Going Viral (18 page)

‘But she’d already risked him, hadn’t she? Just by being here…’

‘I suppose so.’ She sighed. ‘We’ll have to wait and see what SOC come up with, I suppose. And the PMs.’

I looked at her. ‘You think they were murdered?’

She nodded slowly. I went on, ‘In that case… are you saying you still think there’s a risk of a smallpox outbreak?’

‘Don’t you?’

I thought about it...

If someone was still out there with the virus, then… ‘Yes,’ I said.

I stayed while the bodies were bagged up and taken away, then bombed out the flat. Rebecca and Greg helped me seal up the windows, then I set up the vessels, one in the living room and one in the hall. I ran cables from them and the mains, to the platform outside. Greg had made a hole in the door big enough to get them through.

When all was ready, I poured two Winchesters into each vessel then, almost coughing my guts up, ran outside. Once Greg had sealed the door and the hole, I connected up the cables.

‘How long will it take?’ Rebecca asked.

I was still taking deep breaths to try and flush the formaldehyde away… at last – ‘At least two hours altogether, to make sure it gets into every room.’

‘Won’t it boil dry?’ Greg asked.

I shook my head. ‘It’d take a day to do that. It gets viscous as it boils.’

Rebecca made a face. ‘From the smell of you now, I don’t envy the person who’s got to clear it up.’

‘I’ll be delegating that – to Tim,’ I said as I stripped off my gown and thrust it into the bag.

‘
Delegation
, is that what you call it?’ Greg was tearing off his own gown. ‘
Abuse
might be more appropriate.’

‘He’ll have a gas mask.’

‘How d’you clear all the fumes?’ Rebecca asked.

‘Extractor fans. Then we scrub it down and let nature do the rest.’

‘Can’t see it having too many takers as a flat for a while,’ said Greg. ‘Even the squatters’d pass on that.’

My mobile rang. It was Tim.

‘Those cell cultures we found,’ he said, ‘they’re definitely infected, and the pattern looks like a poxvirus to me. I’ve made an EM prep, it’ll be ready in about half an hour.’

I passed on the news to the others. ‘Could you give me a lift?’ I asked Rebecca.

Greg and Phil stayed while she drove me to the hospital. She came up with me. Nearly all the staff had gone home by now. Tim came out of the prep room carrying a metal sample holder about the size of a toothbrush.

‘I’m about to look at it, if you’re interested,’ he said.

Rebecca said, ‘Does it mean dressing up again?’

I shook my head. ‘Just a lab coat. The sample’s been fixed. Killed,’ I explained.

I found her a coat and we followed Tim into the EM room.

The barrel of the electron microscope, a stainless steel tube about four feet high and six inches wide, rose from a desk-console covered in switches and dials. Thick electric cables fed into the barrel at intervals.

Tim sat at the console and pulled a switch. A circle of green light grew on the viewing screen beneath the barrel. The screen was encased in a metal dome with glass portholes and the whole structure somehow made you think of being in a submarine.

Tim turned a dial and the light grew in intensity. ‘Saturation,’ he murmured, his hands straying over the controls, ‘Focus... condenser.’ An image of the microscope’s filament appeared and disappeared on the screen.

He picked up the metal holder and inserted it into a hole about a third the way up the barrel. There was a hiss, then the whine of an electric motor.

‘What’s that?’ Rebecca whispered.

‘Vacuum pump,’ Tim said. ‘You always lose some vacuum when you put in a specimen.’ He reached for a button. ‘Low mag first…’ The criss-crossed image of the specimen grid leapt onto the screen. ‘Could you kill the light please?’

I did so, and the image became clearer.

‘Magnification… ‘ He turned a dial, and with each click, the image jumped in size.

A single square appeared. He searched it, looking for a suitable field. The magnification reader read 1000, the limit of an ordinary light microscope.

‘Ah, this’ll do…’ Tim twisted the dial again, the image in the screen jumping in size with each click until the magnification reached 10,000. He began a systematic search.

‘What cell line was it grown in?’ I asked.

