‘Then he started telling me how he’d seduced Sarah. I told him to stop or I’d kill him. “I’ll kill you,” I said. He just laughed. He didn’t stop. I couldn’t see anything. I lashed out. And then when I could see, he was on the floor, dead…’
‘You’re sure he was dead?’
‘Oh yes. I do know how to use my hands.’ He shuddered. ‘I was going to ring 999, really I was, my hand was on the ’phone, but then I thought: Why should I? He had it coming to him. I’ll dump the body later and no one will know.
‘I was looking for somewhere to hide him temporarily when I found the room up here. I put him in a cupboard and shut the door…’
‘What about his shoes?’ I said urgently.
‘Oh yes, his shoes…they fell off when I dragged him into the room. I meant to put them into the cupboard after him, but I forgot.
‘Then I went to Greece, after I’d seen you that Monday. At first I was just numb, but then I thought: It was an accident, I can’t bring him back. Why let his data go to waste? Why not hand that back to Parc-Reed? I knew it was in the computer, so I caught a plane on Saturday and came up here late that evening. I…searched him and found his keys. I saw his shoes as I was going, but I couldn’t bear to look at him again so I took them with me.’
There was so much I wanted to ask, but I didn’t dare interrupt the flow, now that he was approaching the critical part of his story.
‘I thought the best time to search his flat would be Sunday morning. I knew there had to be a password, you see. I drove round, the shoes were still in my car, so I took them up. I’d been there half an hour, maybe more, when I heard Sally.’
He swallowed and closed his eyes. The smoke was thicker now, and I could hear the fire raging beyond the wall.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘I — I hid in the kitchen behind the door. Heard her rummaging around, then she ’phoned you. There was no way out of the kitchen. Oh God! If I’d only stunned her before she’d seen me…’
Sirens wailed in the distance. People were rushing around outside in the light cast by the flames.
‘Go on!’ I said urgently.
‘She came in, put the kettle on, she was humming to herself, then she turned and saw me. I — I told her John had something of mine, I was just looking for it… I thought for a moment I’d convinced her, but then she saw his keys on the worktop…
‘She picked them up, then looked at me and said, “You’ve killed him, haven’t you…”
‘She got past me somehow, and made it to the bedroom door before I caught her…then she was on the floor, I don’t even remember hitting her but I knew she was dead, I carried her over to the bed, then you came up, I hadn’t even shut the door — ’ He cut off abruptly, then started again.
‘I’m sorry. You just stared at her, I hit you hard enough to stun you, then dialled 999 and left the receiver… I was on my way out, then I pulled off her jeans to make it look like a sex attack… I’m so sorry, Chris, I beg your pardon…’
‘How did you get out?’
‘Oh, down the stairs and through a window into the back garden. I went back to my London flat and stayed there until it was time to return to Oxford. When I heard about your escape, I knew you’d come back. I tried to find an excuse to stay away, but the firm insisted I remain here. It was all ordained. I had no choice but to sit here and wait for you.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m glad now that — ’
The door behind us burst into flames. I looked out of the window. A group of people outside were holding a blanket. I found a piece of wood and was about to smash the glass when Charles shouted.
‘No! Sharp edges, better open it!’
We both stood under it and heaved. It wouldn’t move. My back grew hotter.
‘Harder!’ shouted Charles.
I thought my arms would crack, then it shifted. I pushed it up.
‘You first,’ I said, turning to him, only then seeing his hand chopping sideways at me.
I remember the blow, sinking, being caught up, a sensation of floating, then nothing.
CHAPTER 19
‘Can you hear me?’
I opened my eyes. A ring of faces hung over me.
‘How do you feel?’
‘OK…I think.’
I felt awful. I felt as though I’d been away for years in some other dream-life where everything was fine until I’d been dragged back here. I found out later I’d been unconscious for about five minutes.
Professional hands deftly searched my body, then my head.
‘Nothing broken, might be some concussion, though. Better get him over to Swindon with the rest.’ The doctor excused himself and hurried away.
The noises, which had been just a background until then, suddenly grew louder and for a moment I thought I must be in a fairground. Wailing sirens, engines rumbling, people shouting.
I raised myself to my elbows.
There were people everywhere. The lines of third- and fourth-storey windows along the wing glowed as though someone had turned all the lights on. Flames pushed their way through one or two.
The hospital was being evacuated, a stream of stretcher-bearers poured from the main block to a waiting fleet of ambulances. More shouts as another fire engine drew up beside the two already there in a medley of horns and lights —
Charles!
I looked over to the window from where he’d thrown me: it was belching smoke and fire.
Ignoring the people around me, I struggled to my feet and looked round for Jones. The firemen were starting to run hoses over to the burning wing. I couldn’t see him. A police car drew up and the familiar sickness of fear took me…
‘Chris?’ It was Jones.
