few more inches but it was a struggle; and so it continued until it was at last fully open. Inside his helmet his breathing sounded as though he was running a marathon.
Steven checked his gloves and cuffs yet again, making sure no cuts had arisen during the struggle with the zip, then donned the chain-mail gauntlet before opening the bag to expose the body. The weather had been cold so decomposition was minimal but the blue/grey skin was distended around the chest area, which started alarm bells ringing in his head. It was almost certainly due to an accumulation of body gases which had failed to dissipate. They would escape when he made the first incision, bringing with them a cloud of filovirus particles.
‘Shit,’ he murmured, wondering what to do. He could feel the pulse beating in his temples as he sought inspiration. He removed the chain-mail gauntlet and looked through the equipment cupboards. What he found there sparked off an idea of how to divert the gases. He rigged up a two-way plastic syringe to a length of clear plastic tubing, one end of which he immersed in a beaker full of Virkon disinfectant. He fitted a large-bore needle to the barrel of the syringe and checked all the joints. The plan was to insert the needle into Mary Xavier’s chest cavity and release the gas. It would flow through the tubing into the disinfectant, which would kill the virus but allow the gas to bubble to the surface.
There was a moment when Steven experienced for the first time in his life what he thought afterwards must have been stage fright. He found himself unable to do anything but stand there motionless for a few moments. He was imagining what would happen if the condition of Sister Mary’s skin turned out to be so bad that the needle had the same effect as on an inflated balloon.
The seconds passed until, calling on every reserve of courage he could muster, he pushed the needle into the grey skin. To his enormous relief, the puncture site held its integrity and the disinfectant in the beaker started to bubble violently as the escaping gas passed through it. For an awful moment he thought the beaker might up-end and spill over, allowing the gas to escape directly into the atmosphere, but, as he stared at the shuddering beaker, the flow lessened and eventually the bubbles stopped coming.
He removed the needle, put the chain-mail gauntlet back on and selected a suitable knife for the first incision. He murmured an apology to Sister Mary as he opened her up, and got on with the business of removing her heart without further incident. When he had dissected out the mitral valve and it was safely stored in the high-security container, he sewed up the chest incision with large stitches and sluiced disinfectant liberally over the area before re-zipping the bag. He had just as much trouble with the zip as before and was sweating with the effort before the seal was complete and he could wipe down the outside of the bag with yet more disinfectant. He placed all the instruments and equipment he had used in steel security containers for autoclave sterilisation later, and proceeded to sluice down the entire lab.
One of Laarsen’s men was waiting for him when he emerged from the lab, and he stood still while the man sprayed his suit with disinfectant. When he’d finished, Steven removed his hood and visor and took deep breaths of the night air. It didn’t matter that it was cold and damp. It tasted oh so sweet.
‘How did it go?’ asked Laarsen.
‘I got it,’ said Steven.
‘Can we put her back?’ asked Jordon.
Steven nodded and gave a simple, ‘Yes.’ He didn’t feel communicative. He was no longer running on adrenalin and all he could think about was writing to Jenny. He wanted to tell her that he was thinking about her and that he hoped she would have a lovely Christmas.
NINETEEN
It was four in the morning when Steven got back to Manchester, but he sat down and wrote to his daughter straight away, telling her how much he missed her and how sorry he was that he couldn’t be there on Christmas Day. He would, however, phone her and was looking forward to hearing all her news about what Santa had brought her and the other two children. When his job was finished, he promised, he would spend lots more time with her and, come the summer, they would do lots of lovely things together. With Robin and Mary, they would build the biggest sandcastle anyone had ever seen on their favourite beach at Sandyhills and surround it with a moat that they could all paddle in.
His eyelids were becoming increasingly heavy but he forced himself to stay awake long enough to check for messages from Sci-Med on his laptop. There was one, saying that two new wildcard cases had been reported, one in Preston and the other in Exeter. Both names were on Greg Allan’s list and the authorities had been well prepared. John Macmillan sent his congratulations. Files on the two new patients were appended. Steven did not bother opening them. He just lay down, closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
The ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign that he’d hung on the door did its job and he slept straight through until eleven- thirty next morning. He felt better than he had done for many days and lay still for a while, thinking about Sci-Med’s last message and, in particular, John Macmillan’s congratulations. He had been keeping so busy — mainly to blot out things that he couldn’t afford to dwell on — that he had not been giving himself credit for having done the most important thing in any outbreak: identifying the source. He might not yet understand why the people on Allan’s list were the source, but that was academic when viewed against the fact that the outbreak was now under control. Wildcards were no longer wildcards. The authorities knew exactly who these people were and where they lived, and would be prepared and ready for new cases of the disease, which would be isolated before they infected anyone else. Steven got up and had a leisurely shower before dressing and starting to think about food. He was going to have a day off, he decided: he deserved it.
He didn’t want to take breakfast or lunch in the hotel, so he decided to walk for a while and eat where the fancy took him. The sky was clear and blue and, although the temperature was close to freezing, it was perfect weather for walking. He walked for close on an hour before deciding to have lunch in a pub which looked as if it might have a bit of character. Before going in he bought himself a newspaper to read while he waited for his meal.
He found, as he sipped a pint of Guinness, that the newspaper seemed to share his good mood. The number of new cases in the Manchester area had been dropping over the past few days and, although the public were urged to remain vigilant, there was a cautious hope that the worst was over. Health boards in other areas had been very successful in isolating new cases where and when they occurred, and a government statement had announced that the source of the outbreak had been identified and steps taken to eliminate it, although no details had been released. Steven smiled at the last bit.
His meal arrived and he remarked to the waitress that the place was very quiet; he was the only one having lunch, although two old regulars by the look of them were seated on stools at the bar.
‘Been like this for weeks,’ she said. ‘Worst Christmas season we’ve ever had.’
Steven nodded sympathetically. ‘Looks like it’s over, though,’ he said, gesturing to the newspaper.
‘About bloody time. If it hadn’t been for that stupid bitch of a doctor letting all those kids from the disco roam around all over the place at the beginning, this would all have been over ages ago. I mean, I ask you…’
Steven felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. Thankfully, his momentary surge of anger was almost instantly overwhelmed by a realisation that, whatever he said, this woman and countless other people would go on believing that the Manchester outbreak had been caused by Caroline’s mistake. This was what Spicer had done to her, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. His only comfort lay in the knowledge that Spicer himself would be going to prison for a long time. He wished him a particularly unpleasant time. In the meantime, his good mood had evaporated and taken his appetite with it. He put a ten-pound note under his untouched plate and left.
It took another couple of hours of aimless walking for Steven to calm down and realise that he was by now very hungry. He wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice when it came to eating-places in the area, but he came across a small teashop, where he made do with toast and cheese and no conversation.
Steven spoke to Macmillan in the early evening and was informed that Mary Xavier’s mitral valve had reached Porton safely. Work had already begun on analysing it, but he shouldn’t expect quick results. The material would have to be handled under category BL4 conditions, and safe meant slow.
‘Why don’t you take a couple of days off?’ suggested Macmillan. ‘We’ll call you on your mobile if anything breaks. Go up to Scotland and see your daughter.’
