Wildcard sd-3

by Ken McClure

  Patterson opened a door and popped his head round. ‘Dining room,’ he said as he closed it again.

  They followed a sign saying Cocktail Bar but found it, too, deserted. ‘Do you think they’ve dropped the bomb?’ asked Karen.

  ‘The state of some of the furniture in this place might support that theory,’ said Patterson.

  Karen saw his point. A variety of rickety tables sat in front of black plastic bench-seating with occasional slash marks across it. The ashtrays were full and a half-empty pint glass of stale beer stood on the bar counter.

  The sound of coughing came from somewhere upstairs, followed by slow, heavy feet on the stairs. A small, fat, bald man appeared in the bar with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He said something in Welsh.

  ‘We’re not Welsh,’ said Patterson.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ asked the barman, removing the cigarette.

  Karen showed him the paper with the field station address on it. ‘We’re trying to find this place,’ she said. ‘Can you help us?’

  The barman took the paper in short stubby fingers and squinted at it. ‘You’ll be from the papers, then?’ he said.

  ‘No, why should we be?’ asked Patterson.

  ‘’Cos it burned down last night,’ replied the man. ‘It’s a pile of bloody ashes, they tell me.’

  Patterson and Karen looked at each other in disbelief. ‘Was anyone hurt?’ Karen asked in trepidation.

  ‘No. They reckon the place was empty, which makes it a bit of a bloody mystery if you ask me,’ said the barman. ‘Not exactly the weather for spontaneous combustion, is it?’

  ‘Did you see much of the people who worked there?’ asked Patterson.

  The barman shook his head. He held up the paper Karen had given him and said, ‘This may say “near” Capel Curig, but it’s a bloody long drive up into the mountains.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw anyone from the field station?’ asked Patterson.

  ‘Must be… last summer, I’d say.’

  ‘So you didn’t see anything of the two scientists who came to work there about four weeks ago?’

  ‘News to me,’ said the man.

  ‘Can you tell us how to get there?’ asked Karen.

  ‘But there’s nothing left,’ said the barman.

  ‘We’d still like to see it.’

  The barman gave them directions and they went back out to the car. Karen offered to drive. ‘If you’re sure,’ said Patterson, who’d had quite enough of driving in miserable conditions for one day.

  When they reached the junction the barman had warned them about, Karen strained to see through the windscreen. ‘He said it was just after here… on the left… there it is.’ She swung the Toyota on to a rough mountain track, and they began to bump their way slowly up an ever-steepening incline that was rapidly turning into a river with the rainwater streaming off the mountains.

  ‘I’m not even sure why we’re doing this,’ said Patterson.

  Karen thought for a moment, then said, ‘We are going to the place where the people we love were last known to be,’ she said. ‘Anything else starts from there.’

  It took them nearly fifty minutes to negotiate the track and reach the charred ruins of the field station. Karen kept the engine running and the headlights on while they surveyed the remains in silence.

  ‘Do you have a torch?’ she eventually asked.

  Patterson reached over into the back and brought up a large rubber-handled torch.

  Karen switched off the engine. She killed the headlights but left the sidelights on to provide a reference point in the darkness.

  ‘What a mess!’ exclaimed Patterson as they walked among the ruins. ‘I suppose they couldn’t get a fire engine up here.’

  ‘If they even knew about it,’ added Karen.

  ‘All the same,’ said Patterson thoughtfully, ‘the fire did a remarkably thorough job. Makes me wonder what they were storing here — aviation fuel, by the look of it.’

  Karen saw what he was getting at. There was practically nothing recognisable left in the shell of the building. She moved to the side and said, ‘Bring the torch over here.’

  Patterson brought up the beam to illuminate a burned-out car. Despite the rain, it still smelled strongly of burning rubber. ‘Looks like a Land-Rover,’ said Patterson.

  ‘Do you think it’s the one Peter and Amy used?’

