The Virus Man

by Claire Rayner

  Didn’t want to bother! He sat with his back to his desk, his feet up on the radiator, staring out of the window at the block of the east wing of the Civic Centre, his face set in a scowl. She bothered enough over that stupid job; that was all she bothered about these days. If he’d known it would turn out like this, he’d never have let her go back to work in the first place. He’d only agreed because he’d been so busy at the time the job came up, and she’d been so off-hand about it, he hadn’t thought it mattered all that much.

  She’d shown him the advert in the local paper late one night last January when he was tired, ready for bed, and feeling a bit randy too. That had made him abstracted, stopped him really thinking about what she was saying. ‘Laboratory technician wanted, general duties’, the advert had read, and offered dreadful rates of salary, really dreadful, even if you didn’t compare it to his own comfortable fifteen and a half thousand a year; but as she’d said, she didn’t have much to offer, after all. She’d trained as a laboratory technician, but never really worked at the job, because when they got married he’d insisted she give up work. (And why not? he’d said, and had repeated it when she’d shown him the advert; why not? I was well able to keep my wife even then.) Then Mark had been born, and there’d never been the chance. But now, here it was, so why not? she said, echoing him, and smiled at him; that lopsided sort of grin she had that always made him feel randy, even when he wasn’t already feeling the need, so he’d let her take the job, not really thinking about it properly, just wanting her to be happy.

  And it had certainly seemed to cheer her up a lot, going off every day in her old car, and there was another side to it: it stopped her getting bored when he was out in the evenings at the photography club. In fact he’d been quite pleased about the fact that she often worked late; he’d felt a bit guilty at the way he was spending more and more evenings out now he was on the club committee, so it had all worked out pretty well. Until now.

  He turned his chair sharply and pulled a file from the pile on his ‘In’ tray. There was work to be done, and he’d better do it, but it wasn’t easy to concentrate on the pages in front of him. He couldn’t pull his mind away from the fact that she wouldn’t come to the conference in London with him. She said it was because there was so much going on at the laboratory, a lot of paperwork to get through, not enough time to deal with it during the day, but what could she be doing all day? He had only the haziest idea of what went on in a pathological laboratory anyway: he imagined she washed test tubes or something, carried specimens about in glass bottles; what else could there be for her to do that meant she couldn’t get away to spend a week with her own husband as a wife should? It really was too bad of her; and he glared at the sheet of paper in his hand and promised himself he’d have it out with her tonight, one way or the other. It was time she gave up that damned stupid job and was herself again, quiet and comfortable to have around. She just wasn’t his Jessie any more, and though he wouldn’t have thought it possible that anything else she could do would ever make him unhappy, he had to admit that that thought was an uncomfortable one. She just wasn’t his Jessie these days.

  3

  ‘I don’t see any reason why we should let anyone know anything about it,’ Dorothy Cooper said again, her voice pitched rather higher than it usually was; it was getting more difficult to keep her temper. ‘What possible use can it be?’

  ‘It would alert parents to the possibility of their child being affected, then they could keep an eye on them and make sure they got immediate medical help if there were any signs or symptoms,’ Dr Sayer said, and she crossed her knees carefully and smoothed her skirt over them. ‘You must agree, Dan, surely, that it’s essential that we contain this epidemic? When we consider the possible effects?’

  ‘There’s no epidemic yet, Susan,’ Dan Stewart said firmly. ‘All we have is a collection of children with a few flu-like symptoms, and a child who died of unexpected and unexplained heart failure. You can hardly put those together and call them an epidemic.’

  ‘Do what you want, Dr Sayer, and we really will have an epidemic on our hands: of frantic parents all rushing to take their children away from the school.’

  ‘Well, of course, I do understand your anxiety about your investment, Miss Cooper,’ Dr Sayer said. ‘But really you can’t put that before the health of ….’

