Ken McClure - Wildcard

Even in her pain, Karen was thinking. ‘How can you be sure,’ she asked, ‘if there was only… bones and ash?’

‘I know,’ agreed Steven. ‘It will take DNA profiling to be absolutely certain, but all the circumstances point to it being Peter and Amy.’

‘I don’t understand any of this. How could they possibly get the virus? And why would anyone want to keep it a secret and cover it up?’

‘I think Lehman Genomics can tell us that,’ replied Steven softly. ‘In fact, I think they can tell us how everyone got the virus.’

‘That bastard, Paul Grossart!’ exploded Karen. ‘He knew all along what had happened to them! And he let us go on thinking…’

‘In the long run he’ll answer for it,’ said Steven. ‘I promise.’

Karen and Ian were persuaded to stay overnight in Caernarfon and drive back to Scotland the following day. Their original instinct had been to leave for home immediately, but Runcie persuaded them that neither was in a fit state to undertake a long drive; they should wait until morning. Besides, the police would probably need a word with them before they left.

Steven had turned his phone off while he spoke to Karen and Ian. As soon as he switched it back on, Sci-Med rang to tell him that Mair Jones was due in on a flight from Palma to Manchester Airport at ten-thirty that evening. Did he want to speak to her? After the day he’d had, Steven thought that was probably the last thing he wanted to do. Her importance in the affair had diminished since the appearance of Karen Doig and Ian Patterson on the scene but, because so many people had gone to so much trouble, he said that he would be at the airport. He took the opportunity to check that Sci-Med had passed on his request about the heart valve to Porton.

‘The analysis is already under way. They’d actually decided to do some sequencing on the valve before you asked so you’ll get the result sooner than expected. They say they’ll run a homology search on it as soon as they have enough sequence data to feed into the computer.’

‘That’s exactly what I was going to ask them to do,’ said Steven.

The flight from Majorca was only a few minutes late. Mair Jones, a small woman with sharp eyes and jet-black dyed hair, was escorted to the interview room, while the police took care of retrieving her baggage.

‘Well, I’ve certainly had my fifteen minutes of fame,’ she said in a strong Welsh accent. ‘Who are you when you’re at home?’

Steven told her, and showed his ID. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Pissed off,’ she replied, missing the point of the question. ‘Wouldn’t you be if two British policemen turned up at your hotel in the early hours and suggested you accompany them home without giving any reason?’

‘You’ve no idea what this is about?’ asked Steven, disbelief showing in his voice.

‘I suppose it’s something to do with poor Maureen and the job we did?’

Steven nodded and said, ‘Yesterday, we had no idea how Maureen Williams contracted the virus, but then I spoke to her husband and he told me about the nursing assignment and your involvement. Maureen was in no position to tell us what we needed to know. That left you.’

‘Poor Mo,’ said Mair. ‘I suppose I panicked and ran off to the sunshine in case I was going to get it too.’

‘You could have taken it with you,’ Steven pointed out.

Mair Jones held up her hands and said, ‘All right, I know, I know, but I just had to get away. What happens now?’

‘I need to ask you some questions.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Who your patients were, what happened to them, and who paid you to look after them in the first place.’

‘We were paid in cash up front,’ said Mair, confirming what Williams had said. ‘Our patients were a man and a woman in their early thirties, Peter and Amy — we weren’t told their surnames, just that they had been diagnosed as having an extremely rare but very contagious viral infection. They were already pretty ill by the time we arrived at Capel Curig.’

‘What happened to them?’

Mair sighed and looked down at her feet. ‘They died,’ she said softly. ‘Mo and I did our best, but all to no avail, I’m afraid.’

‘Then what?’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘What happened to them?’

‘Their bodies, you mean?’ exclaimed Mair, as if it were an improper question. ‘I really don’t know. Our job was over, so we were driven back to Bangor, and that was the end of it as far as we were concerned.’

Steven said, ‘Peter’s wife and Amy’s husband turned up this morning, so I was able to piece together quite a lot of what has been going on. They’d come to Wales to look for them.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Mair. ‘We had no idea. I suppose we assumed that they were married to each other. One of the Americans told us they were scientists who had infected themselves through their research work. We weren’t allowed to ask questions.’

‘Peter had a baby daughter,’ said Steven.

‘Poor love,’ murmured Mair. ‘We just never thought — not that there was much we could have done, mind you.’ After a few moments of silent contemplation, she asked, ‘Are you arresting me?’

Steven shook his head and said, ‘No. Private nursing’s not a crime, even though you and your friend may have been mixed up in something criminal.’

‘Does that mean I can go?’

‘Subject to surveillance by the Public Health people,’ said Steven.

‘I don’t have to give the money back?’

‘No, you earned it.’

Mair smiled ruefully. ‘Considering what’s happened to Mo,’ she said, ‘I think maybe I did.’

Steven decided to stay overnight in Manchester, because he suspected that he would be heading north in the morning to tackle Lehman Genomics and fit the last remaining piece into the puzzle. The Snowball project was the key to the whole outbreak, and the introduction of a new virus into the public domain had been part of it. There was just one more piece of information he needed before going to Lehman, and that was the report from Porton. He had a bet with himself that it was going to explain how so many human heart valves could have been contaminated with the same virus. He would hold off going north until he knew but, whatever the details, Lehman was going to be hounded out of business for what it had done, and Paul Grossart, as head of the company, was going to go to prison for a long time. With a bit of luck, the evidence would sustain a murder charge.

Steven was shaving when his mobile rang. His heart leaped: it might be the Porton result.

Instead, Charles Runcie asked, ‘You haven’t heard from Karen Doig at all, have you?’

‘No. What’s happened?’

‘Ian Patterson has just phoned me. Apparently, she disappeared from their hotel some time during the night and she’s taken his car.’

Steven closed his eyes and groaned, ‘Hell’s teeth, that’s all we need.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s my bet she’s gone north,’ said Steven. ‘She wants to get to Paul Grossart before the police do.’

‘Good God, I never thought of that.’

‘No reason why you should, Doctor.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I’ll catch a plane up there and hope I get to Grossart first. I don’t suppose Patterson had any idea when she left?’

‘Don’t think so. He just said she wasn’t there when he went down for breakfast and his car was gone.’

Steven called Sci-Med and told them what was going on.

‘Do you want us to contact the Edinburgh police?’

‘No,’ said Steven after a moment’s thought. He didn’t want Grossart spooked by the police turning up on his doorstep. ‘Is Macmillan there?’