by Ken McClure
He was shocked at the appearance of Hannan. The slight papular rash he’d had on his face when he’d first seen him had progressed incredibly quickly into full pustular smallpox. His breathing sounded rasping and laboured; the mucosa of his throat was obviously affected. The sound made Dewar ponder on just how much faith he and the people working here and up in the ward were putting in the vaccine that protected them. The breath that Hannan was expelling with so much difficulty would be loaded with tiny moisture droplets containing thousands of live virus particles.
‘Tommy, can you hear me?’ he asked.
Hannan stopped staring at the ceiling and turned his head slightly, as if it were painful to do so. ‘Who? …’ he croaked.
‘Adam Dewar. I brought you in. Remember? With Sharon in the ambulance?’
Hannan closed his eyes and gave a slight nod and a croak.
‘Tommy, I need to know how you got this disease. Will you help me? I have to ask you some questions.’
No response.
‘It’s important, Tommy.’
‘Bastard,’ croaked Hannan.
Dewar wondered about the abuse then realised it wasn’t directed at him. ‘Who, Tommy? Who’s a bastard?’
‘Mike … took …stuff from this guy … Bastard!’
Dewar hadn’t realised that Hannan still though his condition was down to bad drugs. The hospital obviously hadn’t sought to disillusion him as yet.
‘Tommy, your illness is a disease. It’s got nothing to do with drugs. Do you understand?’
‘Bastard … when I get … out of here … I’m gonna cut. that bas …
A rasping sigh came from Hannan’s throat and his head rolled on the pillow. For a moment Dewar thought he was dead but he could still hear his breathing like a saw cutting soft wood. He was exhausted; he had lapsed into the margins that lay between sleep and unconsciousness. Dewar stood there watching him for a few moments before he heard the nurse come in. He nodded and moved away, wondering if he would get another chance to talk to Hannan. It was something he wouldn’t bet on.
As he straightened up, he noticed the light in the room catch the tiny drops of moisture on his visor. For the first time in a long time he felt a pang of genuine fear. It only lasted a moment or so but to feel his throat tighten and his stomach go hollow while goose-bumps rose on his neck was something that made him feel slightly ashamed before he started to rationalise it. Maybe it was no bad thing to be afraid of the virus. If nothing else, it meant you had respect for it. More importantly, it made damn sure you wouldn’t underestimate it.
Dewar returned to the changing room and went through the routine of primary disinfection of his protective suiting and visor before taking a shower. He had decided to tackle Denise Banyon again.
Denise was slumped in a chair, watching television as she had been the last time he’d seen her. This time she was watching something involving wailing police sirens. She greeted his entrance with, ‘I thought I told you to fuck off.’
‘I hoped we might clear up the misunderstanding and start over,’ said Dewar calmly.
‘There’s no fucking misunderstanding, pal. Just get your arse out of here.’
‘Denise, I desperately need your help. I have to know how Mike caught the disease.’
‘Mike’s dead.’
‘I know and I’m sorry but I still have to know how he got it. It could save many other lives.’
Denise sneered at the notion. ‘Not that old one. Other lives my arse, you just want to know where he got the stuff. Well, you’re not getting it from me. Right? Now, for the last time, fuck off!’
‘For Christ’s sake woman, I don’t want to know anything about drugs! Can’t you get that through your thick head? Mike died of smallpox not bad drugs!’
Dewar immediately regretted having lost his temper. He saw the look of triumph appear on Denise’s face. ‘Dearie me,’ she sneered. ‘Whatever happened to Mr Nice Guy?’
‘I’m sorry, but it’s true.’
‘Bollocks! You lot are always so full of shite. You think I don’t know what you’re really thinking but I do. You think the likes of me and Mike are rubbish, little pieces of shit for you to smarm up to when it suits you, just until you get what you want. Treat her like a lady and she’ll think Prince Charming’s arrived on his bloody horse. The silly cow’ll tell you everything, shop her mates, drop them in it, drop her drawers for you too if you fancy a bit of rough. Dead easy. Well, you’ve picked the wrong one here, pal. Now for the last time, … FUCK OFF!’ The look of loathing in Denise’s eyes made Dewar accept defeat and leave the room.
