Ken McClure - Pestilence

“We have to find them first,” said Saracen coming down to earth.

“Can we talk to the boy Edwards?”

“He’s dead,” said Saracen.

“How about the glue sniffers?”

“At the time they hadn’t managed to find out Edwards’ secret but they might have in the interim. It’s our only hope.”

“I’ll get the army to trace them.”

“Let’s do it ourselves,” said Saracen. “The addresses will be in the day book.” Saracen checked the book while MacQuillan brought round the car. They set off for the Maxton estate to be stopped twice en route by the army. They showed their identification and received an apology. It seemed that a growing proportion of Skelmore’s population had taken to doing their shopping by night, using bricks instead of Barclaycards. Looting was rife in the town.

Frith Street was like so many others on the Maxton estate. Walls were daubed with spray paint slogans, ground floor windows were boarded up and gardens grew wild. The whole area breathed resentment and aggression.

“Number seventeen, this is it,” said Saracen. They drew up behind an abandoned Ford Cortina. They assumed it had been abandoned for it had no wheels.

“I was brought up in an area like this,” said MacQuillan quietly. “In Glasgow.”

“A long time ago,” said Saracen.

“A long time ago,” agreed MacQuillan. They got out the car.

“Third floor,” said Saracen as they entered the building. The passage stank of urine, so badly that they were forced to hold their breath as long as possible. Saracen managed it to the second floor landing. They found the door they were looking for and knocked. There was no reply. Saracen rapped again and this time was rewarded with shuffling sounds from within. “What do you want?” rasped an angry female voice.

Saracen said who they were and asked to speak to her son.

“What’s he done?” demanded the woman. “What did he steal? The little bugger I’ll take his bloody life before he’s much older!”

Saracen assured her that her son had done nothing wrong and at this point the woman behind the door was joined by a man wanting to know what was going on. “Two doctors from the General,” said the woman’s voice, “They want to speak to the boy.”

“We don’t want anyone from that place coming here,” growled the man. “Don’t you know what bloody time it is?”

“It’s very important,” said Saracen, stretching self control to the limit. It’s vital that we speak to your son.”

MacQuillan and Saracen exchanged glances while they listened to a whispered argument rage on the other side of the door. The woman won and the door was opened. They were ushered into the living room and the woman went to waken her son while the man went back to bed. MacQuillan sat down on a brown plastic arm chair that listed to one side under his weight. Saracen shooed a cat off the sofa where it had been wrestling with a greasy paper that had earlier held fish and chips.

The woman returned with the boy and picked up the paper. “You do your best to keep the place nice…” she said, baring her teeth in what she felt was a smile.”I sometimes wonder why I bother.”

“Remember me?” Saracen asked the boy. The boy rubbed his eyes and remembered. “Your pal Edwards died tonight I’m afraid.” The boy remained impassive; his mother made appropriate noises.

“You told me that Edwards had found treasure on Palmer’s Green and I didn’t believe you,” said Saracen.

“It was true,” said the boy.

“I know that now,” said Saracen quietly.

“Treasure? What treasure?” squawked the mother. Saracen ignored her and addressed the boy again. “Did you ever find out where Edwards found it?” The boy shook his head but Saracen sensed that he was lying. “A lot of people’s lives depend on it,” he said. “I’m not kidding.”

Saracen could see the boy swither. He swallowed hard and prayed that he would make the right decision.

“Yeah, I know where he got it.”

Saracen closed his eyes and gave thanks. Almost immediately he had to consider that the boy might be infected like Edwards. “So you have been there too?” he asked.

“No, the watchman caught us. We went back last night but there was a bulldozer parked over it.”

“Over what?”

“The entrance to Edwards’ cave.”

“A cave?”

“The treasure cave where Edwards got his stuff.”

“Where exactly is this cave?”

The boy told Saracen and he took notes. “That’s exactly what we wanted to know,” he said, getting to his feet. He smiled at the boy and said. “You might just have saved this whole town.”

The boy’s mother shuffled along behind them to the door. “Excuse me asking,” she said with her bare toothed smile. “I just wondered… will there be any reward attached to this treasure?”

Saracen and MacQuillan returned to find chaos at the General. Military ambulances were blocking the access roads; engines were running and lights blazing while their drivers collected in small groups near the gates. Saracen found Tremaine who told him, “Ward Twenty is full, the County Isolation Unit is full and both the schools are now full. We have nowhere left to put them.”

“Then we stop admitting,” said Saracen.

“That’s what Saithe said but this is awful,” protested Tremaine. “It’s an admission of defeat and you know what will happen if there is no response from the emergency services when they are called out. The minute people find out that they are on their own it will be every man for himself.”

Saracen nodded grimly.

“Surely Beasdale must know that,” said Tremaine.

“Oh I think he does,” said Saracen quietly.

“Then why doesn’t he get new premises for the sick and bring it volunteer help?”

Saracen avoided the question with one of his own. “How many do we have out there in the ambulances?”

“Eighteen. We can’t just send them back,” pleaded Tremaine.

“We’ll bring them in and keep them in reception for the moment,” said Saracen.

“But…”

“It won’t be for long. There will be that many deaths in the next hour but we cannot admit any more.”

“Then you are admitting defeat too?” asked Tremaine.

“I am facing facts,” said Saracen. He took Tremaine to one side and told him that there would be no antiserum and why not. Tremaine’s will to argue all but evaporated and he sat down, obviously feeling weak at the news. “But the whole town will be wiped out,” he said distantly.

“There’s still a chance that it will burn itself out if we can remove the source of the outbreak,” said Saracen.

“But the Archer woman was the source of the outbreak,” said Tremaine.

“No she wasn’t,” said Saracen. “They got it all wrong.” He told Tremaine about the real source of the disease.

“But why has it never happened before?”

“Because the rat colony was never disturbed before,” said Saracen. “It was only when they started to build the flats on Palmer’s Green that they unwittingly opened up access to the rats.

“Skelmoris Abbey,” muttered Tremaine. “All these years.”

“The Curse of Skelmoris,” said Saracen. “It was plague.”

“Didn’t they burn the place to the ground in the story?” asked Tremaine.

“I suppose the rats survived in the underground cellars and passages,” said Saracen.

“What are you going to do?” asked Tremaine.

“Find the colony and wipe them out.”

“Claire might be able to help there,” said Tremaine. “She has plans of what the abbey was supposed to have looked like.”

Saracen agreed that that could prove invaluable when the time was right.

MacQuillan returned from contacting Beasdale and he and Saracen drove back down to Palmer’s Green. “What did he say when you told him?” asked Saracen.