Wildcard

NINETEEN

It was four in the morning when Steven got back to Manchester, but he sat down and wrote to his daughter straight away, telling her how much he missed her and how sorry he was that he couldn’t be there on Christmas Day. He would, however, phone her and was looking forward to hearing all her news about what Santa had brought her and the other two children. When his job was finished, he promised, he would spend lots more time with her and, come the summer, they would do lots of lovely things together. With Robin and Mary, they would build the biggest sandcastle anyone had ever seen on their favourite beach at Sandyhills and surround it with a moat that they could all paddle in.

His eyelids were becoming increasingly heavy but he forced himself to stay awake long enough to check for messages from Sci-Med on his laptop. There was one, saying that two new wildcard cases had been reported, one in Preston and the other in Exeter. Both names were on Greg Allan’s list and the authorities had been well prepared. John Macmillan sent his congratulations. Files on the two new patients were appended. Steven did not bother opening them. He just lay down, closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign that he’d hung on the door did its job and he slept straight through until eleven-thirty next morning. He felt better than he had done for many days and lay still for a while, thinking about Sci-Med’s last message and, in particular, John Macmillan’s congratulations. He had been keeping so busy — mainly to blot out things that he couldn’t afford to dwell on — that he had not been giving himself credit for having done the most important thing in any outbreak: identifying the source. He might not yet understand why the people on Allan’s list were the source, but that was academic when viewed against the fact that the outbreak was now under control. Wildcards were no longer wildcards. The authorities knew exactly who these people were and where they lived, and would be prepared and ready for new cases of the disease, which would be isolated before they infected anyone else. Steven got up and had a leisurely shower before dressing and starting to think about food. He was going to have a day off, he decided: he deserved it.

He didn’t want to take breakfast or lunch in the hotel, so he decided to walk for a while and eat where the fancy took him. The sky was clear and blue and, although the temperature was close to freezing, it was perfect weather for walking. He walked for close on an hour before deciding to have lunch in a pub which looked as if it might have a bit of character. Before going in he bought himself a newspaper to read while he waited for his meal.

He found, as he sipped a pint of Guinness, that the newspaper seemed to share his good mood. The number of new cases in the Manchester area had been dropping over the past few days and, although the public were urged to remain vigilant, there was a cautious hope that the worst was over. Health boards in other areas had been very successful in isolating new cases where and when they occurred, and a government statement had announced that the source of the outbreak had been identified and steps taken to eliminate it, although no details had been released. Steven smiled at the last bit.

His meal arrived and he remarked to the waitress that the place was very quiet; he was the only one having lunch, although two old regulars by the look of them were seated on stools at the bar.

‘Been like this for weeks,’ she said. ‘Worst Christmas season we’ve ever had.’

Steven nodded sympathetically. ‘Looks like it’s over, though,’ he said, gesturing to the newspaper.

‘About bloody time. If it hadn’t been for that stupid bitch of a doctor letting all those kids from the disco roam around all over the place at the beginning, this would all have been over ages ago. I mean, I ask you…’

Steven felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. Thankfully, his momentary surge of anger was almost instantly overwhelmed by a realisation that, whatever he said, this woman and countless other people would go on believing that the Manchester outbreak had been caused by Caroline’s mistake. This was what Spicer had done to her, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. His only comfort lay in the knowledge that Spicer himself would be going to prison for a long time. He wished him a particularly unpleasant time. In the meantime, his good mood had evaporated and taken his appetite with it. He put a ten-pound note under his untouched plate and left.

It took another couple of hours of aimless walking for Steven to calm down and realise that he was by now very hungry. He wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to eating-places in the area, but he came across a small teashop, where he made do with toast and cheese and no conversation.

Steven spoke to Macmillan in the early evening and was informed that Mary Xavier’s mitral valve had reached Porton safely. Work had already begun on analysing it, but he shouldn’t expect quick results. The material would have to be handled under category BL4 conditions, and safe meant slow.

‘Why don’t you take a couple of days off?’ suggested Macmillan. ‘We’ll call you on your mobile if anything breaks. Go up to Scotland and see your daughter.’

