‘It could be the lull before the storm,’ cautioned Alice Spiers. ‘I hate to go all Scottish on you and look on the black side, but if there should be another attack…’
‘Then all bets are off,’ conceded the chief constable. ‘Everything could change in an instant. We could be faced with blind panic all over the country.’
‘Our hospitals and medical services could be absolutely overwhelmed,’ said Alice Spiers. ‘We’re only getting by at the moment because we’ve managed to largely contain the outbreak to the flats where it originated and treat affected people in their own homes. I take it the police haven’t arrested anyone for the attacks?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said the chief constable. ‘But if the perpetrators were home-grown as the intelligence services believe, they may well have returned to their communities where there’s a good chance they’ll be regarded with suspicion and even informed upon.’
‘On the other hand, they could still be out there, planning phase two,’ suggested the chief exec, whose early optimism had faded away.
‘There’s also the possibility that they may have contracted cholera and be dying in some lonely barn in the middle of nowhere,’ said Alice Spiers. ‘It takes skill and training to handle dangerous bacteria. It’s the easiest thing in the world to infect yourself if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.’
‘A happy thought,’ said the chief constable.
The chief exec smiled wryly. ‘So we hope for the best and prepare for the worst, as someone once said.’
Forty-five miles away, Anwar Khan and Muhammad Patel were preparing to ensure that the chief exec’s preparations would be justified. They had driven up from Northumberland to Waheed Malik’s newly rented premises in Glasgow three nights before to receive instructions for their second mission. The success of their first attack had done much to dispel the nerves they had both suffered from last time, although in Khan’s case these had been replaced by a different feeling of unease when he heard details of the target. It prompted him to ask questions.
‘In Edinburgh it was just a case of gaining access to water tanks in some old buildings,’ he said. ‘Pumping stations will be different. They’ll have security.’
Malik shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We have been monitoring the station for some time. There’s no security. The water board doesn’t do security.’
‘But surely after what we did last time…’
‘They’ve secured blocks of flats all over the country. That’s the way security works in the UK. They prevent the same thing from happening again. There has been no new security put on water board pumping stations. We’ve been watching.’
‘If you say so,’ said Khan, still sounding a bit doubtful.
‘Courage, brother. This time tomorrow you will have struck the blow which will damage morale so much that our victory will be guaranteed.’
Malik spread a plan of the pumping station on the table and went over the details again. ‘Once more I remind you, the critical thing is that you introduce the solution to the pipe after it exits the blue valve of the filtration and chlorination unit located here.’ Malik stabbed his finger on the map. ‘Remember its location in relation to the door you’ll enter by… here.’
‘Which will be padlocked,’ said Khan.
‘The bolt cutters will make short work of that.’
‘But are you sure about the perimeter fence?’ said Patel, beginning to share Khan’s anxiety. ‘No barbed wire?’
‘None,’ replied Malik. ‘Simple five-foot railings. You’ll be over in a flash.’
‘But there are houses nearby. What if someone sees us and raises the alarm?’
‘They’ll all be asleep at three o’clock in the morning and the station is located on a hill. You put the van in neutral and coast down the last two hundred metres. Then you sit and wait to make sure all is quiet.’
Khan and Patel had run out of questions; they sat in silence until Malik suggested they check they had everything they’d need in the back of the van.
‘What time did you say we should leave here?’ asked Patel.
‘Ten o’clock. We don’t want to risk disturbing the neighbours by leaving any later. Drive to the car park we decided on and wait there until it’s time. It’s only used by hill walkers so it will be empty at that time of night.’
The three men watched the TV broadcast of the government’s advice and information panel at seven p.m., remaining impassive as Oliver Clunes, the government’s chief medical adviser, reported to the nation that only thirty-eight new cases of cholera had occurred across the country in the past twenty-four hours.
‘We have also heard from the laboratories at Colindale that the bacterium is sensitive to antibiotics,’ announced Norman Travis. ‘We’re not out of the woods yet but it does look as if we could be getting the upper hand.’
Stella Mornington reported that the public had been behaving with the good common sense that the British were noted for in times of emergency, and very few arrests had been made for non-compliance with the emergency regulations.
Lynn Davies reminded the public about the helplines that were available, and urged everyone to find out the location of their nearest mass-vaccination clinic well before the commencement of the programme on the following Monday.
All four managed a smile as the programme ended, even the chief medical adviser, who made it look like an unnatural act.
‘They won’t be smiling tomorrow, my brothers,’ muttered Malik, ‘when they start drowning in rivers of their own filth. They’ll be demanding that their troops be withdrawn from the Middle East and an end put to their imperialist adventure with the American pigs.’
Steven Dunbar had been watching the same broadcast at his flat in Marlborough Court. Tally phoned shortly afterwards. ‘Well, what d’you think?’
‘Things are looking better than I’d feared,’ said Steven.
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Tally. ‘I can’t believe we’re getting off so lightly — no disrespect to those who’ve died, but it could have been so much worse.’
‘We should remember that the police haven’t caught anyone yet; there could be a second wave.’
‘Please God, no,’ Tally sighed. ‘That would just be too awful… God, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Then let’s not,’ said Steven. ‘We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them.’
‘By the way, I asked around to see if anyone had heard rumours about a new health scheme or changed pharmacy arrangements being introduced in the autumn but I drew a complete blank, I’m afraid. No one knew anything at all about it.’
‘Thanks anyway. I’ve asked Jean to check out the other health authorities on the list, but if your lot haven’t heard anything I guess the others won’t have either. Maybe the Schiller mob didn’t get that far before the bomber stepped in.’
‘Maybe the bomber was a good guy after all.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I was just thinking this morning: if things continue to get better, maybe we’ll get a chance to take that trip you suggested to Newcastle to pay our respects to the other good guys?’ said Tally.
‘That’s a real possibility. There wasn’t much to say at the COBRA meeting this morning. I think they’ll be stopping them soon.’
‘Good. Then maybe we can go on up to Scotland after Newcastle and spend some time with Jenny?’
‘That would be nice.’
Although he meant it, Steven said it on autopilot. His attention had strayed back to Tally’s reporting that no one in the Leicester health authority had heard anything about a proposed change to services coming in the autumn. The whole thing suddenly struck him as strange. If the Schiller Group were still discussing things back in February, when the outcome of the election would not be known until May, there wouldn’t have been time to introduce a new health initiative by the autumn as the recovered disk had outlined… but did it matter now that the world had changed? Steven smiled as he remembered Lisa pointing out that he had the kind of mind that would find something suspicious on a bus ticket. A large gin and tonic and an early night were called for.