The Lazarus Strain

SIX

Despite his size, Giles ushered Morton inside his pub as if the big man was a schoolgirl being seen over the road. Meanwhile Morley dispersed the reporters by telling them there would be nothing further for them and warning them about obstructing the police in a murder inquiry.

‘Where can we talk?’ asked Giles.

‘Through here,’ said Morton, leading the way through the back.

‘Just what the fuck was that all about?’ demanded Giles.

‘You know what the Press are like,’ replied Morton.

‘I might but how the fuck do you know?’ stormed Giles. ‘That lot didn’t just drop in for a pint did they? Somebody rang their bell.’

‘All right… my missus thought we should give them a ring,’ said Morton, moving his shoulders uncomfortably as if he had a column of ants marching along them.

‘Why?’

Morton wriggled in embarrassment. ‘Wanted to see our names in the papers I suppose.’

Giles looked incredulous. ‘If any one of these buggers out there prints something that fucks up our inquiry, you’ll get your name in the papers all right because I’ll throw the book at you, along with the shelf it’s sitting on.’

‘You’ve no right to talk to me like that,’ said Morton. ‘I’m a law-abiding citizen doing my duty. Maybe I’ve got nothing more to say to you now…’

Giles, a full head shorter than Morton, looked as if he couldn’t believe his ears. He walked slowly towards the big man and said menacingly. ‘What did God give you instead of a brain?’ He prodded Morton. ‘An extra big belly?’

Morley noticed that Morton had started to sweat.

‘You’ve got one chance my friend and that is to tell us exactly what we need to know to find the man who was in here with Stig Lyndon last night. Otherwise you can start looking out the suit you’re going to wear in court. Dark blue always goes down well with the jury, I’m told.’

‘All right, all right.’ Morton held up his hands in capitulation. ‘I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘And them nothing,’ said Giles, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

Morton nodded. ‘All right, all right. There were two of them, the bloke off the telly and a bigger bloke with longish red hair. The bloke off the telly…’

‘Lyndon,’ said Giles.

‘Yeah, Lyndon, right. He seemed to be in a right funk about something and the other one was trying to calm him down, telling him to relax an’ that.’

‘Did you hear any of the conversation?’

‘Bits and pieces; they were sitting over there by the window. I picked up the occasional thing when I was collecting glasses but not much.’

‘Every word you heard,’ said Giles.

‘The bloke Lyndon said something like, “never meant for that to happen”. The other guy said, “Course not”.

‘What else?’

‘Lyndon said something about not being able to live with it.’

Giles looked at Morley and Morley nodded and said, ‘The weakest link.’

‘What?’ asked Morton.

‘Nothing. What else was said?’

The red-haired bloke said, ‘All you have to do is forget it ever happened.’

‘What did Lyndon say?’

‘Just shook his head.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Later on, Lyndon must have said something that upset the red-haired guy because he started threatening Lyndon.’

‘Saying what?’

‘Couldn’t hear,’ said Morton. ‘I was behind the bar then. It was more the way he was behaving and the look on his face. You can tell when someone’s coming the heavy. But I did hear him say there was no fucking way he was going down for something like that.’

‘Anything else?’

Morton shook his head. ‘That’s it.’

‘You’ve been a great help, Mr Morton,’ said Giles as if nothing had ever happened between them. ‘Perhaps you could give Sergeant Morley here a more detailed description of the man with red hair. Every pimple if you please.’

Giles left Morley with Morton and went outside to talk to the waiting reporters. ‘There will be no further statement from either Mr Morton or the police this evening,’ he said. ‘And it would be a great help to us if you would wait until we are ready to make a statement. Anything else might jeopardise our inquiries.’

Giles maintained a neutral expression but there was no denying the inner relief he felt when the throng started to break up and drift off. ‘Any last questions put to him were parried with, ‘Maybe tomorrow, gentlemen.’

‘Got the description?’ Giles asked Morley when he got in the car.

‘Pretty good one too,’ said Morley.

‘Good, because there will be no going home for us tonight. Any mention of the Four Feathers in the papers tomorrow and Ginger Rogers will head for the hills. We’ve got until morning to find him. Let’s start with the Lyndons.’