‘Not possible,’ said Steven. ‘I’ve been exposed to the virus. I can’t take the risk.’

‘Of course not,’ said Macmillan contritely. ‘That was stupid of me.’

‘But I think I will take a couple of days off. I’m sure I’ll find something to do.’

‘Good,’ said Macmillan. ‘On a different subject, I had a letter from the PM this morning. He sends his thanks, as do the others. Having to call a state of emergency would have been no joke.’

‘Suppose not,’ agreed Steven.

He had a drink downstairs in the bar while he thought about what to do the following day. Getting out of Manchester seemed a very good idea. He needed to be away from it all, even if for just a few hours, somewhere away from people, somewhere where he could see the sky and breathe fresh air. It occurred to him that he wasn’t that far from the Lake District. It was ages since he’d been back to that part of the country where he’d been brought up. He could drive up there first thing and have a day out, walking in the hills. The more he thought about it, the more he warmed to the idea. When he was a boy, being out in the Cumbrian mountains had always helped him get things in perspective. That was exactly what he needed right now, a sense of perspective, a sense of proportion.

Steven ordered another drink and moved away from the bar to sit down in a quiet corner and think about things in general. On the positive side, he had identified the source of the outbreak and had been thanked by the Prime Minister for doing it. His disdain for politicians could not entirely extinguish a feeling of satisfaction over this, but on the down side he was still a long way from explaining it and the unknown was always a cause for worry.

Caroline’s death had left an ache inside him that he couldn’t yet bear to face up to. He had been successful in pushing it to the back of his mind until the waitress had brought home the awful truth. Not only had Caroline lost her life to the virus, but she was going to be blamed wrongly by many for the outbreak. Victor Spicer had ruined her career and indirectly caused her death, and had also ensured that even history would vilify her. The realisation made Steven very angry. Caroline’s only crime had been to use common sense instead of following procedure like a mindless automaton.

It was no comfort to think that was the direction the whole country was going in. Somewhere along the line, common sense had been replaced by political correctness. The meek, in the form of the stupid and ill-informed, were now inheriting the earth a little earlier than planned. When he thought about the job Caroline and the others had done down at St Jude’s, Steven started to feel guilty. It was true that the outbreak was slackening but it wasn’t over. Caroline had gone, but Kate and the other nurses would still be doing their best for the sick while he sat there sipping gin and tonic. He now knew what he must do for the remainder of the evening.

Kate was drinking coffee from a chipped mug with a teddy bear on it when Steven arrived at St Jude’s. She gave him an uneasy grin when he walked in and said, ‘Hello.’

‘Hi, how are you?’ Kate asked with plain meaning.

‘Fine. How are things?’

‘Much better now that we know the source of the outbreak’s been identified. Well done.’

The other nurses in the room added their congratulations.

‘I’m perfectly well aware of who the real heroes are in this affair,’ said Steven. ‘And they’re heroines, not heroes. Frankly, I don’t know how you all do it, day in, day out.’

‘It’s ’cos we’re too stupid to know any better, sir,’ said one of the nurses in a burlesque country-bumpkin accent.

‘No, Mavis,’ said the other in the same accent. ‘As I see it, shit-shovelling’s an art and we’re sort of artists, like-’

‘Cut it out, you two,’ said Kate.

All three nurses broke into laughter and Steven joined them.

‘Well, this unworthy man has come to offer his unworthy services for the evening if you can use them,’ said Steven.

‘We never turn down an extra shovel,’ said Kate.

He was pleased to find that the church was only three-quarters full, proof that the newspaper story had substance. Kate indicated where he should start work and he set about doing his bit, working his way along the line of patients, ensuring that they were clean and comfortable. But when he came to the second to last patient in the line, a shiver of horror ran down his spine: it was Trudi, the Spicers’ au pair.

He looked long and hard at her, hoping he was mistaken but knowing in his heart that he wasn’t. She was only semi-conscious, her hair was lank and she had lost a lot of weight, but she was the girl who had opened the door to him on his first visit to Spicer. He thought back to the look on Spicer’s face, when Steven had warned him about the possibility of having given the virus to his wife. Now it made sense. Spicer had shown no relief when he said he and his wife hadn’t made love, and this was why. He’d been having a fling with Trudi and knew he’d put her at risk. Maybe this was also the real reason why he’d dropped Ann Danby: he’d simply moved on.