  ‘So why is it still here?’ said Patterson. ‘They’d have needed transport to get away.’

  ‘It’s not exactly hitch-hiking territory, is it?’ agreed Karen.

  The moment was interrupted by the sound of a labouring engine. ‘Who the devil?’ exclaimed Patterson.

  They turned to face the track, and a few moments later two headlights topped by a flashing blue light appeared. A North Wales Police Land-Rover drew up and two yellow-jacketed policemen got out.

  ‘What’s your business here?’ asked one aggressively. He shone his torch directly at them.

  Karen put her hand up to her eyes and said, ‘My husband was working here.’

  ‘And my wife,’ added Patterson.

  ‘You must be the two from Scotland, then?’ asked the policeman, changing his tone.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘We had a call from Lothian and Borders Police asking us to keep an eye out for a Land-Rover owned by some outfit called Lehman Genomics. Turns out it’s this one here,’ he said, pointing to the wreck. We identified it from the VIN number on the chassis.’

  ‘So what does that tell us?’ asked Patterson.

  ‘Not much,’ said the policeman. ‘The only comfort I can give you is that the building was unoccupied at the time of the fire.’ In the ensuing silence he added, ‘You’ve come a long way. I’ll have a word with the local taxi firms in the morning, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Karen, still looking at the ashes.

  THIRTEEN

  By mid-afternoon William Victor Spicer had been taken into custody, charged with the murder of Anthony Pelota, and Steven was nearing his wits’ end trying to establish how Spicer had managed to contract the disease. The MP had not been anywhere near Africa in the past five years and could recall no recent dealings with anyone who had. Absolutely nothing in what Spicer had told him in their long interview even hinted at a new line of inquiry.

  His worst fears about the man being a red herring, rather than the common factor in the virus outbreaks, looked like being realised. Humphrey Barclay, Victor Spicer and Frank McDougal still appeared to be independent, unconnected sources of filovirus outbreaks. He called Fred Cummings and arranged to meet him over at City General. He needed a sounding board and Caroline was working down at St Jude’s; her answering machine had just told him so.

  ‘You did well in getting to Spicer,’ said Cummings when Steven told him about the morning. ‘Cane’s people didn’t even know he existed.’

  ‘But it hasn’t got me anywhere. Spicer has just replaced Ann Danby as the wildcard in the pack. We’re left with a virus that looks as though it’s breaking out at random.’

  ‘But we both know better than that.’

  Steven nodded. ‘But I am beginning to wonder.’

  ‘You’ll find the link,’ said Cummings encouragingly. ‘It’s out there somewhere, as someone used to say.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’ Steven smiled. ‘So what’s happening in the real world?’

  ‘More and more cases, and it’s been spreading out of the city, as we knew it would. People move around, and with the best will in the world we’re not going to put a stop to that with a city population of over two and a half million. All the medical services have been put on the alert for it nationwide, so there’s a better chance of snuffing it out than there was here in Manchester at the beginning. There are no new wildcards as far as we know, but there are still a few cases we have to work on to establish the line of contact.’

  ‘What are CDC up to?’ asked Steven.

  ‘They’re having a re-think
about whether this particular flilovirus might be airborne after all.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Steven.

  ‘They’re reaching the same conclusion we did: that there are just too many people going down with it for it to be body-fluid transmission alone.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘We ring-fence the city and burn down all the houses,’ replied Cummings, adding, in response to Steven’s expression, ‘It’s ironic, really, but that’s what they do in the African outbreaks and it’s very effective.’

  ‘But not an option.’

  ‘I think a curfew is the best we can manage. We’ve got to stop people mingling in public places. We’ve closed the big things like cinemas and football grounds, but so many small businesses got exemptions from the last order that it ended up making very little difference. People are more frightened now, though, and that’s going to work in our favour.’

  ‘Fear is our friend,’ said Steven.

  ‘A good soundbite,’ said Cummings. ‘I’ll make a note of it.’

