White Death (28 page)
Authors: Ken McClure
Steven paid for one night with his credit card and ignored the looks that passed between staff on the desk.
‘What would my mother say …’ murmured Tally as they left.
‘I reckon we’ll just drive until we pick up a road sign,’ said Steven as they hurried across to the Honda.
‘Keeping well away from the motorway,’ added Tally.
They followed country lanes in a vaguely north-west direction until, with a joint sigh of relief, they came to a junction with the A35, signposted Coventry. This was quickly followed by frustration when they found themselves stuck behind a tractor for what seemed an eternity until it turned off and they picked up speed again.
‘Any guesses what we’re going to find?’ asked Tally.
Steven shook his head. ‘None at all. You?’
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Tally. She gave Steven directions as they entered the Warwick campus with both of them feeling nervous.
The plan was to walk straight into the medical library and head for the reference section but a severe-looking librarian looked up from her desk when they entered and the fact that she didn’t smile or divert her gaze made Tally feel guilty. She walked over to the woman and showed her hospital staff card. Steven followed up with his ID which was examined in detail.
‘How can I help?’ the woman asked.
‘It’s all right,’ replied Tally. ‘I know my way around.’
Steven winked at the woman and got a stony stare for his trouble.
‘I bet New Year at her house is a barrel of laughs,’ he murmured as they walked towards the reference section.
‘Ssh.’
Tally ran her finger lightly over the alphabetic labelling at the end of each row of shelves as they passed, getting ever nearer to the back wall where the atmosphere was heavy with the smell of old books and dust. ‘Here we are, N for
Nature
.’
‘You get the genetics journal; I’ll get the other one,’ whispered Steven.
A quick search of the shelves to his left and Steven found the bound copies of
Nature
journals from the year 2001. He removed the one containing volume 409 and took it over to an unoccupied table where he sat and waited for Tally to join him. His mouth was beginning to dry with excitement as he whispered, ‘You read that one and I’ll read this. Then we’ll talk.’
Tally complied with a nod and they both opened their volumes to begin reading.
Although he didn’t expect to feel encouraged by what he found, Steven had not anticipated the wave of horror that swept over him as he read the abstract of the relevant paper and slowly started to realise what must have happened at the St Clair Genomics lab. Even the reason for Scott Haldane working out what the problem might be became clear when Steven remembered that Haldane had worked for a long time in Africa. Haldane hadn’t known anything about the Nichol vaccine at all: he had recognised the symptoms of a disease in Trish Lyons that he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe or mention to anyone at the time.
Steven slowly raised his eyes and saw that Tally had been filled with the same sense of horror. She mouthed the one word, ‘Leprosy?’ and he nodded as if subconsciously unwilling to confirm it. ‘This paper reports the work of a group at Cambridge who sequenced the leprosy genome,’ he said. ‘They found it to be a cut down version of the TB genome, as if at some time back on the evolutionary path, leprosy had discarded all the genes it could do without. TB has four thousand genes, leprosy only sixteen hundred.’
‘And that’s the reason they can’t grow it in the lab,’ said Tally. ‘The leprosy bacillus has to grow inside cells in the body, stealing nutrients from them and evading the immune system until it can infect the Schwann nerve cells. This in turn leads to sensory loss – the reason leprosy sufferers have such horrible disfigurement. They don’t feel it when they burn or cut themselves which leads to mutilation and continual infections.’
Steven thought of Trish Lyons and the accident with boiling water. Trish had suffered horrible injuries but she was also shocked by the fact she didn’t feel pain. That’s what she had been trying to tell her mother and now Virginia Lyons was beginning to experience the same loss of sensation in the patches that were breaking out on her skin. Steven closed his eyes for a moment against the full implications of the nightmare.
‘But how could it happen?’ asked Tally, looking bemused.
‘Alan Nichol,’ said Steven but Tally’s eyes still asked the question.
‘He made his vaccine the “modern” way. He used the techniques of molecular biology to cut down the size of the TB genome in the lab until it was – he thought – no longer infectious only he had created a new version of the leprosy bacillus by accident. It stimulated antibody production against the genus that TB and leprosy belong to – Mycobacteria – but the strain didn’t grow in the lab so he thought he had made an effective non-live vaccine … to the applause and go-ahead from a grateful government.’
‘Oh God,’ sighed Tally, shaking her head. ‘What an absolute disaster.’
‘Judging by the way the infection raced through Keith Taylor, this strain may actually be worse than real leprosy itself,’ said Steven.
Tally nodded. ‘It sounds like it can grow faster,’ she said.
‘Maybe it has a few more genes.’
‘On the other hand, it’s not progressing particularly quickly in the others,’ said Tally. ‘So maybe the human immune system is working better against this strain than it does against real leprosy?’
‘God, I hope so,’ said Steven. ‘Any idea what the treatment is for leprosy these days?’
