isolated by two French scientists in the Fifties — Calmette and Guerin, hence the name. BCG. Bacille Calmette- Guerin. What’s the problem?’
‘One of the kids I told you about, the ones who were given BCG vaccine at the school camp, was on immuno-suppressive drugs when he was vaccinated.’
‘Jesus,’ said Brewer. ‘I take it they didn’t know?’
‘The kid’s dead,’ said Steven. ‘Necrotising fasciitis — it swept through him like a runaway train.’
‘Jesus Christ, what a fuck-up.’
‘Looks like the medics who gave him the BCG didn’t know about the kid’s background and the medics who treated him in hospital didn’t know he’d been given the vaccine.’
‘I take it the lab grew the BCG bug?’
‘They didn’t grow anything. There are secondary tests being carried out by another lab at the moment.’
‘They might not look for TB,’ said Brewer. ‘It’s a lung disease, not exactly the thing you’d expect to cause a rip-roaring flesh infection.’
‘The first lab said they’d checked for everything,’ said Steven.
‘It might be as well to check with them again. TB grows very slowly in the lab compared to other bugs and it needs a special culture medium. It can take six to eight weeks to grow up while something like a streptococcus grows up overnight.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said Steven. ‘Thanks again.’
Steven felt sick inside. It looked very much as if a mix-up in paperwork had led to Keith Taylor’s death, a mix-up which had also led to his requesting an exhumation and causing the boy’s parents a great deal of stress on top of everything else. It had all the elements of a Bungling Docs story in the tabloids. He called the lab dealing with the Taylor specimens.
‘Nothing yet, I’m afraid.’
‘Have you set up cultures for TB?’
‘Just a moment…’
Steven drummed his fingers on the desk while he waited.
‘We wouldn’t normally,’ came the reply. ‘But in this case, because it doesn’t seem to be one of the usual suspects, we’ve set up cultures on every bacterial growth medium we have, including those for TB. If this bug grows in the lab, we’ll find it.’
Steven hung up before he was asked about his interest in TB. He wanted to talk things over with John Macmillan first. Knowing now that it would take the lab the best part of six to eight weeks to grow up the BCG bacillus, he decided to check with O’Connor, the microbiologist at the children’s hospital in Carlisle. It was he who had told him they’d looked for ‘everything we could think of’ in the Taylor boy’s specimens.
‘We got such a surprise when nothing grew up overnight that I told the staff to inoculate his specimens on every other culture medium we use,’ said O’Connor.
‘Would that include media capable of supporting TB?’ asked Steven.
‘It would.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. No growth on anything.’
‘Would you just check again for me please?’
O’Connor put down the phone with a clatter. He returned after two minutes. Steven had followed the second hand sweep of his watch.
‘The cultures were discarded as being completely negative after fourteen weeks.’
‘Thank you,’ said Steven without further comment.
He decided not to talk it over with Macmillan until the following morning. He needed time to get things clear in his head. He had been concentrating so much on Keith Taylor’s death that he had lost sight of the connection he was looking for with the other vaccinated children who had developed skin complaints.
He decided to phone the children’s hospital in Edinburgh to ask about the condition of Patricia Lyons.
‘She’s very ill.’
This was not what he wanted to hear.
‘She has some kind of an infection in the flesh of her burned arm and it’s not responding to treatment.’
‘Some kind of an infection?’ said Steven. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It’s hard to say. The lab hasn’t found anything.’
NINE
The words hit Steven like a body blow. He mumbled a request to be kept informed if and when the lab came up with anything and hung up. He uttered a series of expletives as he thought things through. Surely Trish Lyons’ infection could not possibly be the same as Keith Taylor’s. If it was, it meant that his logical supposition that the BCG bacillus had somehow rampaged through the boy’s body because his immune system had been compromised was wrong. As far as he knew, there was nothing wrong with Trish Lyons’ immune system and for two children to have reacted the way they had to a vaccine that had been safely in use for fifty years seemed highly unlikely. Some other factor was involved, possibly something that Scott Haldane had recognised… and had been murdered to keep him quiet?
Steven spoke to John Macmillan first thing next morning. ‘I’m sorry, there’s much more to it than we first thought.’ He told Macmillan about Keith Taylor being given BCG vaccine when his immune system had been suppressed, something that brought a frown to his face which was quickly followed by a droop to his shoulders when Steven mentioned that Trish Lyons might also be suffering from the same infection.
‘Bad to worse,’ complained Macmillan.
‘There’s more. The lab at the children’s hospital in Carlisle should have grown the bacterium if it had been the BCG bacillus to blame but their cultures were all negative even after fourteen weeks. Trish Lyons’ cultures are also negative to date. There’s a chance that it’s a different infection altogether, a vicious, flesh-eating bug that the kids picked up at Pinetops that we can’t identify in the lab and can’t treat with antibiotics.’
‘Just what we need,’ sighed Macmillan. ‘How exactly are we proposing that the children got this infection — if it should turn out to be the same one?’
‘Actually there are several more children on the green sticker list who are complaining about skin problems.’
Macmillan closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead against the palm of his hand in a slow sideways motion. ‘Bloody hell,’ he murmured.
‘The only thing they have in common is the fact that they attended Pinetops school camp together and that they all received BCG vaccine while they were there.’
‘And of course, the reason they were given it in the first place,’ added Macmillan cryptically.
Steven looked at him questioningly.
‘They were all exposed to possible infection from Anwar Mubarak.’
‘Which was straightforward TB with no clinical problems according to the lab report…’ said Steven, his voice fading as he saw what Macmillan was suggesting.
‘But against which, as your friend pointed out, the authorities saw fit to vaccinate the whole camp — apparently without reference to medical history or background of any of the children,’ said Macmillan.
‘Maybe we should call a Code Red on this one?’ suggested Steven.
Macmillan nodded somewhat reluctantly but said, ‘I agree.’
The change to Code Red signified that a preliminary investigation by a Sci-Med investigator was about to turn into a full-scale investigation with all the powers that entailed. Steven would be able to request help and assistance at any time of the day or night through a specially manned switchboard set up at Sci-Med. He would have access to funds through special credit accounts set up in his name. He would have the authority to request assistance and information from the police authority in any area he was operating in with full backing from the Home Office. He could even request that he be armed should he feel that the situation warranted it. None of this would seem to be necessary in his current assignment but it was reassuring to know that everything was in place should he need it —