Charlene and Robert Lyndon snr. were watching a video of Charlene’s earlier broadcast when the two policemen arrived. ‘Look at my mascara, what a sight!’ exclaimed Charlene with her back to them, seemingly mesmerised by the sight of herself on the screen as her husband showed in Giles and Morley.

‘Char, the police are here.’

Charlene turned round. ‘Oh hello, I tell you what, if you want me to do another one,’ she said, turning back to the screen, ‘maybe the make-up people in the studio could help out. I look a right sight…’

‘We’re rather hoping that won’t be necessary, Mrs Lyndon,’ said Giles. ‘We have a lead that we hope is going to help us find your son’s killer.’

‘Did Robert have any friends with long red hair?’ asked Morley.

‘Red hair? I don’t think so. Did he Bobby?’

‘Did he have any friends?’ would be a better question,’ said Lyndon with a shake of the head.

‘Of course he had friends,’ said Charlene. ‘You know what kids are like, Inspector.’ Charlene turned on what she thought might be a smile denoting affectionate remembrance.

‘He was twenty-four, Char. He wasn’t a kid and he didn’t have much in the way of friends,’ said her husband.

‘He was our son!’

‘There was a bloke with red hair came to door for him once. Couple of months ago,’ said Lyndon. ‘Something to do with some fox-hunting thing they were going on. He didn’t come in or anything but I’m pretty sure I heard Robert call him, Kevin.’

‘Can you remember anything else about him? What he was wearing?’ asked Morley.

‘Scruffy bugger, one of them wax jackets that had seen better days, stripey jersey, scarf, trousers with lots of pockets.’

‘Thank you Mr Lyndon; you’ve been a great help. You too, Mrs Lyndon.’

‘If you need me to do another broadcast, just ask, Inspector. I don’t want any other mother going through what I’ve been through.’

‘Thank you Mrs Lyndon, you’ve been very brave.’

‘What do you think, sir?’ asked Morley when they got outside.

‘Sometimes I think I’m on the wrong planet, Morley,’ said Giles.

‘Yes, but about this Kevin, I mean.’

‘Update the computer search. We’re now looking for a red-haired Kevin arrested in the past for offences connected with hunt sabotage.’

‘There’s something very wrong,’ said Steven. ‘I’m convinced of it.’

John Macmillan looked over his glasses. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I was rather afraid you were going to say that. Any idea what?’

Steven took a moment to compose his thoughts while the rain pattered on the windows behind Macmillan on a dull, wet afternoon. ‘A junior minister from the Department of Health — a man named Lees — turns up at the Crick Institute hours after Devon’s body is discovered and assures the police that the monkeys Devon had been using were part of an experiment being carried out by the professor on a new flu vaccine. One of Devon’s colleagues, who had earlier gone through Devon’s papers at the request of the police, comes to the same conclusion: Devon had been working on flu virus.’

‘So far so good.’

‘But someone — neither the institute nor the police — calls in the army, tells them to don full bio-hazard gear and hunt down the animals with guns. They kill five and incinerate the corpses almost before they hit the ground.’

‘A bit over the top, I agree,’ said Macmillan. ‘But not necessarily suspicious. Any politician worth his salt would explain that away under care and concern for public safety and an opportunity for the army to try out their equipment under field conditions.’

Steven nodded and continued, ‘One of the escaped animals bites a pensioner in Holt.’

‘Who is taken to hospital but is sent home after routine treatment for animal bites,’ said Macmillan.

‘I went to his house last night. He’s no longer at home and neither is his wife who also came into contact with the animal. According to a neighbour, David Elwood is ill and has been admitted to some hospital where his wife is staying in the guest suite. The neighbour didn’t know which hospital or even where it was but Mary Elwood confided in her that Harry was going to be well looked after and she got the impression that it might be “private”.’

‘Ah,’ said Macmillan, leaning back in his chair and making a steeple with his fingers. ‘And now the familiar smell of rat drifts into my nostrils too.’ He leaned forward and picked up his pen to turn it end over end on the desk in front of him. ‘So who do you think is being economical with the verite over this situation?’

‘Difficult to say but I got the impression that Cleary, the colleague who went through Devon’s papers, found out more than he was letting on. He seemed uneasy about something he’d read in them.’

‘Didn’t Devon confide in his colleagues?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Apparently he couldn’t. He was obliged to keep certain aspects of his work secret since his appointment to the Vaccines Advisory Committee. Government regulations — at least that’s what he told his colleagues.’