‘Vero – look, you can see the nuclear membrane and mitochondria, this is a good microscope – Ah!’ he said again, ‘Just there, look…’

The magnification leapt again, and we were looking at a curious brick shaped structure with rounded corners, covered in tube like adhesions…

‘Beautiful,’ Tim breathed... He turned to face us, his face radiant in the green light. ‘May I introduce you to Variola Major, the smallpox virus…’

‘We don’t strictly know that yet, do we?’ I said, feeling slightly awkward in the face of his enthusiasm. ‘Not till we’ve done the PCR.’

‘Oh, come on, what else could it be?’

‘Alastrim, Vaccinia… Oh, all right. As you say, what else can it be?’

Chapter 23

Herry picked up his own car and followed Rebecca back to the flat.

It was nearly dark by the time they got there. Also very cold, if Greg’s and Phil’s shivering as they got into Rebecca’s car was any indication.

‘Took your sweet time, didn’t you?’ Greg chattered.

‘I told you to bring a coat,’ she said unsympathetically. ‘Anyone called at the flat?’

Greg shook his head, still shivering. The back door opened as Herry climbed in next to Phil.

Rebecca phoned Brigg to bring him up to date. ‘Sir,’ she said when she’d finished, ‘I don’t think this was suicide.’

‘You mean someone killed them?’

‘Yes.’

‘So the virus could still be out there?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right. I’ll be down in the morning.’ He rang off.

She passed this on to the others, then looked at Herry, who was slumped in the back seat with his eyes closed and his arms folded.

‘Why don’t you go home?’ she said to him. ‘We can finish off.’

He opened his eyes and shook his head. ‘I’ve got to do it myself. Regulation 1001, or thereabouts, para y subsection z.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Only another twenty minutes,’ he said, then folded his arms and closed his eyes again.

Greg said, ‘Are you going to let the others know that the pressure’s off them now?’

‘I’m not sure it is,’ she said. ‘Not in Bristol and Bath, anyway.’

‘It’s just that we could use some of them down here tomorrow, couldn’t we?’

‘Mike and Dan can come,’ she said, ‘maybe Josh as well. Naomi and Stella’ll have to stay. I’ll let them know after we’re finished here.’

They continued chatting in a desultory way while they waited. Herry didn’t say anything. When the time was up, they climbed the iron stairs again. Herry unplugged the connections, opened up the hole in the door enough to push the plugs and sockets through, then quickly resealed it. Just that had released enough fumes to make all choke.

‘Which at least means it’s worked,’ Herry said when he’d recovered.

Greg had fitted a very sturdy looking hasp to the door earlier, and now snapped an equally business-like padlock over it. Then the others went back down while he sealed the stairway with scene of crime tape.

Herry looked ready to drop, Rebecca thought.

‘Are you sure you’re OK to drive?’ she asked him.

He nodded. ‘Just the thought of home and a long hot bath’ll be enough to keep me going.’

‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow, then. Take care.’

She watched him as he reversed his car to turn it, then drove off. She took Phil back to the police station, Greg to his hotel, then went back to her flat, where she stripped, bagged up all her clothes and had a long hot shower. After that, she phoned round the others in the team to tell them what had happened. Then, back to Greg’s hotel for dinner.

*

A taxi brought Brigg to her flat at eleven the next morning.

He listened carefully while she went over everything again, then said,

‘But you don’t buy the suicide?’

She said, ‘I can believe they might have changed their minds – especially after the government announcement, but I simply don’t believe they’d kill themselves. I mean –
why
?’ She went on, ‘And anyway – I know I’m not exactly the maternal kind, but I can’t see any mother leaving her baby like that.’

‘Would he have died if you hadn’t gone in when you did?’

She shook her head. ‘Apparently, one of the women from the shop went up every day to see them, so he’d have been found. Even so, he was a very unhappy baby when we found him.’

‘So who killed them, and how?’

‘I don’t know how
exactly
… We’re as sure as we can be that there was cyanide in the champagne… maybe the PMs’ll tell us something.’

‘When are they due?’

She looked at her watch. ‘They’re happening now; we should have some preliminary results this afternoon.’

His eyes not leaving her face, ‘Do you think all four of them were part of the original plot – John Amend-all?’

She slowly nodded. ‘Yes – although I was very surprised in one case…’ She told him frankly about her relationship with Craig and how she’d more or less decided that he wasn’t involved. ‘But I do now – think he was part of the original plot, I mean. What I find
very
difficult to believe is that he’d kill himself like that. He was so full of life, especially that last evening…’ She swallowed and looked away.

