Wildcard (14 page)

Vance leaned forward in his seat, all trace of good humour gone from his face. ‘You use your initiative, Paul, that’s what you do. I fucking well pay you enough!’

Manchester

The first snow of the winter fell on Manchester. It quickly turned to brown slush on the city streets, but the parks and gardens managed to hold on to their blanket of white long enough for Steven to see the irony of a white coat being worn by such a black day. Twelve new admissions were made to City General, thankfully all of them known contacts, while three more people in Perth went down with the disease, again, known contacts of the dead man, McDougal.

Jack Cane avoided eye contact with anyone when he admitted quietly at the morning meeting that no connection between the Manchester and the Scottish outbreaks had been established, nor was one likely to be. His team had worked all day and right through the night with their opposite numbers in Scotland, but had failed to find a link.

‘The damned thing seems to have come out of the blue,’ said a weary-looking Cane.

Steven took no pleasure in seeing that all Cane’s self-confidence had disappeared and he seemed a broken man.

Cane’s comment heralded thirty seconds of silence, before George Byars said, ‘So it seems fair to say things aren’t looking too good this morning.’

‘One of my nurses in the special unit reported sick this morning,’ said Miss Christie. ‘I think it’s serious. She sustained a needlestick injury last week while changing a saline drip. The patient was only semi-conscious at the time: he moved at the wrong moment and the needle went right through her suit into her arm.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Byars quietly. The others also murmured muted words of sympathy as if suddenly and painfully aware of how helpless they all were against the virus.

‘This is bound to affect morale among the nurses,’ said Miss Christie. ‘Protective clothing is all well and good in a laboratory, where the virus sits obediently in a glass test tube, but when the reservoir is a delirious patient with flailing arms and blood and vomit leaking out of him, that is a completely different situation.’

‘I don’t think we can speak highly enough of your nurses, Miss Christie,’ said Byars. ‘And I am only too aware that the medical staff in this situation are largely redundant. The nurses are the only factor standing between the patients and death. Please make sure that they are aware of our high regard for them, and pass on our thanks.’

Miss Christie nodded and said that she would.

‘The papers aren’t exactly helping when it comes to morale,’ said one of Cane’s team. ‘Have you seen the latest?’ He held up a front page that said, ‘Killer Virus Stalks City’. ‘Talk about scaremongering.’

‘People are beginning to panic,’ said Morely. ‘You can feel it in the air. Fear is breeding anger, and they’re looking for someone to blame.’

‘Perhaps an appeal for calm?’ suggested one of the senior nurses. ‘Local radio and television?’

‘You’d be as well holding up a big sign that says, “Panic!”’ said Caroline Anderson. ‘People tend not to pay attention to that sort of thing any more. They’ve been conned too often in the past.’

‘And what has the good Dr Dunbar come up with this morning, might I ask?’ said Cane.

‘Almost as little as you and your team, Professor,’ replied Steven, but he was pleased to see that Cane still had some fight left in him. ‘But I do have a lead that I’m following up, for the Manchester outbreak at least.’

Cane swallowed and seemed embarrassed at the revelation. ‘Are you going to share this with us, or do Sci-Med investigators prefer the Lone Ranger approach?’

‘Whatever gets the job done, Professor,’ replied Steven evenly. ‘Ann Danby had a boyfriend. I’m currently trying to find out who he was.’

Cane looked at the other members of his team, who shook their heads in unison. ‘My people seem to disagree,’ he said. ‘That’s an avenue we’ve already explored thoroughly.’

‘She kept it pretty much a secret but she did have one,’ insisted Steven. ‘I can even tell you his name; it’s Victor. He’s almost certainly married and has a high-profile job here in Manchester.’

‘But you’re the only one who knows about this Victor,’ said Cane with a barely disguised sneer in his voice.

‘No, I think a couple of other people do,’ replied Steven evenly. ‘It’s just a question of persuading them to confide in me.’

Caroline Anderson looked at Steven wide-eyed, as if suddenly realising why she had been asked to put pressure on Pelota. Steven acknowledged her look with a slight shrug and a raising of his eyebrows.

‘And are you proposing that this man gave the disease to Miss Danby, Doctor?’ asked Cane.

‘I think it’s entirely possible. I can’t say more than that.’