  ‘I’m not putting my investment anywhere,’ Dorothy Cooper said, her face a sudden patchy red, but her temper still admirably under control – just. ‘I am making the point that frantic parents won’t be of much use to their children, that it’s after the start of the academic year and getting new schools for them will cause a good deal of difficulty and upset, especially to the O level students. That is what I meant. And I repeat, I see no reason for all the fuss. As Dr Stewart says, a few sniffles and coughs don’t add up to an epidemic – and as for Miranda – well, it’s ail very sad, but clearly the child was never as well cared-for as she might have been. We’d only had her a few months, but I can tell you, she was not a happy child, or a well child. Hardly likely she would be, with no one but a solicitor to show any interest in her, poor thing.’

  ‘No relations at all?’ Dan said. ‘I know you told me her parents were dead, but I assumed there were relations somewhere, grandparents or something of the sort.’

  ‘There was an aunt, a great-aunt. She died last year – that was why they sent Miranda here. No shortage of money, you see, but nowhere for the child to live. She went to the solicitor and his family for Christmas, and a venture camp for the summer holiday, and spent the other breaks here. If there had been any real relations, I might have had the chance to get to know more about her past medical history and so forth, but as it was, I never did. And of course you didn’t spot anything wrong with her when you examined her on entry to the school, did you, Dr Sayer?’

  ‘No, I did not, because there was nothing to find wrong.’ Dr Sayer was red now, and her voice was much less in control than Dorothy Cooper’s. ‘I don’t care what the PM report says – that child was in perfect health, no heart murmurs, nothing. She was a plump child, probably constitutionally so, but that wouldn’t lead to heart failure. I am convinced that the child died of a virus infection, and that it’s potentially lethal to other children. That’s why I think it’s our duty to notify all the relevant people, including the parents.’

  ‘Not your duty, Susan,’ Dan said. ‘Mine.’ He got to his feet and went to stand behind Dorothy Cooper, to look down at the register she had in front of her. ‘I’m the Health Authority’s Community Physician here, and I’m not yet certain that I agree that this is more than a mild flu. How many of these children want to go home next week, Miss Cooper?’

  ‘About half of them, I’d say,’ she said, and ran her finger down the list. ‘We’ve got a lot of diplomatics here – they go to their parents for the main holidays, not for the half-terms.’ She shot a malicious glance at Dr Sayer. ‘It’s because they travel so far that Dr Sayer thought one of them had malaria last year. You remember, Dr Sayer? Turned out to be the early stages of measles as I recall.’

  ‘It’s difficult to be sure in the prodomal stages.’ Dr Sayer was not at all abashed, ‘I try always to be aware of the differential diagnoses. Malaria was a very real risk in a child who’d spent her summer holiday in South Africa – and I say that there is a real risk here of this being not flu but a much more virulent infection which carries a threat to life. We’ve already got one child dead of it, and I don’t want us to risk another for want of a little foresight.’

  ‘We have no evidence that the child did die of the infection. Her heart failed, that’s all we know. Ben says in his report that there was some oedema at the base of the lungs, a bit of tissue puffiness, and it was probably fairly quick, perhaps half an hour or so, no more. And that’s all he can say. There was nothing to indicate why, nothing at all. It could have been any one of a number of causes, as well you know.’

  ‘The most likely is a toxic effect from
an overwhelming virus infection.’

  ‘And looking at the other children and their symptoms we don’t seem to have anything like that,’ Dan said, his voice thinning a little. It began to seem as though he would be the first to lose his temper. ‘We’ve got a few snotty noses, some coughs, a bit of diarrhoea ….’

  ‘A suggestion of neck stiffness.’

  ‘But no headaches, no muscular involvement?’

  ‘No,’ Dr Sayer said, almost unwillingly.

  ‘And how many have the suggested neck stiffness?’

  ‘Just one,’ Dorothy Cooper said loudly. ‘Just one, and she’s in the sickroom. And we all know about Jennifer Coultear. Both her parents are doctors, she gets very little attention from them except when she’s ill, and she knows more about symptoms than any child I’ve ever come across. She’s the most accomplished liar and malingerer, as you well know, Dr Sayer. She’s had you in knots often enough.’

