by Alex Caan
‘Can’t we do both? Run your tests in the mobile isolation unit you set up for the autopsy, while we carry it out?’
Kate had just given her weight to Dr Kapoor’s request. It was now the force of law enforcement and the PCC versus hospital administration.
‘It’s not about the logistics. What is more pertinent to this case is that we won’t be carrying out a physical autopsy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We are forbidden to do so in cases where a Category A virus is suspected.’
‘I don’t understand. You said you wanted to do a PM when you collected us?’
‘Yes. It will be done using the iGene table. It’s a digital autopsy. We will scan the body. We will also collect samples using the isolation bubble you saw us put the body in.’
‘I see. And Dr Kapoor wants to carry out a physical one?’
‘Yes. She seems to think because you may be infected, it won’t pose a danger to yourselves. I cannot risk the bodily fluids of a Cat A victim running freely like that.’
‘Dr Kapoor can do the autopsy, but she will do a digital one. You have your isolation unit set-up, test us both there at the same time.’
‘We aren’t prepared to test live patients in the mobile autopsy suite . . .’
‘How long would it take to get the containment unit ready? With what we need?’
‘I don’t think that’s a reasonable request at this late stage . . .’
‘How long?’
‘An hour at least . . .’
‘You have twenty minutes to turn it into a mobile testing unit as well as an autopsy suite. Dr Kapoor may also be trying to minimise risk. You are aware of Locard’s principle?’
‘Of course. The forensic principle that every contact leaves a trace.’
‘Imagine the fallout if we take whatever we are carrying anywhere into a packed hospital, and the risk we are exposing people to.’
‘We are able to isolate you both, it’s what we’ve done in the past. There are no concerns for us.’
‘With all due respect Professor, you knew then what you were dealing with. It was Ebola. It had a name, a modus operandi, or whatever you guys call the way a virus works. This is an unknown at the moment. You put together the mobile unit, and we have a tight chain of contact, and it’s minimal. From the backs of these ambulances straight into a secure box.’
Professor Gerard studied her carefully. Kate clenched her stomach muscles, and stared back. She would never lose at this game. She had practiced too many times on her stubborn mother, not to mention the sort of people she had had to deal with both in her work and personal life. Jane’s illness was causing memory loss, and her inability to recognise faces she saw everyday was always a reason for her to act out. And the men from Kate’s past? Well, Professor Gerard was nothing in comparison to people like her father.
Professor Gerard looked away, blinked first. Kate didn’t expect anything less. She would not be cowed, not after everything she had been through.
‘Twenty minutes. Get the team in to take my samples, I’m ready for them.’
Ready to find out what it was she might be carrying. And if it was fatal, just how long she might have to live. She thought of her mother. And then she thought of Eric. They had barely begun, and it was already potentially at an end.
Dr Eric Sandler had come into her life after his involvement in a recent case she had taken the lead on, his expertise as a forensic cyber psychologist helping her understand a whole new way of being in the virtual universe around her. She had always struggled with relationships; she blamed her father for that, the way he drip drip bullied her mother over the years, even before she knew the extent of his corruption. He had been a member of City Hall, her brothers in law enforcement like her. They were the face of respectability, well connected and trusted. Only, her father had come from nothing and was determined to make something of himself, even if it meant flouting the very rules he was meant to be upholding.
Using his position he had created a veritable empire of corruption. Backhand deals, threats, gangland support, covering up the worst crimes, which he was almost certainly involved in too. Drugs, prostitution, murder. He had expected Kate to follow suit, follow him into the family business. Only she wasn’t Kate Riley back then, she was Winter Morgan. And she had refused. She had gone along with him at face value, but in reality had gathered evidence for the FBI. And when her father was brought to court, it was her testimony and evidence that had landed him in prison.
Except her father was no fool; he had covered up most of his past. So the sentence was small, and Kate/Winter and her mother were whisked off into witness protection. But before they could go, her father had exacted his revenge, leaving her mother for dead.
Only Jane had stood up after that. She had opened up about her past, talked about the violence she had suffered at her husband’s hands. And it was her testimony, coupled with medical records and statements given in confidence, that had given Kate’s father a longer sentence. But with her mother so dependent on Kate, there was no realistic way Kate could indulge in a relationship that would pose a danger to her ability to care for Jane. So she had made desperate and damaging choices, sleeping with men who were unavailable when she needed to feel some human contact.
The last of these had been Ryan, the small-town American who had relocated to London, and who had become her mother’s primary carer for most of the day while Kate was at work. Ryan was very much married to Chloe. Kate had crossed too many lines with that relationship, and had had to let him go when she and her mother changed location from North London to Pimlico.
She missed Ryan. She had trusted him to look after her mother, but her new set-up meant she had fewer concerns about her mother’s safety. Jane and Kate now lived in an open-gate prison, in effect.
So she had allowed herself to start dating Eric when he’d asked her out, and his commitments to his role at Cambridge University meant they rarely saw each other.
Things had seemed to fall into place. But now, once again, Kate was being pulled away from normality, to the place of greatest risk.
