'Yes,' I said. He peeled off his blood-spattered overalls. 'Heat and exertion,' he said. 'That's what did for this fellow. A deadly combination, with a heart in that state. He might have lived for years, otherwise.'
Ironic, I thought bitterly.
He packed everything away, and we went back to Henry Thrace. A blood sample from Zingaloo? No problem, he said.
Ken took enough blood to float a battleship, it seemed to me, but what was a litre to a horse which had gallons. We accepted reviving Scotches from Henry with gratitude, and afterwards took our trophies to the Equine Research Establishment along the Bury Road.
Ken's office was a small extension to a large laboratory, where he took the bag containing Gleaner's heart over to the sink and told me he was washing out the remaining blood.
'Now come and look,' he said. This time I could see exactly what he meant. Along all the edges of the valves there were small knobbly growths, like baby cauliflowers, creamy white.
'That's vegetation,' he said. 'It prevents the valves from closing. Makes the heart as efficient as a leaking pump.'
'I can see it would.'
'I'll put this in the fridge, then we'll look through those veterinary journals for that paper.'
I sat on a hard chair in his utilitarian office while he searched for what he wanted. I looked at my fingers. Curled and uncurled them. This can't all be happening, I thought. It's only three days since I saw Trevor Deansgate at Chester. If you break your assurance, I'll do what I said.'
Here it is,' Ken exclaimed, flattening a paper open. 'Shall I read you the relevant bits?'
I nodded.
'Swine erysipelas – in 1938 – occurred in a horse, with vegetative endocarditis- the chronic form of the illness in pigs.' He looked up. 'That's those cauliflower growths. Right?'
'Yes.'
He read again from the paper. 'During 1944 a mutant strain of erysipelas rhusiopathiae appeared suddenly in a laboratory specialising in antisera production and produced acute endocarditis in the serum horses.'
'Translate,' I said. He smiled. 'They used to use horses for producing vaccines. You inject the horse with pig disease, wait until it develops antibodies, draw off blood, and extract the serum. The serum, injected into healthy pigs, prevents them getting the disease. Same process as for all human vaccinations, smallpox and so on. Standard procedure.'
'O. K.,' I said. 'Go on.'
'What happened was that instead of growing antibodies as usual, the horses themselves got the disease.'
'How could that happen?'
'It doesn't say, here. You'd have to ask the pharmaceutical firm concerned, which I see is the Tierson vaccine lab along at Cambridge. They'd tell you, I should think, if you asked. I know someone there, if you want an introduction.'
'It's a long time ago,' I said. 'My dear fellow, germs don't die. They can live like time-bombs, waiting for some fool to take stupid liberties. Some of these labs keep virulent strains around for decades. You'd be surprised.'
He looked down again at the paper, and said, 'You'd better read these next paragraphs yourself. They look pretty straightforward.' He pushed the journal across to me, and I read the page where he pointed.
(1) 24-48 hours after intra-muscular injection of the pure culture, inflammation of one or more of the heart valves commences. At this time, apart from a slight rise in temperature and occasional palpitations, no other symptoms are seen unless the horse is subjected to severe exertion, when auricular fibrillation or interference with the blood supply to the lungs occurs; both occasion severe distress which only resolves after 2-3 hours rest.
(2) Between the second and the sixth day pyrexia (tempera- ture rise) increases and white cell count of the blood increases and the horse is listless and off food. This could easily be loosely diagnosed as 'the virus'. However examination by stethoscope reveals a progressively increasing heart murmur. After about ten days the temp- erature returns to normal and, unless subjected to more than walk or trot, the horse may appear to have recovered. The murmur is still present and it then becomes necessary to retire the horse from fast work since this induces respiratory distress.
(3) Over the next few months vegetations grow on the heart valves, and arthritis in some joints, particularly of the limbs, may or may not appear. The condition is perma- nent and progressive and death may occur suddenly following exertion or during very hot weather, some- times years after the original infection.
I looked up. 'That's it, exactly, isn't it,' I said.
'Bang on the nose.'
I said slowly, 'Intra-muscular injection of the pure culture could absolutely not have occurred accidentally.'
'Absolutely not,' he agreed.
I said, 'George Caspar had his yard sewn up so tight this year with alarm bells and guards and dogs that no one could have got within screaming distance of Tri-Nitro with a syringeful of live germs.'
He smiled, 'You wouldn't need a syringeful. Come into the lab, and I'll show you.'
I followed him, and we fetched up beside one of the cupboards with sliding doors that lined the whole of the wall. He opened the cupboard and pulled out a box, which proved to contain a large number of smallish plastic envelopes.
He tore open one of the envelopes and tipped the contents onto his hand: a hypodermic needle attached to a plastic capsule only the size of a pea. The whole thing looked like a tiny dart with a small round balloon at one end, about as long, altogether, as one's little finger.
He picked up the capsule and squeezed it. 'Dip that into liquid, you draw up half a teaspoonful. You don't need that much pure culture to produce a disease.'
'You could hold that in your hand, out of sight,' I said.
He nodded. 'Just slap the horse with it. Done in a flash. I use these sometimes for horses that shy away from a syringe.' He showed me how, holding the capsule between thumb and index finger, so that the sharp end pointed down from his palm. 'Shove the needle in and squeeze,' he said.
'Could you spare one of these?' 'Sure,' he said, giving me an envelope. 'Anything you like.'
I put it in my pocket. Dear God in heaven.
Ken said slowly, 'You know, we might just be able to do something about Tri-Nitro.'
'How do you mean?' He pondered, looking at the large bottle of Zingaloo's blood, which stood on the draining board beside the sink.
'We might find an antibiotic which would cure the disease.'
'Isn't it too late?' I said.
'Too late for Zingaloo. But I don't think those vegetations would start growing at once. If Tri-Nitro was infected… say…'
'Say two weeks ago today, after his final working gallop.'
He looked at me with amusement. 'Say two weeks ago, then. His heart will be in trouble, but the vegetation won't have started. If he gets the right antibiotic soon, he might make a full recovery.'
'Do you mean… back to normal?'
'Don't see why not.'
'What are you waiting for?' I said.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I spent most of Sunday beside the sea, driving north-east from Newmarket to the wide deserted coast of Norfolk. Just for somewhere to go, something to do, to pass the time.
Even though the sun shone, the wind off the North Sea was keeping the beaches almost empty; small groups were huddled into the shelter of flimsy canvas screens, and a few intrepid children built castles.
I sat in the sun in a hollow in a sand dune which was covered with coarse tufts of grass, and watched the waves come and go. I walked along the shore, kicking the worm casts. I stood looking out to sea, holding up my left upper arm for support, aware of the weight of the machinery lower down, which was not so very heavy, but always there.
I had often felt released and restored by lonely places, but not on that day. The demons came with me. The cost of pride… the price of safety. If you didn't expect so much of yourself, Charles had said once, you'd give yourself an easier time. It hadn't really made sense. One was as one was. Or at least, one was as one was until someone came along and broke you all up.