That’s why the army couldn’t find any trace of it.’

‘Then later, someone planted another monkey out there for them to find just to get rid of them,’ said Giles. His phone rang. ‘Shit… hang on… What is it, Morley?’

Steven waited while Giles spoke to Morley. He heard Giles say he would be ‘right with him’ before he came back on the line.

‘That was Morley with the final forensics report on the Land Rover. It was pretty clean apart from the petrol cans I told you about earlier and of course, the monkey hair but they did find a petrol receipt under one of the front seats. We’re off to check with the filling station. It’s a bit of a long shot but the cashiers might remember something.’

‘Good luck,’ said Steven.

‘Oh, and the Chief Super has just told me officially that the Intelligence Services are now operating on our patch. I’ve been instructed to give them every assistance should they request it. I hear they’ve already muscled in on our forensic people and taken away some of their samples.’

‘Well, we’re all going to the same party,’ said Steven.

‘I’ll try to remember that,’ said Giles.

Steven felt at a loose end. He tried to think of something constructive he could be doing to help but the game, as Sherlock Holmes might have put it, was afoot, and now he could only wait. The fact that the prospects of success did not seem to be good wasn’t helping. The police and security services had no leads at all as far as the man, Ali, was concerned and the only hope of finding out more about what the three dead men had been up to seemed to lie in a single petrol receipt and with the memory of a filling station attendant. Steven checked on his laptop for any messages from Sci-Med. There was one: it was the list of animal suppliers he had asked for when he’d first heard about Robert Smith’s doubts regarding the identity of the dead monkey brought in by the army. This was now largely redundant: Smith had been proved all too right. The real Chloe had been stolen by terrorists.

Wondering if there was anything else he could be doing, Steven remembered that DIS was investigating suppliers of fertile hens’ eggs. He called Colonel Rose.

‘We drew a complete blank, I’m afraid. No orders for fertile white leghorn eggs have been received by any of the suppliers from anyone other than accredited laboratories in the past six months. I suppose the opposition could be experimenting with cell culture instead of using eggs?’

‘I doubt it,’ said Steven. ‘That’s what everyone in the business would like to be doing but there are so many problems that they’ve always had to come back to hens’ eggs in the end. I can’t see terrorists succeeding in makeshift premises where the big boys of the pharmaceutical industry have failed.’

‘I can’t see them having their own chicken farm either,’ said Rose.

‘Fair point,’ agreed Steven.

Steven was pondering on what Rose had said when his phone went. It was Leila.

‘Just thought I’d see how you were,’ she said.

‘It’s nice to hear a friendly voice.’

‘I read that the police caught the men who murdered Smithy,’ said Leila.

‘Unfortunately they were already dead when the police got to them but they did well to find them so quickly,’ said Steven.

‘The papers didn’t say how they died…’

‘Cambodia 5,’ said Steven.

‘Oh my God,’ said Leila. ‘But how?’

‘That’s what everyone’s working on at the moment. How are things at your end? How’s the vaccine strain coming along?’

‘Still touch and go but I’m confident we could be ready on time if we keep up the sub-culture schedule and the Department of Health did something to keep the damned bureaucrats off my back.’

‘Is that a problem?’

‘I’ll say. They seem to be reneging on their original agreement. I’m getting continual requests from both the FDA and MHPRA for inspection visits to be made to the institute and quality testing to be done. I really don’t have time for all this nonsense right now.’

‘I thought that the powers-that-be had dealt with all that?’ said Steven.

‘The latest people to get in on the act are Auroragen. It seems like they’ve changed their minds about relaxing their own company regulations. They want to send people to take samples for testing and there isn’t time.’

‘I suppose they’re a bit sensitive about what happened last year when MHPRA pulled the plug on them,’ said Steven.

‘Maybe, but I wish they’d stop trying to make their problems mine.’

‘They lost a lot of money over contaminated vaccine last year.’

‘But it was their own staff who contaminated the vaccine,’ exclaimed Leila. ‘They should concentrate on putting their own house in order and let me take care of things at the institute.’

