by Jason Ayres
“You see?” said Jonty triumphantly to the others. “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. We Barrington-Smythes don’t have to wait around for hours like those oiks in there.” Then he coughed again.
“I’m sorry to shatter your delusions of grandeur,” began the doctor, “but this swift service isn’t down to your birthright. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Doctor Timothy Roebuck, specialist in contagious diseases here at the John Radcliffe.”
“Is Alfie going to be OK?” asked Peter.
“I’m sorry to have to tell you that he is very poorly,” replied Doctor Roebuck. “I can’t give you a proper prognosis at this stage as we aren’t sure exactly what’s wrong with him, yet.”
“You must have some idea,” said Josh.
“We believe it’s a highly virulent form of flu, but not one we have any experience of. It seems to have come out of nowhere. I’d like to ask you a few questions to see if we can establish where he picked it up. Then you three need to get flu jabs.”
“Will flu jabs work if you don’t know what it is?” asked Peter.
“It won’t do any harm,” replied Doctor Roebuck. “Now, about your friend, Alfie, has he been abroad recently?”
“Ah, well, that’s a bit of a tricky question. It depends how you define recently,” replied Josh, being a little cagey. Should he tell this doctor the truth? It meant letting another person into the circle, but there were lives at stake.
“He’s just come back from France,” said Peter.
“And what was he doing over there?”
Peter thought quickly. “He was visiting the war graves in Flanders,” he said. “His grandfather was killed there.”
“Of course,” said Josh in realisation. “I think I know what this must be. You know your history, don’t you, Peter? Then you must know about the Spanish flu. It killed thousands in the trenches towards the end of World War I and then they brought it back over here.”
“Gran’s told me about it,” said Peter. “She had it as a girl and nearly died. Her elder sister wasn’t so lucky.”
“With all due respect,” replied Doctor Roebuck, “this is 1992, not 1918.”
“I know, but let’s just say in theory that Alfie had somehow come into contact with the virus while visiting the graves. Could this be it?” asked Josh.
“The symptoms are consistent, but what you are suggesting is virtually impossible. The virus in its 1918 form no longer exists – these things mutate on a regular basis. The only way he could have caught it he would have had to have come into contact with a living, breathing person from 1918, not a corpse that’s been six feet under for the best part of a century.”
Jonty wasn’t happy that Doctor Roebuck was dismissing their theory.
“Look, we have to tell him the truth,” he said. “I’m feeling dreadful and I’m sure I’ve caught it. Doctor Roebuck, you probably aren’t going to believe this but Alfie has time-travelled here from 1918 and it looks like he has brought the Spanish flu with him. Now regardless of whether you believe me or not, please can at least check for Spanish flu because I don’t want to end up foaming blood at the mouth like him.”
Doctor Roebuck didn’t look impressed.
“Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“It’s true,” said Josh. “Isn’t it, Peter?”
Peter nodded his agreement.
“It’s not that easy to just test for Spanish flu, you know,” replied Doctor Roebuck. “We know surprisingly little about it because we didn’t have the medical facilities back then to analyse it properly. But I did do a case study on it as part of my training and whether this time-travelling story is true or not, I can’t deny that this look, extremely similar to the epidemic of 1918.”
“Is Alfie going to die?” asked Peter.
“And what about me?” asked Jonty, starting to panic. “I’ve got it, I know I have. I spent more time with Alfie than anyone.”
“I’m not sure I can help you, not with me being part of the NHS,” said Doctor Roebuck. “Didn’t you say that your family only ever had private treatment?”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry, doctor, please help me, I don’t want to die,” grovelled Jonty pathetically.
“The NHS isn’t so bad after all, is it? I’ll arrange for you to be admitted for tests.”
“Thank-you, doctor,” said Jonty. “I’ll never be rude about the NHS again, I promise.”
“Good,” replied Doctor Roebuck, turning his attention to Josh and Peter. “As for you two, don’t go anywhere. We need to get you those flu jabs and keep you isolated until we’re sure you aren’t contagious. I also need details of anyone else Alfie may have come into contact with. It’s vital we contain this before it spreads.”
Peter thought about Rebecca. She had met Alfie on the day he arrived. And she had said she wasn’t feeling well. A feeling of dread began to wash over him.
“I need to phone my girlfriend to check she’s OK,” said Peter. “She said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“I saw a payphone in the waiting room,” said Josh. “Go and give her a call.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” said Doctor Roebuck. “You can’t go back into a public area until we’ve thoroughly checked you out. If you’ve picked up what Alfie’s got, I can’t allow you to come into contact with anyone else.”
“But my girlfriend could have it,” protested Peter. “She was with Alfie four days ago and she didn’t show up to meet her today.”
“You’re not going anywhere. As of this moment, as far as you’re concerned, this hospital is in lockdown. Now I am going to have to ask all three of you to come along with me. I’m going to put you in a private ward and there is a phone in there you can use. If you can’t get hold of her, we’ll get someone round there to check.”
It seemed Peter had no option but to comply, but he was now very afraid and this wasn’t assuaged when he got no reply to his calls from the phone on the ward.