The drive back to the Scottish Office was a time for facing facts. The wipers cleared away light rain as he recognised he wasn’t going to get any more out of Hannan or Denise Banyon — Hannan because he’d be too ill or even dead by the morrow and Denise because she was absolutely determined not to tell him anything. He doubted that Sharon Hannan would have any more to add to what she’d already said so that meant he had all the information he was going to get. It wasn’t much.
Two drug-addicted petty criminals had come into contact with a live culture of smallpox virus. God knows how. Both men had ascribed their illness to bad drugs. Neither man had any known connection with the Institute of Molecular Sciences or any of the staff there. It definitely wasn’t much.
Dewar phoned Karen when he got back.
‘You don’t sound too happy,’ she said.
‘I’ve got nothing to be happy about. Things are going from bad to worse up here.’
‘I caught the news,’ said Karen. ‘Your “mystery illness” seems to be getting a hold.’
‘It looks like it,’ agreed Dewar.
‘I had a vaccination today,’ said Karen.
‘What for?’ asked Dewar, sounding alarmed.
‘We had an internal request for Public Health Service volunteers to come to Edinburgh. I volunteered.’
‘Jesus,’ said Dewar.
‘That’s it? That’s all you have to say?’
‘God, I don’t know what to say … I’m proud, I’m pleased … I’m scared stiff and I wish to God you hadn’t done it.’
‘Well, I have. ‘I’ll be up the day after tomorrow. I’ll stay at Mum’s until they tell me where I’ll be most useful. My briefing also said you lot were going for physical containment of the disease?’
‘We don’t have an alternative. Starts tomorrow before daybreak.’
‘The sort of thing that could go very wrong,’ said Karen.
‘We won’t know until we try it.’
‘I’ll be thinking of you.’
‘Karen, I love you.’
‘I love you too. Take care. I’ll see you soon.’
Dewar put down the phone and walked over to the window. It was raining heavily now. There was no wind; it was falling like stair rods.
DAY SIX
The rain persisted throughout the night and was still falling heavily when the police, wearing their yellow, wet weather gear, put up the first of the barriers at three am and started stopping traffic. At the same time, 24 hour news channels and all night radio gave out first news of the smallpox outbreak, thereafter at fifteen minute intervals.
As the barrier system was completed, buses were stopped from entering Muirhouse and turned round to return to the city. Their passengers, mainly shift workers returning home, were allowed to continue home on foot after being told to tune into their radios and televisions as soon as they got in. At six am, police cars equipped with loud speakers started touring the streets, giving out details of the containment order and advising people to tune in to local radio stations for more information. The radio stations carried the Scottish Office press release, announcing that the mystery illness affecting people in Muirhouse had been identified as Smallpox. To ensure that the disease did not spread people would not be allowed to leave Muirhouse for the next week or so. This was regretted but the authorities felt sure that citizens would understand. Vaccine for everyone was on its way bu
t in the meantime everyone should remain indoors as much as possible and keep tuned to their radios and televisions for up-dates on the situation.
The Scottish Office had set up special phonelines for people with particular problems. The numbers would be given out in later broadcasts but people were urged to use them as little as possible to prevent jamming. and to co-operate fully with the medical and social work teams working in the area. If everyone displayed good sense, as the authorities were confident they would, the outbreak would be contained quickly and life would be back to normal in no time.
The special phonelines were jammed from eight o’clock onwards. Crowds of people gathered at police barriers to argue their case for being allowed to go to work. The police remained polite but firm using their extensive pre-duty briefing to deal with the more common points. No one was going to be sacked because they didn’t turn up for work because of the order. Those who maintained they had sick relatives to visit and care for were instructed to give details to the social work teams who would see that the situation was covered for them. The awkward questions like, Why isn’t the vaccine here right now? were fielded with, ‘The medical people know what they’re doing.’