I gripped his arm. ‘Charles, is he…?’
He slowly shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve still got enough to clear you. Did he tell you anything?’
‘Everything. How he killed John…and then Sally.’
‘Good, it’ll help. Chris, you’re going to have to trust me now.’
I knew instantly what he meant. ‘I’m not going to be locked up again?’
‘It’ll only be for a day, maybe two. I’ll come with — ’
‘No!’ I tried to break away from him but he was holding my arm.
‘If you run, they’ll catch you and it’ll make it worse.’
I stood there panting, realizing the truth of his words. Then I let him lead me to the police car.
I thought my reason would leave me when they clamped the cuff to my wrist, but as we left the city, I became calmer.
Tom Jones was going to clear me. I’d pick up a sort of life. The other dream-life was real and Jill and Sally were in it. It was going to be all right.
As we took the Swindon exit from the roundabout, I had one last glimpse of the city: spires, towers and domes silhouetted in the ruddy glow of the still burning hospital.
The city of Dreaming Spires. A bed of nails. It depends on your point of view.
GOING VIRAL
ANDREW PUCKETT
© Andrew Puckett 2015
Andrew Puckett has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
This edition published in 2018 by Sharpe Books.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
&nb
sp; Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Prologue
It Could Be YOU… the lottery sign said, and it seemed to Lucy Stokes that the finger might be pointing at her.
Yes, it could be me, she thought, Why not? And she resolved to buy a ticket before she left work. And one for Jake as well…
Lucy was seventeen and her luck had changed.
With her fair hair and grey eyes, she was pretty, but not obviously so. She had a pleasant personality, but was not academic and tended to be reserved – in other words, the perfect target for the bullies and inadequates that haunt every secondary school.
Not that she was actually hit, but as every girl knows, psychological bullying is every bit as bad, if not worse. And the scars take longer to fade.
But now she was finished with all that, forever. She’d got a job she liked at the local store and had recently even acquired a boyfriend – something she’d once thought an impossibility.
So she bought her tickets and went home. The next morning, she felt ill and her mother told her to stay in bed. The following day, she was worse, and her Mum called the doctor.
‘Flu,’ the nice lady doctor said.
‘It can’t be,’ Lucy wheezed. ‘Not like this,’ – this being a raging temperature, shivering, and a savage headache, not to mention a sore throat and a cough.
‘That’s because it’s real ‘flu,’ the lady doctor told her with a grin, ‘as opposed to man ‘flu’.
She’d feel better in a few days, she said. She gave her ibuprofen for the temperature and pain and an antibiotic to prevent secondary infection.
Lucy did, as the doctor had said, feel better after a couple of days, better enough for a visit from her boyfriend, better still when he stroked her hand and told her he loved her.
But then she got worse again and her mother called the doctor back.
She, the doctor, was wondering whether Lucy had got a secondary infection, despite the antibiotic, when she noticed the rash on her hands.
‘Ever had chickenpox?’ she asked.
‘No,’ her Mum answered for her.
‘Well, you do now.’
‘Chickenpox?’ Lucy echoed, ‘But that’s just a kids’ illness...’
‘So it is,’ the doctor agreed. ‘When you’re just a kid, but when you’re older, it’s worse. Sometimes much worse, like now.’
Over the next few days, the spots covering her arms, face and legs, turned into vesicles, and the doctor was satisfied with her diagnosis. Then they transformed into angry, deep-set pustules and Lucy was suddenly very ill indeed. The doctor went with her and her Mum in the ambulance to hospital.
The consultant took one look at her and put her in isolation.
‘What is it?’ the doctor asked.
He took her to one side. ‘Smallpox,’ he said.
She gaped – ‘It can’t be!’
Nevertheless, that’s what it was. The doctor wanted to know who else lived with her.
Well, her father – and a brother who was away at the moment – oh, and there was a boyfriend on the scene as well…
He’d arrange a trace on the brother and have the father and boyfriend brought in now. Any other patients with these symptoms?
She shook her head, still in a daze.
‘When were you last vaccinated?’ he asked.
‘Never, not for smallpox…’
‘We’ll do that as soon as I’ve arranged to have the others brought in.’
During the day, more cases trickled in. By the next day, it was a torrent. That’s how it started...
Chapter 1
For me, it started a bit earlier than that, thirty-seven days earlier to be exact, when Fenella Mason phoned me late one Tuesday afternoon toward the end of January.
‘Herry,’ she said. ‘I need you to come up to London tomorrow.’
‘I can’t, not tomorrow. I’ve just agreed to cover for someone...’
‘Then I’m afraid you’ll have to uncover. It’s SCRUB.’
‘Can you tell me what it’s –?’
