Ken McClure - The Lazarus Strain

‘Good call from your men,’ said Steven to Giles. ‘Three dead and they all look like virus victims. We should let forensics do their business before we touch anything. When they’re finished, the biohazard boys can wrap the bodies for removal and clear and disinfect the site. You’ll have to warn the police pathologist about the danger at post-mortem.’

‘I’ll tell Marge,’ said Giles.

When he heard the name, Steven remembered that he’d met her before and that she’d been right — they were all a long way from Walton’s Mountain.

By three in the afternoon, the dead men had all been identified from ID found in the flat. They were Abu Zahid (24), Nasser Qatada (23) and Ahmed Mohammed (23). A preliminary investigation established that they appeared to have no connection with anyone else in the city but all three had relations living in Leicester.

‘How did you get on?’ Giles asked Morley when he came back from leading the team interviewing the neighbours. ‘Let me guess. Quiet, respectable chaps who kept themselves very much to themselves?’

‘Incredible. You could give Paul Daniels a run for his money, sir,’ said Morley.

‘The point is,’ said Giles, ‘Was one of them “Ali”?’

‘Maybe we could try out Shanks with a photograph of the bodies?’ suggested Morley.

‘A good thought; do that, will you?’

‘I didn’t draw a complete blank with the neighbours,’ said Morley. ‘One of them told me that the dead men had a vehicle, an old Land Rover, he said. The kind farmers use. He thinks they kept it in a lock-up round the back in Granary Lane. Uniform are on it right now.’

‘Well done. Warn forensics and tell them to give it a right going over. They’re looking for anything that will connect the vehicle to the Robert Smith murder.’

Steven returned to his hotel and called Macmillan to tell him of the day’s events.

‘God, it’s like a nightmare unfolding before our eyes,’ said Macmillan. ‘Did you find any indication of what they were up to in the flat?’

‘No,’ said Steven. ‘But it wasn’t being used as a lab if that’s what you were getting at.’

‘It was,’ agreed Macmillan. ‘So on the face of it we have three dead men of possibly Middle Eastern origin with Cambodia 5 being the likely cause of death but with no indication as to how they got it?’

‘That’s about it at the moment but stay tuned, as they say,’ said Steven.

‘Wild horses, etc,’ said Macmillan.

Three hours later, as Steven was preparing to drive over to the city mortuary to check on progress of the post-mortem examinations of the men, he got a call from Colonel Rose at the Defence Intelligence Service.

‘They’re on our list,’ said Rose. ‘All three of them.’

‘You have the better of me, Colonel,’ said Steven. ‘What list?’

‘Suspected al-Qaeda associates. The three dead men are all English, born in Leicester, but they got sucked into the Muslim fundamentalist movement by persuasive clerics working the Midlands. All three have recently been ‘on holiday’ to Pakistan but it’s odds on they spent time at what we like to call, “Butlin’s, Kabul” — Mujahadeen training camps in Afghanistan.’

‘So now we have a definite al-Qaeda connection.’

‘’Fraid so,’ said Rose. ‘Albeit a low level one as far as these three were concerned. They’re puppets. It’s who’s pulling the strings we have to worry about.’

‘And what kind of show they’re planning to put on,’ murmured Steven. ‘Thanks Colonel.’

‘Well, John Boy, weren’t we lucky it was only flu that you and Sci-Med were worried about?’ said Marjorie Ryman sarcastically as Steven, gowned and masked, entered the post-mortem room. Frank Giles was already there.

‘Just doing my job, Elizabeth,’ said Steven although he was stung by the comment. Ryman was another of the people he had had to be circumspect with at the outset.

Ryman continued to work without saying anything for fully a minute although the sound of instruments she tossed into the metal tray beside her acted as punctuation marks in a silence that spoke eloquently of her displeasure. Eventually, she looked up at Steven and said, ‘This man’s airways were so full of bloody mucous that he actually drowned in it. That’s how he died…’

The stare continued and Steven was prompted to say, ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘Thank you, Doctor?’ exclaimed Ryman. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What would you like me to say?’ said Steven evenly.

‘I would like you to tell me why his airways are so full of bloody mucous, Doctor,’ said Ryman.

‘Influenza,’ said Steven. ‘I wasn’t lying. It really is flu.’

‘But not as we know it, Captain?’ suggested Ryman acidly.

‘It’s a strain called Cambodia 5,’ said Steven. ‘It’s a genetically engineered variant of an avian flu virus found in Cambodia last year and is very similar to the pandemic strain of 1918. Professor Devon of the Crick Institute was asked by government to design a vaccine against it because the World Health Organisation thinks that such a strain will evolve naturally in the very near future.’

‘Well, thank you for that, Doctor,’ said Ryman. She turned to Giles. ‘Now I can tell you , Inspector, that this man almost certainly died of Cambodia 5 virus infection although lab tests — which I suspect will not be performed in the circumstances — would be needed to confirm that conclusion.’

‘And the other two as well?’ asked Giles.

‘No,’ said Ryman. ‘They were murdered.’

Giles and Steven looked at each other, stunned and equally taken aback. ‘Murdered?’

‘Both were suffering from the same disease as the man who drowned in his own mucosal secretions and probably would have died anyway judging by the state of their lungs and airways, but this obviously wasn’t quick enough for the person who decided to help them on their way. They were both asphyxiated.’

‘Shit,’ murmured Giles.

‘I guess they became surplus to requirements,’ said Steven.

‘Whose requirements?’ asked Ryman.

‘We don’t know that yet,’ said Steven. It drew a doubting look from Ryman but she carried on with her work.

Steven and Giles left the mortuary together. It was already dark and frost was making the pavements sparkle under the street lights. ‘Anything back from forensics?’ Steven asked.

Giles shook his head. ‘They’re still working on the Land Rover although they did find three empty petrol cans in the back. It’s almost certainly the vehicle used in the murder of Robert Smith.’

‘So the three dead men were the murderers?’ said Steven. ‘It was three men your witness saw, wasn’t it?’

‘Yep, three, the woman was absolutely certain about that.’

‘Which now leaves us looking for at least a fourth,’ said Steven.

‘What was all this John Boy — Elizabeth stuff about?’ asked Giles.

‘Just an ongoing joke about real life versus Waltons’ Mountain,’ said Steven. ‘Dr Ryman has noted significant differences.’

‘She’s not alone,’ said Giles. ‘So how come these guys got infected with Cambodia 5?’

‘That’s something I’d like to know too,’ said Steven. ‘They must have come into contact with the missing monkey or with biological material obtained from it.’

‘Now there’s an unhappy thought,’ murmured Giles. His phone rang: it was Mark Morley. After a brief conversation he snapped it shut and said to Steven, ‘Shanks didn’t recognise any of the three men as being Ali.’

‘So Ali could be their killer,’ said Steven.

‘Strikes me that Ali is running the show,’ said Giles. His phone rang again. ‘Yes sir…. I think you can… Well, the neighbours saw what was going on anyway… yes sir, as you say, best to quash any wild rumours in the bud… no sir, no harm at all in suggesting that… Good bye, sir.