‘Can’t imagine why unless he was working on something really nasty,’ said Macmillan.

‘The Crick isn’t licensed to work on high grade pathogens,’ said Steven.

Macmillan and Steven exchanged glances which became telepathic in the ensuing silence.

‘Surely not,’ said Macmillan.

‘Please God, not,’ said Steven.

‘They couldn’t have been that stupid,’ said Macmillan with more hope than conviction.

‘It wouldn’t just have been a breach of license conditions,’ said Steven. ‘Cleary told me that the Crick did not have the required BLR-4 lab facilities for working with real killer bugs,’ said Steven.

‘Or the security for keeping out intruders by all accounts,’ added Macmillan. ‘I suggest you have another word with Dr Cleary. Give him a hard time if you think he’s holding back and I will seek out your man at the Department of Health. Lees, yes?’

‘Nigel Lees.’

‘Call me later. We’ll compare notes.’

It was just after three in the afternoon when Steven turned into the grounds of the Crick Institute and saw that the efforts of the workmen to remove the graffiti from the walls had been less than successful. At best the words had been smeared so that they were no longer legible but what had once been a pleasant if unremarkable building now looked as if it were part of a run-down council estate. He said as much to the girl on the reception desk, which had now been re-installed.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s the rendered surface that makes it so difficult to clean. I think they’re considering painting over it but they can’t decide on which type of paint to use.’

‘If a committee is involved, that could take some time,’ said Steven.

The girl smiled and gave a knowing nod. ‘I hope you haven’t come to see Dr Cleary,’ she said. ‘He’s off sick. His wife called in this morning.’

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ confessed Steven. ‘And I’ve come a long way. Nothing serious I hope?’

‘His wife, Shirley, called in this morning to say he had an upset stomach so it doesn’t sound too serious. Something he ate, she thought.’

‘What do you think about my chances of being able to visit him at home?’

The girl shrugged in a non-committal way.

‘You wouldn’t happen to have an address handy, would you?’ Steven prompted with an encouraging smile.

The girl appeared uncertain. ‘Actually…’ she began.

Steven interrupted her. ‘You’re about to say that you are not allowed to give out that kind of information and quite right too.’ He took out his warrant card and said, ‘But in this case, you are. I assure you…’

‘Well, if you say so,’ said the girl. She typed a succession of small bursts into her keyboard and came up with, ‘25 West Shore Road, Sheringham. The house is called, Four Winds.’

‘Thank you,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll pass on your good wishes, shall I?’

‘Please do. I like Nick.’

‘Unlike some others, eh?’ smiled Steven. Sometimes he hated himself for doing it but if he sensed he might be able to get more information out of anyone he often did it just for the hell of it. You could never have too much, he reckoned.

‘You could say,’ smiled the woman. ‘Nick’s all right and the Professor was a real gentleman but some of them…’ She shook her head and Steven smiled.

‘I’ve nothing against foreigners; don’t get me wrong but some of them treat me like I was invisible and it gets my back up. I suppose it’s their culture but that doesn’t excuse bad manners, my mother always said. It costs nothing to be polite and she was right, don’t you think?’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Steven. ‘Do you have many foreigners on the staff?’

‘Let’s see,’ said the woman, looking upwards for inspiration. ‘There’s Pierre — Dr Bruel — he’s French. Then there’s Dr Martin and Dr Muller and Dr Sanchez. Four.’

‘And the others are all English?’

‘Apart from Paddy — Dr O’Brien — he’s Irish. You might have guessed!’ The woman laughed and Steven joined her. ‘Just one big happy family, eh?’

‘I wouldn’t say that exactly but it’s all right really, I suppose.’

‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘I’ll tell Dr Cleary you were asking after him.’

Four Winds proved to be an attractive detached house near the shore with black mock Tudor beams spanning a whitewashed exterior. It had leaded windows — or rather the modern double-glazed version of leaded windows and a black-painted, wood-panelled front door incorporating a thick circular pane of glass. Various children’s toys were strewn about the garden and a rope ladder leading to a tree house hung from the lower branches of a sycamore tree, denuded by winter. Steven rang the bell and a pretty woman wearing denim jeans and a close-fitting black top answered.

‘Mrs Cleary?’

‘If you’re selling kitchens or bathrooms, forget it.’

