Ken McClure - Lost causes

‘I think a full-blown cholera epidemic might just about fulfil that criterion, Prime Minister,’ said the government’s chief medical adviser.

‘Then please God it doesn’t come to that.’

Steven felt a hollow take shape in his stomach when he heard a number of people around the table say, ‘Amen.’

‘Exciting times,’ a voice at Steven’s shoulder said as he descended the stairs to leave the Cabinet Office. He turned to find Norman Travis there. ‘I don’t think we’ve met officially.’ The two men shook hands.

‘The kind of excitement I think we could all do without,’ said Steven. ‘On the bright side, you folks in the health department seem pretty much on the ball.’

‘Nice of you to say so, but we’ve been lucky so far. Having a pharmaceutical company come up with large stocks of cholera vaccine was a big plus. I just hope the Third World understands when we commandeer them.’

‘I just hope we’re all around to hear their complaints if they don’t,’ said Steven.

‘You sound like a glass-half-empty man.’

‘I’m a realist,’ said Steven. ‘Cholera epidemics are practically impossible to contain when they occur naturally, but when we’ve got people deliberately contaminating our water supplies and the possibility that the bug’s been genetically altered to make it even more lethal…’

‘I take your point,’ said Travis with a sigh as they reached the doors. ‘We should get some lab results tomorrow, then maybe we’ll see what we’re up against.’

Steven took a taxi over to John Macmillan’s place to bring him up to speed with what was going on. Macmillan was looking tired, his head resting on the back of his chair as he listened to what Steven had to say, his eyes closing for ten seconds or more at a time.

‘Are you feeling up to this, John?’ Steven asked. ‘You seem very tired.’

Macmillan snorted then smiled as he again closed his eyes. ‘Maybe confronting the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune for so many years is finally catching up with me, Steven,’ he said.

‘I need you to suffer them a bit longer, John. Whether it’s nobler in the mind or not, I’m going to need your input on everything as this unfolds.’

Macmillan turned his head to look directly at Steven as if seeing some steely quality in him he hadn’t seen before. ‘Understood,’ he said quietly. ‘After all, I seem to remember lecturing you rather a lot in recent times about where your duty lay…’

‘Damn right you did.’

‘Fire away.’

When he’d finished, Macmillan still sat with his eyes closed but this time it was different; an intermittent twitch in his cheek muscle told Steven Macmillan was thinking, not snoozing.

‘How many dead?’ he asked at last.

‘Fifty-four as of this morning.’

‘And they would be mainly elderly or very young, along with a number who were immuno-compromised in some way — on steroids or anti-rejection drugs, for instance. Am I right?’

‘I haven’t seen the breakdown figures yet. Jean should have them when I get back to the Home Office.’

Macmillan continued to think out loud. ‘Fifty-four… fifty four… out of… You know, it’s my bet the genes controlling the enterotoxin haven’t been tampered with,’ said Macmillan. ‘Otherwise there would be more.’

‘Fifty-four’s bad enough.’

‘We must think dispassionately. We’re not the newspapers. We’re not here to throw fuel on an emotional fire.’

Steven accepted the slap on the wrist.

‘Incubation period was a bit short: I would have expected longer,’ Sir John continued.

‘You sound as if you’ve come across cholera before.’

Macmillan nodded. ‘I was a young man working for HMG in the Middle East in the early seventies. I saw the tail end of a cholera epidemic that had started in Indonesia in 1961 and crossed several continents. Bloody horrible disease, turns your whole world into a pit of filth and squalor. If it gets a grip here… God help us all.’

‘How was Sir John?’ Jean Roberts asked when Steven got back.

‘A bit tired but sharp as a tack,’ Steven reported. ‘He got caught up in a cholera epidemic in the days of his youth so his input is going to be valuable. He was asking about the fatalities. Do we have any details yet?’

‘They’re on your desk. Oh, and Lukas Neubauer phoned. Asked you to call him back.’

Lukas Neubauer was the director of biological sciences at the laboratories of Lundborg International, the private analytical service that Sci-Med used for scientific analyses when the occasion arose. It had been a long and happy association. Steven liked and respected the man, as he did anyone who was extremely good at their job. Lukas had proved himself to be the best on many occasions in the past.

‘What’s up, Lukas?’

‘Thought you might like an unofficial update on the cholera strain.’

‘Absolutely. How did you manage that?’

‘I have a friend at Colindale.’

‘Colindale?’ exclaimed Steven. ‘I thought Porton would be carrying out the analysis.’ Porton Down was the government microbiological research establishment.

‘I guess the enteric expertise at Colindale won the day,’ said Lukas. He was referring to the Health Protection Agency Centre for Infections, a series of seventeen reference and support labs situated in North London. ‘Or maybe they’re both doing it. Anyway, the news is that the bug is sensitive to the usual antibiotics. It hasn’t been made resistant. They’re proceeding on the premise that it hasn’t been genetically altered.’

Steven breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That’s the first good news I’ve had in days.’

He started reading down the list of the people who’d died from cholera so far. Macmillan had been right. The most vulnerable had been the over sixties and a number of babies under a year old who’d failed to survive the effects of dehydration. There were also twelve people who had been taking steroids for a number of reasons and a kidney transplant recipient who had been on immuno-suppressive drugs to prevent rejection of the donor organ.

Steven got back to his flat a little after eight thirty after having had something to eat at his favourite Chinese restaurant, the Jade Garden, where, as always, he’d been warmly welcomed by the owner, Chen Feng, and given an update on how her family were all doing. She knew Steven was a doctor — she’d picked up on it the first time he’d used his credit card — but nothing about who he worked for or what he actually did. She would, however, on occasion probe for medical information or advice relative to family circumstances. Tonight, understandably, she had wanted to know how they could avoid getting cholera.

Steven, who’d phoned his own daughter earlier to apologise for not having managed to get up to see her for the past few weeks, had faced much the same kind of questioning from his sister-in-law Sue. He’d done his best to reassure her that living in a small village a long way away from the only city under attack in Scotland was the best defence she could have. He couldn’t do the same for Chen Feng, however: her family all lived in London. Searching for something positive to say, he’d pointed out that she and her family, being in the restaurant trade, knew all about good hygiene practice and that was vitally important in guarding against the disease.

When he got in, Steven called Tally to talk about their respective days. He began with the news he’d got from Lukas.

‘Thank God for that,’ said Tally. ‘You know, I’m also genuinely surprised. For some reason I felt sure they were going to discover the bug had been tampered with.’

‘We deserve a break,’ said Steven. ‘And God knows it’s a hellish enough disease without that.’