Crowds built up throughout the morning and there was apprehension at police headquarters when it was thought that the duty officers might not be able to hold the barrier lines but the heavy rain which had streamed down their waterproofs from the word go, seeking out weaknesses and sneaking in through collars and zips proved to be their greatest ally. The crowds might have been even bigger had the weather been better and the people who were arguing tended to drift off after a couple of hours of getting soaked to the skin. By mid afternoon, the crisis time had passed and people were staying indoors.
NINETEEN
Dewar decided to call Ian Grant at police headquarters at a quarter to seven. There was going to be a meeting of the team at seven and he was interested to hear Grant’s assessment of the police role so far.
‘The honeymoon period,’ said Grant when Dewar said he’d heard things were going well. ‘People are confused, a little bit afraid. They don’t understand what’s going on yet so they’re watching television to find out. Tomorrow if it’s dry they’re going to go out and start talking to each other in earnest. They’ll fuel off each other’s dissatisfaction. They’ll complain about being kept in the dark. Leaders will emerge and we can expect some concerted opposition.’
‘You don’t expect trouble tonight then?’
‘Oh, yes,’ countered Grant but just from the yobs not the ordinary folks. As long as Tulloch realises that and doesn’t get too heavy, they should be able to head off trouble where and when it looks like happening although there’s no denying it could get a bit unpleasant. There’s nothing nastier than a bunch of yobs who think they’ve come up with a good reason for behaving like they usually do anyway. Piece of trash to urban hero in one easy step. It’s important not to fuel their self delusion by taking them on head to head. You’ve got to play it by ear, back off when it seems right, be prepared to lose a little face even.’
‘And the Superintendent knows this?’
‘He’s read the book and done the course,’ said Grant.
‘What does that mean?’
‘There’s a big ravine between book learning and reality in most situations.’
Dewar knew what he meant.
Cameron Tulloch was the last to arrive for the meeting at eight minutes past seven. Rain-water formed a puddle round his feet as he took off his waterproofs in the hallway and hung them up on a peg. He entered the room, rubbing his hands but exuding confidence. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’
George Finlay smiled and said, ‘How are things, Superintendent?’
‘Everything’s been going very smoothly, thank you. I think we’re on top of the situation. We’ve made our presence felt and I think people have accepted that law and order will prevail.’
‘Good,’ George Finlay said, ‘I wish I could be as up-beat with my news. We’ve had twenty-seven new cases today.’
People sighed and exchanged worried looks except for Hector Wright who held up a broad sheet of graph paper. ‘I know that seems a lot,’ he said. ‘But by my reckoning that’s a good few less than expected from the earlier figures. This is the predicted course of the epidemic. You can see the numbers fall below the line just here.’
‘If it’s good news, don’t knock it,’ said Finlay, showing no real inclination to examine the graph for himself.
‘How’s the contact tracing going?’ asked Finlay of Mary Martin.
‘I hesitate to say it but I think we’ve been lucky there too. The very fact that most of Kelly’s contacts were unemployed addicts like him has meant that they didn’t wander far from the area most days. The contacts and disease are still confined to a relatively small area. It hasn’t had a chance to spread out into other parts of the city.
‘Hector Wright, who had been puzzling over his graph and deep in thought said, ‘I think I know why the numbers were a bit lower today than expected.’ He turned to Dewar and said, ‘Adam, you told me last night that the man Hannan had gone downhill as fast as Kelly.
‘The change in him was quite dramatic.’
‘He’ll die soon,’ said Finlay.
‘But, you said that the other cases were developing in a more text book fashion?’
‘That’s what Dr MacGowan told me last night when I spoke to her,’ said Dewar.