Steven shook his head.

‘Monobloc driveways or roof linings?’

Steven smiled and showed her his warrant card. ‘I spoke to your husband the other day,’ he explained, ‘but there are still some things I have to ask him. I travelled all the way up from London so when the institute told me he was ill I hoped I might still have a word with him… if he’s not too ill, that is?’

‘Just an upset stomach,’ said the woman. ‘Probably the sausages we had last night, although I’m all right and the kids are fine. Come in; I’ll tell him you’re here. I’m Shirley Cleary by the way.’

‘Steven Dunbar; pleased to meet you.’

While he waited, Steven thought about the much loved and used British euphemism, “upset stomach”. In Cleary’s case that might well have been caused by being in a blue funk about what he had found out in Devon’s office. He suspected that being handed a Sci-Med warrant card by his wife wasn’t going to do his “upset stomach” much good and might even bring on another bout. He smiled when he heard feet rush along the landing upstairs and a door bang shut.

Shirley Cleary re-appeared, wearing a smile. She directed her eyes back upstairs and said, ‘He’ll fit you in between… engagements.’

‘Nice place,’ said Steven, trying to fill the silence.

‘We like it and the kids absolutely love it,’ said Shirley. ‘A bit cold in the winter but a lot going for it in the summer. We lived in London before.’

Steven nodded as the sound of a toilet being flushed upstairs reached them.

‘Kids will be at school, I guess,’ said Steven.

Shirley nodded. ‘Ten and seven. Boy and a girl.’

The bathroom door opened upstairs and feet padded along the landing. ‘Why don’t we talk up here, Dr Dunbar,’ came the voice at the head of the stairs and then, with a weak attempt at humour, ‘Might be safer.’

Steven climbed the stairs and Cleary dressed in a plaid dressing gown and slippers led the way into what was obviously his study. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said as he slumped down into his desk chair. ‘I’m all washed out.’

Steven could see that Cleary appeared drawn but he could also see that his eyes had a haunted look. It was a look he’d seen many times before: It was fear. Cleary was afraid of something.

‘What can I do for you?’ asked Cleary.

‘You can tell me what Timothy Devon was working on and what the escaped animals were really carrying,’ said Steven without the hint of a smile.

‘I told you,’ protested Cleary. ‘Flu virus.’

‘You’re not shitting yourself over flu virus,’ said Steven, pressing on with his offensive and keeping Cleary fixed with an unblinking stare.

‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Cleary holding his head in his hands and taking slow deliberate breaths.

Steven let him suffer in silence.

‘I wasn’t lying. Tim was working on flu virus and the animals were inoculated with flu virus…’

‘But?’

Cleary made the effort to pull himself together. He sat up straight in his chair and cleared his throat before asking, ‘How much do you know about flu?’

‘A viral infection,’ replied Steven. ‘Cyclical. People get in winter. More serious than a cold and can even be fatal in the old and infirm but as a general rule, it’s something that confines you to bed for a week or so and then you get over it.’

Cleary nodded. ‘That’s the view held by most people and one which may work against us in the end.’

‘How so?’

‘The influenza virus appears every winter: that’s why people are so familiar with it and, like the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. But every year it is in effect a different virus because of changes in its antigenic structure. As a consequence it’s more dangerous in some years than in others. 1957 and 1968 were bad years for instance but nothing like what happened in 1918.’

‘Not too many people remember that, I imagine,’ said Steven.

‘Another thing that works against us. The 1918 pandemic is history: only the facts and statistics remain in the history books. In 1918 the flu virus killed between 20 and 40 million people across the globe. Think about it. The 1918 strain killed more people in one year than the Black Death did in its four-year rampage across the known world in the fourteenth century and it wasn’t the infirm and aged it went for. It was the twenty to forty age groups that suffered worst.’

‘Go on.’

‘In the past few years scientists have uncovered the structure of the 1918 virus in an effort to find out what made it different.’

‘How could they do that?’

‘They obtained nucleic acid remnants of the virus from the bodies of dead soldiers who succumbed to the virus in 1918.’

‘They re-created the 1918 virus?’ exclaimed Steven. ‘What the hell for?’

‘I think the truthful answer to that might well be, because they could,’ replied Cleary.

‘But of course, they wouldn’t admit to that,’ said Steven.

