There was one other thing he’d have to get Sci-Med to set in motion: a thorough examination of Greg Allan’s financial position at the time of his death. In particular, Steven wanted to know if any unaccounted-for sums of money had been paid into his account. If so, pressure must be put on Allan’s wife, to find out how much she knew about her husband’s alternative source of income.
By five in the evening, an exhumation order had been obtained, in the face of considerable opposition from the local council and senior representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, who saw it as sacrilege. The Church’s opposition was heightened even more when they learned that, rather than risk moving Mary Xavier’s body, the mobile containment facility used after the diagnosis of her illness would be put back and used for the post mortem and the recovery of her replacement heart valve. The only problem still unresolved was finding a pathologist willing to carry out the autopsy.
‘It’s proving difficult,’ said Macmillan.
‘All right, I’ll do it myself,’ said Steven.
‘But you’re not a pathologist.’
‘I don’t have to be,’ said Steven. ‘All that’s required is for someone to open up her body and recover the mitral valve. I’m a doctor and I’m perfectly capable of doing that. In fact it might be unfair to ask anyone else to do it in the circumstances.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ said Macmillan doubtfully.
‘I take it Porton will be willing to carry out a full analysis of the valve?’
‘No problem there. And the Swedish team will take responsibility for its safe transport.’
‘Then it’s settled,’ said Steven. ‘I’d better get up there.’
‘When will you do it?’
‘Tonight, if you can get the mobile unit back in position,’ replied Steven.
‘Will do,’ said Macmillan. ‘Oh, one other thing. The PM report on Greg Allan came in half an hour ago. Asphyxiation due to a ligature round his neck.’
‘Not the best way to die,’ said Steven. ‘He must have got the jump wrong.’
‘The police have talked to his wife. It wasn’t a good time to do it, but their opinion is that she doesn’t know anything about him being mixed up in anything illegal. She was aware of them having more money in the last year or so, but he told her that it was down to his shares performing well.’
‘His must have been the only ones,’ said Steven sourly.
‘Quite.’
Steven decided to make one more call before he left for Hull. He rang Fred Cummings and asked if he could spare a few minutes to talk.
‘Sure,’ said Cummings. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I’m sure we’ve spoken about this before, but I have to ask you again. Is there no conceivable way that a virus can lie dormant for a time before causing infection?’
‘Not in the normal way of things,’ replied Cummings. ‘Viruses have to replicate in order to live. Take away their cellular host and they die.’
‘How about inside a cellular host?’ asked Steven.
‘You mean, lie dormant within cells without replicating?’
‘I suppose I do.’
‘There’s a state called lysogeny in bacteria,’ said Cummings thoughtfully. ‘Even bacteria have problems with viruses. Certain bacterial viruses can enter the bacterial cell and interpolate themselves into their host’s DNA. That way, when the bug’s DNA replicates normally the virus is replicated, too, but in a controlled way, so no harm’s done. Occasionally, when something out of the ordinary happens to stimulate the virus, it goes into uncontrolled replication and kills its host.’
‘That’s the sort of situation I’ve been looking for,’ said Steven. ‘What did you call it?’
‘Lysogeny,’ said Cummings. ‘But it happens only in bacteria and only with certain bacterial viruses.’
‘Maybe we’re about to learn something new,’ said Steven.
‘Come to think of it,’ said Cummings, ‘maybe a similar situation actually can exist in human beings.’
‘Go on,’ said Steven.
‘I was thinking about the Herpes simplex virus,’ said Cummings. ‘You know, the bug that gives you cold sores. It seems to lie dormant in the mucosa around your lips until something like sunlight or stress triggers it off. No one has ever satisfactorily explained that.’
‘Food for thought,’ said Steven.
Steven drove up to Hull, suspecting in his heart of hearts that he had been too hasty in volunteering to carry out the pathology on Mary Xavier. Not for the first time, he reminded himself — albeit too late — that he wasn’t the single man with no responsibilities that he imagined himself to be when the bugle sounded. In reality, he was a single parent with a daughter’s welfare to consider. Jenny needed a live father, not a dead hero, but here he was once again courting danger and getting the buzz that he’d sought all his life. He was on his way to carry out a procedure that even experienced pathologists of many years’ standing might baulk at. ‘Oh, Jenny, love,’ he muttered to himself. ‘You’ve got an idiot for a father.’
Pulling out now was not an option, though, so he’d do the next best thing and think through the dangers ahead in order to try to minimise them. In theory, it was simple; he just had to avoid coming into contact with the reservoir of filovirus particles that was Mary Xavier’s body. It was the minute size of the virus that constituted the real danger. The particles were invisible not only to the naked eye but to the 1000? probing of an ordinary light microscope; it would take the power of an electron-beam microscope to determine their presence. Their sheer lack of physical substance meant that they were barely subject to the constraints of gravity and friction, and therefore had little or no positional stability. Millions of them could be carried on a droplet of moisture so light that it would remain airborne for hours. The slightest movement in the air could send clouds of them scattering off in all directions.
The only comfort Steven could find was in the fact that knowledge of the enemy was perhaps the most effective defence against it. He understood just how deadly a filovirus could be; there was no way that he would ever underestimate it. He would be wearing full protective gear with hood, visor and respirator, and have everything checked thoroughly beforehand for leaks. He would double-glove and, as an extra precaution, would use a chain-mail gauntlet on his left hand to give him protection against accidental cuts arising from a knife or scalpel slipping.
In his mind’s eye, he went through the exact procedure he would use in the removal of Mary Xavier’s heart. First, the central incision to open up the chest cavity, then the rib resection to give access to the heart, the freeing of the heart itself from associated tissues, and finally the removal of the organ itself. He would place it in a steel dish, and rinse it through with clean, sterile saline before dissecting out the mitral valve with fresh instruments. He would seal the valve inside an airtight container for transport to the lab at Porton, and the job would be done. Easy peasy. If only he could convince his stomach of that.
Steven had gone through the pathology in his mind several times by the time he reached the convent. Parked outside it were two police cars, a mechanical digger and two transporters associated with the Swedish mobile lab, which he could see had already been re-erected. He got out and walked over to the group of men standing by the vehicles.
‘I’m Inspector Jordan,’ said one of the policemen. ‘Are you the pathologist?’
‘Yes,’ replied Steven. ‘Everything ready?’
‘The sisters have decided to show their disapproval by distancing themselves from the whole affair.’