  ‘Even malingerers get ill sometimes,’ Dr Sayer was getting rattled now. ‘And anyway that sort of behaviour is an illness in itself. An important psychological disorder and indicator of deep-lying distress and ….’

  ‘But not,’ Dan said wearily, ‘of epidemics that need publicizing. No, Miss Cooper, I agree with you. There is no need to stop the girls going home for their half-term break next week, and no need to notify this outbreak, whatever it is. Flu, probably. There’s been a lot this year, a couple of new strains moving in, and I’d be surprised if you didn’t get a school showing some of it. We’ll keep an eye on the children over the next few days but I don’t for a moment think we’ve got anything here to worry about. Sorry to over-rule you, Susan, but there it is.’

  ‘You won’t call Colindale?’

  ‘No I will not. There’s no need.’

  ‘And if I do?’

  ‘They’ll refer you back to me, Susan, of course. You know that perfectly well. If there’s a need to contact Colindale, I will, you can be sure.’

  ‘What’s Colindale all about?’ Miss Cooper asked.

  ‘Communicable diseases surveillance centre, Miss Cooper. They keep an eye on the whole country, know about trends in infectious illness, what’s going the rounds. If this persists, I might contact them, see what they have to say about it, but there’s no need to do it just now.’

  ‘And do I need to … um … is it necessary to publicize the fact the child died here?’ Miss Cooper looked up at him, her face red again. ‘At the risk of being accused of being mercenary, I have to say it does worry me. Parents aren’t exactly logical about these things. They get agitated over the most ridiculous things, and if they once knew a child was found dead in the dormitory – well, you can imagine. It wouldn’t be good for the girls either. They get hysterical and excited – you know what children are.’

  ‘But you can’t deny the child died, Miss Cooper.’ Dan grinned, then, a sharp edgy little grimace. ‘I imagine even these children will notice if their schoolmate just disappears. Mightn’t that cause more fuss?’

  ‘Oh, of course, they’ll have to know she’s … er … gone,’ Dorothy Cooper said. ‘I just want to keep the drama out of it. We’ve had enough of that to last us a lifetime, one way and another.’ She avoided looking at Susan Sayer so carefully it was as though she had shrieked at her. ‘But they needn’t know she died. I can tell them that she was ill, that she’s gone home and won’t be coming back to school. No need for more than that. They’ll soon forget her, so long as they aren’t made overexcited by being told too much.’

  ‘Well, I see no reason to make a fuss about it,’ Dan said, and stretched and went over to the chair by the door where he’d left his coat and hat. ‘I’ll say nothing about it, and I doubt you or your staff will. And I’m sure Dr Sayer will see the wisdom of a little discretion.’ And he cocked a glance at her, and said, then, ‘Can you give me a lift back to the office? I came up in a cab – my car’s up the spout until tomorrow. My bloody daughter drove it into a wall, would you believe?’

  Susan Sayer went pink and after a moment nodded. ‘Glad to. I’ve only got a couple of calls to make, and they’re on the other side of the town, and I can go past your place easily. Even find time for a cup of tea.’ And she laughed, a little trill that made Miss Cooper look at her sharply, and made Dan look even more wooden than he usually did. He knew perfectly well that Susan Sayer had been dangling after him for the past three years, ever since his divorce, and usually he avoided her with all the skill he had, but he’d felt sorry for Dorothy Cooper, trying to protect her school in the face of the silly woman’s fuss, and had acted on impulse; the request for a lift would distract Susan Sayer immediately, he’d known that, and it had worked, and even if it meant spending half an hour talking banalities with the wretched woman, he supposed it would be worth it to get her mind off her imaginary epidemic. So he opened the door and held it for her invitingly, and left Dorothy Cooper feeling for the first time since the morning had started so appallingly that things weren’t, perhaps, so bad after all.

  ‘But I was working!’ Simon said. ‘I was out looking for a story and I tell you, there is one there and ….’

  ‘Your job isn’t to go looking for stories, but to cover the ones you’re told to cover,’ Joe Lloyd said. ‘And I bloody well told you to cover the courts this morning and what do you do but go buggering off on your own account? You do that once more and there’ll be an advert going in the paper for your job – I’m warning you.’