‘I seem to remember reading in a journal recently that the World Health Organisation was recommending multi-drug therapy in their bid to stamp out the disease. Dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine if I’m not mistaken. It’s not a disease I’ve ever come across.’
‘I guess that goes for all the other physicians and skin clinic people who missed the signs too,’ said Steven.
Tally made an apologetic face. ‘I suppose so …’
‘If there is a god, he’s making it bloody hard for us agnostics to recognise the fact,’ said Steven.
‘What now?’
‘I’ll tell John Macmillan everything, get him to pull the plug on the vaccine, get treatment organised for the green sticker kids and their families and start the crucifixion scene in Whitehall.’
‘You don’t really think anyone there knew the whole truth, do you?’ asked Tally.
‘Not that it was leprosy in the vials,’ said Steven. ‘But, ultimately, these people were responsible for being taken in by a bunch of Russian gangsters and damned nearly licensing a vaccine that would have given kids all over the country leprosy. Given the opportunity, I personally will bang in the nails.’
Steven brought out his phone and was about to call Sci-Med when one of the library staff appeared at his side. ‘I’m sorry, that’s against the rules,’ she said.
Steven gave a half smile. ‘Of course,’ he said with a sideways glance at Tally. ‘We must stick to the rules … otherwise we’ll get in a right mess …’ He took the phone outside and called Macmillan.
Tally waited for a few minutes inside and then went out to join Steven just as he was finishing the conversation. ‘All right?’ she asked.
‘All done,’ said Steven. ‘The dogs have been let loose.’
‘Do you think the government will fall?’
‘Right now, I neither know nor care. John Macmillan said that Downing Street will be calling in the leaders of the other parties to “keep everyone in the loop and chart the way ahead”.’
‘And us? What do we do?’
‘We lie low for a couple of days until Marcus Rose and Phillip St Clair are banged up and their Russian pals know the game’s over.’
‘My God,’ said Tally as if suddenly realising something. ‘The hospital must be wondering where I am and my car is still in the car park at Watford Gap and I haven’t phoned …’
Steven put a finger on her lips. ‘It’s all being taken care of,’ he said. ‘Macmillan has been in touch with the hospital. You are currently providing invaluable assistance to HMG and will be officially on leave until such time as your services are no longer required. Your car will be returned to your home.’
‘But I have the keys …’ said Tally.
Steven smiled.
‘I suppose that was silly,’ she said, getting a nod in response. ‘Just how long are my
services
going to be required?’
‘Let’s see now,’ said Steven. ‘We’ll lie low for a couple of days and then we’re going up to Scotland for a short break: there’s someone there I’d like you to meet.’
‘I love it when you’re masterful,’ said Tally.
Steven smiled.
‘Just don’t get too masterful … or I’ll cut them off …’
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The scientific papers cited in this work of fiction are real and listed below. Readers may be interested to know that, in a study conducted by Lockwood and Reid and reported in the
Oxford Journal of Medicine
in 2001, the median time taken between the onset of symptoms and the diagnosis of leprosy in the United Kingdom was found to be 1.8 years. Delay in diagnosis occurred in 82% of cases. Misdiagnoses as dermatological and neurological conditions were important causes of delay and 68% of patients finally diagnosed with the disease had already suffered nerve damage leading to disability.
Cole et al,
Nature
2001:
409:
1007–1011
C. Dennis,
Nature Reviews Genetics
2001:
2:
237
D.N.J. Lockwood and A.J.C. Reid,
Oxford Journal of Medicine
2001:
94:
207–212
About the Author
KEN MCCLURE
is the internationally bestselling author of medical thrillers such as
The Lazarus Strain, The Gulf Conspiracy, Hypocrites’ Isle
and
Past Lives
. His books have been translated into over 20 languages and he has earned a reputation for meticulous research and the chilling accuracy of his predictions. McClure’s work is informed by his background as an award-winning research scientist with the UK’s Medical Research Council.
Other Titles by Ken McClure
The Dr Steven Dunbar Series
THE LAZARUS STRAIN
EYE OF THE RAVEN
THE GULF CONSPIRACY
WILDCARD
DECEPTION
DONOR
Other Novels
HYPOCRITES’ ISLE
PAST LIVES
TANGLED WEB
RESURRECTION
PANDORA’S HELIX
TRAUMA
CHAMELEON
CRISIS
REQUIEM
PESTILENCE
Writing as Ken Begg
FENTON’S WINTER (also a Ken McClure title)
THE SCORPION’S ADVANCE (also a Ken McClure title)
THE TROJAN BOY
THE ANVIL AGREEMENT
Copyright
This ebook edition published in 2011 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk
First published in 2009 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd
Copyright © Ken McClure 2009
The moral right of Ken McClure to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
ebook ISBN: 978–0–85790–039–5
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Most of the places and institutions mentioned in this story are real, but all the persons described are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance between characters in the story and any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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