‘Bastard!’ Steven whispered under his breath. ‘Slimy little bastard.’

At the end of their shift, Kate and Steven left the building together. Kate remarked that he seemed preoccupied and asked why. He told her about Trudi and got the reaction he expected: ‘The little shit!’

‘About sums him up,’ said Steven.

‘You know, I hold him personally responsible for what happened to Caroline,’ said Kate quietly. ‘She just wouldn’t take any proper rest and, whatever she said, it was because that man blamed her for the spread of the outbreak. She felt driven to atone for something that wasn’t her fault.’

Steven nodded his agreement.

‘The word is they’ve reduced the charges against him,’ said Kate.

‘ What? ’ exclaimed Steven, unwilling to believe his ears.

‘There’s a rumour going round that they’re reducing it to manslaughter.’

‘It was murder,’ he insisted.

‘Maybe not when you’re an MP with a powerful daddy and friends in high places.’

Steven had a restless night but when he awoke to see the sun shining in through the windows he decided to follow his original plan and drive up to Cumbria to have his day out on the hills in crisp, clear conditions. The mountains, as he knew they would, made him feel very small, and thoughts of the timescale involved in their formation made his own lifetime seem like a mere breath in the cosmos. He was as unimportant as a single grain of sand on the face of the earth, and that was exactly the feeling he wanted. It always brought with it absolution.

In all, he walked for five hours, pausing only once, high above Windermere, to sit on a rock and eat the sandwiches that he’d bought earlier. He didn’t rest for long, though, because he felt his body cooling rapidly and his fingers becoming numb in the subzero temperatures. Darkness was already falling by the time he got back to the car, and his calf and thigh muscles were telling him that they’d had a hard day.

On impulse, he decided to make a detour on the way back and drive through Glenridding, the village where he had been brought up. He drove slowly through it but didn’t stop. His folks were long dead and there was no one there he wanted to see again. Ullswater, however, on whose shore the village sat, was unchanged, and he took comfort from that as he followed its north shore. The place triggered memories of a happy childhood and the friends he’d known when the summer days went on for ever.

Although his day out had helped him relax, Steven’s thoughts turned to what Kate had said about the charges against Spicer being reduced. Despite his best efforts, her words played on his mind all the way back to Manchester. The man had stabbed Pelota with a kitchen knife in his own restaurant, and had admitted doing it. How could the Crown Prosecution Service possibly consider a reduced charge?

Steven tried hard to cling to his anger, but it was all too easy to see how clever lawyers might present Spicer’s case. Pelota had been blackmailing him, and that would be the key to the defence. No one would contest that fact, so there would be no argument about it in court and certainly not much sympathy for Pelota by the time defence counsel had laboured the point. Spicer’s lawyer would maintain that his client had decided to do the right thing and go to the police. He would say that he had gone first to the Magnolia to tell Pelota just that, and Pelota, no longer able to wield the threat of exposure, had threatened him with a knife. A struggle had ensued, and during it Pelota had been accidentally stabbed. Ye gods, Spicer might even get off with a light sentence instead of the life term Steven had been counting on. He might even come out of it on a wave of public sympathy!

Recurring thoughts of Spicer and his role in Caroline’s death haunted Steven all evening, so much so that he came to a decision about what he would do with his second day off. It might not be the most sensible thing in the world, but he would try to see Spicer in prison. Spicer was the only man who could put right the wrong done to Caroline’s reputation. There was also a chance that the little shit might not know what he’d done to Trudi. He should know about that. He definitely should.

Tiredness was catching up as Steven logged on to his computer before bed and found that the first result had come in from Porton. The lab had carried out a tissue-compatibility test on the mitral valve taken from Mary Xavier and found it was a very good match — almost perfect, in fact.

‘Nice to know,’ murmured Steven.

‘Spicer might want his lawyer present,’ warned the prison governor when Steven made his request.