But the victim might hold the answers they desperately needed. Kate wondered how Zain was getting on confirming his identity and potentially his last movements. A DNA match would be best, and they’d need that quickly.
Chapter Thirteen
Zain was livid. He was just about to arrive at the Leakey residence, when he got a call from Deborah Scarr, requesting his presence back at the Police Crime Commissioner’s HQ. Deborah was the Executive Assistant to the PCC for Westminster. Her orders were Hope’s, although she was a lot more pleasant to deal with.
Zain parked his Audi in the underground car park, accessed via a tiny side alley opposite Westminster Abbey. It was blocked off at one end, with a wooden door to the side, which rose up like a shutter to let vehicles in and out. No room for a U-turn; you either got in first time or you got stuck. Zain was used to it now, easily snaking his way through.
Sitting in the dimness, surrounded by empty vehicles, with water streaming down a wall where the ancient guttering had given way, Zain felt anxiety rub him. Kate had trusted him with this, and he didn’t know if he could hold his own with Hope. There was a time he didn’t have these slivers of doubt, but that was before. Before he was brought low by men who wanted to inflict as much pain on him as they could, for a cause he had once naively supported. Sometimes he felt as though it was retribution.
That life seemed so distant now. Zain had instead become the hope of the security services how someone with his background should really be used. And in the end he had felt used, and abandoned. He’d found out later that those same security services were going to let him die in the Portakabin his kidnappers were holding him in. The terrorists who had taken him were going to be allowed to behead him on camera, and broadcast it worldwide. Until a last-minute rescue attempt had been put together. The reasons for which he was never fully told.
So now, he d
idn’t trust himself, or anyone else. Well, maybe Kate Riley. That was about it. He had seen her honour and integrity. When the world was full of so much underhand bullshit, she stood out as something so much better. And what was he doing? Was he in any fit state to be taking this on? He’d been sitting in A & E only a few hours before, half choked. He still had cuts that were stinging when he touched them, and he reeked of smoke.
He opened his glove compartment, feeling around for the only other thing he trusted. The plastic packet was familiar now. He no longer needed to examine it every time; the Chinese writing barely registered. He should scan the image and see if an online search could translate it for him. But he didn’t really want to know. He was convinced it was snake venom or alligator balls he was consuming.
Plastic foil in hand, Zain popped a green tablet through and swallowed it with reflexive precision. He then took a second. One was never enough these days. Not since his last case. And his second brush with death.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the leather of the seats, the aroma from the pine needles his sisters had sown into parcels that clung to his dashboard. The tablets couldn’t be working yet but his heart was already crashing against his ribcage in anticipation of their effect. Zain got out and headed to the secure lift, up to see the PCC, to see what the knob wanted.
Chapter Fourteen
Unlike the temporary office on Victoria Street, where PCC Hope commanded a top-floor view across London, mainly into Buckingham Palace’s backyard, the new offices in St James’s were more subdued. They were on the second floor, with views across Horseguard’s Parade. The office was more traditionally decorated, in muted wood and leather, the odd Persian rug placed around the room. It reminded Zain of a gentleman’s club he had been to, the sort where membership was exclusive and only available to those with money, Masonic connections, or some sort of posh breeding. Zain was usually mistaken for the waiter on the odd occasion he had met his father or grandfather at these places.
There were two guards outside the door leading to the PCC’s office, both armed with Heckler and Koch MP5SFA3 semi-automatic carbines. The women ignored him as he winked at them, and bowed theatrically. He then showed them his ID, which they instructed him to run through a scanner on the door. It bleeped green, they checked the ID manually, and then pressed a button to let him in.
They must be bored shitless, he thought.
Inside the anteroom was the formidable Deborah Scarr. She had grey hair, tied tightly into a bun, and was wearing a maroon suit. Zain held out his ID for her to check, which she did by running it through a machine on her desk. She then took his thumbprint. It all seemed so tedious. She knew who he was, but rules were rules, he supposed. Although armed men trying to get in would simply shoot the guards and Deborah, sod the ID crap.
‘Surprises me every time it clears you,’ she said, amusement across her patrician features. ‘But who am I to query state of the art technology?’
‘Deborah, looking glamorous as ever.’
Zain kissed her on the cheek, holding himself a moment longer to take in the Chanel No. 5 she wore. It reminded him of someone from his past. Before the torture, and the pills and the nightmares. When he could actually get it up. Impotence on top of everything else just seemed like an unnecessary kick, and in some ways the harshest.
‘So what have you done now?’ she said. ‘He was rather desperate to see you.’
‘Usual stuff. DCI Riley has done a disappearing act and left me to clear up her mess. You know how it is.’
‘Yes, I really do. I hope she’s going to be OK.’
‘What have you heard?’
‘Kate’s being taken to an isolation unit at the Royal Free. Unknown pathogen potentially killed a man in St James’s Park. Maybe a virus, possibly contagious, she and two others at least have had direct exposure to blood and body fluids from the victim. Anonymous protest night before, horrific possibility there could be dozens of carriers that had contact with the deceased. Is that enough for now?’
