As they rose from the table, George Finlay came over to Dewar and said, ‘I almost forgot, Sharon Hannan was asking for you. She seemed agitated about something. Maybe you could come over to the hospital? Have a word with her?’
‘Of course,’ replied Dewar, suddenly excited at the prospect of hearing something useful from her. Maybe this was the break he’d been hoping for. Maybe she’d remembered something important. ‘How is she?’
‘The rash appeared this morning; she definitely has smallpox; she’s putting on a brave face but she’s really quite ill.’
Dewar drove over to the Western General, slowing down at the Crew Toll roundabout just to the north of the hospital to look at a gaggle of military vehicles and police panda cars parked across the main road on the eastern perimeter of Muirhouse. There was something sinister about seeing soldiers with automatic weapons hanging from their shoulders on the streets of the city. Something inside him said their weapons should be up on their shoulders and they should be in dress uniform, marching behind a band on their way to some ceremonial duty at the palace or up on the castle esplanade, entertaining tourists. That’s what soldiers did in the city. Seeing them stand beside a striped lifting bar, spanning the width of the road looked like old newsreel footage from Northern Ireland.
Beyond the barrier, the road was absolutely empty of people or traffic, a dark ribbon of tarmac leading to the concrete skyline of Muirhouse with a pall of smoke still hanging over it from last night.
Dewar turned away and drove up to the hospital where he found parking a lot easier than last time. All clinic and day patients, whether surgical and medical had had their appointments cancelled. Any patient who could possibly go home had been discharged. All non essential surgery had been re-scheduled for some unstated time in the future. Plastic hips and knees would have to wait. Benign cysts would stay where they were for the moment. The hospital was purely for emergencies only
Dewar changed quickly; he was anxious to hear what Sharon had to say. The room was in semi-darkness when he entered. One of the nurses had told him this was because Sharon’s eyes were hurting. He shuddered as he remembered Michael Kelly’s eyes when he’d first seen him.
‘Hello Sharon, I hear you’re not so well,’ said Dewar gently as he sat down at her bedside.
Sharon had been facing the wall; the rash was clearly visible on her cheek. She turned her head, smiling slightly at the voice she recognised but the smile faded when she saw Dewar’s visor. She seemed to recoil slightly and stare at it as if its use were some kind of betrayal. But it was what the nurses wore, thought Dewar. All the same, he didn’t want anything alarming or alienating her. He needed to keep her trust if she were to tell him anything. He took his visor off and said, ‘This damned thing is far too hot. How are you feeling?’
There was no denying the rise in his pulse rate once the visor had gone. He felt exposed and vulnerable. Once again he was trusting his life to a vaccination. The thought made the site on his arm itch slightly, but maybe that was imagination, the power of suggestion as Harry Hill might have put it, he thought stupidly. He wasn’t big on bravado but he felt it was necessary in this case. He hoped he looked calm because it didn’t feel like that on the inside.
‘I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus,’ complained Sharon weakly. ‘I hurt all over.’
‘You’ve got to hang in there,’ Dewar encouraged. ‘Think of nice things. What you’re going to do when you get out of here. Sunshine, beaches, swimming pools, Pina Coladas.’
‘I drink Bacardi,’ replied Sharon.
‘All right, Bacardi,’ smiled Dewar. He reached out his hand and smoothed the hair on Sharon’s forehead and felt a warm dampness there. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. ‘Dr Finlay said you wanted to speak to me?’
‘There was no one else I could tell,’ said Sharon. ‘You said I could call on you if there was anything … ‘
‘Of course, Sharon.’
‘It’s Puss.’
‘Did you say, Puss?’
‘My cat. It’s in the flat. It’s not been fed for days. There was no one else I could ask. Could you possibly go along and feed it, maybe? I’d be ever so grateful. I don’t think I’m going to get better for a few days yet.’
Feed the cat? That’s what she wanted to see him about? She wasn’t going to provide the missing link? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he couldn’t believe it. He’d really been up for this. He’d really believed that Sharon had remembered something important, something that might enable him to identify the source of the outbreak and all she’d wanted was someone to feed her cat!’ He took a few moments to compose himself then he swallowed his disappointment and said, ‘Of course, Sharon. Where will I find a key?’
‘The nurses have my clothes. You’ll find my key in the leather jacket, left hand pocket.’
‘I’ll see to it,’ he assured her.
‘Thanks very much,’ said Sharon. ‘I’m really obliged. Will you come back and see me?’
Dewar suddenly saw the fear in her eyes. There was no mistaking it. She was behaving bravely but of all human emotions perhaps fear was the most naked and exposed when it appeared in someone’s eyes. His sense of frustration evaporated.
‘Of course I will,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll tell come back and tell you how Puss is getting on.
Dewar went through the disinfecting procedure with a heavy heart then went in search of a nurse who could help him with Sharon’s key. He found two nurses sitting together in the duty room having a cup of tea. They looked exhausted. Dewar said so.
‘We’ve been working twelve hour shifts since the outbreak started said the elder of the two.
‘And no day off,’ added the other.
‘I guess that’s what angels do,’ smiled Dewar, tongue in cheek. ‘Florence has a lot to answer for.’
‘Florence, my bottom,’ said the older nurse. ‘In my case, the building society insists. What can we do for you?’
Dewar told them about the key.
‘Sharon’s clothes were sent off for disinfection but the contents of her pockets would remain here.’ She got up and went over to a wall cupboard. She swung it open to reveal a number of plastic boxes each with a shallow lair of red fluid in them and a label on the front. She brought down one and said, ‘Here we are.’
Dewar looked into the box and saw some change and a key ring with two keys on it lying in the fluid.
‘Everything gets disinfected,’ said the nurse. She removed the keys and held them under a tap in the sink for a few seconds before drying them in a paper towel and handing them to Dewar.
‘The cat needs feeding,’ explained Dewar.
‘And he called us angels,’ said the younger of the nurses.
Two buzzers went off at the same time sending the two nurses scurrying into action.
Half way to Leith, Dewar started wondering whether there would be cat food in the Hannans’ flat. He decided to play safe and take some with him. Half a mile further on, he stopped at an Asian-owned corner shop that seemed to be a cross between a mini supermarket and Aladdin’s cave and bought four tins of assorted cat food and some dry biscuits. He felt sure if he’d wanted a gas boiler he would simply have been asked, ‘What colour?’
Dewar paid and the proprietor, a plump Indian man with an engaging smile, who offered him a sweet from his own bag he kept by the till. Dewar accepted and popped the striped candy into his mouth. ‘Thanks.’ For some reason the simple kindness made him feel a whole lot better about life.
TWENTY
Jutland Place did not look any better in daylight than it had done in the darkness of his last visit. There was an air of quiet decay about the street that suggested the tenements had outlived their time. Like the sprawling docks nearby, they were an anachronism, a reminder of the time when families were traditionally large, cramped conditions were the norm and unskilled jobs were plentiful. The bulldozers of progress were lurking just to the west, inching ever nearer, just waiting for the chance to clear the way for luxury apartments, waterside bistros and chic galleries, many of which would ironically chronicle in painting what had just been knocked down.