Resurrection (32 page)

The Scottish Office had set up special phonelines for people with particular problems. The numbers would be given out in later broadcasts but people were urged to use them as little as possible to prevent jamming. and to co-operate fully with the medical and social work teams working in the area. If everyone displayed good sense, as the authorities were confident they would, the outbreak would be contained quickly and life would be back to normal in no time.

The special phonelines were jammed from eight o’clock onwards. Crowds of people gathered at police barriers to argue their case for being allowed to go to work. The police remained polite but firm using their extensive pre-duty briefing to deal with the more common points. No one was going to be sacked because they didn’t turn up for work because of the order. Those who maintained they had sick relatives to visit and care for were instructed to give details to the social work teams who would see that the situation was covered for them. The awkward questions like, Why isn’t the vaccine here right now? were fielded with, ‘The medical people know what they’re doing.’

Crowds built up throughout the morning and there was apprehension at police headquarters when it was thought that the duty officers might not be able to hold the barrier lines but the heavy rain which had streamed down their waterproofs from the word go, seeking out weaknesses and sneaking in through collars and zips proved to be their greatest ally. The crowds might have been even bigger had the weather been better and the people who were arguing tended to drift off after a couple of hours of getting soaked to the skin. By mid afternoon, the crisis time had passed and people were staying indoors.

NINETEEN

Dewar decided to call Ian Grant at police headquarters at a quarter to seven. There was going to be a meeting of the team at seven and he was interested to hear Grant’s assessment of the police role so far.

‘
The honeymoon period,’ said Grant when Dewar said he’d heard things were going well. ‘People are confused, a little bit afraid. They don’t understand what’s going on yet so they’re watching television to find out. Tomorrow if it’s dry they’re going to go out and start talking to each other in earnest. They’ll fuel off each other’s dissatisfaction. They’ll complain about being kept in the dark. Leaders will emerge and we can expect some concerted opposition.’

‘
You don’t expect trouble tonight then?’

‘
Oh, yes,’ countered Grant but just from the yobs not the ordinary folks. As long as Tulloch realises that and doesn’t get too heavy, they should be able to head off trouble where and when it looks like happening although there’s no denying it could get a bit unpleasant. There’s nothing nastier than a bunch of yobs who think they’ve come up with a good reason for behaving like they usually do anyway. Piece of trash to urban hero in one easy step. It’s important not to fuel their self delusion by taking them on head to head. You’ve got to play it by ear, back off when it seems right, be prepared to lose a little face even.’

‘
And the Superintendent knows this?’

‘
He’s read the book and done the course,’ said Grant.

‘
What does that mean?’

‘
There’s a big ravine between book learning and reality in most situations.’

Dewar knew what he meant.

Cameron Tulloch was the last to arrive for the meeting at eight minutes past seven. Rain-water formed a puddle round his feet as he took off his waterproofs in the hallway and hung them up on a peg. He entered the room, rubbing his hands but exuding confidence. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’

George Finlay smiled and said, ‘How are things, Superintendent?’

‘
Everything’s been going very smoothly, thank you. I think we’re on top of the situation. We’ve made our presence felt and I think people have accepted that law and order will prevail.’

‘
Good,’ George Finlay said, ‘I wish I could be as up-beat with my news. We’ve had twenty-seven new cases today.’

People sighed and exchanged worried looks except for Hector Wright who held up a broad sheet of graph paper. ‘I know that seems a lot,’ he said. ‘But by my reckoning that’s a good few less than expected from the earlier figures. This is the predicted course of the epidemic. You can see the numbers fall below the line just here.’

‘
If it’s good news, don’t knock it,’ said Finlay, showing no real inclination to examine the graph for himself.

‘
How’s the contact tracing going?’ asked Finlay of Mary Martin.

‘
I hesitate to say it but I think we’ve been lucky there too. The very fact that most of Kelly’s contacts were unemployed addicts like him has meant that they didn’t wander far from the area most days. The contacts and disease are still confined to a relatively small area. It hasn’t had a chance to spread out into other parts of the city.

‘
Hector Wright, who had been puzzling over his graph and deep in thought said,. ‘I think I know why the numbers were a bit lower today than expected.’ He turned to Dewar and said, ‘Adam, you told me last night that the man Hannan had gone downhill as fast as Kelly.

‘
The change in him was quite dramatic.’

‘
He’ll die soon,’ said Finlay.

‘
But, you said that the other cases were developing in a more text book fashion?’

‘
That’s what Dr MacGowan told me last night when I spoke to her,’ said Dewar.

Finlay nodded his agreement. ‘That’s quite true. The others are running to form, starting with a macular rash, progressing through papular, finally becoming pustular after seven days or so.’

‘
I think this would argue that both Kelly and Hannan contracted the disease through an abnormal route, said Wright.’

‘
Agreed,’ said Dewar.

Wright said, ‘It would therefore seem certain they were the cause of the original outbreak in Muirhouse, but they infected people they came into contact with in the normal way so that these people would develop the disease over a more usual timescale.’

‘
But how does this explain the dip in numbers?’ asked Finlay.

‘
Being infected with a high initial dose not only meant that Kelly and Hannan succumbed much faster to the disease, but also that they had less time to infect people around them before being admitted to hospital. The number of people they infected was therefore less than we and the book might otherwise have expected. It worked in our favour.’

‘
Makes sense,’ agreed Finlay, nodding his head. ‘So we’ve been lucky in having less primary contact cases arising from Kelly and Hannan.’

‘
But we won’t be so lucky with the fall-out from the secondary cases,’ said Dewar. ‘They’ve had the normal incubation period and therefore much more time to spread the disease before they fell ill,’ said Dewar.

