“Never, I promise Mister.”
“Right then. Wait here while I get some details from Reception.” The officer left the room.
“What were you doing on the building site anyway?” Saracen asked the boy.
“Playing.”
“You came all the way down from the Maxton to play?
The boy hung his head and Saracen played the waiting game. “A bloke at school said you could get treasure at the site.”
“Treasure?”
“That’s what he said.”
“What kind of treasure?”
“Gold.”
“Gold on a building site?” asked Saracen.
“It’s true!” said the boy defiantly. “Edwards had a chain, a gold chain; he got it on the site.”
“Where about on the site?”
“He wouldn’t tell us.”
“So you thought you would investigate on your own?”
The boy nodded.
“Find anything?”
“Not yet.”
Saracen smiled at the defiance. “Building sites are dangerous places. If Edwards found a chain there it probably belonged to one of the workmen; he should have handed it in.”
“No, it was different. It was treasure!”
“Treasure or no treasure you stay away in future. Understand?”
The boy said yes but avoided Saracen’s eyes when he said it. The constable returned.
Saracen was called to a special meeting of the emergency committee on Thursday morning and guessed rightly that this was to discus the results from Porton. The meeting was delayed while they waited for Dave Moss to arrive from the County Hospital but when ten minutes had passed with still no sign of Moss Saithe decided to start without him and handed over to MacQuillan immediately.
“Not to beat about the bush,” said MacQuillan, “Porton agrees with the findings of the local laboratory. There is, in fact, a problem.” MacQuillan paused to let the murmur die down. Saracen was only too aware of the inflection that MacQuillan had put on the word ‘problem’. It made him uneasy.
“The bacterium appears to have undergone some alteration to its outer membrane affecting both passive and active diffusion.”
Saithe said, “Perhaps for the benefit of those among us who are not scientists?”
“I’m sorry. Of course,” said MacQuillan. “The outer wall of the bacterium has changed, mutated in some way so that it has become impervious to certain agents.”
“Does ‘certain agents’ include antibiotics?” asked Saracen.
“Among other things yes,” replied MacQuillan quietly. The buzz in the room grew loud and Saithe had to ask for quiet.
“So there is no way of treating the disease?” said Saracen.
“Antibiotics do have some effect,” said MacQuillan. “Tetracycline in particular slows the growth rate of the organism markedly.”
“But in the end?” persisted Saracen.
“In the end the outcome is inevitable. The prognosis for treated cases will be the same as for untreated. One hundred percent fatality can be expected.”
Braithwaite interrupted. “This is all academic of course,” he said. “If my people have moved quickly enough to isolate the contacts, as I believe they have, there is nothing at all to worry about.”
“I disagree,” said Saracen flatly.
The room fell to awkward silence before Saithe said, “Perhaps you had better air your views Dr Saracen.”
Saracen stood up and said, “We must not be complacent. I suggest that steps be taken immediately to isolate Skelmore from the rest of the community.” Even before he had got the last word out Saracen was aware of the murmurs of disapproval. These murmurs spawned a small supercilious smile on Braithwaite’s lips. He said, “I am sure the good doctor should be commended for his caution but this is not mediaeval England. Isolating a modern day town is not a matter to be taken lightly. It would do untold damage to the economy of the town not to mention putting an end to Skelmore’s development hopes for the future. I think most of us here would agree that there is certainly no call for such a drastic measure at this juncture.” Sounds of agreement greeted Braithwaite’s words.
Saracen continued his losing battle and said, “This may not be mediaeval England but what we have here in the town is mediaeval plague and from what Dr MacQuillan has said we are no more equipped to deal with it in this time than we were then.”
Silence met Saracen’s comments until MacQuillan said, “I am afraid that there is a deal of truth in what Dr Saracen is saying.”
“But surely you don’t think that we should isolate the whole town too?” said Braithwaite.
MacQuillan adjusted his spectacles and said, “As always in these cases the crux of the matter lies in the source of the outbreak. In this case we know the source; it was the Archer woman and she brought it in with her from Africa. That being the case I see no need to quarantine the town.”
“There we have it then,” said Braithwaite, pleased that MacQuillan had backed him up.
“I take it that the relevant African medical authorities were informed about Myra Archer?” asked Saracen.
“Of course,” replied Braithwaite, content to leave it at that but Saracen persisted. “Have you heard back from them yet?”
“No, but then I really don’t expect to,” said Braithwaite with more than a trace of irritation. “The simple fact is that the disease is endemic in areas of that continent. I suggest you read the World Health Organisation’s report on the subject Doctor.”
“I don’t doubt it,” replied Saracen. “But I would like to know if any case of plague has been notified in the area relevant to Myra Archer in the past few months.”
“Africa isn’t England Doctor,” snapped Braithwaite. “People come and go, live and die without the state ever being aware of it let alone writing it all down. Official records are scanty if they exist at all.”
The meeting fell into thoughtful silence until Saithe said, “Is anyone other than Dr Saracen in favour of taking steps to isolate the town?”
No one spoke.
“Very well then,” said Saithe, “We carry on as we have been doing for the time being.”
Saracen phoned Moss at the County Hospital as soon as he got back to A amp;E. He wanted to find out why he had not attended the meeting.
“The anti-plague vaccine arrived this morning,” said Moss. “I thought it more important to start vaccinating the staff. Anything interesting come up?”
Saracen told Moss of the Porton findings.
“So the lab was right,” said Moss. “The bug is resistant to tetracycline.”
“Worse than that. MacQuillan says that its altered cell wall makes it immune to just about everything.”
“All things bright and beautiful…” intoned Moss.
Saracen had a chilling thought. He said, “I wonder if Porton checked the bug’s antigenic structure.”
“What do you mean?”
“If our bug has a different cell wall it may not be susceptible to antibodies produced against different strains.” said Saracen thoughtfully.
“Christ! You mean the vaccine we have may not be any good against the Skelmore strain?” said Moss.
“Just a thought,” said Saracen.