He said gently, ‘Perhaps you didn’t know him as well as you thought.’

She cleared her throat. ‘That’s possible of course, but I still don’t believe he’d kill himself.’

‘But if you’re right, it means there’s still somebody out there with the virus. The question is –’

Her phone rang. It was Tim, to tell her that the PCR test on the virus they’d found in the lab was positive. She asked about the cultures and he told her a few more days. She thanked him and rang off.

‘Confirmation that the virus in the flat was smallpox,’ she told Brigg.

‘But we as good as knew that anyway, didn’t we? What were the cultures you were talking about?’

A check that the virus hadn’t escaped from the lab into the flat, she explained.

‘OK. So let’s get back to your supposition – you still think there’s a risk of the virus being released?’

‘Well, we can’t assume there isn’t,’ she said.

‘No, we can’t,’ he agreed, ‘so –’

Her phone went again, this time it was Herry.

‘I’ve been into the hospital to look at the baby,’ he said. ‘There’s a mark on its thigh that looks like a vaccination scar.’

‘But I thought you said they couldn’t do that – vaccinate a baby.’

‘Normally you wouldn’t, because of the risk of infection with Vaccinia. But you can in an emergency – if you give the baby passive immunity at the same time.’

‘I’m sorry, what does that mean?’

‘Serum containing antibody against Vaccinia.’

‘Wouldn’t they cancel each other out?’

‘You’d think so, but they don’t.’

‘Can you check, confirm that that’s what it is?’

‘I’ve had a blood sample taken and we’ll test it this afternoon.’ After a slight pause, he continued, ‘Any more news from your end?’

She told him how they were awaiting the PM results, then rang off and repeated what he’d said to Brigg.

He thought for a moment… ‘But I seem to remember him saying that vaccine was very difficult for an outsider to get hold of, and that they’d be more likely to use cowpox.’

‘Yes, so do I…’

She phoned him back.

‘You’re right,’ he agreed, ‘I did say that. Of course, this scar may
be
cowpox.’

She went on, ‘What I’m getting at is that use of bona fide vaccine would suggest some kind of inside involvement, wouldn’t it? How many people have access to it?’

‘The actual vaccine, not very many,’ he said. ‘But some medical schools and universities still have Vaccinia virus for experimental and demonstration purposes.’

‘So you could make a vaccine from that?’

He said, ‘I think so, I’ll have to check. Meanwhile, I’ll find out exactly what antibodies the baby
does
have.’ He went on, ‘We ought to have blood samples from the bodies to test as well.’

‘Can that be done?’

‘Oh, easily. But
you’d
have to be the one to arrange it with the mortuary or Forensic Lab.’

‘I’ll do it now.’

She told Brigg what he’d said, then phoned the Forensic Lab. They said they’d arrange it with the mortuary.

As soon as she’d put the phone down, it rang yet again; this time it was Greg, to tell her that Mike, Dan and Josh had arrived at the hotel.

There wasn’t much more they could do until they had the PM results, so they decided to join the others at the hotel to bring them up to date over lunch.

*

The preliminary PM results came in at just after 3.00.

All four had died from cyanide poisoning. Potassium cyanide was found in the dregs from all four glasses and the champagne bottle. Each glass had the fingerprints of at least one of the four victims. Craig’s fingerprints were on the bottle and the glasses, apparently from where he’d filled them.

There was no sign of violence on any of the bodies, and so far, no evidence from the flat to suggest anyone else had been involved. Emma’s and Will’s fingerprints were on the computer.

All four victims had what appeared to be recent smallpox vaccinations on their arms. Blood had been taken and would be tested for antibodies as soon as possible.

After they’d all digested the news, Brigg turned to Rebecca.

‘Still think it was murder?’

‘More than ever. There was no reason for them to kill themselves – they could have simply destroyed the virus, dismantled the lab and got on with their lives.’

Greg said, ‘But how would this murderer of yours do it? Wouldn’t the others smell the cyanide in the champers?’

‘I’m not sure they would, not enough to prevent them taking a swallow... I’ll check.’

‘But what’s the motive, why kill them?’

‘Maybe they
had
decided they couldn’t go through with it, and one or more others disagreed…’

‘The bottom line,’ Brigg came in, ‘is that it’s not over. So, what are we going to do about it?