‘I still think we should do things by the book,’ said Mary Martin, digging in her heels. ’Medical routine is important. It helps maintain discipline and order. That will be essential if we’re to keep control of the situation.
Wright took a deep breath and stared down at the table in silence. For him, it was the supreme effort in self control.
Dewar knew that Wright had made an excellent point. It was just unfortunate that he didn’t have the diplomatic skills necessary to make it without offending anyone. He wouldn’t be getting a Christmas card from Mary Martin.
Finlay did his best to pour oil on troubled waters. ‘I think exceptional circumstances may call for exceptional measures,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop sending samples to the lab and make the diagnosis on clinical grounds alone.
It was Mary Martin’s turn to look down at the table in silence.
‘Is there anything else we should consider?’ asked Finlay, anxious that a bad moment should pass.
‘Corpse disposal,’ said Wright, now with the bit between his teeth. ‘We’ll have to burn them. This means alerting the crematoria as soon as the announcement is made. They’ll have to start making special provision.’
Mary Martin screwed up her face in an expression of distaste. Others visibly winced.
‘I think it’s a bit early to be thinking along these lines,’ said Finlay, now anxious to protect Mary Martin’s sensibilities after siding with Wright on the last issue. ‘I’m sure that’ll be a matter for the families concerned, if and when it comes to it.’
‘There’s no “if and when it comes to it”,’ insisted Wright. ‘We’ve got forty-odd cases already, that means twenty-odd deaths in the pipeline. We can’t have smallpox-ridden corpses lying around while relatives ponder over what kind of box they’re going to have. We’ve got to get rid of the bodies as quickly and cleanly as possible. That means quick cremation.’
‘For God’s sake, we’re human beings,’ stormed Mary Martin, finally losing her composure. ‘We have to consider the feelings of the families, their wishes, their religious beliefs. Have you no sense of common decency?’
When he saw Finlay nodding his agreement, Dewar decided it was time to wade in on Wright’s side.
‘I know it sounds awful but I think Hector’s right,’ he said softly. ‘What we’re up against here has no conscience or weakness. Viruses have no sense of decency or fair play. However much it goes against the grain, we’ll have to be equally ruthless if we’re to stand any chance of winning the war. I know it’s going to be difficult but we must steel ourselves to do what all of us at any other time might feel unthinkable. It’s not a case of being callous or unfeeling, it’s just the way it is. We can’t give the virus an inch.’
‘Just how would I go about explaining this to the relatives?’ asked Finlay.
‘You present them with a fait accompli,’ said Dewar, who’d anticipated the question. ‘We have the bodies removed and cremated as soon as they die; we don’t tell the relatives until it’s all over.’
‘Ye gods,’ said Finlay quietly.
‘I hope we’re talking about some worst possible scenario here,’ said Cameron Tulloch. ‘We’ll have people painting crosses on their door next and throwing out their dead on to hand carts.’
Wright looked at him without smiling. He said, ‘The situation right now in Muirhouse is exactly as it would have been in seventeenth century Edinburgh. The only thing that can make a difference to the outcome is the vaccine and, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have any.’
Everyone considered this in silence for a few moments.
‘But we will have,’ said Finlay, wanting to end the pause and trying to bring a positive note to the proceedings.
The others smiled but the meeting broke up with people feeling very subdued. Dewar felt he wanted to be alone for a bit so he took himself off for a walk by the shore. It had been raining recently, leaving everything sparkling wet under the street lights. The air smelt of seaweed but not unpleasantly, just enough to remind him he was close to the sea. For him, that had always been a good place to be and an excellent place to think.
He crossed the road and rested one foot on the wall to look down at the placid, slightly oily water as it undulated ever so slightly with the swell, distorting otherwise perfect reflections. He picked up a stone and threw it in. The spreading rings had an unmistakable symbolism.
He started to think about why he was there and what he was really there to do. In the current state of uncertainty, he felt it would be all too easy to submerge himself in the fight against the epidemic. After all, he was a trained doctor and there would be plenty for him to do even if it was only, as Wright had pointed out, administering basic patient care. But this really wasn’t why he was here. It was still his job to find out how and why this nightmare had come about. He hadn’t been giving that much of his attention.
He acknowledged a tendency in himself to dismiss the question now as being academic. Someone had reconstructed live smallpox in the institute and it had escaped. It was too late to do anything about it. Filling in details about how and why this had happened must be secondary to preventing the spread of the disease at all costs. But, he reminded himself uncomfortably, he had proved none of it. He was still proceeding on an assumption.
There was still no proof that the virus had come from the institute. It just seemed so overwhelmingly likely, so much so that he didn’t have any alternative ideas. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that Michael Kelly could have contracted the disease from a source other than the Institute of Molecular Sciences. Officially,
there simply weren’t any other sources. In addition to that, the events in Steven Malloy’s lab conspired to make this the favoured explanation. This was even further fuelled by Wright’s explanation for the rapid progress of the disease in Kelly. He had come into contact with a massive infecting dose of virus, the amount you’d be exposed to if you contaminated yourself with a pure culture of the virus, the sort of thing you could only find in a laboratory.
If only he’d had the chance to question Kelly at the outset but Kelly, the potential star witness in all of this, was too far gone when he’d arrived in the city and now he was dead. Hannan, his partner in crime, was going downhill too. If he died before coming up with something useful, that would just leave the two women, Denise Banyon and Sharon Hannan to throw light on the real chain of events.
Sharon had been co-operative. She’d told him all she knew but it simply hadn’t been enough. There was a slight chance that she might still remember something but that seemed doubtful. That just left Denise Banyon who didn’t trust him an inch. If he couldn’t get anything more from Sharon Hannan, he would be faced with having to gain her confidence somehow. Maybe if she and Sharon were allowed to associate now it might help matters now. Perhaps even if he talked to them together, Sharon’s presence might mellow Denise?
His walk was over; he started back. He would call Steven Malloy, find out of he’d had any thoughts. If not, he would go straight over to the Western and talk to Tommy Hannan, then he’d tackle the two women.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Malloy. ‘I really have been doing my best to find some institute connection and I agree, on the face of it there must be one, but it must be so tortuous that I’m not going to find it. I’ve drawn a complete blank. There’s just no evidence that Kelly was ever at the institute in any capacity, legal or otherwise. There’s also still no evidence that live smallpox was ever created here either.’