Ken McClure - Resurrection

‘You’ve got to hang in there,’ Dewar encouraged. ‘Think of nice things. What you’re going to do when you get out of here. Sunshine, beaches, swimming pools, Pina Coladas.’

‘I drink Bacardi,’ replied Sharon.

‘All right, Bacardi,’ smiled Dewar. He reached out his hand and smoothed the hair on Sharon’s forehead and felt a warm dampness there. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. ‘Dr Finlay said you wanted to speak to me?’

‘There was no one else I could tell,’ said Sharon. ‘You said I could call on you if there was anything … ‘

‘Of course, Sharon.’

‘It’s Puss.’

‘Did you say, Puss?’

‘My cat. It’s in the flat. It’s not been fed for days. There was no one else I could ask. Could you possibly go along and feed it, maybe? I’d be ever so grateful. I don’t think I’m going to get better for a few days yet.’

Feed the cat? That’s what she wanted to see him about? She wasn’t going to provide the missing link? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he couldn’t believe it. He’d really been up for this. He’d really believed that Sharon had remembered something important, something that might enable him to identify the source of the outbreak and all she’d wanted was someone to feed her cat!’ He took a few moments to compose himself then he swallowed his disappointment and said, ‘Of course, Sharon. Where will I find a key?’

‘The nurses have my clothes. You’ll find my key in the leather jacket, left hand pocket.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ he assured her.

‘Thanks very much,’ said Sharon. ‘I’m really obliged. Will you come back and see me?’

Dewar suddenly saw the fear in her eyes. There was no mistaking it. She was behaving bravely but of all human emotions perhaps fear was the most naked and exposed when it appeared in someone’s eyes. His sense of frustration evaporated.

‘Of course I will,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll tell come back and tell you how Puss is getting on.

Dewar went through the disinfecting procedure with a heavy heart then went in search of a nurse who could help him with Sharon’s key. He found two nurses sitting together in the duty room having a cup of tea. They looked exhausted. Dewar said so.

‘We’ve been working twelve hour shifts since the outbreak started said the elder of the two.

‘And no day off,’ added the other.

‘I guess that’s what angels do,’ smiled Dewar, tongue in cheek. ‘Florence has a lot to answer for.’

‘Florence, my bottom,’ said the older nurse. ‘In my case, the building society insists. What can we do for you?’

Dewar told them about the key.

‘Sharon’s clothes were sent off for disinfection but the contents of her pockets would remain here.’ She got up and went over to a wall cupboard. She swung it open to reveal a number of plastic boxes each with a shallow lair of red fluid in them and a label on the front. She brought down one and said, ‘Here we are.’

Dewar looked into the box and saw some change and a key ring with two keys on it lying in the fluid.

‘Everything gets disinfected,’ said the nurse. She removed the keys and held them under a tap in the sink for a few seconds before drying them in a paper towel and handing them to Dewar.

‘The cat needs feeding,’ explained Dewar.

‘And he called us angels,’ said the younger of the nurses.

Two buzzers went off at the same time sending the two nurses scurrying into action.

Half way to Leith, Dewar started wondering whether there would be cat food in the Hannans’ flat. He decided to play safe and take some with him. Half a mile further on, he stopped at an Asian-owned corner shop that seemed to be a cross between a mini supermarket and Aladdin’s cave and bought four tins of assorted cat food and some dry biscuits. He felt sure if he’d wanted a gas boiler he would simply have been asked, ‘What colour?’

Dewar paid and the proprietor, a plump Indian man with an engaging smile, who offered him a sweet from his own bag he kept by the till. Dewar accepted and popped the striped candy into his mouth. ‘Thanks.’ For some reason the simple kindness made him feel a whole lot better about life.

Jutland Place did not look any better in daylight than it had done in the darkness of his last visit. There was an air of quiet decay about the street that suggested the tenements had outlived their time. Like the sprawling docks nearby, they were an anachronism, a reminder of the time when families were traditionally large, cramped conditions were the norm and unskilled jobs were plentiful. The bulldozers of progress were lurking just to the west, inching ever nearer, just waiting for the chance to clear the way for luxury apartments, waterside bistros and chic galleries, many of which would ironically chronicle in painting what had just been knocked down.

Dewar remembered the unpleasant smell of the common entrance to the building. He recalled thinking last time that it could have done with a good sluice out with disinfectant. This time however, the same thought stopped him in his tracks. He brought his hand to his forehead and cursed his stupidity. ‘What an idiot!’ he berated himself. He had been assuming that the flat had been lying empty since the night he and Sharon Hannan had left it to take her husband, Tommy to hospital but this wasn’t so. The Public Health people would have been here in the interim! They would have carried out a full fumigation of the place immediately after the couple’s admission to the Western General!

Dewar cursed as he saw the implication of just what that meant. The team would have taken the cat away and most likely had it put down. The cat itself couldn’t get smallpox but its fur would have been seen in the same light as contaminated bedding or clothes — a potential vector for spreading the disease. How could he go back and tell Sharon that? A dead pet at a time like this was all she needed!

He looked down at the keys in his hand, feeling stupid and thinking about turning away but at the same time trying to think of some way the cat might have survived. It was just conceivable that the Public Health people had decided to attempt cleaning it up but that would have meant going to a lot of trouble and it would still have left a risk, albeit a small one. On balance, he felt it more likely they had decided to put it down and take no risks at all. They would have put it to sleep and burned the corpse.

On the other hand, he argued with himself, this had happened at an early stage in the outbreak — before any real pressure had been put on the public health service. Hannan was only their second case. They just might have gone for the difficult option. He took out his mobile phone and called the switchboard at the Scottish Office, asking to be patched through to Mary Martin.

Reception on the phone was a bit poor because of the high tenements. He walked slowly towards the corner of the street as he waited for an answer, watching the strength of signal pick up on the meter.

‘Hello Adam. What can I do for you?’ said Mary Martin’s voice.

‘You can confirm my worst fears, Mary. This is going to sound silly, but when your people carried out the decontamination of the Hannans’ place did they have the cat put down?’

‘The cat, did you say?’

‘Yes. Sharon Hannan had a cat.’

‘Hold on.’

Two young boys, kicking a plastic football backwards and forwards between them came past. One spat at regular intervals like he’d seen his heroes do on TV. Perhaps he thought it aided ball control, Dewar thought idly. The other boy, wearing baggy jeans and baseball cap fashionably reversed, looked up at him and saw the mobile phone. ‘Prat!’ he said on the way past.