‘Then I’m sure we’ll all await developments with bated breath,’ said Cane.

‘As it appears to be the only lead we have, I wish you luck, Doctor,’ said Byars. There was a murmur of agreement from all the others except Cane and his people, who had gone into a huddle to murmur among themselves. ‘Might I remind everyone,’ continued Byars, ‘that we are all in this together. There is absolutely no room for petty feuds and academic jealousies.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Cane, who obviously knew that the implied criticism had been levelled at him.

‘We must keep our nerve and pull together if we are to defeat this thing,’ said Byars.

‘I’m afraid that matters may be taken out of all our hands in the next few days,’ said Sinclair, speaking for the first time that morning. ‘My masters tell me that a government crisis-management team is being put together as we speak. If things don’t improve by the weekend in terms of case numbers, they’ll be brought in to take over control. There’s also talk of asking the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, for help.’

‘You’re bringing in the Americans? That’s going over the top, don’t you think?’ complained Cane.

Sinclair gave his practised diplomatic smile and said, ‘I don’t think I’m giving away any secrets in telling you that HMG does not want to be seen dragging its heels in this affair.’

‘So they’ve come up with a grand gesture?’ said Cane.

‘CDC Atlanta have more experience than anyone else in handling outbreaks of these African viruses,’ countered Sinclair.

Caroline Anderson collared Steven when the meeting broke up. ‘So that’s why you asked for the harassment of a law-abiding citizen,’ she said.

‘Ann Danby had dinner at his restaurant with the elusive Victor the week before she died,’ explained Steven. ‘Pelota knows who he is but refuses to tell me. Have your people been to see him yet?’

‘Yes,’ replied Caroline. ‘He wasn’t at all amused.’

‘Good,’ said Steven. ‘What worries me most right now is the possibility that Victor is a healthy carrier of the disease and doesn’t even know it.’

‘That
would
be the stuff of nightmares, all right,’ agreed Caroline, ‘but carrier status has never been shown for filoviruses.’

‘I’m clinging to that straw too,’ said Steven. ‘But that would mean either that he was incubating the disease when he gave it to Ann – in which case why hasn’t he turned up as a patient? – or that he was recovering from it and didn’t even know he’d had it, which sounds equally unlikely.’

‘Beats me,’ said Caroline.

‘Let’s rattle Pelota’s cage a bit more,’ said Steven.

Things had not improved by the weekend: in fact, they had got worse. Thirty new cases had been admitted to City General between Thursday and Sunday, stretching the nursing staff and ward facilities to breaking point. The only comfort was that all the new cases were contacts of known cases; there were no new wildcards. The depressing thing from Caroline Anderson’s point of view was that three of the new cases were contacts of the girl who had broken quarantine to go to the disco.

The government crisis-management team arrived on Saturday, as did an ‘advisory’ team from CDC Atlanta – two virologists and an epidemiologist. Steven decided to stay out of what he thought might be a recipe for internecine strife but was pleased to see that one of the crisis-management team was Fred Cummings. He arranged to meet him at his hotel on Sunday evening.

By Sunday, the newspapers had decided to upgrade the outbreak to epidemic status. They ignored the official figures required for such an accolade, but no one argued too much. People were dying, so what you called it was irrelevant. Five had died in the last two days and eleven more were on the critical list. Politicians had now decided that the press attention being focused on Manchester merited their presence, and fluttered northwards like moths to a flame to voice their opinions to a frightened public. While government ministers praised the relevant local authorities, opposition spokesmen accused them of bungling ineptitude and cover-ups.

Steven was watching a regional news bulletin on TV in his hotel room before leaving to meet Fred Cummings when a debate between a Labour health minister and a Manchester Conservative MP, introduced as the ‘shadow spokesman on health matters’, became very heated. The Labour man maintained that the outbreak had been handled in textbook fashion from the outset. The Conservative asserted that he had ‘proof positive’ that it had not, and that the spread of the disease could be blamed fairly and squarely on the shortcomings of the Public Health Service in the city.

When challenged, he started to relate the story of the disco girl. Steven closed his eyes in dread.