‘It’s completely unofficial,’ said Steven. ‘There’s no question of interviewing him under police caution, so there’s no chance of him incriminating himself any further. I just want a chat.’

‘A chat,’ repeated the governor with a knowing smile. ‘He may well refuse to see you, in that case,’ he said.

‘He may. But there’d be no harm in letting him think there might be some official basis for the request…?’

The governor’s smile broadened. He said, ‘All right, we’ll play it your way and give it a try, but if he asks for a lawyer he gets one. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

Leaning over the desk, the governor said, ‘There’s actually a very good chance he won’t. Our Mr Spicer has been experiencing a resurgence of self-confidence, shall we say, ever since the charges were reduced.’

‘Then it’s true?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the governor. ‘It’s what happens when your pals in high places retain the services of the best silk in the country and the local Crown prosecutor starts spending a lot of time in the lavatory.’

‘And they tell me we don’t have plea bargaining in this country,’ said Steven.

‘Like we don’t have a class system,’ said the governor, picking up his phone.

Before long a return phone call informed them that Spicer was waiting in the interview room. ‘I’ll take you down,’ said the governor.

Despite the prison clothes, Spicer looked both smart and smug, thought Steven as he was shown into the room. ‘Nice of you to see me,’ he said.

‘Just call me curious,’ replied Spicer, wearing the self-satisfied grin Steven had come to loathe.

‘I hear you got the charges reduced,’ said Steven.

‘I had every confidence in British justice, and it hasn’t let me down.’

‘You murdered Anthony Pelota to keep him quiet, and, what’s more, you’re responsible for the deaths of well over a hundred people in this city.’

Spicer’s grin faded. ‘Let’s get something straight,’ he hissed, leaning across the bare table that separated them. ‘There’s no way I could have known I had that damned virus, and you know it. My medical history’s confidential, and if any suggestion of this reaches the papers I’ll hold you personally responsible and sue your arse off.’

‘You also destroyed the reputation of Dr Caroline Anderson to score cheap political points,’ continued Steven.

Spicer relaxed back into his chair. ‘So that’s why you’re here,’ he said with a knowing grin. ‘She sent you here to try and salvage her career.’

‘She’s dead,’ said Steven. ‘She died nursing victims of the virus.’

Spicer looked questioningly at him, as if trying to see an angle that wasn’t immediately apparent. ‘And you had a soft spot for her, right?’

‘I think I loved her,’ said Steven matter-of-factly.

Spicer swallowed. ‘Why are you here?’ he asked, clearly unsettled.

‘I want you to put the record straight on Caroline.’

‘She meant that much, huh?’ said Spicer, his expression showing that he thought he might have the upper hand. ‘Well, no deal. She made a wrong decision. She should have sent out a call for all those kids at the disco.’

‘That wouldn’t have made the slightest difference. As it was, she used her common sense and prevented panic. She was a good and dedicated doctor. She deserves to be remembered as such.’

‘No deal, Dunbar. I have my own career to think of.’

Steven’s open incredulity brought a smile to Spicer’s face. He said, ‘All right, I had an affair, I admit it. I’m not the first and won’t be the last. Then some wop tried to blackmail me and accidentally got himself killed trying to stop me going to the police. No one’s going to lose much sleep over that. It’s not inconceivable that I might be forgiven in time. There’s even a rumour going around that my barrister’s sponsored by Kleenex because of the number of jurors he’s reduced to tears.’

Steven didn’t smile. He felt his loathing for Spicer become an actual taste in his mouth. ‘Trudi is in St Jude’s,’ he said. ‘She’s gone down with the virus.’

Spicer went silent and still. ‘So?’ he said eventually; but his bravado was diminished by the hoarseness of his voice.

‘We both know how she got it.’

‘Even if what you’re suggesting is true — and I don’t accept that for a moment — there’s nothing you can do. Like I said, my medical history is confidential, and there’s no way I could have known at the time.’

Steven looked at Spicer as if he were a stain on the floor but said nothing. Spicer was psyched into leaning across the table and saying, ‘Nothing you can do, Dunbar.’