Zain smiled at her. She always had his back, and had just given him a lowdown on what exactly the PCC knew. So no potential name, which meant no leak. This was good. A leak would mean that someone knew about the ID found on the body, and they would have had to have cracked the PCC internal secure communications network to find this out.
Zain walked towards the double doors that led into PCC Hope’s office. He was about to knock, when Deborah stopped him.
‘One last thing,’ she said. ‘Julian Leakey. Permanent Under Secretary for International Development.’
Zain felt his heart nearly burst, as panic and anger overtook him.
Chapter Fifteen
Professor Gerard had concluded there wasn’t enough time to set up testing facilities in the autopsy unit, so he had ordered both Kate and Dr Kapoor to have their samples taken while they were still in their respective ambulances. Kate’s arms were aching, where they had failed to take blood properly. She had warned them she always had a problem giving samples; her veins were just too difficult to detect. There was a space in the plastic wall guarding her where they had attached a robotic arm, carrying a needle and syringe. Another space in the wall was filled with a plastic arm, with a purple glove on the end. Professor Gerard watched as one of the nurses, dressed in a hazmat suit, put his arm into the tube and glove. He then began roughly looking for veins on Kate’s arms. Satisfied he had one, he began directing the robotic arm with the needle towards the place using his voice. The robot plunged the needle in, but the vein had run away, so all that happened was Kate winced and then was left with a bruise.
The second and third attempts were no better, but the fourth managed to fill a vial. She then had her throat and eyes swabbed. Less traumatic, but still unpleasant.
‘There we go, all done,’ the nurse had said.
Kate would have hit him if there wasn’t so much protection between them. It felt like the most paranoid game of safe sex she had ever been involved in. This made her laugh unintentionally. Professor Gerard had shot her a look.
A few minutes later, Kate was told the autopsy unit was ready, and was led from the back of the ambulance to where they had put the mobile unit.
Kate was walked through a plastic tunnel, a covered pathway for her and she assumed for Dr Kapoor. She was still in the hazmat suit, so the sealed tunnel seemed like overkill. Once through the tunnel, she was at the door of what looked like a trailer park cabin. Her mother would turn her nose up for sure.
The door to the mobile unit was locked by a secure code, which Professor Gerard typed in, before motioning for Kate to go in. She walked in and the door shut behind her, an electronic beep telling her it was locked from the outside. She was essentially trapped inside the metallic box with Dr Kapoor. And a dead body riddled with an unknown lethal substance.
*
Dr Kapoor was busy with the autopsy already when she arrived. Kate hadn’t come across a digital autopsy table before. She knew they existed, and had been intrigued by them.
‘They were developed in Malaysia,’ said Dr Kapoor. ‘Religious reasons to try and avoid an autopsy.’
‘Do they work?’
‘The evidence so far is that they do. There have been cases where the iGene found things that were missed by a physical autopsy done on the same victim.’
‘How?’
‘Think about it, DCI Riley. Physical autopsies can only go so deep, and are subject to a lot of human error and observation.’
‘You back them up with CT scans though?’
‘Yes, we do. However, we rely on the physical autopsy itself mainly. And this way, anyone can carry out the autopsy, long after the original one.’
‘Have you got shares in iGene, Dr Kapoor?’
The pathologist laughed, flicked a switch on the table, causing it to hum to life, like a desktop computer slowed down by a full memory.
‘You can take that off, by the way,’ said Dr Kapoor. ‘We are essentially inside a giant hazmat suit. And p
lease, call me Rani not Dr Kapoor. I think we’ve been through enough now to qualify as intimates. And we are currently the first line of defence against whatever we are dealing with.’
Kate was glad to be out of the suit, although she’d needed some assistance from Dr Kapoor to get it off. Dr Kapoor was in her white forensic outfit, although it looked fresh. She indicated for Kate to put on a fresh one too, pointing to where it was hanging. Kate pulled a curtain to, and changed.
‘How does it work?’ Kate asked, coming back to the table. ‘I don’t know the details, but would like to.’
‘Of course. So a normal scanner is used for the body itself. They put the body in a special leak proof bag, which doesn’t block these X-rays. It is used to check for internal damage. Magnetic resonant imaging, MRI, is then used for the soft tissue. It takes three and a half thousand slices of the body using computer tomography, CT scanning, 0.5 millimetres each. The process we normally X-ray the body with.’
Kate imagined the body being placed in the cylindrical scanner, as it made noises around him, like a powerful vacuum cleaner.
‘Then they use 3D imaging. It amazes me, to be honest. It has taken images so far into the body, where I would probably need an electric saw and medieval instruments of torture to get to myself.’
The digital autopsy table was slightly smaller than a snooker table, with a touchscreen on the top, and wires running off it. There were three USB keys, all with memory sticks in them. The two women stood on opposite sides to each other, allowing the pathologist to run her hands across the width uninterrupted.
Dr Kapoor touched a corner of the table, making the table screen light up, with the same quality as a giant iPad.
Another touch, and the victim’s body leapt out at them from the table. Dr Kapoor used her fingers to manoeuvre the 3D image, which looked as though it was hovering in mid-air.
‘He looks like someone’s made him into a character in a computer game,’ said Kate.