‘Herry, just come,’ she interrupted. ‘If you don’t, I’ll have to ask Roland in your place.’
‘I see,’ I said slowly. ‘What time?’
‘Nine o’ five, at Paddington. There’s a train from Exeter at seven fifteen.’
‘I’ll be there.’
I clicked the phone off and thought for a moment… then took a breath and clicked it on again to call my deputy, Caroline Chambers, at home.
‘I’m very sorry Caroline,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to have to renege on our agreement. About tomorrow.’
‘You can’t,’ she wailed, ‘I’ve just told Annabelle and Toby we could go…’ Her children had been pestering her to take them to a celebrity panto that was sold out, then today, she’d been offered last minute cancellations.
I said as gently as I could, ‘It was on the proviso that so long as nothing really important came up. I’m sorry, but it has.’
Silence, then she said in a small voice, ‘Can’t James do it?’
‘That would be very difficult.’
‘But he owes you, doesn’t he? Would you ask him, please Herry…?’
It was indeed difficult; James West, too, had other plans, but he did owe me, as Caroline had said. Make an enemy to keep a friend. I was still speculating on what could be making me do this when Ellie came in with the last of the day’s reports to check and sign. After that, I logged out and drove home, still wondering…
At the time, I was Medical Director of Public Health at St Mary’s in Exeter; at 35, a rather (some said suspiciously) young director. So pleased had I been to get the job that I’d readily accepted an additional duty, a mere nothing, as my new masters assured me, that of Western Area Head of SCRUB.
‘What is SCRUB?’ you may ask, as indeed I did.
The Smallpox Containment and Reaction Unit.
And the B? Ask Professor Mason, the National Head of SCRUB, which I did, on our first meeting.
‘Bugger all,’ she said crisply. ‘But I thought SCRUB sounded better than SCRU.’ I liked her from that moment.
And SCRUB’s function? In the unlikely event of a biological terror attack using smallpox, we have the first responsibility of containing the disease and preventing an epidemic.
So was this it? Surely not, or Fenella would have intimated it in some way… Wouldn’t she?
Was she retiring, being forcibly retired? She’d already hinted that she wanted me to take over from her when she went...
Yes, that was it – she was retiring and wanted to prepare me for anointment.
Did I want the job? And where did Roland come in?
No, I did not want the job – but I wanted Roland to have it even less. This may seem very dog-in-manger, but as you will see, I had my reasons.
As it turned out, I was wrong in almost every particular.
Fenella was waiting for me at the meeting point at Paddington. You know that’s what it is because a plain black and white notice above it displays the words: Meeting Point.
She silenced me with a frown, then said quietly, ‘We’re due at the Home Office at ten, but I needed a word with you first. A private word.’
She led the way down to the Tube.
She asked me if I’d had a good journey and I said yes. I thought as I looked at her how she probably hadn’t changed in years, certainly not for the time I’d known her: wire framed glasses over grey eyes, short greying hair and an ascetic, unmade up face. Typical scientific spinster you’d have thought, and been wrong. She’d been happily
married until her husband had died a few years earlier, and had two grown-up children. She was in her mid-sixties.
We took the Bakerloo to Charing Cross. She asked me if things were any better now and I said no, not really. In fact, they were worse, and the way she looked at me over her glasses suggested that she already knew.
We didn’t say much after that. I don’t know why, but the Bakerloo always seems both noisier and faster than the other lines; an illusion, I suppose, caused by the narrowness of the tunnels.
We walked down The Mall to St James’ Park and found a bench. Trees loomed in the frigid misty air and only a few walkers and joggers were braving the chill. I’d read somewhere that no one sits down in St James’ Park anymore, because it’s assumed you must be a spook, so I asked her facetiously if she knew what the password was.
She gave me a pained look, then said, ‘There’s something I have to clear up with you. As you know, the powers that be would like to see me gone. I, however, intend on going in my own time, and when I do... Well, I’ve had it in mind for some time that I want you to be my successor.’
I told her then about my own precarious position. We tossed that around for a while. Then she said abruptly,
‘Well, something’s come up that may have a West Country dimension, and I want to name you today as my official executive and deputy.’
‘What’s come up, Fenella?’
She waved a hand. ‘You’ll know soon enough.’
‘Where does Roland come in?’
‘If you don’t want it, I’ll be pressured into giving it to him. In fact, I
already have been.’ She looked at her watch, then back to me. ‘Are you with me in this, Herry?’
She meant, did I trust her?
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good.’ I think she’d expected more resistance. ‘We’d better go.’
She didn’t say any more as we skirted the rock gardens and frozen lake and walked over to Birdcage. The sun penetrated the mist briefly and lit the massive, mottled trunks of the bare plane trees.
Bad Medicine- A Life for a Life; Bed of Nails; Going Viral Page 36