Cleary shrugged and said, ‘The rationale was that by re-creating the deadly 1918 strain they could design a vaccine against it.’

Steven looked incredulous. He said, ‘They created a virus in order to design a vaccine to fight against it?’

‘Does sound a bit suspect when you put it like that,’ agreed Cleary.

‘Jesus,’ said Steven. ‘Isn’t science wonderful?’

‘Science did learn from the study though,’ said Cleary. ‘They learned just how similar the 1918 strain was to some of the avian strains of flu virus we’ve seen emerge over the past few years. So much so, that many workers believe that the 1918 strain actually arose from a bird strain. A small mutation is all it would require for bird flu to turn into the pandemic strain.’

‘Where does Devon’s work come in to all this?’ asked Steven.

‘The World Health Organisation have been aware of the situation for some time. Almost every year avian flu breaks out in the Far East. The WHO swings into action and tries to keep the lid on the situation through mass culls of birds and the like. ‘You’ve probably seen pictures on television of hens being carted off in cages to be slaughtered in Hong Kong.

Steven nodded.

‘The big fear has been that someone suffering from the early stages of human influenza would also come into contract with an avian strain and there would be a genetic cross-over between the viruses.’

‘And we’d end up with the 1918 virus.’

‘Just so. Well, this year there was an outbreak in Cambodia of an avian flu strain that resembled the 1918 virus more closely than ever before. This has convinced the WHO and major western governments that it’s only a matter of time before we have a 1918 situation all over again, a world-wide pandemic. I’m sorry.’ Cleary got up from his chair and made to go the door.

‘Just before you dash off,’ said Steven. ‘Are you about to tell me that that’s the strain Timothy Devon was working on?’

‘More or less,’ said Cleary, breaking off to make a run for the bathroom.

When he returned, Cleary plonked himself down in his chair with a sigh and said, ‘Some lab work was carried out on the Cambodian strain in the lab before it was sent to Tim.’

‘The last step in the mutation?’ asked Steven.

‘From what I could determine from his notes, that’s what it looked like,’ said Cleary. ‘To all intents and purposes, Tim’s strain is the 1918 virus.’

‘I can understand why you are spending so much time in the lavatory,’ said Steven. ‘How much did you already know about this?’

‘Nothing,’ replied Cleary. ‘I swear it. I found this out when I was going through Tim’s papers. I recognised the strain designations from having read about them in the scientific literature and there was a letter from a university in the USA listing induced base mutations in the viral genome.’

‘Is anyone else aware of what you know?’

‘I didn’t tell anyone, not even my wife.’

Steven thought for a moment before saying, ‘Well, at least this explains why the man, Lees, from the Department of Health turned up so quickly on the day of the murder. DOH must know all about this. Did you have any contact with him? Did he say anything to you?’

Cleary shook his head. ‘I met him and he knows I went through Tim’s desk and reached the conclusion that he had been working on flu virus. I didn’t say anything more than that but he may suspect that I know more than I let on.’

‘Just like I did,’ said Steven, ‘But no one from DOH has questioned you since?’

‘No.’

‘I thought you told me that the Crick didn’t have BSL-4 labs for handling high-risk pathogens?’ said Steven.

‘We don’t. BSL-3 is the best we have.

‘So Devon and whoever asked him to carry out the work — probably DOH — were in breach of regulations?’

‘Strictly speaking, no.’ replied Cleary. ‘Flu virus is not on the list of high grade pathogens requiring BSL-4 labs.’

‘But this wasn’t ordinary flu virus.’

‘The rule book wouldn’t know that.’

‘And common sense didn’t come into it?’

‘That’s what it looks like in view of what happened,’ agreed Cleary. ‘The strain Tim was working on wasn’t actually the 1918 virus itself, which would have been covered by the regulations as a special case; it was a genetically altered avian virus… It’s called Cambodia 5.’

‘But it’s identical to the 1918 strain,’ said Steven.

‘To all intents and purposes,’ said Cleary.

‘And now we have a monkey infected with Cambodia 5 virus running around the Norfolk countryside.’

Cleary shrugged uncomfortably.

‘You say Devon was working on a vaccine against this strain?’

‘Yes, that was quite clear,’ said Cleary.

‘Could you make out if he was having any success?’

‘There was no indication of that.’

‘Jesus.’