  ‘But there was nothing at the courts. Honest there wasn’t, Mr Lloyd! There were a few speeding jobs, a half a dozen clobbered for parking, and a couple of shoplifters. And you say yourself half the time when I bring in about shoplifters that you’ll spike it, no need to make their lives a misery, and who cares anyway, bloody supermarkets can afford it and they shouldn’t leave the stuff where people can take it and ….’

  ‘Stop changing the subject. It’s my decision, not yours, whether I use the stories or not. What were they? Or didn’t you bother to find out?’

  ‘Of course I did! Here they are.’ Simon reached for his notebook and squinted over his scribble of shorthand and abbreviations. ‘A Mrs Lester, three kids, on supplementary, husband left her to look for work in London, never came back. They got her for pinching a frozen chicken and a bag of sprouts at the Buycheep supermarket. She’d put the chicken in the baby’s pram and that made it cry with cold and try to chuck it out and that’s how they got her. I thought, you’ll never publish that. Poor thing, it wasn’t her fault she couldn’t afford to feed her family, was it?’ And he looked hopefully at the old man over the edge of his notebook.

  ‘That’s all you know,’ Lloyd said. ‘Write it up, and I’ll do a leader having a go at bloody Buycheep for being grasping and prosecuting a starving mother. That’ll make a beauty. You see? You wouldn’t know a story if it ran up your bloody trouser leg and chewed off your necessaries. What was the other one?’

  ‘Other what?’

  ‘Other shoplifter. You said a couple. In my day, when facts were sacred and reporting meant bringing in a story the minute you’d bloody well got it, a couple meant two. What was the other one?’

  ‘A Mrs Laughton. Pinched a packet of sausages, three packs of biscuits, and a jar of jam and a tin of salmon from Barney’s self-service. It was the salmon got up their noses, they said. They wouldn’t’ve prosecuted for the other things, they were staples, but salmon, best red middle-cut, that was luxury goods and not on. So they brought proceedings.’

  ‘I’ll think about that one. Full name and address?’

  ‘Mrs Edna Laughton, aged sixty-three. 5a Wessex Street, East Minster,’ Simon gabbled. ‘Now can I tell you about the story I’ve picked up?’

  ‘Try and bloody stop you,’ Lloyd said, and bent his head over the page he was checking, but Simon knew he was listening.

  ‘Right. I went to the police station first. Nothing there.’

  ‘Course there wasn’t. Already checked – that’s Roberts’s patch. If he catches you poaching on
his territory he’ll have your guts for a seat belt.’

  ‘Thought it was worth a go,’ Simon said, and grinned. The old man wasn’t half as mad as he was making out. He liked people with a bit of push and if there was one thing Simon had in vast quantities it was push. ‘Then I went down to the ambulance station. They’d just had a call to go over to Bluegates School. Posh place over on Petts’ Hill.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me. I’ve been running this bloody paper thirty years, don’t tell me what’s in this bloody town.’

  ‘So I went over there to see what was what. Hung about a bit, couldn’t see a lot, but then they brought out a stretcher, all covered up.’

  ‘Hardly leave the patient blowing in the breeze, would they? Bloody wet morning.’

  ‘Not like that. All over, I meant, face and all.’

  ‘Face and all? Like a body?’

  ‘Oh, you’re quick, Mr Lloyd, you’re very quick.’

  ‘None of your bloody cheek. Then what?’

  ‘Followed it, didn’t I? Followed the ambulance to the hospital. The Royal it went to, not the Eastern.’

  ‘The Eastern doesn’t have an accident department, half-wit. It wouldn’t go there.’

  ‘Might have done if it’d been some old person or other.’

  ‘From a girls’ school? Be your age! So it went to the Royal. Then what?’

  ‘Didn’t go to Accident and Emergency, did it?’ Simon said triumphantly. ‘Went the other way, to the car park area. Unloaded the ambulance at the path. lab. Mortuary entrance, that’s where it went. What do you make of that, then?’