tissue valves, there must have been at least fourteen donors, people who had, presumably, died in accidents all over the country and who had no connection at all with each other, and yet had all been carrying the same strain of a brand-new filovirus… That was — absolute bloody nonsense, he concluded. There was no other word for it.
EIGHTEEN
He was relieved to have put the constraints of so-called logic behind him. The real question he should be asking was: what was wrong with the heart valves those patients had been given? A few moments’ consideration told him that there was only one way to find out for sure. He’d have to recover one of the transplanted valves from a wildcard victim and subject it to a whole range of tests.
This was going to be not only risky — a post mortem on a filovirus victim was a dangerous procedure — but difficult, because filovirus victims were cremated as soon as possible. He would have to move fast. He called Sci- Med back, asked them about the current condition of the wildcard patients, and told them why he wanted to know.
‘All dead and burned except two,’ said the duty officer.
‘How come the exceptions?’ Steven asked.
‘One’s a success story; it looks as if she might be one of the few who’ll recover.’
Steven closed his eyes for a moment and wished it could have been Caroline. He forced the thought from his mind.
‘The other one’s the nun, Sister Mary Xavier. She wasn’t cremated.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Steven.
‘They came up with a special dispensation for her — apparently, her order has severe religious objections to cremation. Because of the special circumstances and because the convent’s so isolated, the sisters were allowed to bury her in the grounds.’
‘I didn’t realise they made concessions over something like a filovirus,’ said Steven acidly.
‘A local decision in Hull,’ said the duty man. ‘I think they had to comply with strict conditions: sealed body bag, lead-lined coffin and all that. It’s a possibility, don’t you think?’
‘A good one,’ agreed Steven. He thanked the man for his help and rang off, already deep in thought. Requesting the exhumation of Sister Mary Xavier would be certain to meet with a lot of opposition on the grounds of insensitivity, but the only alternative was to wait until another wildcard case got ill and died. That could take another week or two, maybe even longer, and he needed to examine one of the heart valves as soon as possible. He decided to put in the request and get Sci-Med to fix the permissions and paperwork. He would deal with the flak as and when it came.
There was one other thing he’d have to get Sci-Med to set in motion: a thorough examination of Greg Allan’s financial position at the time of his death. In particular, Steven wanted to know if any unaccounted-for sums of money had been paid into his account. If so, pressure must be put on Allan’s wife, to find out how much she knew about her husband’s alternative source of income.
By five in the evening, an exhumation order had been obtained, in the face of considerable opposition from the local council and senior representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, who saw it as sacrilege. The Church’s opposition was heightened even more when they learned that, rather than risk moving Mary Xavier’s body, the mobile containment facility used after the diagnosis of her illness would be put back and used for the post mortem and the recovery of her replacement heart valve. The only problem still unresolved was finding a pathologist willing to carry out the autopsy.
‘It’s proving difficult,’ said Macmillan.
‘All right, I’ll do it myself,’ said Steven.
‘But you’re not a pathologist.’
‘I don’t have to be,’ said Steven. ‘All that’s required is for someone to open up her body and recover the mitral valve. I’m a doctor and I’m perfectly capable of doing that. In fact it might be unfair to ask anyone else to do it in the circumstances.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ said Macmillan doubtfully.
‘I take it Porton will be willing to carry out a full analysis of the valve?’
‘No problem there. And the Swedish team will take responsibility for its safe transport.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ said Steven. ‘I’d better get up there.’
‘When will you do it?’
‘Tonight, if you can get the mobile unit back in position,’ replied Steven.
‘Will do,’ said Macmillan. ‘Oh, one other thing. The PM report on Greg Allan came in half an hour ago. Asphyxiation due to a ligature round his neck.’
‘Not the best way to die,’ said Steven. ‘He must have got the jump wrong.’
‘The police have talked to his wife. It wasn’t a good time to do it, but their opinion is that she doesn’t know anything about him being mixed up in anything illegal. She was aware of them having more money in the last year or so, but he told her that it was down to his shares performing well.’
‘His must have been the only ones,’ said Steven sourly.
‘Quite.’
Steven decided to make one more call before he left for Hull. He rang Fred Cummings and asked if he could spare a few minutes to talk.
‘Sure,’ said Cummings. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m sure we’ve spoken about this before, but I have to ask you again. Is there no conceivable way that a virus can lie dormant for a time before causing infection?’
‘Not in the normal way of things,’ replied Cummings. ‘Viruses have to replicate in order to live. Take away their cellular host and they die.’
‘How about inside a cellular host?’ asked Steven.
‘You mean, lie dormant within cells without replicating?’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘There’s a state called lysogeny in bacteria,’ said Cummings thoughtfully. ‘Even bacteria have problems with viruses. Certain bacterial viruses can enter the bacterial cell and interpolate themselves into their host’s DNA. That way, when the bug’s DNA replicates normally the virus is replicated, too, but in a controlled way, so no harm’s done. Occasionally, when something out of the ordinary happens to stimulate the virus, it goes into uncontrolled replication and kills its host.’
‘That’s the sort of situation I’ve been looking for,’ said Steven. ‘What did you call it?’
‘Lysogeny,’ said Cummings. ‘But it happens only in bacteria and only with certain bacterial viruses.’
‘Maybe we’re about to learn something new,’ said Steven.
‘Come to think of it,’ said Cummings, ‘maybe a similar situation actually can exist in human beings.’
‘Go on,’ said Steven.
‘I was thinking about the Herpes simplex virus,’ said Cummings. ‘You know, the bug that gives you cold sores. It seems to lie dormant in the mucosa around your lips until something like sunlight or stress triggers it off. No one has ever satisfactorily explained that.’
‘Food for thought,’ said Steven.
Steven drove up to Hull, suspecting in his heart of hearts that he had been too hasty in volunteering to carry out the pathology on Mary Xavier. Not for the first time, he reminded himself — albeit too late — that he wasn’t the single man with no responsibilities that he imagined himself to be when the bugle sounded. In reality, he was a single parent with a daughter’s welfare to consider. Jenny needed a live father, not a dead hero, but here he was once again courting danger and getting the buzz that he’d sought all his life. He was on his way to carry out a procedure that even experienced pathologists of many years’ standing might baulk at. ‘Oh, Jenny, love,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You’ve got an idiot for a father.’
Pulling out now was not an option, though, so he’d do the next best thing and think through the dangers ahead in order to try to minimise them. In theory, it was simple; he just had to avoid coming into contact with the reservoir of filovirus particles that was Mary Xavier’s body. It was the minute size of the virus that constituted the
