The virus hadn’t come from any hi-tech reconstruction in the institute or indeed from any secret wartime research centre, it had come from an old infectious diseases hospital, a place that had seen most of the diseases that afflicted mankind in its time.
‘Tell me about Tam,’ he said to the man on the floor.
‘We lived here for more than three years. It was warm and even when the heating stopped it was still better than kissin’ arse down the church places for a bowl o’ soup.
‘What happened?’
The man raised an arm slowly and pointed. ‘Through there,’ he said. ‘You’ll need these.’ He threw Dewar a box of matches.
Dewar frowned but followed the man’s directions, moving cautiously in case of any kind of trap. There was a dark alcove to his left and he had the sudden sensation that he was no longer alone. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he took out a match and struck it. There, sitting propped up against the wall, like a rag doll at rest was the blackened, charred corpse of a man, the flesh from his skull all but gone. The fingers of his right hand moved as a rat let go and dissolved into the darkness.
‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Dewar putting his hand to his mouth. He felt himself shiver all over.
‘Why are you keeping him here?’ he demanded as he returned to the man on the floor.
‘I couldn’t decide on a coffin,’ came the sour answer. ‘I report it and I don’t have a home any more.’
‘What happened?’
‘One night the digger came and started working. ‘We thought the builders were gonna fill in this bit of the tunnel too so Tam and me moved back but they stopped and went away so we came back. Then next night some bastard poured petrol down the hole while we were sleepin’ here and torched the place. They burned Tam alive, poor bastard.’
‘Where exactly did they pour the petrol down?’
‘Along there.’
Once again, Dewar followed the line of the man’s pointing finger. He passed the alcove with its grisly inhabitant and came to an earth wall blocking any further progress. He could tell the earth had not been there very long. It was still damp. It smelled fresh like a garden after rain but there was also a smell of burning associated with it. He started to kick away at it but became dissatisfied at the progress he was making. He found a piece of metal that had once comprised part of a support bracket for the piping and pressed it into service as a digging tool. His first sign of success came when he felt a thin column of cool, fresh air on his cheek.
This inspired him to greater efforts and he succeeded in clearing a way up to the outside. He pulled himself up on to the grass and sat there for a moment looking down into the hole that Michael Kelly had made with his digger. He stood up and looked around to get his bearings. He could see that he was at the north east corner of The Pines estate, about twenty-five metres to the north of the nearest house. That should be enough to work out on a plan of the old hospital what had once stood where he was standing now but he thought he already knew the answer to that. He’d put money on this being the sight of the old microbiology lab where George Ferguson had worked for so long. The lab itself had been levelled to the ground but the underground access tunnels for heating and steam pipes had been left untouched because the builders weren’t actually erecting anything on this plot. Ferguson must have known of some old storage facility for virus cultures and decided to make himself some money.
Dewar decided he’d better go back the way he’d come. He had to do something about the down-and-out. He wanted to assure him that no one had meant to kill his friend; it had been an accident but it was also true that he couldn’t go on living there. There would have to be a full examination of the tunnel system just in case Ferguson’s fire had not wiped out everything he’d left behind and then the whole lot would probably be filled in for good. Dewar dropped back down into the tunnel and piled up loose earth behind him so that no one out walking his dog would see anything more than a dip in the ground above. When he got back to where he’d left the down-and-out there was no one there. He considered giving chase but decided not to. The guy lived outside society; that was the way he wanted it; he could stay that way. He personally had more pressing problems to take care of. He made his way back to the derelict boiler house and climbed out of the hatch. He took out his mobile phone and called Steven Malloy.
As expected, Malloy sounded dry but there was no time to apologise for the previous evening. Dewar said. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes,’ answered a puzzled Malloy. ‘Why?’
‘Because George Ferguson is the man we’re after. Is he there at the institute?’
‘What?’ exclaimed Malloy. ‘How on earth … ’
‘Is he in today?’
‘He’s on sick leave.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Dewar.
‘He’s not been himself recently. I told him to take some time off, sort out whatever was troubling him.’
‘Jesus,’ said Dewar. ‘I know what was troubling him all right. Do you have his home address?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll pick you up at the institute and we’ll go over from there to confront him. I’ll fill you in on the details on the way.’
‘I just can’t believe that George had anything to do with … ‘
‘Trust me,’ said Dewar. ‘He’s as guilty as sin.’
Dewar was about to begin wriggling under the wire again when he considered that there must be an easier way out, the one the down-and-out and his pal had been using for some time. He walked round the inside of the fence, examining all the posts until he noticed one that seemed loose at the base. It also coincided with it being the end of one stretch of wire and the beginning of the next. Dewar pulled at the post and it came away. He could now swing the section back like a gate. ‘Cheers guys,’ he muttered, replacing the post and hurrying back to the car.
TWENTY FIVE
Malloy was waiting on the steps of the institute when Dewar screeched to a halt.
‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ he said as he got in and slammed the door.
‘It’s been that kind of a day,’ said Dewar. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Baberton Hill Rise, number seventeen.’
‘Means nothing.’
‘Start heading west. It’s a housing estate on the far side of Colinton. Are you really sure about this? George has enough to worry about right now without any more shit blowing in the wind.’
Dewar told him what he’d learned at The Pines.
‘Christ, whatever possessed him,’ sighed Malloy.
‘Try money,’ said Dewar flatly.
‘But why would the Iraqis approach George in the first place? They wouldn’t know anything about forgotten virus stores or an old hospital?’
‘They wouldn’t. Ferguson must have approached them. It’s my guess that Ali Hammadi confided in him when he was approached about making the virus the hi-tec way.- These two were friends, weren’t they?’
Malloy nodded. ‘They had the occasional beer together.’
‘When Ali took his own life Ferguson must have seen his chance and offered to provide the Iraqis with what they wanted — albeit from another source.’
‘And all that stuff was just lying around in the ground. Jesus! Makes you think.’
‘Thirty years ago there wasn’t any legislation about what medical labs should and shouldn’t keep. Every hospital laboratory had its own rules and made its own arrangements. Safety aspects were the concern of individual consultants, not a matter for committees and government legislation. I suppose as time went by and the old staff retired or died off, old culture stores might be forgotten about or ignored if they were in out of the way places like cellars or attics. Many old hospitals were built like medieval castles. Ferguson must have remembered about the old cellar store at the City’s lab.
‘Turn left here,’ said Malloy as they reached a cross-roads.
Dewar slowed the car and turned into a suburban street lined on both sides with small semi-detached villas.