The Somalis looked unsure. Myles clarified. ‘We use it as a battering ram, OK?’
The men nodded. Myles told them to stand a few metres back from the middle of the largest window, then got them to link up with him, in two lines of two. Myles held the bin at the front, pointing the base squarely at the window display. ‘Three, two, one…’
The four men rushed forward, straight into the glass. The window flexed then shattered. Myles and the man beside him fell forward, their elbows caught in the dieting promotion. Broken glass was everywhere.
Then a loud alarm screeched out.
Myles tried to clamber into the shopfront window. The Somalis supported his legs, trying to help but actually making it harder. Eventually Myles was in, his ears punished by the sound of the alarm which was even louder inside the shop.
It took several seconds to get around the weight-loss pictures and signs, which had fallen on their sides. He had to wade through broken glass, then out of the window display to reach the main part of the shop. Then he rushed to the back, to the medicine counter.
Quickly he scanned the shelves for antibiotics. The labels weren’t helpful — some were in Turkish, others just listed commercial brand names.
He pulled out the drawers. The first was empty. The second one contained a file folder which he lifted out and opened. The file listed conditions and recommended medicines next to them. Myles scanned through it.
Acid reflux
Actinic Keratosis
Acute Anaemia…
There were too many to choose from — but, of course, no listing for ‘Bubonic Plague’. He skipped forward.
Feline Carcinoma
Feline Hypothyroidism
Fever Blisters Treatment…
The alarm kept ringing. He needed to do this faster. The police would be here soon. He thought of bringing in the three men, still waiting outside, but realised that would only slow him down. He needed to think. What common condition was the bubonic plague most like?
Myles tried to shut the alarm from his mind. Then he flicked towards ‘S’, near the end of the file.
Syphilis: prescription — Penicillin
Myles spun round to the drawers of medicine behind him. Within moments he spotted the name of the drug he needed and jumped onto a plastic stool to collect it from the top shelf. There was plenty there. He grabbed as much as he could carry — easily enough to cure Helen, himself and the three Somalis — then headed back through the shop.
The alarm had been going for almost two minutes. Outside, he could see the three Somalis waiting for him, and looking very anxious. ‘Did you get it?’ asked one.
‘Yes, I got it,’ said Myles, clambering forward.
They were blocking the hole in the window.
‘Show me,’ one of them demanded.
Myles held up the packets. There was a picture on them to indicate it was a treatment for venereal diseases. Myles had remembered: syphilis was bacterial and treatment for it was once the most common use of antibiotics.
The noise of the alarm was joined by the faint scream of police sirens — distant, but approaching fast. The four men would need to exit the scene immediately.
Two of the Somalis offered Myles a hand to help him climb through back out through the window. Myles moved towards them as best he could, hindered by a clumsy manner and his tall frame in the confined space.
Then the Somalis pushed into the window display. The display knocked him to the ground. They grabbed the antibiotics from his hand as he fell. The life-saving medicine for Helen: gone. Within moments they had run away.
By the time Myles was back on his feet and clambering out of the window, the Somalis were too far away to catch.
Worse, Myles could hear the police sirens. The authorities were just round the corner.Myles knew he had just moments to decide what to do. Should he take some more medicine from the pharmacy, or hide from the police?
He heard one of the police cars stop nearby. Instinctively, he jumped down, out of the shop window and into the street. Instantly he regretted it. He should have got some more antibiotics for Helen.
But it was too late for that. He had to hide.
Two doors down was a narrow alleyway. Myles ran towards it. There he crouched in the dark passage, hoping no one would notice him. It was a second later that he saw two Turkish policemen walk down the street, looking up at the pharmacy with the smashed window. They were adjusting their hats as if they had just come from a car.
Myles wondered what to do. He desperately needed the medicine for Helen. And every minute mattered.
The alarm stopped. Everything became quiet again.
From the gloom of the passageway, Myles heard the squelch of a radio. The policemen seemed to be reporting on the scene before them.
After a few more seconds, the radio controller came back with instructions. It was in Turkish. Myles wondered what they were being told: guard the premises? Reinforcements on the way? Myles hoped the police would just cordon off the crime scene with tape, then leave to write a report or do whatever else the bureaucrats demanded of them. He waited and hoped, desperately thinking of Helen, and wondering how long she could survive.
He wondered whether there was something else which could save her, and remembered the tomb. Why had the Somalis dug up a grave from 169AD in a cemetery that was famous for a much later plague? He hoped their mistake meant Helen had only a weaker version of the disease.
Briefly he thought of giving himself in. He could tell them about Helen and she’d get proper treatment. But they might not believe him. When he told them she had bubonic plague, they definitely wouldn’t believe him. At best there would be a delay, and to Helen the delay would be fatal.
Myles waited another minute. The problem tumbled through his mind, while he wondered how quickly the plague would weaken him. He wasn’t feeling weak yet. He still had a chance…
In the half-light of the alleyway, he searched for — and found — a way to climb up the back wall. Silently reaching the top, he peered over: parking spaces, fed by a narrow lane, only just wide enough for most cars. Since the parking spaces and lane must be connected to one of the streets, Myles decided to take the chance. He jumped down, cushioning the noise of his landing as much as possible.
He listened around him: there didn’t seem to be a reaction from the policemen. He had managed to exit unnoticed.
Bent over to keep low, Myles followed the lane. It went round two corners, then emerged onto the main street.
Straight ahead of Myles was a police car: the vehicle used by the officers now guarding the pharmacy.
Myles checked again. Still no one around.
Then he approached the car. The front passenger door was open. Myles leant inside, reached for the handbrake, then released it.
He leant back out again, closed the door behind him, and walked to the back of the vehicle. Gently, he gave it a push.
As the police car started moving, Myles darted back to the relative cover of the lane. He waited and watched. The policemen came running from the pharmacy, chasing the police car as it rolled down the hill. This was Myles’ chance.
Quickly he ran back along the side street, to the pharmacy. He crawled up through the hole in the front window, and to the back of the store. Up again on the stool, he grabbed some more antibiotics. This time he stuffed a few packets into his pockets in case he was robbed of them again. He also took some injectable vials of an emergency anti-viral drug as a precaution, and grabbed a few strips of the slimming pills advertised in the window. Not to slim, for something else…
Then he jumped down, and went as far back into the store as he could. There he found a green bar across a small door: the fire exit.