  ‘How about resources?’

  ‘No problem about equipment. The Americans and Swedes have been flying in state-of-the-art stuff. I think the CDC people see us as a bit of a testing ground for what they’ve been preparing for in a big American city for years. The Swedes have prided themselves on being expert in mobile facilities ever since Linkoping in 1990. That aside, we have a growing nursing-staff problem as I think you’ve seen for yourself?’

  Steven nodded.

  ‘There’s a country-wide call going out for volunteers, preferably those with infectious-disease experience but they’re a dying breed. Most of the old infectious-disease hospitals have been closed down over the last ten to fifteen years.’

  ‘I guess we didn’t need them with all these old churches lying around empty,’ said Steven sourly. ‘They’re ideal. All we need do is tack a crematorium on the back and they’re tailor-made for the job.’

  Cummings looked sidelong at him and said kindly, ‘Don’t let it become your problem, Steven. You’ve got to stay detached from the nitty-gritty and concentrate on finding the source. There must be one.’

  Steven said, ‘It’s hard to remain detached when people are dying around you and you haven’t a clue where to look next.’

  ‘It’ll come to you. It sometimes takes more courage not to become involved.’

  ‘How’s Sourpuss Cane doing?’

  ‘He’s all but given up,’ replied Cummings. ‘Going strictly by the book, as he’s done all his life, has yielded precisely nothing. Your coming up with a boyfriend for Ann Danby whom he and his lot failed to spot and the government calling in help from CDC were severe blows to his pride. It’s my guess he’s about to realise that he needs to “spend more time with his family” and resign.’

  ‘Another resignation?’ said Steven. ‘Not good for morale. Who’s taken over from Caroline at Public Health?’

  ‘Her number two, Kinsella. He’s okay but Caroline already ran a good department; he’s just taken up the reins. Pity Spicer played politics with Caroline’s job. She was a big asset.’

  ‘Right.’

  Steven returned to his hotel and started to work his way once more through all the data he had gathered on the people classified as wildcards. Yet again he searched for a common factor he might have overlooked but yet again he and his computer failed to spot one. ‘More data,’ he murmured. ‘Must have more data.’

  He rang Sci-Med and asked for more information about the people involved. No, he couldn’t be more specific, he told them, just send anything they could come up with, however trivial. Better too much information than too little.

  Steven thought long and hard about what Cummings had said about not becoming too involved. It made sense, and he acknowledged that, but his gut instinct was telling him something else. It was telling him that waiting for inspiration was something that could be done anywhere. It might just as well be down at St Jude’s.

  Assuming that Caroline and Kate would take their mid-shift break around the same time they had on the previous evening, Steven drove down to the church and waited for them to emerge. He waited fifteen minutes before the pair of them appeared with hair wet from the shower and dark rings under their eyes from tiredness.

  ‘I really didn’t think I’d see you here again,’ said Caroline quietly.

  ‘I find I have another free evening,’ said Steven, using bravado to combat what he really felt.

  ‘Good for you,’ said Kate. Caroline echoed this but her eyes said that she understood just how big an effort it was for him.

  When the two women returned to work after after their break, Steven joined them as an extra pair of hands. If anything, conditions in the old church had got worse overnight. Patient numbers had risen sharply; there was an extra line of beds, making three in all and housing something in the region of sixty desperately ill people.

  ‘We’re having to use the old vestry as a mortuary,’ said Kate Lineham. ‘The crematoria are finding it difficult to cope. There’s a bit of a backlog.’

  Steven swallowed and gave a slight nod.

  ‘Let’s go to it, guys,’ said Kate.

  Steven worked a five-hour shift as he had the night before and left with Caroline again, feeling drained but very conscious that Caroline had worked twice as long as he had.

  ‘I think I have a tin of corned beef in the cupboard at home,’ said Caroline, ‘and maybe some beans. What d’you say?’