‘I take your point,’ agreed Steven. ‘I think everyone is getting a bit jumpy at the moment. Nerves are strung to breaking point.’

‘Well, I have turned all requests for visits down,’ said Leila. ‘The technicians and I have been working our butts off to get this vaccine strain ready in time and I refuse to let a bunch of bureaucrats with clipboards make us miss the deadline. If they don’t like it I have a good mind to pull out of the whole thing and hand in my resignation. I feel that strongly.’

‘I’ll have a word with John Macmillan,’ said Steven. ‘If anyone can cut through red tape, he can.’

Leila’s voice softened, ‘Thank you, Steven,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for sounding off at you. I suppose I’m just tired. Everything seems to be getting to me these days.’

‘I could offer you dinner and conversation…?’

‘I’d love to but I’m going to be at the lab until well after ten tonight.’

‘I understand.’

‘But you could come round after? We could have a nightcap perhaps?’

‘Wonderful,’ said Steven, ‘I’ll see you at the cottage about eleven?’

‘Quarter past.’

Steven had been feeling depressed before getting Leila’s call but now he was whistling softly as he dialled John Macmillan’s number.

‘I thought Lees at DOH had seen to all that,’ said Macmillan when Steven told him about the red tape problems that Leila was having. ‘I’ll get on to him. Not much I can do about Auroragen though,’ he added. ‘They’re a commercial enterprise.’

‘Maybe I should go see them?’ suggested Steven. ‘The personal touch might succeed where officialdom has failed.’

‘Wouldn’t do any harm,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘I’ll have Jean contact them and set something up. She’ll get back to you.’

‘God, I’m so sorry I’m late,’ said Leila as she got out of her car and came over to where Steven was sitting in his.

‘Nonsense,’ he said, smiling and getting out. ‘You’re a busy lady.’

‘It’s still very rude,’ said Leila. ‘And I’m sorry.’ She stood there looking up at Steven and he leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

‘I wasn’t happy with the virus titre after the last sub-culture so I repeated it on a new batch of eggs.’

‘No need to explain, really’ said Steven. ‘I’m just happy to see you at all under the circumstances.’

‘Come, let’s set fire to the furniture and get warm,’ said Leila leading the way indoors.

‘It will be a close-run thing — red tape or hypothermia to drive me mad first,’ said Leila. ‘You get the fire from the bedroom; I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘I had a word with John Macmillan,’ called Steven as he plugged in the electric fire in the living room. ‘He’s going to do what he can to get the pen-pushers off your back and I’m going up to see the people at Auroragen to see if I can talk some sense into them.’

‘Thanks, Steven, I really appreciate it,’ Leila said from the kitchen.

‘Well, it’s a fair bet the opposition don’t have red tape to contend with.’

‘Are the police making any progress with their investigation?’ asked Leila as she put down two mugs of coffee on the table in front of the couch and then went over to a cupboard to return with a bottle of brandy and two balloon glasses. ‘I promised you a nightcap,’ she said.

‘All they’ve got to go on is a receipt from a petrol station. It’s not much.’

‘I suppose there’s a chance that the three men who died got the disease before they could do anything about growing up the virus.’

‘I’d like to think so but two of them were murdered so we know there’s a fourth person involved — maybe more — and there was no indication of what happened to the monkey.’

‘Murdered?’ exclaimed Leila and Steven explained.

Leila took a gulp of her brandy. ‘My God.’

‘You look done in.’

‘Another couple of weeks and it will all be done,’ sighed Leila. ‘Then I can sleep and sleep… and sleep.’

Steven wrapped his arm round her shoulders and Leila snuggled into him. ‘Thank you, Steven,’ she murmured.

‘For what?’

‘For being there and putting up with my bad temper. It’s good to know I have someone to call on. The people in London tell me nothing.’

‘It’s a way of life for them. Silence born of insecurity.’

‘Well, I’m grateful; I really am.’

Steven kissed her gently.

‘God, I am just so tired… I’m sorry. I’m such awful company.’

Steven kissed her again and put a finger to her lips. ‘There will be time enough for us when this is all over.’

‘Yes please,’ said Leila.