‘
Lap of the gods,’ said Finlay. ‘On the other hand, Dr Martin and her people have been doing their best to minimise that through confining the contacts to their homes.’

‘
With mixed success, I have to say,’ said Mary Martin. ‘Social services have been struggling to cope with the demands of some of them today; a few have been getting very restless. We’ve done our best to persuade them to stay indoors but it’s an uphill struggle. People miss not being out and about.’

‘
That was only to be expected,’ said Finlay.’

‘
I take it, you’ve been supplying addicts with drugs where necessary?’ said Dewar.

‘
As the lesser of two evils,’ replied Mary Martin. ‘We thought if we supplied the addicts it would act as an incentive to keep them indoors. The trouble is we don’t know who’s really an addict and who’s not. The junkies have been persuading the others to say they’re hooked so that they can get their hands on some extra stuff to sell. On top of that, everyone lies about how much they’re taking in order to get as much as possible. There’s constant cause for friction and argument.

‘
Nothing’s ever easy,’ sighed Wright.

‘
Are we any closer to understanding how Kelly and Hannan came to get the disease in the first place?’ asked Finlay.

‘
I think we do know,’ said Dewar. ‘But proving it is quite another matter. Kelly’s dead and Hannan is out of the reckoning as far as being a source of information is concerned. Denise Banyon won’t say anything on principle and Sharon Hannan hasn’t got anything useful to tell.’

‘
I suppose, as long as the primary source isn’t still out there somewhere, we don’t have to worry too much about it right now,’ said Finlay.

It was an unsettling thought all the same, thought Dewar and one he hadn’t dwelt on too much. He took comfort from the fact there had been no further cases of the rapid form of the disease. If that were to happen it would mean there was a source of the virus outside of the institute and outside of anyone’s control. Surely fate just couldn’t be that malevolent?

As the meeting broke up, Dewar asked George Finlay about Sharon Hannan’s condition.

‘
She wasn’t very well this morning when I looked in,’ replied Finlay. ‘I’d say she’s entering the final stages of incubation. The virus will be well into her bloodstream by now. We can expect to see the rash break out tomorrow or the next day.’

Dewar went up to his room to phone Karen and tell her of the day’s events.

‘
Any gut feelings?’ asked Karen.

‘
Still too early,’ replied Dewar. ‘Could go either way.’

‘
Wright’s point about there being fewer contact cases arising from the first two was a good thought,’ said Karen.

‘
A candle in the dark,’ said Dewar.

‘
Cheer up.’

‘
Sorry, I’m trying to come to terms with the distinct possibility that I’m not going to be able to forge the link between the institute and the outbreak and it’s getting me down.’

‘
Maybe absolute proof isn’t needed,’ said Karen. ‘The circumstantial evidence is just so strong that it just about precludes anything else.’

‘
I was brought up watching films where strong circumstantial evidence was nearly always proved wrong in the end. Circumstantial was a dirty word.’

‘
Maybe in films,’ said Karen. ‘But in life it’s different. If it looks like a rat and it smells like a rat, it almost invariably turns out to be, a rat.’

Dewar called Malloy, only to be told that Malloy had run the same checks on Hannan that he had on Kelly and again drawn a blank. There was no obvious link between Hannan and the institute either. A final call to Barron confirmed that there had been no change in the position with the Iraqis. Abbas and Siddiqui were still there and they were still just waiting.

‘
Just like us,’ Dewar whispered to himself as he put down the phone and crossed to the window. ‘For that damned vaccine to come.’

There was a red glow in the sky to the west . He thought at first it was down to street lighting - the ‘light pollution’ from cities that astronomers complained so much about but then he decided its source was more sinister. He went downstairs and asked the Scottish Office people in the communications room.

‘
They’re rioting in Muirhouse,’ said the one liasing with the police operations room at Fettes Headquarters. ‘Situation’s getting out of hand. Three major fires and they won’t let the fire brigade get near them.’

Dewar listened in to the radio traffic for a few minutes before deciding to drive up to police headquarters to see if Grant were there. He found him in his office, eating cheese and pickle sandwiches and monitoring the situation on police radio. His feet were up on his desk. He waved a welcome with his sandwich and indicated to a chair.

‘
What d’you think?’ asked Dewar.

‘
The commancheros are coming,’ replied Grant between mouthfuls. ‘See the glow in the sky? That’s Tulloch’s career going up in flames. Live by the book, die by the book.’

‘
You don’t think he’ll contain it?’

‘
Not a chance now the yobs have scented power. He thought he could out-manoeuvre them, show them who’s boss but they know what they’re doing. Look here.’ He got up out of his chair and approached the map on his office wall. They started fires here, here and here. Grant used his forefinger, leaving three greasy prints on the plastic. They set fire to cars in the middle of the road, stopping police access, then they set fire to this building.’ Another greasy print. ‘The building was empty but they were making a point. The fire brigade couldn’t get near because of the blazing cars in the road and the fact that their officers were stoned when they tried to pull them out of the way.’

‘
You said they were making a point?’ said Dewar.

‘
They were showing Tulloch who was really in control,’ replied Grant. ‘They’ve taken over this whole area now and it won’t be easy to get them out.’

‘
But why?’ asked Dewar.

‘
God, they don’t need a reason. Their natural loathing for any kind of authority is enough. When you combine that with instinctive animal cunning and a situation like they’ve got down there, it’s a recipe for disaster. Evil rules OK.’

‘
But the ordinary people living in this area,’ said Dewar. ‘What about them?’

‘
They’ve just had a change of government,’ said Grant. ‘Fear is now the ruling currency. They’ll do what the yobs tell them or they’ll be taking flying lessons from the balconies in the flats.’

‘
What a mess,’ said Dewar.