He then tried phoning her at work, knowing she was due in during the afternoon but was unable to get past the switchboard operator who insisted that personal calls to police officers weren’t allowed, even if he was her boyfriend and it was urgent.
Peter then insisted that Doctor Roebuck get in touch with the police in his official capacity or he would leave and go round there himself, quarantine or no quarantine.
When the call came through to Adam’s office he had every reason to take it seriously. It was late afternoon by now and he was already aware of the possibility of a contagious epidemic. The hospital had sent out a general alert to all the stations in the area and he was already aware that Rebecca had neither shown up for work, nor called in sick. That was most unlike her.
Just as Peter before, he and his colleagues had attempted to contact her on the phone to no avail. This all left Adam feeling extremely concerned. He was very proud of his young officer. She had really impressed him in the few years they had worked together and he had high hopes for her. Quite apart from all that, he was extremely fond of her.
He grabbed his coat and headed out into the open-plan office where Dan Bradley was lounging in his chair, eating a sausage roll and playing solitaire on one of the new Windows 3.0 computers they had recently had installed.
“Come on, Dan, we need to go out. It’s urgent.”
“What’s up, boss?” he asked, noting the look of concern on Adam’s face. He rarely looked this serious.
“We need to go round to Rebecca’s,” he said. “You know the flu virus we were talking about at the briefing earlier? The hospital has given us her name as a person who may have been exposed to it. She also hasn’t shown up for work this afternoon which is very unlike her.”
Dan jumped up, ready to go. For all the banter between him and Rebecca he was as fond of the young officer as Adam was and shared his concern.
Round at her flat they hammered on the door but got no response. It looked like they might have to break in, Sweeney-style, but then Dan trie
d the door handle to discover it was unlocked.
They both looked at each other, fearing the worst. If it wasn’t locked then she wasn’t out, so why wasn’t she answering the door?
It didn’t take them long to make the grisly discovery both had feared. Rebecca was lying, fully clothed on her sofa in front of a TV that was still on.
Her face was bloated and blue where she had suffocated on the fluid that had filled her lungs, with her wide, lifeless eyes staring at Harold Bishop rambling on to Joe Mangel about something trivial on Neighbours.
Both men had seen death before in their jobs, but never of a close friend and colleague. Dan felt the tears welling up as Adam leant down and gently closed the dead woman’s eyes.
Chapter Twenty
Tuesday 4th February 1992
Peter and Josh had been kept in for observation overnight, pumped full of antiviral drugs and subjected to countless tests.
Jonty had been moved to a private room which was private in the sense that he was the only patient in it, rather than it being paid for. Attempts to contact his family, who were off sailing around somewhere in the Caribbean, had failed.
The doctors had identified that Jonty did indeed have the same virus that had killed Alfie but they had caught it early enough to give him the best possible hope of survival. Wired up to various machines in intensive care, it looked like he was going to make it.
Christina had been successfully contacted the previous evening, still at Jonty’s house with Mary, and both of them had come in for the same tests as Peter and Josh. Before they did so, Christina lent Mary some of her clothes so she at least looked like she belonged in the current time period, and advised her to say as little as possible. It was going to take time for her to adjust to her new century.
Elsewhere, the emergency services were on high alert preparing for a possible epidemic which was a scenario they had all been trained for but few had ever expected to see.
Peter remained completely in the dark about what had happened to Rebecca. He hadn’t seen Doctor Roebuck since the previous evening and any attempts to get answers about what was going on from the nurses were evaded.
With the authorities keen to avoid a panic, neither Alfie nor Rebecca’s deaths had been made public and all medical staff had been given strict instructions to give out as little information as possible until it was confirmed exactly what they were up against.
By now, Adam had broken the news of Rebecca’s death personally to her family, but no one had come to tell Peter. Why would they? They had only been a couple a few weeks and none of her colleagues had ever met him. They were only vaguely aware she was seeing someone. Doctor Roebuck had been informed, but Josh and Peter hadn’t seen him since the previous evening.
The last time they spoke to him, he had told them they were in quarantine and had to remain overnight. That had not gone down well with Gran. She had turned up at hospital reception demanding to see her grandson after Peter had phoned her first thing in the morning to explain where he was and why he hadn’t come home last night.
There was a small portable TV in the ward, but it wasn’t showing anything interesting, just endless pages from CEEFAX.
“It’s bloody ridiculous, this,” complained Peter. “They insist on us staying here overnight and now they won’t let us leave. I’m worried sick about Rebecca.”
“They’re obviously taking this very seriously,” replied Josh. “But I agree, keeping us in the dark like this isn’t on.”
“I want answers,” said Peter. “I’m not waiting any longer. I’m going out that door and I’m going to tell them I’m leaving. Then they’ll have to tell me if they want to keep me here.”
He began to walk towards the door, but before he reached it, they heard the sound of a commotion from outside.
“I’m sorry, madam, you can’t go in there,” he heard Doctor Roebuck say.
“Are you going to stop me?” was the reply, delivered in a threateningly scary voice that Peter knew so well.
“It’s Gran!” he exclaimed, delighted to hear her voice, though he was also slightly concerned at her entering this possibly contagious zone.
