Ken McClure - Wildcard

‘It was little enough,’ said Steven. ‘Nice meeting you, too.’ They shook hands and Kate left without a backward glance.

‘She’s nice,’ said Caroline.

Steven nodded.

An ambulance drew up outside with a new patient and Steven and Caroline stood to one side to allow the spacesuit-clad attendants to bring the stretcher inside. Caroline made sure the night nurses were aware of the new arrival before following Steven out into the cool night air. ‘Where are you going to eat?’ she asked.

‘I’ll get something at the hotel,’ said Steven. ‘I’m not really that hungry.’

‘I felt that way too after my first shift. You have to eat something. I could do us both an omelette. What d’you say?’

Steven nodded. ‘Sounds good,’ he said, but the truth was that he was more interested in the company than in food; he wasn’t ready to be alone with his thoughts. He followed Caroline’s car through the city streets to the terrace where she had a modern detached house on a newish housing estate. It backed on to the railway, a fact that made itself apparent when a commuter train passed by on an embankment some ten metres above street level.

‘My own train set,’ said Caroline as she fumbled for her keys. ‘Come on in.’

Steven stepped into a warm house where the central heating hummed comfortingly and the living room was quickly transformed into a cosy refuge from the outside world with the switching-on of lights and the closing of curtains. ‘Drink?’ Caroline asked.

‘Gin would be good,’ said Steven.

‘For me, too. Why don’t you fix the drinks and I’ll make a start in the kitchen,’ said Caroline. She pointed to the drinks cabinet and Steven got to work.

‘You live alone, then?’ said Steven when he took Caroline’s drink through to her.

‘I do now,’ replied Caroline. ‘Mark and I parted when he found out I couldn’t have children. We’ve been divorced two years now. He re-married last month. She’s an air stewardess.’

‘I’m sorry,’ replied Steven quietly, slightly taken aback at Caroline’s frankness and not knowing quite what to say.

Caroline took the matter out of his hands. She turned and said, ‘So what’s bugging you?’

He automatically went on the defensive. ‘Nothing,’ he replied evasively. ‘I guess I was just a bit shocked by what I saw down at the church.’

Caroline looked directly at him and said doubtingly, ‘A bit shocked? I was watching you. The man who came out of that church was different from the one who went in.’

Steven took a sip of his drink as a delaying tactic but found that he had no heart to continue sparring. ‘I suppose I found certain things out about myself that I didn’t like,’ he confessed.

‘Then I suggest you get them off your chest before they take up residence,’ she said. ‘That kind of a lodger can make your life a misery.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘I’ve managed to kid myself for years that the reason I never practised medicine as an ordinary doctor was because I needed more excitement in my life. I needed a physical challenge, travel, adventure, any old excuse. Today I found out that it was a lie. I’ve been fooling myself. I was running away from the truth.’

‘Which is?’

Steven found the words hard to come by. After a few moments he said, ‘I don’t think I like people enough to practise medicine the way it should be practised. I don’t think I have it in me to care enough.’

‘You were doing a good job down at St Jude’s; I saw you.’

‘But the feeling wasn’t there.’

‘Do you think the patients would have noticed if the “feeling”, as you call it, had been there?’

Steven shrugged and thought, before saying, ‘I suppose not in a practical sense. I guess most of them were out of it, anyway, but quite frankly I spent most of the time wanting to run out of that place and keep on going.’

‘But you didn’t. And that’s the important thing. You did exactly what the rest of us were doing.’

‘I got through it. That’s different.’

‘That’s what we were probably all doing,’ insisted Caroline.

‘The nurses seemed to take it in their stride.’

‘It’s their profession. They have a professional face.’

‘But so should I.’

‘No,’ countered Caroline. ‘You have a medical degree but you’re an investigator and let me tell you, if you manage to find out where this damned virus is coming from, you’ll have done more good than all the rest of us put together. Horses for courses.’

Steven was unconvinced. He shrugged and finished his drink.

‘Believe me, Steven Dunbar,’ said Caroline, ‘in my time I’ve come across a few cold-fish doctors who lacked any vestige of human concern for the sick, but you are not one of them. A little too self-critical, perhaps, but your heart’s in the right place.’

Steven smiled for the first time and took the empty glass she held out.

‘Let’s have another,’ she said.

Steven wasn’t sure whether it was the gin or Caroline’s words that made him feel more relaxed but he enjoyed his omelette and the Californian white wine that appeared on the table.

‘Can I ask what your plans are now?’ he asked when they moved with their coffee to the fireside.

‘I’m not sure. I know I’m not really supposed to be involved in the outbreak any more but I still feel that I am, if you know what I mean. It was my city, my responsibility. When it’s over I suppose I’ll have to start applying for Public Health jobs somewhere else and start again.’

‘The MP who forced your resignation…’ said Steven.

‘Spicer? What about him?’

‘He’s the “Victor” I’ve been looking for.’

Caroline’s eyes opened wide. ‘You’re kidding!’

Steven shook his head. ‘Nope, he’s the man.’

‘Well, what d’you know? What goes around comes around.’

‘I’m going to see him tomorrow and tackle him about his relationship with Ann Danby.’

‘You still think it was him who gave her the disease?’

‘I’m almost certain,’ Steven said. He told her about the ill-fated expedition to Nepal. ‘I don’t think it was anything to do with altitude sickness,’ he said.

‘But even supposing it really was haemorrhagic fever, how on earth did he manage to become infected with the same filovirus strain as the Heathrow man and the chap up in Scotland?’

‘That’s what I have yet to find out,’ said Steven. ‘And getting Spicer’s co-operation isn’t going to be easy. He’s a politician so he’s bound to try and bluster his way out of trouble. Can I count on you if I need help in fitting the bits into the puzzle?’

‘Of course,’ replied Caroline. ‘If I’m not here I’ll be down at St Jude’s.’

Steven spent a restless night, with visions of the scenes he’d witnessed intruding on his dreams. He was glad when day broke on a grey December morning with a peculiar colouring to the clouds suggesting that there might be more snow on the way. He had plenty of time before his meeting with Spicer, so he had breakfast in the hotel dining room and settled down to read the morning papers before leaving. The Manchester outbreak was still the lead story in all of them as it had been for the last few days. This in itself meant that their editors were now trawling the outer limits for new angles on the story.

‘Only the Beginning’, suggested one, which painted a scene of new plagues arriving almost on a monthly basis from the African continent. Another gave considerable space over to church leaders for their view of things, the wickedness of man ending up carrying the can as usual. Special prayers would be said at churches all over the nation on the following Sunday, the paper announced. More extreme religious views were also accommodated with a report of an obscure sect announcing that the outbreak heralded the end of the world — something they had mistakenly predicted would happen at the dawn of the new millennium. God had decided to go for a slow, lingering death rather than a sudden decisive end, they maintained. ‘In his infinite mercy,’ added Steven under his breath.