‘How could a girl who was suffering from the early stages of a killer disease, and whom the authorities had already listed as a known contact, very much at risk of contracting the disease, be allowed to visit a crowded city disco?’ the MP wanted to know. ‘And afterwards, what steps did the authorities take to warn the people at risk in the disco? None, absolutely none.’

The government man was forced on to the defensive, claiming weakly that he was ‘unable to speak about individual cases’.

The exchange gave Steven a bad feeling; this would be a natural story for the papers to pick up on in the morning and if that happened Caroline Anderson was going to be very vulnerable.

Fred Cummings was wearing one of his usual loud sports jackets when Steven found him in the bar of his hotel. He was also wearing a bright-blue tie with horizontal yellow stripes. Steven wondered for a moment if the man was colour blind but changed this to a positive thought – it made him easy to find in a crowded bar.

‘So it’s the streets of Manchester, not London,’ said Steven by way of greeting.

‘I take no comfort from that,’ said Cummings, getting up to shake Steven’s hand. ‘I thought your involvement in this was over.’

Steven explained that he had been reassigned to investigate the source of the outbreak.

‘Some guys get all the good jobs,’ said Cummings. ‘Heathrow, Manchester and now Scotland, and not even the suggestion of a link anywhere, as I understand it.’

‘About sums it up,’ agreed Steven.

‘Makes you think,’ said Cummings, looking thoughtful.

‘Makes you think what?’

‘Terrorism,’ said Cummings.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Three unconnected outbreaks of a previously unknown virus with a high mortality rate? It’s got to be a possibility, don’t you think?’

‘Frankly, I didn’t even consider it,’ admitted Steven. ‘But now that you’ve made me, you’re right, it is a possibility, albeit a remote one in view of them using individuals as prime targets – a London civil servant, a Manchester computer expert and a Scottish bank manager.’

‘Good thinking, Dunbar,’ conceded Cummings. ‘Just testing. So, give me the low-down on the game and the players.’

Steven filled Cummings in on the management team handling the outbreak so far, and gave his frank opinion of those involved. His conclusion was that he thought the whole thing had been handled well by people who knew what they were doing.

‘Who’s been in charge of epidemiology?’ asked Cummings.

‘Professor Jack Cane.’

‘Sourpuss Cane? Always looks as if someone has put vinegar in his tea?’

‘I’ve certainly not seen him smile much,’ agreed Steven. ‘But then he resents my involvement.’

‘That sounds like Jack: everything gets done by the book. He is to imagination what Tony Blair is to socialism, a complete bloody stranger.’

Steven laughed. ‘I take it you don’t rate him,’ he said.

‘The guy who was bottom of the class at medical school has to end up working somewhere,’ said Cummings.

‘He’s got a chair,’ Steven pointed out.

‘He married the vice-chancellor’s daughter,’ countered Cummings. ‘A woman with no dress sense, if I remember correctly.’

Steven almost choked on his drink.

‘Still, mustn’t speak ill of the brain-dead,’ said Cummings, getting up to fetch more drinks. When he came back, he asked, ‘How about the Public Health woman, Anderson?’

‘She’s very good but I’m worried about her,’ replied Steven. ‘Unlike your friend Cane, she doesn’t always play it by the book. She dared to use common sense at one stage and I think she’s about to pay dearly for it.’ He told Cummings about Caroline’s decision not to publicise the girl’s visit to the disco and about the television news earlier.

‘Doesn’t look good,’ said Cummings. ‘The gods might well demand a sacrifice.’

And so it proved on Monday. The papers, as Steven had feared, couldn’t resist making Caroline Anderson a scapegoat. She was blamed for the spread of the disease in the city through her lack of ‘decisive action at a crucial time’, as one of them put it. ‘Public Health Chief’s Blunder Threatens City’, crowed another. Caroline was forced to resign by three in the afternoon.

Steven called her to say how sorry he was.

‘They didn’t listen to a word I said,’ she complained, obviously bemused by the rapidity of events. ‘They’d all made up their minds before they even saw me.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s much help right now, but you made the right decision,’ said Steven.

‘Thanks, but I get the impression people are trying to avoid me this afternoon.’

‘Embarrassment,’ said Steven. ‘They don’t know what to say.’

Steven had scarcely put down the phone when it rang. ‘All right, you win, Dunbar,’ said a voice he didn’t recognise.