Dark Winter

of London would infect as many as a hundred and fifty thousand people, nearly a third of whom would be expected to die. And those are just the primary victims. That figure would be multiplied many times if infected people carried it to other cities or countries. Pneumonic plague spreads like wildfire, transported by respiratory droplets – a simple cough or sneeze will infect anyone within range. The trouble is, there are no effective environmental warning systems to detect plague bacilli, so you wouldn’t know you’d been infected until symptoms appeared.’

I realized I still had my jacket on and semi-stood to take it off. ‘How long does that take then – you know, the symptoms?’

‘The time from exposure until development of first symptoms is normally between one and six days, but most often two to four.’

‘So, what are we looking for?’

‘Well, the first indication of an attack would most likely be a sudden outbreak of illness, presenting as severe pneumonia and sepsis. If there are only small numbers of cases, the possibility of them being plague may at first be overlooked, given the clinical similarity to other bacterial or viral pneumonias – and the fact that so few Western physicians have ever seen a case of pneumonic plague. It may be up to ten days before public-health authorities recognize what’s happened, and by then, anyone infected will be dead.’ He pulled up the sleeves of his cardigan. ‘Using this form of plague as a biological weapon would be simply catastrophic.’

‘If you were a terrorist, how would you use it?’

‘ Yersinia pestis can be grown in large quantities and, with just a little skill, could be quite easily disseminated. The agent would have to be milled into a very fine powder so it could be dispersed in aerosol form. A crop-sprayer could be used over a town or city, or individuals could disperse it using compressed oxygen bottles, maybe large hospital bottles in a vehicle, to pump the agent out as they drove round the streets. Then again, it could be hand-held – a smaller compressed oxygen bottle concealed in a rucksack, or even a conventional aerosol can. It really doesn’t matter how – once it’s delivered an infectious and invisible cloud would remain suspended in the atmosphere for up to an hour, waiting to be inhaled.’

Suzy pursed her lips. ‘This powder, Simon, could it be transported in a bottle? And how big an area would, say, twelve full wine bottles contaminate?’ She placed her wet gum on the edge of the table before standing up and going over to her handbag.

Simon’s eyes followed her. ‘A bottle, yes, if it was well sealed.’

Suzy sat down with her cigarettes and lighter in her hand. He looked at me as she took out a Benson & Hedges, and the expression on his face told me the penny had dropped.

‘That’s why I’m here isn’t it – some pestis has been discovered? Twelve seventy- five-centilitre bottles – nine litres. Where? What control measures are in place? Has the public health—’

Suzy interrupted him with the offer of a cigarette and, to my surprise, he took one.

‘No, Simon, we don’t know what control measures are in place. We’re trying to find the stuff.’ She glanced at me and I nodded as her disposable clicked into life. Considering where he was going after this, it didn’t matter if he knew or not. She dragged in a lungful of smoke and handed him the lighter.

He studied it for several seconds before lifting it to the cigarette in his mouth. ‘First in three years.’

‘Glad you cracked too, Simon.’ Suzy was all smiles. ‘I only gave up a few minutes ago.’ She wiggled the cigarette between her fingers at him. ‘This is all your fault.’

The smoke from two cigarettes soon filled the air. ‘What more do you have to tell us, Simon? What about infection? How close do we have to be?’

Emptying his lungs, he leant forwards again and gave his ash an experienced tap into the coffee-table ashtray. I was sure his eyes were watering but he still took another quick drag. ‘Direct exposure to the pestis obviously means you’re infected. After that, anyone within six feet of an infected person will be exposed – two metres, two yards, whatever you want to call it – and they, too, are likely to get infected. It would be simply a fucking biblical event.’

Simon flicked non-existent ash as he stared into the ashtray, his mind clearly elsewhere. It seemed an eternity before he looked up at Suzy. ‘Is it really going to hap—’

‘Tell you what, Simon, just do your job. OK?’ If he thought she was the soft touch of us two he was wrong.

‘Yes, of course, sorry.’ The next drag was a lot longer and smoke spilled out of every hole in his face as he continued. ‘The first sign of illness is fever, headache, cough, general weakness. Victims will feel under the weather, but think it’s just another round of colds and flu. Most people, like Archibald, will just get on with life. He was a gardener. And all the time they’re doing that, they’re part of the contamination chain.’

His spare hand waved in front of him, pointing at his body. ‘Then, within a few days, they’ll get a bloody or watery cough due to the lung infection – the pneumonia. There will be shortness of breath, chest pains, along with intestinal symptoms – nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, that sort of thing.’

Suzy blew a lungful of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?’

Shaking his head, he slid backwards into the settee. ‘As the pneumonia worsens over two to four days, it can cause septic shock. Not that you’d be too concerned because you’d be as good as dead anyway.’ He squinted and looked up as he took another long drag. His hand had started to shake. ‘By the time the disease is recognized in the population, after anything from ten days to two weeks, it will be too late for tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of us.’ Simon sank back, his eyes on the ceiling, as if contemplating the enormity of it all. Shit, he wasn’t the only one.

Suzy and I exchanged another glance. Her smile had disappeared as Simon’s cigarette moved up and down in his mouth. ‘The one good thing is that there is no spore form in the Yersinia pestis lifecycle, so it’s susceptible to the environment – and particularly sensitive to the action of sunlight. That’s why plague aerosol is infectious for no more than an hour.’ He sat up and tried me this time. He sounded as if he was having difficulty breathing. ‘With that amount of pestis , we’re talking hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Why isn’t any action being taken out there? People have a right to know of the risk, surely.’

‘What about protection, Simon?’

He shrugged in submission. ‘Close-contact transmission can be prevented by wearing a surgical mask of a US rating of N95 or UK standard FFP3, then there’s surgical gloves, eye protection, that sort of thing.’ He didn’t sound at all convincing. ‘Look.’ He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Suzy was only moments behind with hers. ‘To be honest, it’s all bollocks. If I was playing about with this stuff in its powder form, I’d only feel safe in an astronaut’s suit.’

Suzy offered him another cigarette, which he gladly took, and the smoke was soon billowing out of them again.

I thought it, Suzy spoke it. ‘Is there anything out there that we can take? A vaccine or a drug or anything like that to protect us?’

He shook his head. ‘A vaccine, no. Manufacture was discontinued in ’ninety-nine. But the use of doxycycline, I think, has some effect as protection and post-exposure.’

I was straight in there. ‘That’s good enough for me – we need a shedful. Can you get it to Yvette today?’

He nodded. ‘Sure, I can arrange all that.’ He looked at Suzy. ‘Are you pregnant, or do you think you may be?’

She held up her new cancer stick. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s just that some antibiotics have an adverse effect on foetal growth.’

Suzy stood up and had regained her smile. ‘Lovely. Everything we always wanted to know about pneumonic plague, and probably a whole lot we didn’t. Thanks, Simon.’

He gave a little smile that soon faded. ‘I don’t know exactly what’s happening and I don’t want to know, but the thing is . . . I’ve got a family, and I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking I’ve always wanted to take them to visit my sister-in-law in Namibia. Do you think now would be a good time?’ His hand was still shaking as he stubbed out the cigarette.

Suzy and I looked at each other.

‘Please, I just need to know.’

Fuck it, why not? ‘Let’s put it this way.’ I stood up to join Suzy. ‘If I was one of your kids and you said, “We’re going on holiday to Auntie Edna’s tomorrow,” which would mean leaving school and going somewhere nice and hot,