Ken McClure - Resurrection

‘Maybe it could be made to work in our favour?’ suggested Dewar. ‘We can probably get away with calling it hepatitis for a while, then there’s the social factor on our side too.’

Eyebrows were raised.

‘Nobody gives a damn what happens to drug addicts anyway,’ Dewar explained. ‘There’s a largely unspoken belief among the general public that they’re getting exactly what they deserve. The paparazzi aren’t liable to be queuing up at the door and the hospital won’t be required to post daily bulletins on the gates.’

‘Be that as it may, this is likely to be a very temporary window,’ said Wright. ‘The disease may have started in the drug taking community but it’s unlikely to stay there. Smallpox has no sense of social order; it’s no respector of persons; it’ll kill anybody and everybody.’

‘Then let’s do our best to see that it doesn’t get the chance, gentlemen,’ said Macmillan. With that, the meeting ended.

Dewar lingered for a few minutes outside on the pavement with Hector Wright. ‘What d’you think of the chances of containing it as an isolated case?’ asked Dewar.

‘Nil,’ replied Wright without hesitation. ‘In these circumstances, not a snowball’s chance in hell.’

Dewar drove back slowly to his apartment through drizzly rain. Milk floats were already on the move. There wouldn’t be time to crawl back into bed with Karen and seek a last loving cuddle before the night ended. He wouldn’t be able to accuse her of stealing all the covers in his absence and she wouldn’t get a chance to complain about his cold feet. To his, almost poignant, regret, a new day had already begun.

He had packed his bag and checked the contents of his pockets for the second time before Karen stirred and realised he was up and dressed.

She sat up in bed, looking alarmed. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Smallpox has broken out in Edinburgh. Just one case at the moment. I’m going back.’

‘God, that’s awful, but why you?’

‘They want me to establish the link between the patient and that damned institute.’

‘You mean it’s not obvious? It’s not one of the staff?’

‘It’s some unemployed junkie who lives on the other side of the city from the institute would you believe.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I wish.’ Dewar shook his head and told her about Kelly

‘What a nightmare,’ said Karen.

‘It’s all too easy to draw pictures, isn’t it?’ agreed Dewar.

‘Oh my God, you will be careful, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Dewar assured her. ‘I’ve been vaccinated.’

‘They can’t vaccinate you against a knife in the ribs, or HIV or Hep “C”. Addicts are bad news.

‘I’ll be fine.’ Dewar sat down on the edge of the bed and cuddled Karen tightly, suddenly very conscious of the softness of her hair. ‘I’ll call you later.’

DAY ONE

Dewar had to admit he was impressed with the co-ordination centre at the Scottish Office. It had been designed as a command centre for times of national emergency without being specific over what kind was envisaged. Sited in the basement of the building, not only were conference rooms and communications facilities the best he’d come across, living quarters had been prepared on the floor above for those members of the team who wanted to use them. He was going to be one of them; he put Hector Wright down for a room as well.

He expressed his admiration to the government official who had been showing him around and who was in charge of seeing the team had everything they needed.

‘They’re pulling out all the stops on this one,’ confided the official. ‘They see this affair as a huge potential embarrassment. They want it cleared up as quickly as possible. Between you and me that’s why I suspect they’re not putting politicians in charge.’

Dewar smiled but he could see another reason why politicians were not going to be running the show. They’d be more keen on distancing themselves from it. If and when the public realised that smallpox had returned to stalk the community, the embarrassing question of where it had come from would be raised and the press would not be slow in pointing out that for once, this could not be dismissed as, ‘just one of these things’. Mother Nature would not be conveniently shouldering the blame as she had so often in the past. If smallpox didn’t officially exist any more, it had to have escaped from some laboratory. There would be no way of passing the buck. Britain would be held responsible for reintroducing the disease to the world.

Dewar was told that there would be a meeting of the team at two-thirty in the afternoon. The medics and public health people were currently out doing their thing, and as it was still only ten fifteen, Dewar got settled into his room and called Steven Malloy.

‘I’ve just been talking to a man named, Macmillan,’ said Malloy.

‘Then you know what this is all about. I need your help. How about it?’

‘In the circumstances I can hardly say no,’ said Malloy. ‘But it sounds positively bizarre.’

‘Macmillan told you about Kelly?’

‘An unemployed smack-head living in Muirhouse. It’s crazy.’

‘Crazy, it might be but I just can’t believe it’s any kind of coincidence. There just has to be a connection with what’s been going on at the institute and your lab in particular. Hammadi and Le Grice are both dead so what’s your best guess?

‘There’s still no evidence that anyone at all tried to resurrect smallpox here so how could anyone catch it if it doesn’t exist?’

‘But it does exist,’ said Dewar. ‘A man’s dying from it so, for the moment, let’s work on the assumption that it did come from the institute.’

‘Assuming for the sake of argument that it did,’ said Malloy. ‘I think the first thing we have to work out is how this guy from Muirhouse got his hands on it.’

‘Agreed.’

Malloy came up with the same sort of suggestions that Dewar had made earlier in London about Kelly’s possible employment in some kind of casual way at the institute, cleaner, porter, messenger.

‘It’s going to be difficult to check without being able to ask him personally,’ said Dewar.

’I’ll have a look at what records the institute keeps.’

Dewar told him about the meeting at two thirty. They arranged to meet for lunch first in a pub in Rose Street at Malloy’s suggestion.

Dewar called Grant at police headquarters. Macmillan had already been in touch with him too.

‘I heard last night the shit had hit the fan,’ said Grant. ‘I was half expecting you to call. The division has been put on full alert — ostensibly for possible trouble in the Muirhouse area. For the moment we’re operating a need-to-know policy. Officers selected for duty are being screened discreetly for vaccination history. Only those with recorded smallpox protection are being deployed in the area.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Riding shotgun on the public health people as they go about their business.’

‘Tell me about the area. Bad?’

‘The pits. Officially we wouldn’t admit it but we’ve settled for the status quo . As long the smack-heads stay put we don’t interfere too much.. Some parts of that estate make Bosnia look like Disneyland. If you folks are thinking of appealing to the druggie denizens’ better nature, don’t. It isn’t an option; they don’t have one. They’re either stoned out their heads or doing whatever’s necessary to get the stuff to get themselves stoned out their heads. Nothing else matters. Take my word for it. Don’t ever get yourself in a position where you have to rely on a junkie, don’t believe them and don’t ever trust them. Leave it to the bleeding hearts; they never seem to learn. Bloody place is crawling with initiatives for this and initiatives for that, Euro money, schemes, projects, co-operatives, support groups. Waste of bloody time as far as I’m concerned. Situation’s getting worse every day.’