Finlay nodded his agreement. ‘That’s quite true. The others are running to form, starting with a macular rash, progressing through papular, finally becoming pustular after seven days or so.’
‘I think this would argue that both Kelly and Hannan contracted the disease through an abnormal route, said Wright.’
‘Agreed,’ said Dewar.
Wright said, ‘It would therefore seem certain they were the cause of the original outbreak in Muirhouse, but they infected people they came into contact with in the normal way so that these people would develop the disease over a more usual timescale.’
‘But how does this explain the dip in numbers?’ asked Finlay.
‘Being infected with a high initial dose not only meant that Kelly and Hannan succumbed much faster to the disease, but also that they had less time to infect people around them before being admitted to hospital. The number of people they infected was therefore less than we and the book might otherwise have expected. It worked in our favour.’
‘Makes sense,’ agreed Finlay, nodding his head. ‘So we’ve been lucky in having less primary contact cases arising from Kelly and Hannan.’
‘But we won’t be so lucky with the fall-out from the secondary cases,’ said Dewar. ‘They’ve had the normal incubation period and therefore much more time to spread the disease before they fell ill,’ said Dewar.
‘Lap of the gods,’ said Finlay. ‘On the other hand, Dr Martin and her people have been doing their best to minimise that through confining the contacts to their homes.’
‘With mixed success, I have to say,’ said Mary Martin. ‘Social services have been struggling to cope with the demands of some of them today; a few have been getting very restless. We’ve done our best to persuade them to stay indoors but it’s an uphill struggle. People miss not being out and about.’
‘That was only to be expected,’ said Finlay.’
‘I take it, you’ve been supplying addicts with drugs where necessary?’ said Dewar.
‘As the lesser of two evils,’ replied Mary Martin. ‘We thought if we supplied the addicts it would act as an incentive to keep them indoors. The trouble is we don’t know who’s really an addict and who’s not. The junkies have been persuading the others to say they’re hooked so that they can get their hands on some extra stuff to sell. On top of that, everyone lies about how much they’re taking in order to get as much as possible. There’s constant cause for friction and argument.
‘Nothing’s ever easy,’ sighed Wright.
‘Are we any closer to understa
nding how Kelly and Hannan came to get the disease in the first place?’ asked Finlay.
‘I think we do know,’ said Dewar. ‘But proving it is quite another matter. Kelly’s dead and Hannan is out of the reckoning as far as being a source of information is concerned. Denise Banyon won’t say anything on principle and Sharon Hannan hasn’t got anything useful to tell.’
‘I suppose, as long as the primary source isn’t still out there somewhere, we don’t have to worry too much about it right now,’ said Finlay.
It was an unsettling thought all the same, thought Dewar and one he hadn’t dwelt on too much. He took comfort from the fact there had been no further cases of the rapid form of the disease. If that were to happen it would mean there was a source of the virus outside of the institute and outside of anyone’s control. Surely fate just couldn’t be that malevolent?
As the meeting broke up, Dewar asked George Finlay about Sharon Hannan’s condition.
‘She wasn’t very well this morning when I looked in,’ replied Finlay. ‘I’d say she’s entering the final stages of incubation. The virus will be well into her bloodstream by now. We can expect to see the rash break out tomorrow or the next day.’
Dewar went up to his room to phone Karen and tell her of the day’s events.
‘Any gut feelings?’ asked Karen.
‘Still too early,’ replied Dewar. ‘Could go either way.’
‘Wright’s point about there being fewer contact cases arising from the first two was a good thought,’ said Karen.
‘A candle in the dark,’ said Dewar.
‘Cheer up.’
‘Sorry, I’m trying to come to terms with the distinct possibility that I’m not going to be able to forge the link between the institute and the outbreak and it’s getting me down.’
‘Maybe absolute proof isn’t needed,’ said Karen. ‘The circumstantial evidence is just so strong that it just about precludes anything else.’