The wiry septuagenarian flung open the door, hotly pursued by Roebuck.
“There you are!” she said. “Now what’s going on here.”
“Brilliant,” said Roebuck, in a sarcastic tone. “Now I’m going to have to isolate you as well.”
“You’ll be doing no such thing, young man,” replied Gran. “Now why are you keeping my grandson and my lodger here?”
“We’ve had a severe outbreak of influenza, madam,” replied Roebuck. “We have reason to believe these two have been exposed, and we need to ensure that they aren’t contagious before we release them. Now with all due respect, a lady of your vintage falls into the high-risk category, and you may have endangered your life barging in here like this.”
“Flu doesn’t bother me,” replied Gran. “I had that in 1918 when I was a little girl and I survived it while strong, healthy men were dropping like flies.”
“That’s right, she did,” said Peter, turning to Roebuck. “Remember what we told you about where Alfie came from? And you didn’t believe us? Well, what if it was true? Wouldn’t Gran here have the right antibodies?”
“But it can’t be true,” insisted Roebuck. “It’s pure science fiction.”
“What isn’t true?” asked Gran, who was still unaware of the true nature of her lodger’s origins.
“Gran, we believe that our friend Alfie has got the same strain of flu that you had in 1918,” said Peter.
“How can that be possible after all this time?” asked Gran.
“Quite how, I won’t go in to for now, you’ll just have to trust me. Back then they didn’t have the facilities to properly identify the strains of virus or create vaccines, but they do now. Now if you let Doctor Roebuck here take a sample of your blood, it’s possible they might be able to produce a vaccine before there’s a major epidemic.”
“I didn’t realise you’d been to medical school,” said Doctor Roebuck, again with more than a hint of sarcasm. “You seem to have it all worked out but I’ve still got no more than your fantastical story to support this actually being the 1918 strain.”
“What have you got to lose?” asked Josh, adding his voice to the argument. “You haven’t got anything else to go, have you?”
Roebuck shook his head.
“There you go, then. If Gran here really does have the antibodies, perhaps it can help Alfie.”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Roebuck, adopting a solemn tone. “I’m afraid to have to tell you that your friend passed away early this morning.”
Josh and Peter couldn’t believe it. Even though they knew how virulent Spanish flu was, they had thought that the facilities of a modern hospital would save him.
“And Jonty?” asked Josh.
“He’s doing well but we caught his early.”
Doctor Roebuck could see that Peter was already shocked at the news of Alfie’s death and dreaded what he was going to have to say next.
“What about all the other people out there?” insisted Josh. “Alfie could be the first of millions. If Gran here has the antibodies, then you’ve got to do something about it. One person has already died – let’s make sure there are not any more.”
“Two people,” said Doctor Roebuck, correcting him.
“What do you mean?” asked Peter. “You just said Jonty was OK?”
“He is,” replied Roebuck. “Look, I’m really sorry, Peter, there’s no easy way to break this to you. It was WPC Rebecca Osakwe. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh no,” replied Peter, slumping back onto the bed in despair, bursting into tears.
Why had life done this to him? He had finally found someone to love and now she had been snatched away from him.
Gran immediately went to console him while Josh pressed Roebuck for answers.
“What happened, exactly?”
“Her colleagues i
n the force went round to her house to look for her when she didn’t turn up for work. They found her already dead, in the exact same condition as Alfie.”
“And are these symptoms consistent with those described historically of those who died from the Spanish flu?”
“Yes,” admitted Roebuck.
“Then you’ve got to act on what we’ve told you.”
Finally Roebuck nodded his agreement, looking towards where Gran was still comforting Peter, who looked up, eyes full of tears.
“How long have you known?” demanded Peter.
“Since late last night,” admitted Roebuck.
“And you waited until now to tell me?”
“I understand you are upset but we have to inform next of kin first.”
He turned towards Gran and added, “Mrs Grant, if you are willing to help us by providing a couple of blood tests, it could save a lot of lives.”
“I can’t leave Peter in this state,” said Gran.
“Don’t worry,” said Josh. “I’ll look after him. You go and save the human race.”
Reluctantly, Gran agreed, leaving the room with Doctor Roebuck. As soon as the door closed behind them, Peter rounded on Josh. He was angry, grief-stricken and needed someone to blame. The prime candidate was right here.
“You,” he hissed. “This is all your fault. She would still be alive if it wasn’t for you.”
“I didn’t plan any of this,” replied Josh. “And I am as upset about Rebecca as you are.”
“How can you be? Were you in love with her, too?”
“Of course not,” replied Josh. “But I liked her a lot.”
“And all you can come up with is ‘sorry’? Is this what you do every time you screw around with time, just say sorry and move on? How many more lives have you messed up? Did you never stop to think what effect what you do might have on people?”
“Yes, of course. I always knew there were risks, but…”
“But what? Does it not matter because it’s another universe, so you’ll never meet the versions of people you screwed up here when you get back to your own? Or perhaps it’s because you’re so far back in your own past that most of the people you meet here will be dead anyway by the time you get home so that doesn’t matter either.”