Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

Bramley cottage was in darkness when he finally drew up outside it and he thought he saw disappointment on the horizon. He went through the motions however, and walked up the winding path to knock on the door with the heavy brass knocker which, he could see in the light coming from the neighbouring bungalow, was fashioned in the shape of a frog. As he expected, there was no answer but he tried again just to make sure: they might be very early bedders. There was no answer to the second knock but it did however alert the neighbours to his presence and one — a small woman wearing overly large glasses and carpet slippers fashioned as furry rabbits, came out to say, ‘I’m afraid the Elwoods are not at home. David’s been taken ill.’

Steven looked blankly at the woman. ‘David’s been taken ill’ was the last thing he wanted to hear. He wanted to be told that David was down the pub or out playing bingo. He wanted to be told that David had made a complete recovery and was enjoying life to the full. He did not want to hear that David had been taken ill.

‘Did you hear me? I said David’s been taken ill,’ repeated the woman, coming closer and peering up into Steven’s face.

Steven pulled himself together and smiled. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious I hope?’

‘I really can’t say,’ said the woman. ‘Mary said she thought it was something to do with that dratted animal that attacked him. Anyway he’s in hospital and Mary went with him.’

Steven swallowed. This was going from bad to worse. ‘The same hospital as before?’ he asked hoarsely.

The woman shook her head. ‘No, I wanted to send him a card but Mary said she didn’t have an address yet. She said they’d been very good about things and that they were going to make sure that David got the best of medical attention. They told her she could stay with him in what they called their guest suite and it was all going to be at their expense.’ The woman drew even closer and added conspiratorially, ‘Somewhere private, I think.’

‘You don’t know who ‘they’ were by any chance?’ asked Steven.

The woman shook her head and said, ‘Didn’t think to ask. The institute, I suppose. I mean, it was their animal and they should take responsibility for it, don’t you think?’

Steven gave a non-committal nod and said, ‘It must have been very alarming for everyone round here.’

‘I’ll say,’ said the woman. ‘You don’t see men with guns running round your garden every day.’

‘Of course,’ said Steven who had been meaning the escaped animals, ‘I’d forgotten about the soldiers.’

‘Soldiers?’ exclaimed the woman. ‘More like spacemen if you ask me. They scared the living daylights out of me and Sam, I can tell you, creeping round the gardens like that.’

‘Spacemen…’ repeated Steven, struggling to appear normal when even more alarm bells were going off inside his head.

‘You know… these suits they wear… makes ‘em look like spacemen.’

‘I don’t think I do,’ said Steven. ‘Can you describe these suits, Mrs…?’

‘Jackson, Molly Jackson.’ She went on to give a reasonable description of something Steven reluctantly recognised as a bio-hazard suit.

‘It all sounds very exciting,’ he said calmly but his pulse rate had risen markedly. No one had mentioned in the report that the soldiers had been wearing bio-hazard gear… or more importantly, why.

‘Frankly, I think we’ve had enough excitement round here, thank you very much,’ said Molly. ‘I liked it fine the way it was.’

Steven returned to his car and put his head back on the restraint. ‘Sweet Jesus Christ,’ he murmured. ‘What’s going on?’

Charlene Lyndon made an appeal on the early evening news for information about the murder of her dead son. She came across on screen as an unattractive woman in her forties with a weight problem due to bad diet and a make-up problem due to bad taste. Her hair was dyed jet black which contrasted badly with her pallid white skin and painted scarlet lips. Her cheeks were smudged with mascara runs from her tears.

‘Robert was a good boy,’ she said, reading with difficulty from a card in front of her while her T-shirted husband sat beside her like a stuffed toy, the word ‘love’, tattooed on the fingers of his right hand, clearly visible.

‘He was always helping people… He would do anything for anyone… Someone must know something about what happened to him last night… I’m pleading with you… Come forward and tell the police what you know… My son didn’t deserve to die like that… No one deserves to die like that…’ She put down the card and buried her face in her hands.

‘A good boy?’ said Morley when it was over and the Lyndons had been ushered away.

‘They all are to their mothers,’ said Giles. ‘She didn’t see what her little boy and his mates did to Timothy Devon.’

‘You still think Lyndon was part of that?’

‘Lyndon was an ineffectual little prat who couldn’t hold down a job or get a girlfriend. He was a known hunt saboteur who probably didn’t give a shit about animals but found some kind of acceptance — like many of these buggers — in a common cause — basically anything that brings them into conflict with the establishment that’s giving them such a bad time as they see it. He was weakest link material if ever I came across it.’

Morley nodded. ‘So what do we do now, sir?’

‘We wait for the phone to ring and pray we get lucky.’

Thirty minutes after the broadcast went out they got lucky. Morley came into the room. ‘This sounds good. The landlord at the Four Feathers pub in Swaffham thinks he recognised the dead man on the telly as being one of two men drinking in his pub last night. He remembers them arguing.’

‘Bingo! Get your coat.’

Gerald Stanley Morton, the licensee of the Four Feathers pub was a large man without an intellect to match but, in keeping with the undemanding standards of the times, saw his role in helping the police with their inquiries as coming pretty close to stardom and the achievement of celebrity status. Not quite ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here’, more a case of, ‘I’m a Nonentity; get me in front of a Camera,’ as Giles was to put it later. The Press were already in evidence when Giles and Morley arrived.

‘What the fuck are they doing here?’ exclaimed Giles as he caught sight of the scrum.

‘Morton must have called them.’

‘Arsehole!.. Park round the corner.’

Morley parked the unmarked car round the corner from the pub and the two policemen walked back to where Morton was talking to the Press.

‘I’m sorry, gentlemen,’ he was saying. ‘But it would be most inappropriate of me to divulge anything to you at this time without first saying what I have to say to the police. I can however reveal…’

‘Fuck me; the bugger must have heard someone say that on the telly once?’ said Giles as they approached. ‘Prat!’

‘Mr Morton! I’d prefer if you revealed absolutely nothing right now, if you don’t mind,’ said Giles, raising his voice. ‘Police,’ he added, holding up his warrant card. He walked purposefully through the reporters as if pausing weren’t an option and they parted like the Red Sea. ‘Let’s leave press conferences until later, shall we, Mr Morton? Much later.’

Despite his size, Giles ushered Morton inside his pub as if the big man was a schoolgirl being seen over the road. Meanwhile Morley dispersed the reporters by telling them there would be nothing further for them and warning them about obstructing the police in a murder inquiry.

‘Where can we talk?’ asked Giles.

‘Through here,’ said Morton, leading the way through the back.