  ‘You temptress, you,’ said Steven, feeling again that he could do with some company. ‘But I’m sure I could get us both dinner at my hotel if you’d like?’

  Caroline shook her head and said, ‘No, I’m all in and I must look it. Let’s go home. You can take me to dinner when this is all over.’

  ‘That’s a date.’

  ‘What on earth possessed you to come back to St Jude’s, feeling the way you do?’ asked Caroline while they waited for the beans to heat.

  ‘I’m still a doctor. I couldn’t stand by when staffing levels are as bad as they are,’ replied Steven. ‘My precious feelings are a luxury the situation can’t afford.’

  Caroline gave a nod of understanding, perhaps tinged with admiration, and asked, ‘Did you find it any easier today?’

  ‘I’ve just thrown up in your bathroom, if that answers your question, but you’ve been doing much more than me. How are you coping?’

  Caroline swallowed as she thought about the question, and Steven saw vulnerability appear in her eyes for the first time. It disappeared when she tried to disguise it but then it returned and remained. It brought a lump to his throat.

  ‘We had nineteen deaths today,’ she said quietly. ‘We piled them up in the vestry… one on top of the other… like sacks of potatoes. Somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son, all waiting in a heap to be collected… and burned. I never thought I’d see anything like that in England in this day and age.’

  ‘When did you last have a day off?’ asked Steven gently.

  ‘None of us without family commitments are taking days off until we get some extra nurses down there,’ said Caroline.

  ‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ said Steven.

  ‘Maybe I deserve to be. Maybe if I’d put out an alert after that girl went to the disco, it really would have made a difference.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Steven. ‘We’ve been through all that. You made entirely the right decision in the circumstances. You have nothing to reproach yourself for, absolutely nothing. That MP just used you and the circumstances to get himself noticed — self-seeking little bastard.’

  ‘Thanks… but I’m not entirely convinced.’

  Steven’s assurances were interrupted by his mobile phone going off in his jacket pocket. He went out into the hall to retrieve it and took the call there. When he returned Caroline could see that something was the matter.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘They think there’s a new wildcard case in Hull,’ Steven replied, still stunned a
t the news. ‘Sci-Med are sending details, but Public Health have been unable to establish any contacts. They seem to think that this is the best example yet of a case occurring spontaneously.’

  ‘Shit.’ Caroline sighed. ‘Where’s all this going to end?’

  Steven looked at her bleakly for a moment, then said, ‘It will end when we wipe out the source, isolate all the contacts and stop the spread, just like with every other outbreak. We have to believe that.’

  Caroline nodded slowly but she seemed preoccupied.

  ‘Don’t we?’ Steven prompted.

  ‘Of course,’ came the weak reply. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just so damned tired. I’m not thinking straight.’

  ‘And no wonder.’

  ‘Tell me a joke, Steven. I feel as if I haven’t smiled for weeks.’

  ‘Know the feeling,’ said Steven.

  ‘C’mon, tell me a joke.’

  He thought for a moment then began, ‘There was this little baby polar bear sitting on a rock, watching the ice floes drift by. Suddenly he looked up at his mother beside him and asked, “Mum, am I a polar bear?” “Of course you’re a polar bear,” said his mother and she patted him on the head. A short time later the little bear repeated the question and got the same response. A short while later the little bear asked the question yet again. By now his mother was losing patience. “Of course you’re a polar bear,” she snapped. “I’m a polar bear, your father’s a polar bear, your brother’s a polar bear. We’re all polar bears. Now, what is this nonsense?” “Well,” sighed the little bear, “it’s just that I’m fucking freezing!”’

  Caroline’s face broke slowly into a grin and then she started to laugh. She laughed until her sides were splitting, and Steven feared she might be becoming hysterical, but it was just that the joke had acted as a release valve for all her pent-up emotions. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said with the tears running down her face. ‘Spot on, Dunbar. Bloody brilliant.’

  ‘Glad to have been of service, ma’am,’ said Steven. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’