‘It’s true I can’t reveal your medical record, or do anything to stop a smartarse lawyer minimising your crime, but I’m not entirely without influence.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It would be naive of you to believe that no one else knows about your involvement in the outbreak, or that rumours won’t start.’

‘So what? They won’t be able to make it public any more than you can.’

‘It’s my guess that you’re still going to go to prison — not for as long as I’d hoped, I grant you, but you’re still going down.’

‘So? I’ll catch up on my reading.’

‘That’s where my influence comes in.’

‘Just what are you getting at?’ asked Spicer uneasily.

It was Steven’s turn to lean over the table. ‘Just this. Either you admit publicly that you falsely accused Caroline of incompetence and clear her name, or I’ll put the fix in over where and how you spend your sentence. And believe me, you little shit, I’ll see to it that your arse becomes a bigger attraction than Blackpool Pleasure Beach.’

Spicer turned pale. He tried to splutter a response but nothing came out.

‘Your call,’ said Steven. He got up and knocked on the door. The warder opened it at once, and Steven was gone before Spicer could say any more.

Steven needed a drink. He headed for the nearest pub and downed a large gin. He was annoyed with himself for letting Spicer get to him again; he’d come dangerously close to hitting the man, and he knew it. He was about to order another drink when his mobile phone rang, attracting derisory looks from the other customers.

He went outside, and Macmillan said, ‘There’s been another wildcard case.’

Warning bells went off in Steven’s head: why was Macmillan phoning him personally? ‘Where?’ he asked.

‘North Wales.’

‘And?’ Steven had a nasty feeling there was bad news to come.

‘She’s not on the list.’

Steven closed his eyes and mouthed the words ‘Oh fuck!’ Aloud, he said, ‘Oh dear.’

‘Oh dear indeed,’ said Macmillan. ‘You do realise what this means?’

‘We’re not out of the woods yet.’

‘That’s one way of putting it, although the PM used a different expression when I told him fifteen minutes ago. He’s reconvening the national emergency committee.’

‘Makes sense,’ said Steven, his voice heavy with resignation.

‘Any ideas at all?’

‘I suppose there could have been more than one list,’ suggested Steven weakly.

‘Then why wasn’t it on the disk? There was plenty of room.’

‘Don’t know, but it’s worth checking out.’

‘I’ll have Greg Allan’s colleagues go through his stuff with a fine-tooth comb,’ said Macmillan. ‘Just in case there is another disk.’

‘You’re absolutely sure this woman’s not on the list?’ said Steven. ‘I mean she might have changed her surname if she got married recently.’

‘She’s been married for twenty years. And, what’s even more important, she’s never had heart surgery in her life.’

Steven felt the weight of the world descend on his shoulders. ‘I see. Send me the details, will you?’

‘On their way,’ said Macmillan gruffly, and he hung up.

When Steven got back to his hotel, the information on the new case was waiting for him when he connected his laptop. The sick woman was Maureen Williams, aged forty-four, a retired nurse who lived with her lorry-driver husband in the village of Port Dinorwic on the Menai Strait. She was currently in isolation in Caernarfon General Hospital and local Public Health officials were keeping a close eye on her neighbours and relatives.

The file made depressing reading. Steven couldn’t find one solitary thing to connect Maureen Williams to any of the other cases. She had never been involved with anyone connected to any of the outbreaks, and she didn’t have a heart problem. ‘So how the hell did she get it?’ he exclaimed out loud. ‘Jesus Christ! Give me a break here.’

He sat down on the bed and stared at the floor, taking deep breaths and trying to get a grip on his emotions. For two pins he’d pen a letter of resignation and piss off into the sunset… but the thought didn’t last. If there was any resigning to be done he’d do it at the end of an assignment, not in the middle, and certainly not at square one, which was where he seemed to be back once again. He got up and started pacing round the room.

Despite the new evidence, he still could not and would not accept that any virus could appear out of thin air and infect at will. There had to be a connection. It was just that he couldn’t see it. ‘Yet!’ he spat out the word defiantly. Almost unconsciously, he started throwing things in a bag. He was going to North Wales.